The problem with a cheeky week away for significant altitude is that you wouldn’t get time to acclimatise.

Its doable in the Alps with a minimal amount of planned progression – first day take the lift up above 3000m just for a stroll around and an afternoon lounging in the sun. Second day a bit more ambitious, maybe an easy summit you can walk/scramble up to high 3000s.

Sleep low both times then most people should be good to go for hut nights and a proper 4000m summit unless you’re unlucky with your physiology.

The A82 can be unpleasantly busy. Pick your time carefully or consider the A9 cycle path instead.

For the love of god not the A82! makes me shudder to think of riding up Lomondside or over Rannoch moor at any time of day or year…

The A9 cyclepath / sideroads through Speyside etc is far more civilised or for a leftfield option, ferry hop over to Kintyre via Arran and pick up the Caledonia Way through to Inverness.

Think I’ve found the original for the Lightning crash picture:-

GBDuro police no-fly by requiring trackers on from leaving home til back again, not just in the race. That said GBDuro do seem to like having rules…

Meanwhile Kerry M is putting down quite a ride – only 20 mins behind Lee’s record at the climb out from Glen Golly.

Hull speed under engine power alone. He’s built himself a powerboat!

She does sit nicely doesn’t she – just a little high at the bows ready to settle down when the capstan and anchor chains go aboard.

On a slight tangent, I ordered a couple of books this week from Tom Cunliffe’s website (one of his videos about sailing on Jolie Brise was linked many pages upthread). Expected they’d be fulfilled from a warehouse somewhere but no, they turned up with a handwritten address and personally wrapped in an old chart of Dartmouth and Lyme Bay :-)

It was a weird day for random litter up there. I went round the horseshoe, there was a carrier bag of unused fireworks on Lliwedd and someone’s council tax bill frozen to the ground near the top of the Watkin path.

Cairngorm has been skiable to varying degrees the last three weeks (no lifts yet, just skinning up) but there’s not much of a base and it’ll all be stripped by this weekends thaw, just in time for the official season opening.

There’ll prolly be a fresh dump of snow over xmas but who knows?

Another +1 for Scafell crag, definitely.

Weirdly its got the great flake in the right place on central buttress but facing the wrong way.

I never knew that cutting down cable was a thing.

As above LBS who’ll also supply you with the requisite handful of ferrules and endcaps for thruppence ha’penny (or thereabouts).

And get a proper set of cutters instead of mashing the outers with blunt pliers:

On-One Cable Cutter

For a really different approach, Nick Skeates and Wylo II: https://vimeo.com/284310686

The railway path oldfart mentions goes through Shapwick Heath and Ham Wall bird reserves, its not marked as bridleway on the map but totally legit (and if you’re lucky you’ll see the egrets and/or marsh harriers).

There’s various other bridleway connections along old droves on Westhay and Tadham moor which are more or less navigable.

If you fancy going further afield head out towards the coast, I’d avoid the A39 but the back roads over the levels are all fine.

The other key thing is take the insoles out, so at least if you have to put the shoes on damp you have dry insoles, which makes a surprising difference. Until your feet get soaked again ten minutes later of course 🙂

think this ol’ lady is pretty “tally ho esque” though she pre dates tally ho she certainly been better cared for.

Fascinating reading up on her history and the plank-on-edge style of racing boat from that era. However it turns out she also had the Tally Ho treatment… rebuilt entirely except for the original keel timbers in the early 80s!

https://www.aeolus1904.com/history-1

Toubkal is well worth a trip (and it was my first 4000er) but won’t meet the OP’s “hands on rock” criterion – it’s just a big rough walk really

Like they said you don’t *have* to,  going straight to 4000m you’re unlikely to have life threatening issues if you’re in good health but you might feel fairly rotten especially if staying up overnight (I did!) For most people it only takes a couple of day trips over 3000m to kick start acclimatisation.

Dunno anything about Kinabalu but if there’s a particular issue with Europe I’d suspect it’s just the accessibility of alpine peaks from low altitude via lifts etc rather than walking in progressively.

I’m after something aesthetically pleasing – a proper pointy “this is the top”, not a flattish plateau; some decent exposure; some hands on rock (don’t just want a big walk) and obviously a great view once I’m up.

Dialling things back a bit, the west ridge of the Lagginhorn is much more doable than MB or the Matterhorn but still ticks all those boxes…

Its a proper 4000er but easy access, no glacier crossing, bouldery scrambling up to about UK diff and usually some straightforward (but exposed) snow slopes to the summit. With your experience as described you should definitely be up for it given good UK hill fitness and a day or two of acclimatisation.

If you’re very quick its possible in a day from the valley via the early lift up to Hohsaas but most people stay at the hut the night before.

The local guides are based in Saas Grund but lots of UK guides also work the area during the season. The Saas valley also has plenty other stuff to do (eg Mittaghorn and Jegihorn VFs) plus Zermatt is just round the corner for your once-in-a-lifetime MTB uplift day there (eyewateringly expensive lift ticket but oh so worth it!)

