Marhofn 280.16 - May 2014

Baglogs (72 of them):

Audrey Litterick (+21=1066)

Audrey Litterick on Schiehallion

Highlights for 2013 included:

• Schiehallion in January, a short and very sweet ascent (ski-mountaineering) in excellent snow conditions with staggering views. A mere 5.5 hours off work too, including travel time to the mountain and basking time on the summit, since we live at the bottom of this very fine peak.
• Ruadh Stac Mor and A'Mhaighdean in September. We wandered in from the west for a delightful two-day saunter round those wild and beautiful mountains with Tony Kinghorn. It was not peaceful on day one because we unwittingly chose the same day to walk in as hundreds of people chose to run from Dundonnell to Poolewe in a charity run. We were constantly bumping into filthy, largely exhausted, sweat-soaked, often blood and midge-spattered athletes as we walked towards Carnmore. Virtually every one of them swore at the midges then swore that we would regret choosing to camp that far inland because the midges would likely finish us off. We were obviously made of tougher stuff than they were because we had no problems, and the peace once they had gone, the views and the sunset and sunrise made this one of the best trips of the year.
• Am Basteir and Sgurr nan Gillean in October. Andy and I finally celebrated the last peak in my second round of the Munros on Am Basteir. It felt more than a little dodgy teetering on steep and very wet basalt in a gusty drizzly and cold day in the clag. We were very glad of a rope on the west ridge of Gillean; a huge change from the summery warm rock on which we had been romping along on Sgurr Dubh Mor and Sgurr nan Eag only a month before. However, it went (just) and celebrations in the Sligachan Hotel felt especially fine. I am never too sure about the rules in claiming a second round of the Munros - guess it is up to the individual However, in this case, I started to count peaks for my second round only after the first round had finished.
• Meeting others at Sedbergh. Again I thoroughly enjoyed meeting a gaggle of other Marilyn baggers last September at Sedbergh and revelled in the conviviality, food, drink and a fine chattering stroll across Wild Boar Fell and East Baugh Fell with Alison Richardson, Richard Tibbetts and Graham Illing.



A'Mhaighdean across Dubh Loch (photo: Tony Kinghorn)

Lowlights:

• Here we go again. The number of Scottish hills from which the view is not blighted by giant pylons or giant wind turbines is decreasing exponentially. Onshore wind results in huge payments for developers and land owners and big bills for taxpayers, yet CO2 savings are much less than the developers' PR would have you believe because they rarely take into account the CO2 emissions resulting from all the construction activities and operation of the wind farms and the associated infrastructure. Even if you ignore the associated CO2 emissions, the amounts of CO2 saved are too small to have any significant effect on global atmospheric CO2 levels: UK wind energy saves a little over 0.02% of atmospheric CO2. In other words, the annual CO2 savings are wiped out by less than two hours of global CO2 emissions. And if we want to use wind energy to reduce the carbon footprint of electricity generation to the target set for 2030 we shall need another 54,000 turbines - to put this into perspective, at present in the UK there are 5,321 turbines. Depressing or what?