Stefan Durkacz

It's a truism but one that bears repeating: winter hillwalking in Scotland is very different to summer hillwalking. The physical and mental demands are far higher, daylight is scarce, the margins for error slimmer. It's colder, stormier, and, of course, there are avalanches. As a youngster I didn't know or care much about the risks: I just wanted to get out there. And I got into situations that I know now were dangerous. In more recent years, and each passing winter roll-call of accidents and fatalities, I've subconsciously avoided challenging myself in winter as I mull over how it all could have turned out much worse. Becoming a parent hasn't helped either. So, winter walks have tended to be on modest hills, by the gentlest routes, on the most benign days. But, but... I miss those snow-plastered cliffs and cornices, the sting of graupel, the crunch and squeak of snow under boots, the late low sun and long shadows, and the way the lower jaw goes so numb it's har...

I was on my way to Aberdeen for the weekend and decided to drop in for a half-day on Aberdeen's very own mountain, Lochnagar. Well that was the plan... Spittal of Glen Muick has changed a bit since I was last here in 1998. I wasn't expecting to have to dig around in my wallet for £3, and I was surprised to see a parking area for coaches, here at the end of several miles of single track road with car-sized passing places. There's a nice little low-key visitor centre too. I'd say the road-end area is managed now rather than developed. It's a hugely popular spot, by association with Balmoral, and offering relatively easy walking in wild scenery, and that remains the draw. It's easy going, from the sunny floor of the valley towards cloudy scree-torn heads of the mountain. Most of my walks recently have been at low levels and I'm getting my head back into these contrasts that Scottish mountains are high enough to deliver. Up to the plateau, around 1,000 metres, a...

A couple of days ago I took an early morning bus down to Galashiels and walked a section of the Southern Uplands Way to Innerleithen. Summer's days are numbered and although it was warm and sunny, there was a morning coolness that lingered and a subtle lack of edge to the sun's strength: though in shorts and a t-shirt and not applying sunscreen until later in the day, I didn't burn at all. The willowherb and heather blazed, the final act of summer, and the air was often thick with the scent. There was still enough light and warmth to stir up an abundance of butterflies and bumblebees. This is a wonderful section of the Southern Uplands Way. It follows old drove routes over the spine of the hills, culminating at Minch Moor and a descent between two old drystone walls, guiding the drove road through cultivated lands, down to Traquair. The views are immense, the skies wide, and the broad flanks of the hills are huge canvases for the sun and the clouds. The trail is ancient and...

Last week I finally found a day to myself to investigate the new back yard. A couple of weeks before we'd had a family day out at wonderful North Berwick rounded off with fish and chips, and rolled drowsily back into Edinburgh on the train with our ears full of the sound of surf and shoes full of sand. I'd not been out that way since childhood and had only vague memories of expansive wild beaches, marram-covered dunes, crashing breakers, and huge skies. I wasn't disappointed and devised a coastal route from Seton Sands to North Berwick taking in a litany of half-remembered bays and beaches - Gosford, Aberlady, Gullane. A few days later an early morning Edinburgh city bus dropped me at the end of the line outside Seton Sands holiday park, beyond the coastal towns that string out along the coast from the city into East Lothian. I crossed the road and went down to the beach which curved away eastwards from the soon-to-fall chimneys of Cockenzie power station. Looking back towa...