BBC 2 Scotland (Skye Channel 990) will be broadcasting our hour-long documentary - The Skye Trail, on Sunday December 27 at 7pm.
The route starts at Rubha Huinish on the northern tip of the Trotternish peninsula of Skye and follows the rolling escarpment down to Portree. From there we trek through the area known as The Braes to Loch Sligachan then follow the north shore of the sea-loch to Sligachan Inn. We wander down Glen Sligachan, visit Loch Curuisk, cross the Bad Step and climb Blaven from Camasunary. We then trek around by the head of Loch Slapin, visit the lost villages of Boreraig and Suisiniah and wander along the Marble Trail to finish in Broadford. In between all the hiking we take time to visit Raasay and Hallaig, in celebration of the great Sorley MacLean. We have some great interviewees and it’s a fantastic walk. I haven’t seen any of the rushes yet - we’re still working on the project, but we hope it might inspire a few folk during the dark days of mid-winter.

Many thanks to everyone who came to hear Richard Else and I speak at Cotswolds in Livingston the other night, and thanks also for all those who came along to Cotswolds in Glasgow last night for the store’s open night. Richard and I signed a lot of books and it was great to be able to spend time with so many folk and hear some of your own tales of the hills. Special thanks is due to everyone for both nights were miserable weather-wise and I suspect I would have been tempted to stay indoors rather than travel to hear the Compo and Clegg of the Scottish outdoor scene.

On the subject of Compo and Clegg I hope not too many get a nasty surprise on Friday evening at the Dundee Mountain Film Festival. I suspect a number of unsuspecting enthusiasts will turn up hoping to hear the great Catherine Destivelle talk about her Alpine antics and what will they get? Richard and I talking about the Sutherland Trail. Not that the Sutherland Trail is secondary to the Aklps but if I had a choice between watching Catherine or film or a couple of old farts like me and Richard I know what I’d choose. Very sadly, Catherine has had to pull out of the event because of a family crisis. All joking aside, we’ll be thinking of her in this very difficult time, and Richard and I will certainly do our best to fill in for her as best we can.

Sadly French climber Catherine Destivelle has pulled out of the Dundee Mountain Film Festival this coming weekend because her mother is seriously ill. The organisers have asked Richard Else and I to fill in her slot - Friday 9-10pm - and talk about the Sutherland Trail.

Without suggesting for a second that we could replace Catherine, we agreed. We will therefore we doing our book signing from 6.30 or so on Friday evening before our lecture rather than on Saturday evening.

We pass on our best wishes to Catherine at this very difficult time for her and her family.

Home less than a couple of weeks and already I feel I’ve been sitting in front of a word processor for the past year. However, in between bashing out words I’ve enjoyed a couple of great outings. Nipped up to Skye to climb a wee hill I’ve wanted to climb for ages - Beinn Tianavaig, just south of Portree. When we’ve been working on Skye during the summer for our BBC Boxing Day programme we’ve been looking up at this wee hill which probably is one of the best viewpoints on Skye, but we never had the chance to climb it. A couple of days after getting home from Nepal cameraman Paul Diffley and I shot up there and filmed it for the next Adventure Show, which is on telly next Sunday evening.

Also had a great evening organised by my old pal Mick Tighe in Roybridge Village Hall. Richard Else and I gave a talk on The Sutherland Trail and last weekend we had a full house at the Kendal Mountain Festival where we talked about the new telly programme on Skye. Tomorrow we’re giving an AV presentation at Cotswolds in Livingston, organised by WL Gore. Admission is free so hope to meet some of you there. The next night we’ll be doing a book signing at Cotswolds’ Silverburn store in Glasgow - signing copies of The Sutherland Trail and selling some DVD’s. We’re doing the same thing on Saturday at the Dundee Mountain Film Festival at the Bonar Hall in Dundee and next week we’re giving some talks in Aberdeen, Stirling and Airdrie. See my home page for more details.

And what about the Annapurna Sanctuary? What a fabulous trek that was. I’ve trekked round the Annapurna Trail before but in many ways this shorter trail gives a more intense experience of the variety of terrain and landscape that Nepal has to offer. We trekked up from the hamlet of Phedi, up through the terraced fields, along the banks of raging rivers and up tree covered slopes to the village of Chomrung. From there we climbed up a narrowing valley, through dense jungle with monkeys in the trees to the more arid, rocky landscapes below Machapuchre and the peaks of the Sanctuary itself - chiefly Huimchuli,  Annapurna South, Annapurna 1 and Gangapurna. The photo is of the vast South Face of Annapurna 1 and the 40th anniversary of the successful first ascent of that face by Dougal Haston and Don Whillans, still one of the most daring ascents in the Himalayas, will be next year. I was chatting to Chris Bonington, who was leader of that expedition, about it a few weeks ago and he is going over there next summer to lead a trek to the Annapurnas with his son’s Australian trekking company.

My thanks go to everyone who made our trek such a success, particularly Soraj, my sirdar, and his team of Sherpas. I’m now thinking of what treks to do next year. I think I fancy a visit to the lost kingdom of Mustang…

Back home after a marvellous trek to the Annapurna Sanctuary. Many thanks to our sirdar Soraj for gathering such a great team of Sherpas and porters and many thanks to all those on the trip who made it such an unforgettable experience. A great route, perfect weather and a good bunch of people to trek with. Camping in the Sanctuary itself was a great experience with the vast wall of the South Face of Annapurna 1 frowning down on us. As soon as I have a few minutes to spare I’ll upload some of the images from the trek - Machapuchre, the Annapurnas, Dhauligiri, etc.

Meanwhile it’s straight back to a busy lecture season. Many thanks to Mick Tighe for organising a great event last Friday in the Roybridge Village Hall where Richard Else and I did our Sutherland Trail presentation. It was a great night and I just hope the fact that I was still jet-lagged didn’t show to much!

This Friday Richard and I will be previewing our next BBC documentary at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. We’re in the salubrious surroundings of the Kendal Parish Hall on Friday afternoon at 2pm and we’ll be talking about a long walk through the Isle of Skye. Don’t have a title yet I’m afraid but that gives the gist of it - a backpacking journey from Rubha Huinish on the north tip of the Trotternish ridge of Skye down to Broadford, visiting the Braes, Sligachan, the Cuillin, Bla Bheinn and the lost villages of Boreraig and Suisinish. Hope to see lots of you there.

And next week I’ll have to look out my kilt and fancy gear for a rather special night in Edinburgh. TGO has no less than 8 nominations in the Scottish Periodical Publishers Asociation Annual Awards. Jim Perrin and Roddy Woomble have been nominated as Columnists of the Year; Ed Douglas has been nominated as Features Writer of the Year; The TGO Challenge is up for Brand Extension of the Year; our Sales team of Ronnie Dodd and Louise Jane MacDoinald are up for Sales Team of the Year; our publisher Darren Bruce has been nominated for Publisher of the Year and I’m up (for the fifth year running) for Consumer Magazine Editor of the Year and finally, TGO is up for Consumer Magazine of the Year. Phew…

And finally, many thanks to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for offering me the Society’s Honorary Fellowship for contributions to geography in Scotland. I’m absolutely thrilled by that and I’ll write more about it later. For the moment I have about a thousand emails to work through and Richard and I have still to put the final touches to our Skye lecture. Hope to see you at one of our talks or book signings…