THE Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean once suggested that the power of beauty could allow us to see beyond tragedy.

I HAD just walked over the rocky tops of Bla Bheinn on the Isle of Skye, descended to the shores of Loch Slapin and thought it was time for a well-deserved break.

THE John Muir Trust asked me recently if I'd become one of their Wild Land Ambassadors and as someone who passionately believes that our remaining tracts of wild land should be given greater protection, and I had no hesitation in agreeing.

WE all already know it's great, but now Loch an Eilean is officially the best picnic spot in Britain!

MY wife, Gina, and I had arrived in Castlebay on the Isle of Barra with a distinct sense of foreboding.

FOR some years I've been a big fan of the writings of Andrew Greig, and those familiar with his work may recall his earlier Himalayan books, "Summit Fever" and "Kingdoms of Experience", two accounts of Everest expeditions with the late Mal Duff.

I GAVE myself a bit of a jolt the other day. I had proudly cycled around the route of the forthcoming Scottish Bikeathon, a marathon road race distance of 26 miles.

A RATHER nasty accident a number of years ago, when I tripped over some heather and fell down a couple of crags, effectively put an end to my hill-running career.

WITH their proximity to the Central Belt, Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin are amongst the most popular of all Scotland's Munros.

IT had been a few years since I'd taken the plunge.

I'M heading off this weekend in search of Duncan Ban MacIntyre, fair-haired Duncan of the songs.

VISIONS of crowds of people leaving Russia, carrying all their possessions on their backs in the film, 'Doctor Zhivago', came to mind several times over the past week.

WHILE typical of many Highland glens, Glen Roy in Lochaber boasts several curiosities, not least its Parallel Roads and the fact that within its immediate vicinity there are no less than three Corbetts (Scottish hills between 2,500 and 2,999ft) all called Carn Dearg.

BULLDOZED tracks scar many of the upland areas of the eastern Grampians, but even such ugly and destructive works of man can occasionally be embraced by the most conservation-minded hill-goer, especially when the alternative is clagging heather and peat hags.

THE thrawn Grampian uplands were dusted with fresh snow, shrugging aside the advances of spring like a spurned lover. The cloud was low on the hill and the birds were silent.

I WAS heading for the horseshoe ridge of Corbetts that lie above Achnacarry, the ancestral home of Cameron of Locheil.

WHEN I was asked to become chairman of the Nevis Partnership three years ago little did I think I would be presiding over its demise.

HILLWALKERS and mountaineers are notoriously bad at signing petitions, even when the subject of that petition directly affects them.

THERE is reference in the Old Testament that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons.

I'VE been working through an interesting process over the past week or so, one that I'm partly enjoying and partly resisting. I've been working out my route for this year's TGO Challenge.

IT looks like the proposed ban on 'informal camping' on Loch Lomondside has caught the imagination of MSPs, landowners and land managers alike, and there is a grave danger that many innocent people will be caught up in the knee-jerk reactions that have followed the announcement.

CONGRATULATIONS to climbers Dave MacLeod and Andy Turner on their epic series of climbs on Ben Nevis last week.

I WAS in the Lake District for a weekend trying to escape the snow, and, as luck would have it, we hit upon a day of such remarkable clarity and sunshine that it was hard to believe it wasn't summer.

LYING in a broad wedge of high, undulating moorland between Glen Lochay and Glen Dochart, the two Munros of Sgiath Chuil and Meall Glas can be climbed from either glen.

UNTIL a number of years ago I was quite partial to taking to the hills wearing only a t-shirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of running shoes.

THERE is often a perceived notion amongst hill-bashers that Corbetts, because they are lower in height than Munros, must be easier to climb.

THERE has been so much comment from people this week on the subject of the Beauly-Denny powerline that I was tempted not to mention it; a New Year gift to those detractors of mine who only want me to write about nice things.

A FRIEND of mine calls Beinn Laoigh, or Ben Lui, the 'queen of Scottish mountains', and it's not too fanciful a description.

IT'S nice to finish the old year with a report on something new, or at least the re-birth of something that went before.

I HAD been giving a talk in Kinlochleven, a little village whose future looked so uncertain a few years ago.

