I had wanted to climb Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia, ever since meeting some Slovenian climbers on a Mountaineering Council of Scotland meet many years ago. My interest was fanned by Mike Newbury, a stalwart of MCifS’ access and conservation committee, who went on holiday to Slovenia each year and whose privately published guide…
Category: Lessons from abroad
Walking up through the forest to our first hut below Debela Pec we had little idea if it’s extent until altitude started to stunt tree growth. Prompted by the Glenmore fire and Victor Clements post (see here) I wondered what would happen if a wildfire became established in a forest of this size and if it…
I really liked the message on this leaflet and the wider message of the ALP Project, which “aimed to safeguard high alpine habitat, one of the last pristine environments in southern Europe” (see here). Having not seen a single plastic tree tube and next to no litter in something like 300km and 25,000m of ascent…
One of the great pleasures of walking in the Alps are the mountain flowers. I have always got particular enjoyment from seeing plants which are rare in Scotland, like the Alpine Sow Thistle, growing profusely. Until recently the Alpine Sow Thistle was confined to a few inaccessible ledges in the Cairngorms but last year was…
Traditional systems of transhumance, where people move their livestock up hill in summer and then back down in winter, are still fairly widely practised in the Italian Alps, in contrast to Scotland where the summer migration to the shielings ended when large flocks of sheep replaced people. In some ways walking the Grande Traversata delle…
For my first few days walking the Grande Traversata dell Alpe (GTA) – I started from the Nufenenpass on 24th July – it was cloudy, windy and periodically wet, the forests were predominantly composed of conifers and the mountain flowers still out While some flowers were past their best others were in full bloom. As…