David Lintern Photography

09/07/2026

Nervous system regulation the old timey way: climb a damp and vegetated grade 2 as a recce for a winter climb, camp in the billowing clouds … en route to Munro 277, a Coe straggler.

06/07/2026

Two from an estate north of Inverness. An impressive if morbid array of fine trees collected and catalogued in the Victorian styley. It’s a strange but fascinating thing when a living space feels like a museum, or a graveyard. Geezer made his dollar in iron, coal and hematite mining apparently. The light spot was a happy processing accident - iPhone and snapseed.

27/06/2026

Today is PTSD Awareness Day.

When the callout comes in, our volunteers don't always know what they'll find.

Sometimes it's a straightforward rescue. Sometimes it's a life-changing injury. Sometimes it's delivering devastating news to a family, or recovering someone who didn't make it home.

Our volunteers choose to step into these situations because someone needs help. They do it to bring loved ones home from Scotland's mountains – sometimes in the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

While these incidents may last only hours, their impact can reach much longer.

On PTSD Awareness Day, we'd like to take the opportunity to highlight the importance of supporting the wellbeing of those who support others.

Over the past two years, Scottish Mountain Rescue has been working with the NHS Rivers Centre for Traumatic Stress to deliver our Post Incident Support project. Available to every mountain rescue volunteer in Scotland, the service provides rapid access to specialist trauma clinicians following exposure to potentially traumatic incidents. It sits alongside our wider approach to volunteer wellbeing, which embeds personal resilience, peer support, and effective post-incident care throughout the full volunteer journey, from recruitment through to retirement.

Today's post is also an opportunity to remember David 'Heavy' Whalley, whose passion for the wellbeing of mountain rescue volunteers helped shape this journey. His legacy lives on in the support available to our teams today, ensuring that those who give so much to others know that help is there when they need it too. 💙

📸Image: Heavy at Ryvoan Bothy in 2022 by David Lintern Photography : https://www.davidlintern.com/

24/06/2026

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/06/24/were-the-highlands-ever-colonised-and-other-stupid-questions/

This is the transcript of a talk given by Dr Gemma Smith at the conference Community, Resistance and Resilience: Celebrating 50 Years of The Making of the Crofting Community, which took place at UH…

13/06/2026

I realised I haven't done one of these for a few months, so here's a few spreads from recent issues.

The Great Outdoors is now the only monthly mountain magazine in print format, and as everything online becomes more toxic and divisive and less connected to physical reality and mental clarity, I think that has renewed value.

The best way to step away from the fakery and dodge the algorithm - at least for a few hours a month - is to subscribe to the print issue. Give yourself a break!

https://shop.kelsey.co.uk/subscribe/the-great-outdoors-magazine

07/06/2026

Another blinder pulled off by local P@lestinian allies The Olive and The Pine today, a visible show of support for the Global Samud flotilla and in solidarity with the Burin Kite Festival…

Turns out kites and boats and sun and wind make a mighty fine combo

05/06/2026

Randomly met ‘7G Jerry’ today in St Andrews, outside his home. Jerry Beaulier was the first graduate of ‘Top Gun’ school. Jerry is over 80 now but he flew over 200 combat missions and served in Vietnam. He came up poor and learnt to hunt with a bow and arrow, feeding his family and two others in Northern Michigan. Much later he set up a charity developing wheelchairs that could access beaches. He still has a tiny wild spark in his eye. Our kids were completely captivated. Those 7Gs apparently cost him 2” in height.

What folk have been through is genuinely incredible. Don’t forget to talk to them. More important still - don’t forget to listen. It’s also a timely reminder for me to never travel without at least one decent camera. I so nearly bought the fancy new-to-me film machine for this trip. Now, these silly iPhone ones will have to do. Nevermind. Here’s to Jerry.

05/06/2026

Randomly met ‘7G Jerry’ today in St Andrews, outside his home. Jerry Beaulier was the first graduate of ‘Top Gun’ school. Jerry is over 80 now but he flew over 200 combat missions and served in Vietnam. He came up poor and learnt to hunt with a bow and arrow, feeding his family and two others in Northern Michigan. Those 7Gs apparently cost him 2” in height.

He still has a tiny wild spark in his eye. Our kids were completely captivated. What folk have been through is genuinely incredible. They - we - are all around. Don’t forget to talk to them. It’s also a timely reminder for me to never travel without at least one decent camera. I so nearly bought the fancy new-to-me film machine for this trip. Now, these silly iPhone ones will have to do. Nevermind. Here’s to Jerry.

29/05/2026

Back o’ Torridon, 27-28.5.26 en route to # 276

What an honour
To be in the mountains like this
And have it be so calm and still

19/05/2026

Saturday, I took child 2 to a favourite place (If you know where it is, don’t speak it here please). We called in on Lindsay and checked in with several folks on the . I feel like we need to set up a free dram stall and make this an annual event.