I'VE just been listening to a Government junior minister welcoming an initiative to cut the cost of linking windfarms to the National Grid..

THERE are two good times in the year to visit the Birks of Aberfeldy:

THE Westminster government has just announced plans to fast-track 11 new nuclear power stations in England and Wales while the Scottish Government continues its dogged and outdated opposition to nuclear in favour of covering our hillsides with spinning turbines.

THE recent news that the Campsie Fells, a range of low hills that dominate the skyline north of Glasgow, might receive regional park status has absolutely delighted me.

THE long South Glen Shiel ridge boasts nine Munros, seven of them capable of being climbed in one day-long expedition.

WHAT kind of conditions are our Munros in? Many will suggest that they are being loved to death, while others will complain of muddy footpaths, erosion and the high price of footpath maintenance.

I HADN'T been on the Ardgarten hills for long enough and after a visit to some friends in Arrochar I thought I'd re-aquaint myself The Brack and Ben Donich.

SOME time ago I complained that the vast majority of good landscape writing came from the USA.

LIVING up here in Badenoch I don't often get the opportunity of climbing the hills of the deep south never mind the hills of darkest Lanarkshire but the irrepressible enthusiasm of a young man for a particular hill gave me all the motivation I needed.

RAIN swept across the tumbled moorland in great sheets of grey and the wind was blowing the umbrellas of the gathered audience inside out.

ONE of the difficulties I face as chairman of the Nevis Partnership, the organisation made up of a partnership between those charities and non-Government organisations that have an interest in Ben and Glen Nevis, is the compromise between keeping the country's highest mountain as wild and natural-looking as possible, while at the same time being aware of the safety issues that face the 200,000 people who walk on the Ben every year.

I'VE never been a great one for long-distance walking, or challenge events. I've always found such events tend to take my mind away from the things I want to see when I'm out in the hills.

FEW subjects stimulate as much controversy amongst hillwalkers as the heights of Munros. Some spend long hours poring over maps with a magnifying glass counting contour rings, desperate to prove the Ordnance Survey wrong.

IT'S neither a Munro or a Corbett and its lowly height of 742m/2,443ft is dwarfed by the big Cairngorm giants that rise behind it, but Carn Eilrig, guardian of the Lairig Ghru, is something special.

THE official opening of the Cairngorms National Park a number of years ago sticks in my mind for a couple of reasons.

AT the beginning of the 19th century, Glen Bruar was described as follows.

WE sat above the angry waters of the Minch at the very northern tip of the Isle of Skye.

I'M horrified to see the extent of a proposed windfarm, known as the Allt Duine scheme, that could be built within a couple of miles of Kincraig – one of the loveliest villages in the Cairngorms National Park.

IT was curiously ironic that only a few weeks after taking on the job as mountain safety advisor with the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, Aviemore-based Heather Morning was almost struck by lightning on a Wester Ross mountain.

IT was interesting to read the comments in the "Strathy" over the past couple of weeks on the subject of wild camping.

I CAN'T help but wonder what is behind the Cairngorms National Park's reluctance to allow another house to be built on land adjacent to the hugely successful Loch Insh Watertsports Centre by Kincraig.

I'M DELIGHTED to hear that the Scottish Wildlife Trust is calling for a 'bigger picture approach' in the bid to battle climate change.

I'D never really thought of it before but it suddenly struck me that the Isle of Skye can boast two tracts of landscape, separated by only a few miles, that could be described as amongst the most scenic, if not the most scenic, in the entire country.

WE seem to be going through something of a boom in Scottish guidebook publishing at the moment.

THE Ramblers, formerly the Ramblers Association, of which I've had the honour of serving twice as president, is in crisis.

"CAIRNGORMS National Park – 125 Living Walks" is a handy little volume which is part of a series of guides dedicated to helping visitors to enjoy the charms of the local area.

CONGRATULATIONS to Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who has become the first person to cross both the North and South Poles and reach the highest point on Earth.

I HAD intended climbing the two Munro summits of Torridon's Beinn Eighe, but I was waylaid by a corrie, stopped in my tracks by a change of focus.

THE last time I spoke to Irvine Butterfield, it was to congratulate him on being awarded the John Muir Trust's Lifetime Achievement Award.

