Follow The Oikofuge: Walking, filter it, and define how you want to receive the news (via Email, RSS, Telegram, WhatsApp etc.) https://follow.it/the-oikofuge-walking Sat, 03 Dec 2022 13:58:09 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTc428M5F3yf65u9CxXrVx4c I stood in the rain at the foot of the Inaccessible Pinnacle’s east edge, that ‘easy edge’, looking up at it, trembling a little. True, I was overawed by its history, its odd and discomfiting form, its dizzying position — but I think I was basically just very scared. In the part of your brain … Continue reading Simon Ingram: The Black Ridge →]]> Wed, 21 Sep 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTc428M5F3yf65u9CxXrVx4c https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTfWn3MIAGl0Vbb9ICM-PHur This is the second in my planned series of posts dealing with the revision history of the three “classic” tables of Scottish hills—the Munros, Donalds and Corbetts, which I introduced in an earlier post. I also introduced the idea of topographic prominence, and a way of charting these hill tables in two dimensions by plotting … Continue reading Scottish Hill Lists: The Donald Revisions →]]> Wed, 14 Sep 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTfWn3MIAGl0Vbb9ICM-PHur https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTf-6A5XxOOmsO4DA87rvhPr King’s Seat Hill (NS 933999, 648m)Andrew Gannel Hill (NN 918006, 670m)Skythorn Hill (NN 926013, 601m)Cairnmorris Hill (NN 933016, 606m)Tarmangie Hill (NN 943013 645m)Whitewisp Hill (NN 955013 643m) 14 kilometers930 metres of ascent I mentioned the Glen of Sorrow when I wrote about my circuit of Glen Sherup, and promised I’d write more about it on … Continue reading Ochils: Glen of Sorrow Circuit →]]> Wed, 07 Sep 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTf-6A5XxOOmsO4DA87rvhPr https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTei1Br-PGYmOAaB2UxGNFpJ Last time, I introduced the concept of “Hillwalkers’ Gaelic”, which I abbreviated “HG” to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic (“SG”). I did so in the context of a comic poem entitled “The Climber’s Guide to the Pronunciation of the Gaelic Tongue“, which appeared in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal of 1897, probably written by the … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 2 →]]> Wed, 31 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTei1Br-PGYmOAaB2UxGNFpJ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTfWbFu9ynJHQWhamfNIiY2W In a previous post, I wrote about the three “classic” Scottish hills lists—the Munros (1891), Donalds (1935) and Corbetts (1952), and how these were brought together, in a publication commonly referred to as Munro’s Tables, by the Scottish Mountaineering Club in 1953. As a way of displaying the topographic data for these hills, I also … Continue reading Scottish Hill Lists: The Corbett Revisions →]]> Wed, 17 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTfWbFu9ynJHQWhamfNIiY2W https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTcGAPZaIko9Q7b9ICM-PHur Innerdownie (NN 966031, 610m)Whitewisp Hill (NN 955013 643m)Tarmangie Hill (NN 943013 645m)Ben Shee (NN 952039, 516m) 16 kilometres675 metres of ascent On my previous visit to the Ochils, when I walked in to Ben Cleuch from the north, I looked down on Glen Sherup from Ben Shee and thought that another enjoyable circuit could be … Continue reading Ochils: Glen Sherup Circuit →]]> Wed, 10 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTcGAPZaIko9Q7b9ICM-PHur https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTf5Y08pN4ku7n-fx8LWuXng The pronunciation of Gaelic hill names is fraught with difficulty for the non-Gael. One problem is the striking way in which some consonants are not pronounced at all. This is the Gaelic phenomenon of lenition, in which the addition of an “h” to a consonant changes and softens its pronunciation. Some lenited consonants, particularly “dh” … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 1 →]]> Wed, 03 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTf5Y08pN4ku7n-fx8LWuXng https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTeF7YgGnP7Mogp41t9tiERU The view had a massive visual scale. It felt cinematic: an epic horizon like the opening credits of a David Lean film. A path scrolled out ahead of me, eventually fading into the middle distance. Across the plateau I could see other tors emerging from the mist: dark, maritime shapes, spectral galleons held up on … Continue reading Patrick Baker: The Cairngorms—A Secret History →]]> Wed, 27 Jul 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTeF7YgGnP7Mogp41t9tiERU https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTcMVXsyP6RWbDHgrmwRGUK6 After a gap of two years during which the Covid pandemic prevented the Crow Craigies Climbing Party assembling in our usual force, we were back together again, this time in Kingussie. Despite the looming presence of the Cairngorm plateau nearby, I managed to spend my time without ever creeping over the 3000-foot contour—I arrived nursing … Continue reading CCCP 2022: Kingussie →]]> Wed, 13 Jul 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTcMVXsyP6RWbDHgrmwRGUK6 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTds48BNwcMp7wm0QkxGtqLL Meall nan Tarmachan SE Top (NN 589385, 922m)Meall nan Tarmachan (NN 585390, 1044m)Meall Garbh (NN578383, 1027m)Beinn nan Eachan (NN 570383, 1000m)Creag na Caillich (NN 562377, 914m) 14.8 kilometres850m of ascent Some days even I give up on trying to come up with new ways to climb old hills, and just go out and walk a … Continue