November 2011
23 posts
End of days?
The economic news is even more apocalyptic than the weather forecast. If I lived a more conventional lifestyle I’d now be buying up a couple of months’ worth of tinned food, bottled water, batteries and stove fuel….as it is, I’ve just picked a lull in the storm to wander back to ‘civilisation’ to buy some supplies while the shops have still got stock on the...
Saturation point
This time last year I was waist deep in snow in Fisherfield. Hmm….I might need a change of plan. I’ve been intending a high level crossing from Arrochar to Callander, picking off tops en route, but the ongoing appalling weather has other ideas.
In fact, the main problem is finding somewhere to put the tent. Months of rain mean the ground is completely saturated, waterlogged to a...
McNett Sil-fix →
I’ve been carrying a tube of this round in my pack since I returned to the UK, and finally got round to boshing a patch onto the tear in my SL3 last night. I couldn’t follow the instructions exactly due to the size and location of the rip but, after curing overnight, it seems like a solid repair. Time will prove whether that’s true, of course. The blurb states it can also be used...
All washed up
By 18:00 the burn, now a roaring brown torrent, had come up over the grass and was lapping at my tent pegs. Time to go. A quick pack and I was away, walking into wind blown darkness by the light of a fading headtorch.
Water everywhere, bursting out of the ground in foaming gouts. I can’t recall ever seeing the streams come up so fast on the mainland. I had a mind to take shelter in a hut...
I am NOT a Corbett bagger...!
So that was the Southern Uplands: eight nights, six Corbetts, not one person on the hill apart from me. The SU are gentle hills, almost Howgillian, with little crag development. Despite being blighted by wind turbine farms and unsympathetic forestry operations, the area somehow contrives to feel surprisingly wild and remote. I like it a lot (but it’s not the Far NW…).
Back in August...
Land of the Fat
I’m at that age where three months of relative inactivity, coupled with too much food and cheap beer, does have an effect. I haven’t put on weight, it’s just….redistributed itself slightly. I don’t like it much but, sitting in Dubai Airport, waiting on my connection to Glasgow, I’ve regained some perspective on the matter. Being surrounded by grotesquely fat...
October 2011
21 posts