A FEW weekends ago, I climbed up to Sgearnaich Mhor in the Dalnaspidal hills at Drumochter. I wasn't in a rush, I had much of the day before me, and the sun shone from a cobalt blue sky. Unusually, there wasn't a hint of wind.

"SO wondrous wild, the whole might seem, The scenery of a faery dream."

WITH the marvellous weather of the past two weeks, I've noticed a lot of people out enjoying Newtonmore's Wildcat Trail.

ONE of the challenges that face those of us who have campaigned for public access to the countryside is the development of facilities for disabled folk.

I REMEMBER, with great fondness, taking my oldest son to the beach at the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire when he was but a toddler.

WHEN the flockmasters arrived in Glen Calvie in Easter Ross the 18 families who had lived in the glen for generations were moved on, cleared to make way for the sheep.

THE good folk of Knoydart have been celebrating the 10th anniversary since the community bought out the 17,000 acre Knoydart Estate in March 1999.

A MATE of mine had dropped by to the house when we were out. "Just been up to Braemore Junction – Beinn Enaiglair and the Graham next to it made a great round in good weather," said his note.

THERE is a right of way that crosses the west shoulder of Mam na Gualainn, a rather fine Corbett that rises steeply from the northern shores of Loch Leven in Argyll.

I'M sitting by the window in a bothy in Glensulaig, north of Loch Eil in Lochaber, and the peace of the place has settled on me like an old down quilt.

SO THE islanders of Harris have voted to pursue the idea of national park status for their community. In a vote last week, more than 730 people voted in favour of the idea – with 311 residents saying no.

FOR the second time in as many months, an SNP politician has made a proposal for the creation of a new long-distance walking trail in Scotland.

WE ESCAPED from London just in time. All afternoon there had been snow flurries in the capital and by the time we boarded the Caledonian Sleeper those flurries were getting heavier. Another few hours and we would have been trapped in the deep freeze of the deep south.

I'M delighted to see that Donald Trump's controversial golf course-cum-housing scheme development, earmarked for the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire, has been given an award even before the diggers have moved in to tear up the Site of Special Scientific Interest sand dunes.

I went to the hills this morning and my thoughts were with the families of the three men who died in the avalanche on the Buachaille Etive Mor in Glen Coe.

WHILE the economic freefall of the world continues to create unprecedented concern and headlines of gloom and doom, it's heartening to be able to bring some more optimistic news for Scotland's outdoor holiday providers and green tourism operators.

GLEN Lochay's Meall Ghaordie will never win any prizes for popularity but as a fully-paid up member of the Munro list – it stands 3,409ft high – it will never be short of visitors.

I PREFER byways to highways, the paths less trodden, the hidden routes with vague trails that are more familiar to fox or roe deer than people.

I'VE been delighted to see proposals from the MSP for Perth and Kinross, Roseanna Cunningham, to create a 200-mile walking route between Iona and St Andrews.

AN interesting bunch of folk came together in Tongue in Sutherland earlier this week to watch a preview of a television programme that will be shown on BBC2 Scotland on Boxing Day.

LIKE many enthusiasts for the wildness of the Scottish Highlands, I tend to regard naturalists from the south of England as marginally suspect, raking about as they do in tiny copses of woodland or decrepit hedgerows searching for 'wildness'.

GLEN Affric, Glen Cannich, Glen Strathfarrar, Glen Orrin and Strath Conan – five East Highland glens that compare with anything in the West, and, of them all, I think Strathfarrar is the finest.

CONGRATULATIONS to my old friend Irvine Butterfield on being awarded the very prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the John Muir Trust.

IF there's one sound that conjures up images of these cold winter's hill mornings it's the strident stacatto call of the red grouse, a cry that concludes with an emphatic and repeated go-back go-back, go-back.

CONGRATULATIONS to the John Muir Trust who, after what has been a long and gruelling process, have cleared the summit of our highest mountain of cairns.

I WAS probably being naive in the extreme but I had the distinct impression that we might all have learned something from the current credit crunch – particularly our politicians.

