Great Mountain Days in Scotland. Dan Bailey

      Loch Quoich from Sgurr na Ciche, 4.20am (Walk 21)

      By boat

      Water makes up a large part of the Highland landscape, so it’s worth making practical use of it. Lochs – both salt and fresh – can serve as highways, stretching far into remote country to give access to the hills. Where possible, paddling is much more enjoyable than plodding along bulldozed tracks, and somehow it feels more adventurous than cycling too. To follow in the wake of Polynesian island-hoppers, Inuit hunters and Yukon pioneers – if only for a weekend – is the yarn from which dreams are braided.

      Long journeys by paddle power are the aquatic equivalent of backpacking, the meditative dip of blades echoing the rhythm of a hiker’s footfall. Approach a big hill route by water and you should have the best of both worlds – a trip on which the first part of the journey is at least as memorable as the high-level destination at the end of it.

      A handful of the walks in this book can be accessed amphibiously, and if a practical waterborne option exists this is noted in the walk information box. Although a boat on a loch might be more romantic than a slog through a bog, none of the paddles described are strictly necessary; there is always an alternative – in some cases taking more time and effort, and sometimes wetter. In most cases paddlers will want to make a weekend of it – and here’s where boats excel, since their generous load-carrying capacity permits more luxurious camping, from disposable barbecues to wine boxes (as long as you take them back out with you, of course).

      The most suitable vessels are sea kayaks and open canoes, each of which have their adherents. Specialist equipment differs between them, but the two essential bits of kit common to both are dry bags in which to store all spare clothing and bedding, and a buoyancy aid. Boat-handling skills are different in each case too, and best learned on a course or with a club. Safe sea kayaking, for instance, requires a broad set of skills and a familiarity with currents, tides and other nautical mysteries. No open sea crossings are suggested in this book, and only a very few trips in salt water are mentioned at all. But even freshwater lochs can be unforgiving. Wind, waves and extremely cold water are all things to be wary of, and the best advice for the less experienced is go in a group and wait for ideal conditions. Even then be cautious.

Camps, bivvies, bothies and howffs

      It was tempting to title this book ‘Great Mountain Days and Wild Nights Out’, since the latter are integral to a hill-walking life fully lived. The roar of rutting stags echoing through empty evening glens; ridges rolled out under a starry sky free of light pollution; dawn tinting frosted slopes pink and gold – walkers who habitually forsake hills for the nocturnal comfort of valleys miss out on so much.

      To camp wild is to take temporary refuge from the everyday, deepening awareness of nature and landscape by making yourself at home within it. With silence and solitude comes freedom simply to be. From high cols and sheltered lochans to remote sea shores, potential camp sites are as diverse as Scotland’s wild landscapes. Thanks to liberal access legislation we are officially entitled to pitch up at will, although the usual caveats about responsibility and discretion still apply. Camping wild is an activity best conducted far from roads and houses.

      Bivvying is more flexible than camping, as a reclining body needs a smaller floor space than even the most compact tent. Because less gear is generally involved, the bivvy is a true lightweight option. With a roof of sky instead of nylon there’s a sense of unmediated immersion in the environment; isn’t this what we go to the hills for? However, the two biggest drawbacks of going tent-less are rain and midges, and too much immersion in either is miserable. Hooped bivvies and tarps are a middle ground between tent and bag, but as with most such compromises there are disadvantages – less comfort than camping, and less of the specialness of lying outside on a starry night that is bivvying’s strongest draw.

      Tent-free walkers often resort to some kind of shelter, be that a laboriously excavated snowhole or a cave-like howff secreted under boulders. Snowholes are an excellent winter option, but constructing them properly and using them safely takes more time and knowledge than might be supposed. The best howffs have generally been improved by hand to afford a relatively salubrious, moderately weatherproof residence. The location of some is a closely guarded secret, while others – such as Loch Avon’s Shelter Stone – are part of hillwalking folklore and rarely without a weekend occupant.

      If a damp cranny under a boulder or a camp in a storm sound rather too close to nature, then consider something with four solid walls and a (more or less watertight) roof. While not entirely unique to Scotland, bothies are a big part of the country’s hillwalking scene. Dotted across the land, these remote huts range from the most spartan mud-floored biers to well-appointed cottages with such mod cons as glazed windows, bunk platforms and fireplaces. There are even a couple of bothies with sit-down toilets, although facilities more typically consist of a bog and a spade.