Stefan Durkacz

Time was tight. It always is, but there was an added deadline: thunderstorms and torrential rain on Saturday afternoon bringing a dramatic end to the heatwave. I had 24 hours to play with. Mental triangulations resulted fairly quickly in a firm plan: the five Munros of Glen Etive. I'd climbed some of these piecemeal - Ben Starav and Glas Bheinn Mor on a wet and misty July day in 1995; an unsatisfying slog up Stob Coir' an Albannaich in April 2001 when foot and mouth was at its height and vehicles queued near Bridge of Orchy to drive through disinfectant. Now, with perfect weather and long hours of daylight, it seemed a good time to walk the whole round, light and fast, with a brief camp when it was too dark to go any further. Glas Bheinn Mor - the 'big green mountain' I'm parked and off around 11am, and the heat is intense. Water is a worry almost straight away; I'm feeling parched after just a mile. But climbing Ben Starav's long northeast ridge, there'...

Despite appearances on this blog, I've had quite a busy and eventful few weeks in outdoors terms - and varied too. At the end of March I was down in London and headed out to the Medway for a walk through the marshes. I followed the Saxon Shore Way from Rainham to Swale opposite the Isle of Sheppey. It turned into a bright and blowy spring day of huge, fast-moving skies and often brilliant sunshine. I have conflicting feelings about the marshes, because these are conflicted places - semi-industrial, not pretty, yet teeming with birdlife. There's raw ecological value here in spades. Who cares about my offended aesthetic sensibilities? Yet the intrusion everywhere of pylons, bridges, container terminals, power stations... it's hard for the mind to unwind, you're always reconciling jarring contradictions. At one point I see a ship ahead, seemingly cruising over dry land. It takes a minute to realise it's navigating the still-unseen channel between the mainland and the I...