#bishop hill

[graceslavenderhaze]

no bc i have so many questions about panic that won't get answered and i am not fucking okay

who threw the scarecrow at heathers car?

whose really controlling the game?

who started it?

[americanbuildings]

EAST ELEVATION, DETAIL OF CENTER SECTION, SHOWING TWO STORY PORCH - Jansonist Colony, Colony Hospital, Olson Street, Bishop Hill, Henry County, IL

[scotianostra]

Good Morning from Scotland 

West Lomond and Bishop Hill by jasty78

[benvironment]

Does it get much better than snowshoeing from your front door? Nope, not really! It was another week of lockdown and another week of having the bigger hills off bounds, but thankfully winter continued to compensate by keeping it cold and keeping it snowy. And when it's cold and snowy at home, there's nowhere else I'd rather be :)

So here you go. A leisurely jaunt up Bishop Hill via Ballo and the Munduff golf ball.

[vulpine-witch]

Top four of a recent witchy haul from Bishop hill and the surrounding area. I got 2 taper candles, some small spell candles, barberry incense, lavender incense, and a besom. Last picture is of a cool hand made broom that was on display. I used the pink candle for beltane.

[scotianostra]

Good Morning from Scotland

Bishop Hill sunrise, Hatchbank Road by Wallace Shackleton

[benvironment]

We've been enjoying (yes, enjoying!) something much more seasonal of late. Cool days and cold nights, and the let-up from the rain means that any snow that has fallen has diminished through sublimation (when a solid turns straight to a gas, missing out on the liquid stage) rather than being washed away in a torrential rain-induced thaw.

There have also been very few sunny days, it seems, but yesterday I was pretty lucky to have a day off that coincided with one. It wasn't to be wasted. I did think about heading off to the higher hills to the north, which have been pasted with snow this past week, but to be honest when there's snow in Fife and my home hills are white, there's nowhere I would rather be :)

So this one was simply a walk from the door, a six hour trudge around the Ballo reservoir and up onto Bishop Hill, then down into Glenvale and up West Lomond. I hadn't actually planned on heading up East Lomond as well, but as I was nearing home it seemed rude not to ;-)

A beautiful walk, with the Lomond Hills looking their best :) Here's a load of piccies in the sequence they were taken.

[benvironment]

As a confirmed luddite with a stubborn William Morris style streak of resistance to most new technologies, yesterday was something of a watershed moment for me......my first ever use of a smart phone on the hill! :-o 

I recently undertook summer mountain leader training, and obviously navigation is one of the core components that you really have to work on before going for assessment. My nav is pretty good in so far as I can safely find my way around a hillside without a GPS and be confident that I'm unlikely to get lost, but I'd be the first to admit that the level of proficency you need to be operating at for an ML qualification, where you can relocate yourself using subtle changes in contours, pacing, timing etc, is beyond me just now.

I understand it and I can do it, but the whole process is slow. It takes me a while to think each leg through and I get mixed results. It's going to take lots of practice on windswept hillsides before I'm experienced enough to make this kind of thing second nature and swift, but I like the challenge and, to be honest, the actual process of navigating successfully from one point to another is immensely satisfying :)

And so yesterday I was up on Bishop Hill in Kinross-shire, which was excellent for navigation practice because it has loads of reentrants, spurs, undulations and wotnot. I spent three hours navigating & pacing from one topographical feature to another, and while getting from one place to another is all well and good, when your target destinations are tiny features on the hillside, such as mere bumps on a contour line, it helps to be able to confirm whether or not you've successfully navigated your way to the feature in question.

In this case, having a GPS with OS maps via Viewranger, on the smart phone, was enormously helpful in doing just that. Now I need to head up there at night time and have another go ;-)

Oh and yes, I made sure I kept the compass away from the phone ;-)