WHEN I heard that 3,000 people were stranded on a Lake District mountain in torrential rain and driving, bitter-cold winds, my heart sank.

YOU will not find much information about the hills of Strath Conon in Scotland's mountaineering literature.

AS someone who has managed to earn a crust from writing about climbing hills for the best part of 30 years I'm more than aware of the high standard of literacy that exists in the mountain world.

AFTER spending too many evenings giving talks and lectures, my eyes had gone square and I needed to soothe them with a day of natural colours.

I GOT a good soaking earlier this week when I wandered up the Ben Nevis path from Achintee to Lochan Meall a-Suidhe.

AUTUMN is when the sights and sounds of the hills gather together in a final extravaganza before the bland days of early winter.

THE National Trust for Scotland is asking its supporters to leave more than footprints on the mountains under its care – a few quid would help to maintain its mountain paths.

FOR a number of years I did the rounds of outdoor organisations, festivals and clubs, giving talks on Scotland's mountains.

FROM the jagged peaks of the Skye Cuillin to the high-level Arctic plateaux of the Cairngorms, we have such a diversity of landscape to enjoy.

IN recent months a petition was sent to the Prime Minister in an attempt to legalise wild camping in England and Wales.

NOW that the BBC's six-part elegy of Paul Lister and his controversial species reintroduction scheme at Alladale in Sutherland has run its course, I can't help feeling that the series, sycophantically titled 'The Real Monarch of the Glen', has raised more questions than it has answered.

AT THE beginning of the 19th Century, Glen Bruar was described as follows: "About eight miles north of Blair Atholl, you descend into a glen which is wild and desolate.

I WATCHED a flotilla of Land Rovers pass by in the glen. Some of the occupants waved at me, a happy bunch, off to the enjoy the Glorious Twelfth and the start of the grouse shooting season.

IT'S curiously ironic that a massive campaign in England and Wales has resulted in legislation that will create a coastal path around both countries, while here in Scotland, despite having the best access legislation, arguably, in Europe, coastal walking is served only in a few individual cases.

THOSE who know Creag Meagaidh will be well aware that the vast majority of visitors climb the hill via the lovely Coire Ardair, with its fresh and vibrant revitalised woodland.

THANKS to the wonders of modern fabrics and technology, and a mindset that is happy enough to cope with minimum camping comforts, I have managed to put together a basic backpacking kit that contains a tent (with a midgie net), sleeping bag, insulated mat, stove, pots, food and fuel that weighs less than 15lb/7kg.

IT was raining heavily as I arrived at the Glenshee ski area, but the sky was a little brighter in the west and I was in optimistic mood.

THE noise made my head buzz, the smell filled my senses and the whole wheeling, cavorting, diving splendour of Handa's seabirds was a sight to remember.

HILLWALKERS in the strath are being asked to help in a survey to provide information on Scotland's Mountain Ringlets, the UK's only species of mountain butterfly.

A NEW campaign from Scottish Natural Heritage is calling on dog owners to help promote the spirit of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code when they take their animals into the countryside.

THE spirit of the Cailleach Bheur, the blue hag who, according to Rannoch legend, rides the wings of the storms to deal out her icy death to unfortunate travellers, had clearly been banished to the Arctic North.

BOBBING like a cork in a sea kayak with the hills of Applecross on one side of me and the ragged outline of the Skye Cuillin ahead of me could be a prospect that's close to heaven itself.

I'VE lost count of how many times I've visited the summit of Beinn Macdui but I've never tired of it.

A FEW weeks ago I wrote about an ingenious little piece of technology that, I thought, could help hillwalkers and mountaineers if they were to get into trouble in the mountains.

THE 2008 TGO Challenge is now underway and I had the privilege of seeing off about 50 challengers from Inverie in Knoydart last week.

I WAS encouraged last night when I went to speak to a gathering of hoteliers, land managers and outdoor holiday providers.

IT'S interesting that the news of the Scottish Government's rejection of the Lewis windfarm proposals broke the same day as Former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing called for a moratorium on windfarm construction in France.

I WAS encouraged by those who came along to the public meeting in Newtonmore last week to discuss the controversial proposals that could see large areas adjacent to Loch Laggan and Loch Ericht earmarked for large-scale windfarm development.

