Category — Hill walking

You don’t have to be masochistic to be into hill walking but it does help. Sitting here typing this (18/2/2007) my legs feel like hunks of steak that have been bashed with a mallet and then left to go off for three weeks. It’s a good feeling, honest and born of hard graft. The fish supper tonight tasted incredible. Nothing satisfies like dinner after a long hill day.

The weather was magnificent today. Sunshine and clear views from the Campsies to Ben Nevis. There aren’t many days like this in a winter walking season. Or perhaps there are but I don’t manage to time my walks very well. The route was the Ben More horseshoe, which is a long walk even in summer. With ice axe and crampons it was quite tough going by the end, but thoroughly enjoyable.
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Last weekend the weather man suggested that there might be a short break between the storms that have been battering the UK for the last couple of months. So I had a quick gander at one of my OS maps and choose a nice route near the town of Crianlarich. As is always the case in winter, time was the main concern. If you’re lucky you might get six or seven hours of walkable daylight. But you’ll probably have to get up several hours before dawn if you’re going to get to the hill by the cutomery mid-morning.

The weather got progressively more dodgy the further west I went, but there were enough breaks in the cloud to suggest that things might hold off for a while. After a few minutes spent discovering that the layby I was in wasn’t the one on the map, I found the trail and strode off up the glen. The pack was a little heavy today. Crampons, ice axe, food, water and all the necessary clothing layers mean my typical winter bag weighs something like 9-10 kilos. Heavy, but nothing compared to the climbers who have to take all their ropes and gear. It’s enough to get the ticker pumping briskly, which you soon realise is pretty important because it can feel a little chilly when the wind is gusting to 50mph. [Read more →]

I love the hills.

When I was a bit younger I used to go on holiday to various bits of Scoland with my family, and the older I got the more I noticed the hills. For a long time they seemed far off and unatainable. There they would lie at the end of huge valleys and across boggy moors, quietly beckoning. None of my family were real hill-walkers so I felt bound by the seat belt of the car and the rain drumming on the B&B bedroom windows.

Near the end of my school days something happened which changed everything. I went on a Duke of Edinburgh Expedition, as part of the Gold Award. The expedition was a 50 mile walk over 4 days through some of wildest Scotland. Up to this point I had always dissapointed the Scots half of my family by demonstrating apparent indifference to their side of my heritage. Those 4 days changed a lot. A seed was sown and that seed has grown.

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Last weekend I had a lovely sunday afternoon in the hills south of Edinburgh. This strip of undulating tops and glens is one of the best things about living in the city. You can be striding up a nice slope only a few minutes after leaving the chaos of Princes Street on a busy shopping day.

Unfortunately the fishing options within the hills are more limited than you’d wish for, with most of the lochs recipients of stockie rainbows. This seems to be the case in almost all the central belt with most anglers these days prefering finless wonders to bright wild trout. One of the lochs is called Glencorse, and it lay at the end of my jaunt along the tops from Nine Mile Burn.

I spent a little time sitting on the dam wall and enjoying the peace, and it wasn’t long before I noticed the odd rise. Mostly they looked like very small wild brownies, with the odd probable rainbow making an appearance. This really is a lovely spot and I would certainly fish it if it wasn’t a put and take.

Been away for a few days on something of a break. Not much fishing, but plenty of other great stuff like hillwalking and windsurfing. Made this wee panorama of a nice remote hill loch.

Last weekend I met up with my pal Alistair, a pal of his and my wee broth, and we went fishing. Got to the river around 6 or 7, and noticed a good few blue winged olives (BWO) milling about.

Always a welcome sign are they. No sign a couple weeks ago but after a bit of prolonged warmth they’re now about. Some sedges flitting around as well; all in all a promising scene.

Again things were a wee bit tricky for a while there. Dropped off a fish in the first pool on an F-fly, then didn’t do much until later on. The blood (brother) was doing pretty damn well all night taking loads of fish on one of (my tied) deer hair sedges. Seriously, this is such a good fly. Piss easy to tie and so often very very effective on loch or burn.

Highlight of the night was Al’s pal who took this undersized fish from a cracking little pool on the far side of the river. I don’t know why the guy bothers such small fish. Really should leave them alone to grow on a bit.

Later on and the sedges were making an appearance on the water, signified by more splashy rises. Plenty wee fish on the sedge, though lost my only good fish who would have gone a pound or so.

Yes those are big bad sedge flies in that photo above!

Blood had this nice fish near the end, all in all a great night for the twerp.

Dunno why but the last few trips haven’t been as great for me as usual.. I don’t feel like I’m fishing as well as I should be and I seem to have too much other stuff on my mind (especially this trip…) Need to sort that out.