Feb 28 2008
These boots were made for walking…
You keep saying you’ve got something for me…Well, to be honest I have!! I came across this stonker of a website, it’s pure genius and am only too delighted to highlight it here.
It’s the kind of resource I could see any leader finding invaluable Walk Highlands pages offer a comprehensive guide to walking routes in each area of Highland, walks included range from family rambles to tough cross-country hikes and scrambling mountain ascents. Each walk is graded with little boot and bog factor icons (4 meaning you have to be as tough as old boots to do it), there’s also a great discussion board. I think it could also be used as a classroom tool, with it’s links to Google Earth etc to study surroundings.
Walk Highlands provides free waypoints to download to your GPS, both in Quo format, and as GPX files. I recall hiking to my first munro Sgor Goaith a few years ago, this great website provided good quality photographs of all the beautiful scenes I must have missed on my way down due to the bad visibility - so it’s great to use retrospectively too!
The benefits of being outdoors, fresh air, head space, physical exertion and a sense of acheivement or belonging to something bigger, are important contributory factors for maintaining and promoting positive mental health. We’re now seeing walking and physical activity schemes emerge that GPs can prescribe or refer patients to! Now that’s far better, in my view, than any anti-depressant type medication.
Of course, I would always recommend implicitly to anyone going out to be safe on the hills. The Mountaineering Council of Scotland provides specific guidance that must always be observed.
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