HIDDEN away from the rest of the world by the shoulders of its craggy mountain, Ardverikie Wall of Binnein Shuas looks south over the slim, water-filled trench of Lochan na Earba to the hills of the Arverikie Forest.

I'VE been encouraged by our local Highland councillors, who have supported my plea for an extension of the consultation on the Lochaber Local Plan as it affects those areas of Badenoch and Strathspey that lie outside the Cairngorms National Park boundary.

A REPORT published on behalf of the Scottish Government by Glasgow Caledonian University suggests that wind farms could cost Scotland's tourism industry millions of pounds and hundreds of jobs.

WALKERS, keepers, shepherds and forestry workers are being encouraged to keep their eyes open for ticks and help in the UK's first ever public survey into the spread of the disease carrying insect.

THE clouds were low on the hills, heavy overnight thunder-storms had left the track squelching underfoot but I was in good, boisterous company.

REGULAR readers of this column will be only too aware of my dislike of onshore windfarms.

EVERY year, more than 100,000 people climb to the summit of Ben Nevis, Britain's highest summit.

THE great John Muir had a simple theory for protecting the wild splendours of places like Yosemite National Park in California from developers.

THERE has been quite a lot of comment in the press recently about mountain rescue teams, predominantly in the English Lake District, seeing a significant increase in the numbers of call-outs from walkers who use mobile phones as a convenient way of telling someone they are lost and need help.

THERE is currently a petition on the Prime Minister's website which is calling for wild camping to be made legal in England and Wales, as it is in Scotland.

A COUSIN of mine, who lives in England's darkest south, often takes himself off for a week or two at a time with the sole purpose of counting birds.

THE day after what was supposed to be the most depressing day of the year, I was fair cheered by the leaked news that Scottish Government ministers were minded to refuse permission to build what would have been Europe's largest wind farm on the Isle of Lewis.

A FRIEND wrote to me last week telling me about a new house he was building – an eco house with a green oak frame, oak cladding, sheepswool insulation, turbine in the burn, etc – on the west coast.

I WAS sad to hear of the death of Sir Edmund Hillary on Thursday evening.

THERE is often a perceived notion amongst hill-bashers that Corbetts, because they are lower in height than Munros, must be easier to climb.

BRICKBATS and bouquets. Who has earned our praise and congratulations in the past year and who has earned our scorn?

I'LL BE heading for old haunts over the festive period, easy walks suitable for the short days of late December, allowing me to get home in plenty of time to continue the festivities.

A NUMBER of years ago I read a book by Charles St. John, a Victorian naturalist, who described a journey along the River Findhorn.

I HAD the pleasure of opening a new footpath earlier this week that will ease the effort of reaching the fabulous north face of Ben Nevis.

I'M wary of inventing personalities for our mountains, but there is little doubt that some hills do have character, tempting us into twee anthropomorphism.

WITH the current strength of the pound against the dollar you'd be forgiven for thinking that overseas visitors might think twice about visiting Scotland on holiday.

I REMEMBER wandering the hills with the late Tom Weir when he asked me why I had never become a member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club.

I KNOW it's almost sacrilege for a mountaineer to admit it, but I'm afraid I'm not a great lover of snow.

TWO events have given me hope that Scotland's young rock climbers might flock back to the mountains where the sport belongs instead of playing around on indoor climbing walls or attempting vertical gymnastics on roadside boulders.

SCOTLAND can justifiably claim to have some of the finest landscape photographers in the UK and that's perhaps not surprising when you compare the type of subject matter that exists in the Highlands and Islands with the rest of the country.

I THOUGHT the unseasonal warmth of the early morning sun had gone to my head.

THE car park in Glen Doll was rain-soaked and the car's windscreen wipers were working overtime. After travelling the best part of 100 miles we were loath to simply turn round and drive home again, although the temptation was great.

A RECENT television show, which I missed, has been getting a lot of comment on various hillgoers’ websites. It was all about finding the best view in Britain and I believe the view over Wastwater in the Lake District’s Wasdale actually won.

I'VE HAD more than my fair share of bothy nights and while I wouldn't claim to be a lover of the bothy life I am aware that many people enjoy the occasional camaraderie of sharing one of these open shelters with like-minded souls.

