I did not have much I could class as highlights in 2015, it simply rained too much during my non-working days. I can never remember a wetter Highland Perthshire summer or early winter. However, I much enjoyed a series of work-related bagging trips to Shropshire, east Wales, Somerset and the Peak District. The weather in all of these was bad, however I learned enough about some of these areas, Somerset in particular, to decide that a return trip in better weather would be worthwhile. Perhaps an unusual highlight of the year was realising that I have done my local mountains so many times now (e.g. the Beinn Lawers range, Schiehallion and the north Glen Lyon Munros) that the map almost never comes out of the rucksack, even when the clag is down and there is snow on the ground. It is nice knowing a few mountains almost stone by stone and burn by burn and it does save time peering at map and compass in bad weather.
The lowlights are because of the unfettered development that is taking place all over the Highlands under the auspices of sustainable renewable energy schemes. Some of our most beautiful mountain areas are being savagely trashed. There is no better example than Glen Lyon, which now has more than a dozen hydro-schemes, each with its own highly visible bulldozed track, zigzagging up from the glen floor. The poor-quality construction techniques used in many of these tracks has resulted in horrific erosion and damage to the delicate mountain soils as well as to the steep mountain burns, rivers and the creatures that inhabit them. The damage and destruction surrounding the new hydro-scheme at Invervar has to be seen to be believed. All for a marginal increase in electricity generation and a significant financial incentive for the landowner. If anyone can think of a way to enforce the use of higher quality construction methods for hydro schemes in steep, sensitive environments or a way of raising questions in the minds of those in planning departments minds as to the true sustainability of such schemes, please let me know.