On a related tangent I had a few days recently sailing round Scottish islands with Luke Powell on Pellew, as featured in several early Tally Ho episodes, and it was completely awesome.

I had both passenger side doors stoved in by a farm vehicle pulling out last Thursday morning. Their insurer (NFU) was on the phone within a couple of hours accepting liability, not that there was any possible doubt. Damage assessment all done via photos & email resulting in it being written off (again no surprise).

Settlement arrived in my bank account from them today. Of course I’ve still now got to go and find another car (sigh…) but it tallies with previous experience of repairable damage that letting the other party’s insurance deal with it is a good move if it’s clearly their fault.

(Assuming someone actually tells them, off course!)

Looking over towards the site yesterday evening. Weather much the same today after that brief wetting last night.

I gave up on keeping Viewranger going when I had to replace my phone and switched to the Memory Map app which still does permanent offline OS coverage, not tile by tile like VR but I just got the full UK 1:50k instead for about £40.

I don’t know if/how it integrates with their desktop mapping and I don’t sync devices or anything complicated – just manually loading & saving the odd gpx track is enough for me along with a you-are-here marker on the map and it does that just as well as Viewranger ever did.

Laggan’s just along the road, in highlands terms and again it’s all good

If you have a bike that can be pedalled uphill then Wolftrax is a great wee place – only 45 mins away but the other side of the watershed, so the weather can still be dry there even when its grim at Fort William.

Yes, but for skiers not bikes. There’s no MTB uplift over the winter.

Round 2: Fort William – May 07-08 was this years date.

You might have quite a narrow window! MTB uplift started mid-April this year but can be later depending on the ski season.

Also in case it’s not obvious, the “sting in the tail” dogleg via Fealar Lodge and Daldhu is optional, straight on gives an easy spin down Glen Tilt (apart from the inevitable headwind).

(* not optional for a full CL300 completion but you aren’t doing that anyway.)

Good spot anyway *thumbs up*.

I saw half a dozen buzzards and a red kite yesterday all circling the same field while a tractor turned the hay over. Not a good day to be a rodent in that field!

That is indeed a sparrowhawk. I’m going to guess male though bit hard to tell with the blurry pics.

Could you tell what the prey is / used to be?

Sounds like you guys still have older versions of the app. Having carefully avoided updating it for ages I had to re-install on a new phone last November when the old phone died (very annoyingly). That new version is now locked out completely regardless of airplane mode shenanigans.

+1 more for a very noticeable difference Mark, thanks.

Edge on Win 10 desktop here, previously I’d have the fan spinning up and STW browser tabs hanging completely for 20-30s while ads were doing god knows what in the background. Much better now.

I assume they will be able to re-interpret the infra-red images as broad colour spectrum images relatively easily?

No different in principle from any other false colour reprocessing. In a sense when looking at very ancient galaxies that’ll actually mean shifting the colour back into the visible range where it started out (having been redshifted to IR on the way here).

Some older ones, late nineties mostly, before we all went leashless.

Point Five

Poachers

North Post

Cuillin Ridge traverse

…to be strictly honest we didn’t do a full traverse, but bailed from the gap when it went dark again, having started from Sligachan at 11pm the previous night and done the first half by moonlight. No bivvy gear, just a stove for a brew stop on Banachdich.

That’s some serious camera tilt 😉

Blame Mike P from Abacus, he took it :-) certainly felt steep enough at the time.

Spin – the one pushing the bike looks like coming back down the Slugain from Beinn a Bhuird?

Here’s a few more for the gallery – consecutive days of a stunning high pressure spell in Feb 2016, the fourth day was equally amazing weather but neither of us could face another 4am wake up and walk in…

Gemini, Ben Nevis

Mega Route X, Ben Nevis

Stand and Deliver, Aonach Beag

Ryvoan loop you can also cut through the Slugain more directly back to Glenmore (or the other way round for a clockwise loop).

Carry straight on to Forest Lodge and down to Nethy Bridge.

Nethy House cafe in the middle of the village does *very* good cake. (Just saying…)

The one past Blelham tarn? Yep that’s a handy connection.

Err… Sally’s gone south instead of north on the Great Glen Way! Hope she realises soon as she’s on a great ride so far.

(edit) ah, she’s scratched. That’s a shame.

Front runners certainly didn’t hang around in Fort Augustus…

It was calm and sunny first thing in Tyndrum, bit of a breeze on top of Buachaille Etive Mor at lunchtime but still a pleasant day to be out and about.

On the replay it looks like James Hayden had a stop on the way down to Culra, wonder if he got bitten by one of the drainage bars?

I always wondered if there are reliable winter routes on the The Fiddler as it looks pretty amazing from the North

Yep, the summer HVS line is also a winter grade VII. Less reliable than the Torridon classics (say) but it’s a sought after route when it’s in condition.

The summit of Veleta in the Sierra Nevada has to be in with a shout, just shy of 3400m.