Winter has arrived at full blast in the Scottish Highlands. It’s as if it’s trying to make up for lost time as I watch wave after wave of blizzards sweeping across the river outside my flat. If I want to get out in winter conditions I realise that this is the moment. Over the next few days weather warnings follow each other closely like late buses heading home for the depo. This occurs for a few days as I watch Ben Wyvis turning white from my flat window. Then I see a gap in the weather. Perhaps someone has simply forgotten to include the weather warning for that day. I check again and there is still no warning, time to go.
I bring my car to a halt outside Balmoral Castle gates. They are, as you might imagine, pretty grand gates with Queen Elizabeth’s monogram welded into them in wrought Iron. A large black Range Rover drive in through the snow, it’s windows tinted out, approaches the gates. As if moved by an unseen hand the gates swing gently open and the range Rover vanishes inside. I’m packing to head in to Gelder Sheil bothy, precariously standing on one leg trying to get my heavy winter mountaineering boots on. I wonder if the queen just passed by and had a little giggle at the old man hoping about beside a black Skoda.

Half an hour later, after slogging through the steep forest I emerge into bright sunlight on the open slopes of the mountain. It is bitterly cold. The mountainside is swathed in snow almost afoot thick that crunches beneath my boots as I head towards the bothy. I have walked out on to a vast rolling hillside. The view stops me in my tracks. The fresh snow sparkles brilliant white in the sunshine. Out of the shelter of the forest, an icy breeze stings my cheeks and forces me to retreat into the shelter of my cagoule hood. The white desert stretches uninterrupted until the jagged cliffs of the Mountain Lochnagar jut upwards into the blue sky where wisps of cloud cling to them. A small cluster of trees some two miles away stands out dark green against the empty snows. Hiding in those trees is the simple shelter of Gelder Sheil bothy. A mile away across the snow a huge herd of deer, perhaps a hundred strong, are foraging in the snow trying to find what little feed they can.

This is the kind of day I live for. The bright intensity of the sunlight lifts my spirit. After many days this winter fighting through rain and wind the mountain gods have decided that I have paid dues and granted me this day. It is by far the best mountain day this year and I am here, my feet breaking through the crust of the snow, smelling the crystal air. This is the place to be alive.

This is my first day ever that I am navigating with a GPS. I know the way and walk there with out reference to anything but every now and again I take out my phone and the GPS marks my location with a red triangle. I am learning the ways of the electronic beast. I don’t do this by choice. For years I have tried to postpone this moment. I have wanted to keep at leas t a part of my life sacrosanct from the digital screen that dominates most of my waking hours. Sadly I have come to realise that my weakening eyesight is no longer good enough to read a map properly. The time has come to give in and follow the GPS. Having used a map and compass all my life I have been reluctant to let go of my old friends. Now the little arrow on the screen tells me exactly where I am. There is no need to use the skills I acquired through hard work and years of trail and error. I no longer need to find that mental connection between the lines on the map and the landscape around me.
“Here you are old man. Right here. If I had legs you’d be redundant,” my phone tells me.
Another slice of life passes into history.

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The bothy is a simple one roomed affair. Wood lined and cosy. A stove and a table. There is even a large supply of wood supplied by the estate. There are three climbers from Kent sitting at the small wooden table. We spend the night chatting about mountains and wildlife.
“Where did you park your car?” the taller of them in a duvet jacket asks them asks.
“In the main car park by the gate,” I tell him.
He looks at me incredulously. “Will it be okay?” He realises I don’t understand the question. “I mean no body will break in to it?”
I laugh at the idea. “No, there’s no chance of that here.”
The three of them give me surprised looks.
“I’ve been leaving my car all over the Highlands for thirty odd years. No one has ever touched it.”
The duvet shakes his head in disbelief. “You can’t leave anything where we live. I would definitely get broken in to.”
Then he goes on to explain how undermanned the local police force are and that the only thing that they will respond to are threats to life. Minor crime carries on unmolested. As if there were no law. I have read about this but never encountered it before. It is hard to believe we are part of the same nation. What different lives we lead.

As I head back across the snow field I turn to watch the three men from Kent as they break their way through the snow heading for the summit of Lochnagar. The day is bright with sun as it was yesterday but hight above clouds are racing across the sky and even at this level the wind is gradually rising. The weather is clearly breaking. My one or two days in the sun are coming to an end. Me and my little red triangle head off across the snow. By the time I reach the forest I am glad of its shelter and I expect the climbers I spent the night with in the bothy will be forced back by winds before the summit. I think if I had come all this way from Kent I would have tried to snatch the summit too.

This is a snippet from my next book wild winter.