eBothy Blog

Mountain forecast for the north west highlands is showing snow on the highest summits for Tuesday, with the snow level lowering to 850m on Wednesday and rising to 900m on Thursday. Coupled with 50mph gales, heavy rain lower down and lightning, it’s going to be a rough few days. Time to batten down the hatches!

I would think at least Ladhair Bheinn might have a white cap on mid week, possibly Sgurr Alasdair and hopefully Blaven, as it’s on the commute. Will keep an eye out with the camera.

What a morning! Got up to see the sun rising over Beinn Sgritheall with Ladhair Bheinn waiting patiently for its share of the warmth. The coldest morning yet, after the summer. Welcome autumn!

At long last, after too long away from big hills, I loaded the car with bike, panniers, tent and rucksack and headed for the southern ‘gorms. I’d attempted this same getaway about a month ago but the car failed to start as the starter motor finally packed in. So, with a new one fitted, a great forecast and bags of enthusiasm, I roared off into the sunset on the 4 hour trip from Skye to Braemar. The plan was to cycle up to Slugain lodge ruin, camp overnight on the Friday and then head round Ben Avon and Beinn a’Bhuird on the Saturday. New ground, new area, brimful of excitement. These were two of my last three munros and I was raring to get into the wilds again.

Forecast isn’t too good. Clear morning with low cloud and rain moving in for the afternoon. Superb morning though. Very still. Seagulls clamouring down by the shore. I feel a walk coming on.

It’s been a fantastic late summer day on Skye today and I managed to snap some pics, perhaps the last of the warm weather. It’s been a superb summer on Skye, in contrast to the record breaking wet weather throughout the rest of the UK. It was so dry at one point, three months without rain, that we almost ran out of water and a lot of the neebs actually did, as we’re all on springs. This morning on the way to work I snapped crepuscular rays slanting down in front of Sgurr na Coinnich across the Sleat moorland.

I’ve got a task to perform which I’ve never done before. Bleed my mountain bike disc brake. On a trip to the ‘gorms I was cycling out from Red Bothy and the front wheel locked solid. I had to stop every couple of minutes to let the caliper cool down and prise the pads from the rotor. I’ve since found out it’s because I haven’t changed the fluid in ages and you should ideally bleed them every 6 months. The slightest rubbing of the pads on the rotor causes the calipers to heat up, which in turn transfers heat to the brake fluid, which being rather old and hydrophilic by nature, had been contaminated by minute amounts of water. The water then heats up and expands, causing the pressure in the cable to increase, pushing the pistons out and the pads to contact the rotor, which increases the heating effect and creates a vicious cycle, quite literally. The net effect is a wheel that is increasingly difficult to turn and so I had to stop every couple of minutes all the way back to the Linn of Dee. I suspect the crossing of the Geldie Burn on the way to and from Carn an Fhidhleir and An Sgarsoch had made the problem worse as the water was knee deep and the caliper had been submerged. The cycle back to Red Bothy was fine but in the morning, the brakes had become locked up as soon as I left for Linn of Dee. (more…)

We were across at Glenmore Lodge for the MCofS AGM at the weekend, although we were primarily there for the birding seminar (which was a complete washout unfortunately), the hog roast (which was superb) and the ceildih (which we just watched as we were caught up in animated blethering with new friends we’d made!). We popped along to the lecture by Hugh Fullerton-Smith, Paul Lister’s project manager for the Alladale “re-wilding experiment” and I was interested how both Hugh and the assembled mountaineering audience would react to each other. I’ve blogged about this before, in Wild animals and fences and To wolf or not to wolf and I was hoping some of the confusion might be cleared up about the fence. (more…)

We were over at Glenmore Lodge for the MCofS AGM at the weekend. Well we were there for the mountain birds seminar, hog roast and ceilidh but we popped along to the business end of the AGM and listened to the Alladale talk, which I’ll blog about later. The mountain bird seminar began with a slide show and talk about what to see in the mountains followed by a wild and wet walk up past Coire an Lochain and up to Lurcher’s Crag. We only managed to spot a couple of Meadow Pipits being whisked along in the gale and the clag was down to tree top level, so that was that! But we learned about the Bird Atlas, which is an interesting winter bird survey run by the BTO and hillwalkers are especially useful for recording species in less frequented areas. On the Sunday it was another washout so we spent an hour or two with the reindeer at the feeding station on the Lairig Ghru path.

I was trawling through my blog reader and stopped by PTC* World’s to be reminded of possibly the greatest comedians who ever lived. It’s a funny thing comedy, ho ho!, no really. I can sit through an American “comedy” show, stony faced and wondering why the audience is standing on the seats, whooping like banshees, punching the air and screaming with laughter. Is there something off camera I can’t see, like a fight or something? It only takes the appearance of a star on the show to set them off. Even during Billy Connolly’s heyday, himself walking on stage wouldn’t have got me thinking “there’s Billy, man, I can’t contain myself, I’m going to stand on the seat and scream like an idiot!”. (more…)