THE PLACE TO BE

After a couple of brief showers in the morning, it turned out another beautiful afternoon. For Stob Ban & Mullach nan Coirean in the Mamores that is. All other high peaks were topped with cloud at 800m. It was the cumulus cloud that made the day today, beautiful formations. I went up the North ridge of Stob Ban, this is a cracking wee ridge, higher up it narrows and a little scrambling, great in winter. It was a quite warm afternoon and a nice breeze,no midges all day.

SIZE ISN'T EVERYTHING

It was another day of showers but there was a dry, even sunny spell in the middle of the day. I caught the train to Corrour and went up Creag Ghuanach which lies in a lovely spot at the head of Loch Treig. At only 621m it was clear of the morning cloud. It's the prominent hill you can see from the train and I always looked at the steep and craggy Easstern aspect. I had a go at the Eastern side which looked from below like a good scramble, at closer acquittance it turned out to be greasy steep slabs of schist mixed with waist high bracken. Great views of Upper Glen Nevis from the summit so I headed home that way. It's been years since I last walked the whole length of the glen, I remembered why it's been so long, it's wet and boggy! After the quiet and remoteness of 12km you come to Steal falls and gone are the natural smell of the mountains as I was bombarded with perfume and deodorant as everyone and their dog seemed to be walking up the gorge today. No one was in the spirit to give a lift home at the road and it then poured down, in the end I walked the tarmac all the way to The Fort, oh well if your going to walk the length of Glen Nevis may as well do it properly.

BEN NEVIS

Mary & I were up on Ben Nevis today. It was Mary's first visit to Scotland and she was treated to a beautiful, warm and sunny day with great views. It was very busy again with 3 peakers and the usual litter being left on the hill. looks like pretty wet weather tomorrow, hopefully just a wee lull in the great summer we are having on the West coast.

LAP OF THE GODS

My group of 5 were on their last day of walking today. We had a half day walk up Beinn na Lap. This is one of the easiest and quickest Munros, but it has fantastic views in all directions. We were once again so lucky with the weather, despite a showery forecast we had almost wall to wall sun and great cloud formations. We did get a quick shower just 20 mins from the Corrour station

SUNNY SKYE, WET SCOTLAND

We were very lucky today on Skye. Everywhere in Scotland had rain or heavy showers except the Cuillin on Skye it seemed! My group of 8 had wonderful first experiences of the magnificent Cuillin. We walked up Glen Sligachan then took a devious line up higher to the path leading from Sligachan to Sgurr nan Gillean's 'tourist path'. It was a lovely warm, sunny and midge free day with a nice breeze. Obligortory pint in the Sligachan of course at the end.

FULL STEAM AHEAD

Today we set off from Aviemore to Broomhill on the Spey steam railway before our trek over from Nethy Bridge to Loch Morlich. This is a lovely wee walk with great views of the Cairngorms at the high point between the Nethy and Rothiemerchus caledonian pine forests. We had lovely sunny & warm weather all day , apparently other places in the Highlands didn't! The bilberries are just out now and I spotted lots of Twayblades in the Nethy forest.

WALKING & WHISKY ON THE SPEYSIDE WAY

After a very wet day on Saturday, today was much better and we had good spells of bright weather in the afternoon. I have a group of 11 folk for 1 weeks walking/sightseeing by train covering The Cairngorms to Skye. Today we did a section of the Spetside Way from Tomintoul to the whisky distillery at Glenlivet, good way to round off the day

A BIT OF ROUGH

It was another very warm and sunny day here in Lochaber, the heavy showers forecast didn't materialise again. I was up 'Graham bagging' (mountains 2000-2499 ft) East of Loch Eil. It was a great mountain bike ride up to Glen Sulaig bothy and from there it is only a hour of some of the roughest ground to the summit of Meall Onfhaidh at a lowely 681m. A quick decent back down on the bike.

CMD AWET

After the sun comes the rain, today was a damp affair on The Carn Mor Dearg Arete up to Ben Nevis. Lynsey, Ian and I trudged through the low cloud, wind and rain on the finest walking route up The Ben. There was even some hail at one point in the day. Despite the lack of views today it was still worth the effort for the tremendous long ridge walk. We had the summit to ourselves, looked like folk had given up or maybe turned back judging from their attire earlier in the day. Well done to Lynsey & Ian for persevering with the wet and windy conditions. Appologies for the quality of pics today, it was raining after all.

BEN NEVIS IN THE SUN

It's been a glorious day here in The Outdoor Capital of the UK. Today Jenine, Lisa,Dan,Simon and I were on Ben Nevis. The views were superb in the excellent clear visibility. There were many charity 3 peakers up and down the path all day. Check out the photo of the remanence of the cornice on Tower Gully - some folk with a death wish! work on one of the zig-zag corners is now complete (picture) with nice steps, life's getting easier and easier by the day. The weather front that was supposed to arrive late afternoon didn't happen, we sat in glorious evening sun at the Ben Nevis Inn.

SUNNY & WARM

Britta and I were on Beinn an Dothaidh & Beinn Dorain near Bridge of Orchy today. Britta was on a navigation course with me but it wasn't ideal nav weather; sunny, warm, no wind, tops clear-what a bummer! It was excellent clear visibility and views were superb in every direction. we took a devious line up the hills, avoiding paths, finding some nice remote steep ground in places.We spent plenty time out on the hills and were on the final summit at 5pm in the beautiful light.

A QUIET BEN

Jeremy and I were on Ben Nevis today. It was a quiet day with only a few folk out on the hill. It was a much better day than expected with the cloud base just above the summit and some late Sunshine. The cool, northerly breeze gave clear visibility. Well done to Jeremy, at 74 years of age he was up and down in guide book time.

OLD MAN

Today I was with my D of E group on day two of their expedition in The Lake District. We went up onto The Old Man of Coniston, via Dow Crag. It was a very pleasent day with sunshine in the afternoon.