eBothy Blog

I’ve been using a low profile gas stove for years now. It’s the kind with the legs as opposed to the ultralight ones that screw into the top of the canister as I’m not a fan of those at all at all. The ground is always too rough and my pan too full of food for it to be safe in the tent door. Lately though I’ve started using freeze dried meals from Turmat (which are superb) and Expedition Foods which are just as good. They do a superb porridge and strawberries which I used on my ML assessment. The upshot of this is I just end up boiling water instead of cooking which is great on a cold morning camp high in the mountains where I boil enough for the porridge bag and a cuppa. So I thought I’d change my stove system to make it lighter as I’ve no need to simmer any more. (more…)

While we’re agonising about whether to break the law in England and Wales and trying to work within the current legislation and being bombarded with accusations that a minority problem element will ruin wild camping for everyone, over on the other side of the fence the landowner/gamekeeper combo are at it again, poisoning the countryside. (more…)

I used to like winters. I used to climb ice and snow. I used to revel in the wildness of spindrift avalanches on the north face of the Ben, which sucked the breath from my mouth and soaked my stinging face. Nearing the top of a steep climb, sheltered from the south westerly gale, sometimes the only sound was the dull plunk and scrape of the axe searching for purchase on iced rock. The sound of total concentration. I can still hear that sound and the muffled icy rattle of gear. When you’re not sure whether something’s plastic or metal, you give it a tap, see what sound it makes and you get a feel for the substance, it’s depth and quality. It’s the same in winter climbing. When your axe caresses rock and rivulets of powder flow from its pick you feel the huge solidity of the mountain. It reverberates down the shaft. You can suddenly imagine the other side of the mountain, storm lashed and steadfast, sheltering you from the maelstrom. Then your mind compresses back to the task in hand and you thwack into solid ice, pull up and restart the process with the other axe. (more…)

Up here we’re spoiled and as a mountain leader I can plan multi-day routes in the hills knowing that at the end of the day, me and my party can settle down in a remote and isolated location, high up in the mountains, away from roads and habitation and not be bothered by the “law”. Why? This is wild camping and it’s within the law in Scotland. You can wild camp in Scotland for up to 3 nights in the one place but the usual moral code of conduct applies. Leave no trace. Down south though, it’s a different matter and over at Whitespider’s blog, there’s a petition to lobby the English government to legalise wild camping in England and Wales. (more…)

From the mountainactive blog, how to tie a figure of eight, the cool way!

I decided to hook up with my old club, the Orion Mountaineering Club and meet up with old friends for a weekend at the Raeburn hut near Dalwhinnie. The forecast was superb and there was tons of snow on the hills, with a huge dump on the Thursday night plastering the easterly mountains. The snow seemed to be on a diagonal line from the SW to the NE. The webcams were showing snow in Glencoe but none around Cluanie and as I drove from Skye to Inverness, the snow didn’t start until around Contin, which was unusual as you can normally guarantee snow at Achnasheen. (more…)

I read a really nice article the other day by Lauren Webster about the Taoist principle of action and I thought about how this might be applied to navigating in the mountains. The principle basically states that to overcome obstacles in life, you have to be confident in your environment and your abilities. You have to believe in yourself. One of the traits of a good mountain leader is having the courage of your convictions. Many times I’ve been out in foul weather and someone has been making pronouncements on the way ahead while I have been studying the map and working out a safe descent route. More often than not, the compass shows the way that is not obvious from memory. The way down always looks obvious in the mist. It’s the route of least resistance but which can lead to a big drop or a swollen river. The wisdom of the compass is always hard for non-believers to trust. (more…)

Just saw this equine atrocity on the news. They haven’t published the scumbag’s name although he lives in Amersham and is 44 years old. Why do people stoop so low as to torture animals who are dependent on them for food and shelter? Why does the law not let me go down there and kick his fecking head in?

Saw this report from last weekend in Coire an t-Sneachda and it looks wild! (more…)

Visiting rellies in Shropshire, I took the opportunity for a new year’s day traverse of Brown Clee Hill, from Abdon to Burwharton, before the Siberian weather that was forecast to hit the country on the 3rd. There was all sorts of talk of white hell across the UK but in the end it came to nothing. Just a few dumps of snow here and there that quickly melted. (more…)