reading The Tarmachan Ridge →]]> Wed, 15 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTds48BNwcMp7wm0QkxGtqLL https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTfd7EJ3Jdr9QzHgrmwRGUK6 Hill of Strone (NO 288729, 850m)Driesh (NO 271735, 947m) 18.3 kilometres890 metres of ascent Driesh is usually climbed along with it neighbour to the west, Mayar. Most people seem to come in from Glen Doll in the north, a route I’ve previously described, but the longer approach from Glen Prosen in the south has its … Continue reading Glen Prosen: Driesh From The East →]]> Wed, 18 May 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTfd7EJ3Jdr9QzHgrmwRGUK6 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTe3-whLZar8rOGkz6RCC25z If you’ve spent any time at all reading The Oikofuge, you’ll have gathered that I’m quite interested in hills—climbing them, looking at other hills from their summits, understanding their names and their place in history, landscape and land-use. What you won’t have seen me mention very often is the plethora of classifications that have been … Continue reading Scottish Hill Lists: The Classics →]]> Wed, 11 May 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTe3-whLZar8rOGkz6RCC25z https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTd1P5akhssjeiRFMxTa8z4W The Cairngorms lay beneath what was now a local bonnet of cloud. Everything else was in sunshine and dazzling with colours, cobalts and browns and bright greens, all the peaks around glowing with the pristine pigments of an illuminated manuscript, as far as distant Lochnagar and Beinn a’ Ghlo. Then even the interior gloom began to … Continue reading Sydney Scroggie: The Cairngorms Scene & Unseen →]]> Wed, 04 May 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTd1P5akhssjeiRFMxTa8z4W https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTeZSWZgm-1nLa8qfTAM-Smm East Lomond (NO 243061, 434m)West Lomond (NO 197066, 522m)Bishop Hill (NO 185043,461m) 20 kilometres710 metres of ascent Having previously climbed West Lomond and East Lomond from the Craigmead car park, and having made a more recent traverse of Bishop Hill from the Holl Reservoir car park, I decided it was time to chain all three … Continue reading Lomond Reservoirs Circuit →]]> Wed, 20 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTeZSWZgm-1nLa8qfTAM-Smm https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTesTtbw2KiAJ27fhEn5oRuR Bishop Hill (NO 185043, 461m) 13.5 kilometres370 metres of ascent Bishop Hill is a prominent ridge on the far side of Loch Leven for anyone driving on the M90. Together with West and East Lomond, it encloses an area of tilted terrain, dotted with reservoirs, northwest of Glenrothes. I parked at the Holl Reservoir car … Continue reading Bishop Hill Circuit →]]> Wed, 09 Mar 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTesTtbw2KiAJ27fhEn5oRuR https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTfblI3VODchPlRpWVnEcNkS The Goal (NO 361639, 459m)Hill of Couternach (NO 356659, 512m) 13.7 kilometres470 metres of ascent The Airlie Memorial stands on the shoulder of Tulloch Hill, which is the prow of a long ridge separating Glen Prosen to the west from Glen Clova in the east. It’s another of those places conjured into legendary status in … Continue reading Prosen-Clova: Airlie Memorial To Hill Of Couternach →]]> Wed, 09 Feb 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTfblI3VODchPlRpWVnEcNkS https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTcA2mdrA4rhJp8v71dCn6bG […] I toiled up the last slope and came out above Glen Einich. Then I gulped the frosty air—I could not contain myself, I jumped up and down, I laughed and shouted. There was the whole plateau, glittering white, within reach of my fingers, an immaculate vision, sun-struck, lifting against a sky of dazzling blue. … Continue reading Nan Shepherd: The Living Mountain →]]> Wed, 02 Feb 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTcA2mdrA4rhJp8v71dCn6bG https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTf864HpRWf_PQVLTsI7B9NX Tinto (NS 953343, 711m) 8.3 kilometres510 metres of ascent I feel vaguely embarrassed to be writing about an ascent of a popular hill by a popular route, but sometimes ingenuity escapes me. Tinto is the site of a great missed pun opportunity for me. Decades ago, I was invited to climb it along with an … Continue reading Tinto →]]> Wed, 05 Jan 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTf864HpRWf_PQVLTsI7B9NX https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTeIO1GDWzjwrWw5Ur-z5Bww Ben Shee (NN 952039, 516m)Cairnmorris Hill (NN 933016, 606m)Skythorn Hill (NN 926013, 601m)Andrew Gannel Hill (NN 918006, 670m)Ben Cleuch (NN 902006, 721m)Ben Buck (NN 896014, 679m)Ben Buck NE Top (NN 904024, 583m) 20 kilometres790 metres of ascent Most of the foot traffic on Ben Cleuch, the highest point in the Ochil Hills, comes up the … Continue reading Ochils: Ben Cleuch From The North →]]> Wed, 17 Nov 2021 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTeIO1GDWzjwrWw5Ur-z5Bww https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTdbC0daCMt36R-xWH3zZqEA Tom Buidhe (NO 214787, 957m)Tolmount (NO 210800, 958m)Crow Craigies (NO 221798, 920m) 21 kilometres910 metres of ascent These three rounded summits form a horseshoe around the headwaters of the White Water, which flows down Glen Doll to join the South Esk in Glen Clova. I’ve visited them all before, but never linked them up into … Continue reading Glen Doll: White Water Circuit →]]> Wed, 20 Oct 2021 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/nxUhY39heTdbC0daCMt36R-xWH3zZqEA