I'VE known the hill-walker cum mountain runner Ronald Turnbull for some time.

SOME readers may be familiar with Robert Macfarlane's book, 'Mountains of the Mind'. It was published to wide critical acclaim a few years ago.

CAIRNGORM Mountain Rescue Team Leader John Allen last week left the volunteer service after 35 years, and now another giant has bowed out.

I SUSPECT there are more mountaineers, hillwalkers and trekkers, per heads of population, living in the Badenoch and Strathspey area than anywhere else in the world.

I WAS walking an old right of way that runs from Bellabeg in Strathdon over the Ladder Hills to Glen Livet. As the route climbed out of Glen Nochty it passed an old house that goes by the curious name of Duffdefiance.

I GUESS we can't do much about the weather, and if you organise a big event in the Scottish mountains, then you are putting yourself very much at the mercy of Mother Nature and her often fickle ways.

I HAD planned to stay at home this coming Saturday to tune into BBC Scotland's monumental outdoor broadcast from Loch Avon here in the Cairngorms, where four teams of climbers will attempt rock-climbing routes on the Sticil, or Shelter Stone Crag and Hell's Lum Crag, that great ocean of granite that soars up beside Coire Domhain.

WE had driven south to spend four or five days in the Borders, in search of sun and dry ground. After a series of wet weekends and mountain soakings, I needed a change, and the borderlands gave us just that.

IT'S ironic that in the middle of the worst summer weather on record the future of Scotland's finest mountain weather forecasting services has been in jeopardy.

HE CALLS himself the Island Man and he is set to become the first person to sleep on every Scottish island of 100 acres (40 hectares) or more, a total of 162 islands.

WE never knew of his like in Scotland. Alfred Wainwright was a product of English northness, a working-class man from Blackburn, Lancashire made good.

TELEVISION programmes about walking and climbing are like buses. You wait around for ages hoping one will turn up then a bunch of them arrive at the same time.

I WAS a little surprised when BBC Radio Scotland rang me up and asked if I'd review an exhibition of modern art for their lunch-time arts programme, the Radio Café.

THERE are few heroes in my little wilderness world, although, as a youngster, I admit that I rather hero-worshipped a Welsh long jumper by the name of Lynne Davis.

WHENEVER I think of my old friend Alex Gillespie I think of Nevis – the hill and the glen. Originally from Edinburgh, Alex and his wife, Mary, have lived in the shadow of Ben Nevis for even longer than I've known them, and that must be over 30 years.

WELL, it seems that Foinaven in Sutherland has failed to measure up!

A MEETING took place in the Hillfoot town of Tillicoutry last Sunday, a meeting and protest walk set up by disgruntled residents of the towns and villages that lie at the foot of the Ochils.

THEY appear like a promise as you drive up the long haul of the M74, the first real hint to visitors that Scotland really is a land of hills and mountains.

MUNRO baggers know it well. The jagged summits of the seven-mile long Cuillin ridge on the Isle of Skye have provoked nightmares amongst many of those who have ambitions of climbing Scotland's 284 three-thousand foot mountains.

IT wasn't the best day for a walk, but we were working to a tight BBC schedule, and even our national parks are as liable to suffer the excesses of the Scottish climate as much as anywhere else.

IN THIS column a few weeks ago I told you that the Munro Society had been speculating on the heights of two of Scotland's mountains, Foinaven in Sutherland and Beinn Dearg in Torridon.

WITH the question of whether the Corbetts of Foinaven and Torridon’s Beinn Dearg are actually high enough above sea level to be classified as Munros being asked, it seems that another threethousander could be up for re-measurement.

I WAS delighted to read the comments of our Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber MSP candidate, Fergus Ewing, who is campaigning to be returned to Holyrood, about wind farms in last week's "Strathy".

ANYONE who regularly drives north up the M9 past Dunblane will have noticed the 37 spinning turbines on the Braes of Doune, the first view visitors to Scotland get of the Highlands.

SPECULATION about the height of the Ganu Mor summit of Foinaven in Sutherland and Beinn Dearg in Torridon shows what a curious pastime Munro-bagging really is.

