Stefan Durkacz

Until I started planning this trip I was really quite a blinkered Munro bagger. I've climbed 192 of the things now. I've explored plenty of other hills besides, but the driving ambition has always been to complete the Munros, and most of my excursions in the Highlands have been planned around that. My attitude is starting to change though. This year I've mostly confined myself, not in any strategically planned way, to below 3,000 feet - just visiting places I've long wanted to visit, or revisiting old haunts, and generally letting the eye and imagination wander over the maps. There are three reasons for this I think. Number one is the process of thinking through and mapping out the Tay watershed walk. Following the route from start to finish is the real objective - the peaks along the way just happen to coincide with it. The red felt tip line squiggling its way over the OS maps is like a river, and the task is to get in and let it carry me from one end to the other, and...

We spent the first week and a half of May in Scotland, although it felt more like March. Hamish Brown in Hamish's Groats-End Walk talks about the 'peewit storms' - a long-observed propensity for cold and snowy weather to occur in the Highlands in early May. I climbed Glas Tulaichean and Carn an Righ in sleet and snow on 5th May last year, and driving north to Dornoch on 3rd May this year we encountered snow on Slochd summit and a fresh coat of white on the higher hills. Overall the poor start to the summer has reminded me of the reality of long-distance backpacking: there are days of bad weather to be endured as well as good weather to be savoured. On those bad days there's usually nothing for it but to accept the discomfort of being wet and cold, and get on with it. If the Tay watershed walk is to be a success I'll need to have some resilience and mental fortitude to cope with days of walking and wild camping in bad weather. I was well tested in that regard this we...