Читать книгу Walking the Corbetts Vol 2 North of the Great Glen онлайн

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September and October are generally relatively dry and you won’t have too much problem with midges. A combination of autumn storms and short daylight in November and December means that you are likely to be on your own in the mountains.

The Terrain

Many newcomers to Scotland underestimate the conditions they will encounter when walking in the Scottish mountains. The mountains in this guidebook may be under 1000m high, but you will usually be starting your walk from near sea level and you will spend most of the time above the tree-line, which means you will get spectacular views but will be exposed to wind, rain and sun.

Hikers from Europe and the US may be accustomed to walking on well-maintained paths and trails. Climbing the Corbetts you will frequently find the only paths are sheep or deer tracks. There are usually good tracks in the glens, maintained by the owners of the shooting estates, but higher up it is only on the most popular Corbetts that you will find well-maintained paths. Deep heather or boggy grass can make for hard walking on the approach to the mountain and steep rocky slopes protect many of the ridges. Unless there are lots of crags, the going is usually relatively easy on the ridges as a combination of wind and Arctic conditions in winter keeps the vegetation down to a minimum, although on some peaks you will have to cope with peat hags or boulderfields. Most of the peaks in the north-west are rocky and easy scrambling is required on a few of them. However, in good visibility it is possible to avoid the crags on most of the Corbetts.