IS NO Scottish hill safe from a Labour politician? I’ve never voted in an election purely on the basis of a single issue but come May I most definitely will. And I won’t be voting Labour.

MY OLD pal, Lesley Riddoch, recently joined forces with the Provost of Angus Council, Councillor Bill Middleton, himself a keen hiker, to open the new Glen Prosen Bunkhouse, which looks set to become a firm favourite with walkers and group visitors alike.

EVER since reading a clutch of Nigel Tranter novels about the Wallace, the Bruce, the Marquis of Montrose and the Black Douglas I've been intrigued by the area of the Borders known as Ettrick.

LAST weekend I completed my second term as president of the Ramblers Association in Scotland and I took the opportunity to call for the scrapping of the Beauly-Denny Powerline Public Inquiry.

AS PART of the Fort William Mountain Festival, I had been asked to speak at a seminar that looked at the links between mountains and culture and whether there could be a convergence between those who climbed hills and mountains for recreation, and those who are involved in other aspects of Scottish culture, like writers, musicians, artists and dancers.

SO OFTEN we draw on the dramatic scale of our mountains and wilderness areas to appreciate something of man's insignificance, but just occasionally we can be audacious enough to believe that we can conquer it, or tame it for our advantage.

IT'S a long and winding nine miles from Cannich village to the head of Loch Mullardoch, and on a bleak and wintry Sunday morning, even the sight of red deer stags by the roadside and snow-plastered hills couldn't dispel the gloomy austerity of the place.

LIKE so many others problems facing us today the high rise in the incidence of Lyme disease in the UK can probably be put down to global warming.

I WAS delighted last week to address the Scottish Outward Bound Association at their annual charity fund-raising dinner in Glasgow.

I ALMOST didn't bother. Torrential rain swept along Strathfillan and the hills were hidden in a mire of mist and cloud.

I WAS heading for the horseshoe ridge of hills that lie above Achnacarry, ancestral home of Cameron of Locheil.

A GAELIC bard once described Glen Tromie, just south of Kingussie, as Gleann Tromaidh nan Siantan – the glen of the stormy blasts.

AN OLD friend of mine, Gordon Donohue, used to manage the distillery at Dalwhinnie, and he once took me to task because I had described Tomintoul as the highest village in the Scottish Highlands.

A NUMBER of years ago I made a television programme for PBS in the States. They wanted a documentary on the life of John Muir, the Scots-born environmentalist, and invited me across to Yosemite National Park to take part as a kind of token Scot.

IT'S Christmas and Scotland's hillwalkers have been given a rather nice, if unusual, Christmas gift.

HAVING agreed to speak at a conference on sustainable tourism I rather alarmed the organisers by suggesting I would take a stance against onshore wind farms, as I see it as the biggest single threat to the tourist industry in Scotland.

I WAS delighted to hear that the board of the Cairngorms National Park Authority agreed to recommend to Scottish Natural Heritage that the old Wade Road between Aviemore and Dalraddy be used for the proposed extension to the Speyside Way.

I HAD been enjoying a couple of days walking in the Borders, trying to dodge the winds and the showers to climb Hart Fell and Broad Law from Tweedsmuir.

DURING those heady, distant days when the formation of the Cairngorms National Park was being discussed, it was abundantly clear that almost everyone concerned wanted to see a large boundary, bringing as big an area as possible into the protection of the park.

OF ALL Scotland's hill and mountain areas, the region that I'm probably most unfamiliar with is the Ochils, that lovely little hill range that rolls down from the Highland line towards the north banks of the River Forth. It's an area under threat from a proliferation of large scale wind farms.

ONE of the various hats that I wear is president of the Backpackers Club, a UK-wide club of some 1,300 assorted souls whose passion is heading off into the wilds for a few days with everything they need for survival, and comfort, contained in a rucksack on their back.

NEGOTIATING convoys of Tesco and Morrison trucks on the A9 two or three times a week could well test the patience of St Christopher, but the patron saint of travellers had a better, albeit slower, mode of travel than we do today. He walked.

