John King

Good to make the trip up the road for the Flow Country Conference this week. Lots of interesting presentations, posters & workshops, with the obligatory visit to Forsinard along the way #FlowCountry #PeatTwitter @ERI_UHI

An amazing two day winter skills course with @KingGuiding at the weekend - great to practice and consolidate what we learned and even included a walk up Ben Macdui!

A few highlights from 2023, another year with lots of great days out in the mountains. Cheers to everyone I’ve been in the hills with this year. Happy new year when it comes & all the best for 2024!

Achness, Gairloch & Torridon in some superb winter weather this weekend

Pretty perfect late autumn weather this weekend, 1 day of work, 1 day not, both great. Winter access in Glen Strathfarrar went very smoothly (even if it is a very questionable set-up) & nice to explore some new ground on one of my most visited hills. Ptarmigan all over the place.

A big day yesterday but Knoydart at it’s very best visiting the three #Munros on the peninsula from Barrisdale #Knoydart

@ilona_turnbull @Mountain_Scot @ramblersscot @VisitScotland @walkhighlands @ScotsMagazine @TGOMagazine Nice one 👍 what will be your last one?

Bidein a'Chabair, my penultimate (and very rainy & very windy 7.5 hour somewhat trying) Corbett #Corbetts #Munros #Scotland #walkclimbski #outandaboutscotland @Mountain_Scot @ramblersscot @VisitScotland @walkhighlands @ScotsMagazine @TGOMagazine

Not tweeted in a while but as it's #BogDay I thought I'd mark the occasion & share a few photos from my July fieldwork around some of the #peatland pools of the #FlowCountry. Feel lucky to spend so much of my time in these places & good to introduce the hound to them too #bogdog.

Also Fisherfield! A great first wild camping trip of the year for me leading with Catherine, Amanda & Jude. We got a wee bit of everything weather-wise and just about the view from A'Mhaighdean once again. #Fisherfield #Munros #WesterRoss

There were some good guiding days in the north & northwest in April. Some highlights: 1. Beinn Alligin with Alan 2. Seana Bhraigh from the North 3. Ben Klibreck when winter returned 4. Meallan Liath Coire Mhic Dhughaill with Valerie #Munros #Corbetts #WesterRoss #Sutherland

Stunning conditions for fieldwork to start the week in the #FlowCountry completing 12 months of data collection at this site. Nice to see some fresh buds on the bog myrtle & impressive temps in the shallow pools! Still wasn’t tempted to go for a swim though #blanketbog @ERI_UHI

@Watts_SH @BSBIbotany @ReforestingScot 👍 Nice one, thanks for the id, will register it and interesting to know of the tree on Carn Dearg. I did take this photo of the buds on the day, does this help at all with what it is?

@KingGuiding @BSBIbotany @ReforestingScot Yours may be a willow, but it is still good to see large woody species at these altitudes in NW Scotland, so worth recording and submitting.

Conival & Ben More Assynt in some stunning conditions yesterday with some enjoyable scrambling on the southeast ridges of both hills. Great views from the Cuillin to Clisham to Caithness. #Munros #Assynt

@ilona_turnbull @MunroMoonwalker @anne3366 @mtnsofscotland It’s not as efficient in terms of ticking the Corbetts, but doing the whole ridge of Baosbheinn on its own would be my pick out of those. Such a great hill.

@MunroMoonwalker @anne3366 @mtnsofscotland - Corbett help needed! The forecast on Saturday is fine and I need to climb Ruadh-Stac Beag, Baosbheinn, Beinn an Eoin and Beinn Dearg (next to Alligin) around Torridon way. Which would you recommend for a good day (& scared of Beinn D!)

@Iain_ForestWay 👍 Aye, absolutely, such a great way to do the hill. The rivers were really quite low for us, but could totally see it being an issue at other times. Yeah, the car park is now by the Schoolhouse.

Leading on a bike & hike to Seana Bhraigh from Oykel Bridge yesterday. Surprisingly nice weather for it & great views of the hill, particularly of Creag an Duine. #Munros

Leading on the South Glen Shiel Ridge over the weekend. A great pair of days with a bit of a wintery feel & some pretty good views all the way #Munros #Kintail

A great weekend just past leading a winter skills course for @hillgoers. Snow conditions were lean but there was still plenty to work with to cover the full range of skills for winter hillwalking while enjoying some magic views along the way! #Cairngorms #WinterSkills

@MikePeacock86 👍 cool, that's good to know, I was wondering as I had some frozen pools last month but only frozen for weeks rather than months and hadn't been too sure how to approach that methods-wise.

@KingGuiding We cored through then immediately used a chamber + Picarro to capture the entire pulse of CH4/CO2, plus dissolved GHG measurements. Aim was to see how much CH4 had accumulated after prolonged (5 month) ice cover.

Working up the final data for this small Swedish pond. We now have 1yr of data, including CH4 ebullition, diffusive CH4 and CO2 fluxes, dissolved CH4 and N2O concentrations, extracellular enzymes (thanks to @heff_liam) and water chem. Microbial analyses still to be done.