Glorious hill days

I know it's only August, but that's me very nearly my Scottish summer work.  Such a pleasure to spend the last few days with a really keen bunch of kids whilst wearing my Gold Expeditions hat once again.

Time to start digging out the high expedition equipment.

Cool Cats

When I was a troublesome teenager, I thought anybody over the age of 25 was old.  Anybody over 40 was well and truly past it and should be confined to sitting on the sofa drinking hot cocoa and wearing fluffy slippers.  Oh, how naive was I.

So, how we chuckled to ourselves for the past 3 days as we were out with Albyn School deep in the Cairngorms.  Just no matter how cool we think we are, to a group of fearsome teenagers we really are not cool in every sense.

Max has been introduced to the delights of trailer camping, where there really is no need to scrimp on the quality of food.  The only thing that was missing was the bottle of Vino but even I can be sensible when little people are involved.

In typical Scottish fashion our amazing first 2 days will be forgotten with the 3rd day will be the one that is remembered for seeing nothing but a blanket of midgies all day.

Changing colours

That's the last MCofS navigation course run out of the Ochils for the year.

Frightened to say, but the sedge is starting to change colour.  Dare I say it will soon be winter?

Ardmair aka Hardmair

I am ashamed to stay that I have only been to Ardmair once before.  I remember being perplexed how to climb the routes.   It's not that I don't like the climbing, it's just that I'm not really a crack climber and if you're not good at something it is very easy to avoid.  So when Shiela suggested Ardmair, I didn't know quite how to respond.

I loved it.  Perhaps never loved the botanical battle to the bottom of the crag and the swamp to negotiate but the climbing was awesome.  Sheila, Queen of Cracks danced her way up numerous routes whilst at the bottom of the (very tight rope) I pulled faces, groaned, stuck my tongue out and spent hours trying to figure out how to use elephant bum holds.

As they say, everyday is a school day.  Today I was well and truly in nursery.

And that was that

Oh my goodness.

We didn't even make it out the starting blocks for an attempt on the Skye Ridge Traverse on Saturday.

If I am perfectly honest, we hardly made it out the car on Saturday morning.  Within 10 minutes we were utterly drenched - nothing and I mean nothing stayed dry.  However, we persevered and had a cracking day out.

Todays mission was to get out, up, along, down, up and down before the rain set in again.

The window wipers remained on all the way from Sligachan to Grantown and the van stinks of wet dog - shame I can't blame one.

Nice to be back on the mainland :)

25 years

25 years of marriage is a pretty big deal in today's world.  I would assume that most couples making it this far in life together would like to mark this special occasion with a proper pampering holiday.

But then again, Pam & Gary are not your normal couple.

For the past 5 days we have avoided the heavy rain (nearly), enjoyed the views and ticked off all the Munros in the Cuillins.

What is more impressive, neither Pam nor Gary would call themselves climbers or scramblers.

Thank you so much for letting me enjoy the celebrations, and good luck for the next 25 years!

A rare visitor?

We saw a Mink!!!!!!