AFTER three weeks trekking across the High Atlas mountains of Morocco, there was a sense of visual relief at arriving home to a colourful Scotland, deep in the grasp of its autumn pageantry.

SOME of the UK's greatest polar explorers gathered together at the Royal Geographical Society in London last Wednesday to pay tribute to a Laggan man who is regarded by many as a living icon.

THERE'S a definite inequality about some of our Munros. You can wander up the Cairnwell, for example, from the Cairnwell pass at 2199ft, which doesn't leave much of the mountain to actually climb.

THERE appear to have been very few problems in Scotland’s countryside since the Land Reform Act came into practice, with most folk aware that public access carries responsibilities.

FROM my elevated eyrie by the summit of Morven in Aberdeenshire the world around me lay in two distinct halves – one in glorious light and the other in abject blackness.

I HAD telephoned him to arrange an interview for a radio programme and when I asked him where exactly he lived in Strathmartine he said; “Just ask anyone where the blind auld bugger lives”.

HARD on the heels of last week’s comments about a proposed wind farm near the Sma’ Glen in Perthshire came the news that the Deputy Enterprise Minister turned down the development.

DRIVING back to Badenoch from Glasgow during the week a report on the radio told me that the A9 was blocked at Perth, due to an oil spillage.

MY WIFE, Gina, and I had arrived in Castlebay on the Isle of Barra with a distinct sense of foreboding.

I’M DELIGHTED to see that the influential John Muir Trust has followed on the heels of the Ramblers’ Association and launched a major campaign against the growing threat of wind farms in the Scottish countryside, describing them as a “major threat” to unspoiled areas.

FIVE years ago, a strategy to manage the landscape of Ben Nevis was published and as part of that strategy, the Nevis Partnership, a coalition between Highland Council, the John Muir Trust and other interested parties, was established.

ON A recent trip to climb Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey I cursed myself for not having a better knowledge and understanding of wild flowers.

CONGRATULATIONS to Andrew Thin, convener of the Cairngorms National Park Authority, for his lofty elevation to chairman of Scottish Natural Heritage. It’s a huge jump in terms of responsibility and Andrew will, most certainly, have to face a considerable number of new challenges.

I’M FINDING it difficult to remember such a sustained period of warm weather. I’ve heard a number of people say, “If this is the effect of global warming, then bring it on”, but I suspect such a positive spin on climate change is a little premature.

THE Munro Society is encouraging hillwalkers to help celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Hugh Munro of Lindertis in Fife, the compiler of the original Munro’s Tables in 1891.

GINA and I were climbing the lower slopes of a wonderfully named hill called Beinn Liath Mhor a’Ghiubhais Li (byn lee-a vore a yoo-ash lee) above Loch Glascarnoch, and while it was a glorious day, we roundly cursed the peaty, boggy ground we had to cross.

WITH the current political climate, chatterings of a nanny-state and the diminishing of people’s so-called rights, it seemed like a good time to visit the Isle of Jura. Wasn’t it here that George Orwell wrote his great satirical treatise – 1984?

DO you know what Cairn Gorm actually means? Or have you ever thought about the meaning behind Balmoral, Lochnagar, Tomintoul or Kingussie?

I STOPPED at the MacDonald Hotel in Kinlochleven a few weeks ago, just as winter was giving way to spring.

IT WAS meant to be a birthday treat, but a thought suddenly flashed through my mind that if I didn’t take care there may well be no more birthdays.

AT THIS time of the year my natural inclination is to go west when I want to climb a mountain, but occasionally I'm blessed by doing the opposite.

WITH a bit of luck, summer might have arrived.

AN OLD friend, Dennis Gray, a former secretary of the British Mountaineering Council, has just produced a CD of four climbing songs.

TWO Fort William-based fell runners, Kenny Stuart and Kenny Campbell, have every right to feel a little aggrieved this week.

I THINK it's fair to say that over the years I've given Scottish Natural Heritage a bit of stick and, while I'm sure the various board members have lost little sleep over my criticisms, I still have the feeling that while the organisation is good at conserving wildlife it is not quite so good at encouraging the public to enjoy or appreciate it.

I WONDER how many 'Strathy' readers experienced their first real taste of the outdoors through the Scottish Youth Hostels Association.