Stefan Durkacz

I went to Beinn a Ghlo armed for winter. Instead it felt like the first big day of summer. The sun was strong and unbroken, and there were lots of people. Down in the corries and glens newly hatched flies circled in the sunbeams above chattering burns. On the moors there were curlews fresh from the coast, the aural torrent of skylarks, and the peewits whooped and tumbled. On the tops the air was still sharp but the little remaining snow was in fast retreat. Only the highest Cairngorm plateaux looked like they still belonged to winter. I stashed axe and crampons at the foot of Carn Liath, to be picked up on my return. A bit of a nostalgia trip, this one. Last time I did the Beinn a'Ghlo round was in November 1988 with my dad. The footfall was noticeaby less back then, the informal paths sketchier, less established. There was no infrastructure for walkers. Nowadays formal paths have been built into the south-facing corries, to the toes of the main ridges. The return walk from the foo...

Mick, David and I had a day out on the Lochearnhead Corbetts last week. Original plans for a multi-day trip up north had been scaled back for various reasons, not least a dismal weather forecast, but something is usually better than nothing so we took advantage of a slender weather window to grab a day trip instead. Lochearnhead is fairly close to home for all of us with some new territory to explore, so seemed an obvious choice. I seem to spend a lot of time on Corbetts these days, maybe because I've climbed almost all the Munros in easy reach of the central belt. But never mind the box ticking: hills like this Lochearnhead pair deserve attention regardless. The SMC's guidebook for the Corbetts states that 'Creag MacRanaich is a hill of some character which, were it about 100m higher, would be among the better southern Munros'. So there. It certainly makes a bold statement when approached from the south, a steep exposed south face with a lot of exposed rock and some b...