My year seemed to crystallise in the early hours of one morning back in late May, as I drove to Reinigeadal from the cottage by Loch Seaforth and stopped the car on the high road below Todun. Taking in the night stillness and silhouetted mountain lines, a profound silence kept me from wondering if my life wasn't spiralling somewhere other-worldly. The Western Isles trip was brilliant but it just seemed like hard work at the time. Thanks to everyone who came and made it such a wonderful holiday, especially the two-weekers: Alison Richardson, Adrian Rayner, Andrew Tibbetts, Stewart Logan, Phil and Kathy Cooper, Martin Collins, Richard Wood, George Morl, Alan Holmes and Jennifer Thomson. The first three all managed to fall asleep in the car on the way back from the Shiants - until the lamb stepped out in the road. It wasn't the best of summers that followed that trip, but something kept me going and made me believe there was a reasoning to it all and something better up ahead, as I've now discovered. Life moves on.
I look back on 14 trips to Scotland in 2006 and wonder if I should consider a career switch to the Scottish Tourist Board. Too many highlights to record here, but I had a fine July week up north - Cannich, endless blaeberries, and a glorious sunset over Ullapool and Loch Broom from Beinn Eilideach. Great days followed - Binneins Shios and Shuas in July, some small summits around Oban in August, an inversion on Dumyat and mud aplenty on Largo Law in October. Mad bagging in South Wales in November, and the Glen Luss Grahams in December. Southern Scotland has some wonderful neglected areas - car sleeping in Galloway forest rides then waking up to bird song and warm sunshine was in sharp contrast to Stafford Sainsbury's trailer park.
The year concluded with my first walking on Skye, and thanks are due to he who pushed me on and kept me away from the coffee shops. (AD: It was Christmas - they were all shut.)
And so to my 600th on Conic Hill, where I had my own silent toast in memory of all the hill days that guided me ever nearer to this defining total - days spent with Sophie, our dalmatian to whom we said our final goodbyes on 25 August. A small, hidden memorial on the west coast now marks a spot where she walked and ran unhindered, and that is how I will remember her whenever I return there.
In 2007 I want to return to Torridon and Inverpolly, two of my very favourite areas of Scotland.
Brent Lynam with newly awarded scarf on Conic Hill
