Luke Partridge: Return to the North

My return to Scotland was pretty hectic to say the least! After a long drive back to Aviemore i attended the Reel Rock Film Tour 2013 premier at the Macdonald resort. The following day saw me scouting out places to live for the winter (and luckily finding one!) having had the place i was going to move into unfortunately fall through whilst i was away in the south. The next day it was the Wilderness Scotland end of season BBQ, during which i recieved a call for a last minute days work on sunday.
A 5 30 am start Saturday morning saw me driving over to the Ben Nevis car park for a charity walk provided by Ptarmigan Events. It was a beautiful day with good temperature for a long walk and stunning views and despite it being late in the season, the summit was a busy place again.

The influx of visitors that the highest mountain in Britain recieves unfortunately means that a large amount of litter accumulates throughout the season. On Saturday an event was also taking place named "the real 3 peaks challenge". This event saw volunteers from casual walkers to mountain proffessionals scouring the hillside removing litter ranging from chocolate bar wrappers, to broken bottles and even clothing and boots! Whilst i'm 100% behind people going out to enjoy our british mountains, there definately needs to be a paradigm shift in education and attitude toward litter in our wild places.

Rich Pyne, litter pick organiser, picking litter!

After a good day on the Ben, a 3 hour drive saw me once again in Torridon. The Torridon walking festival is a relatively new event, with big potential, organised by the Torridon Hotel. Over the weekend guided walks and boat trips took place, exploring the unique and incredible area. The day provided a contrast to the previous days event and was, as always, a priviledge to lead a group in one of my favourite areas in the UK.