Christmas Gift Guide 2024
With colder weather on the way and limited daylight, you’ll need to make the most of every opportunity to get outside on those rare, calm winter days. If, like us, you’d prefer to get your Christmas shopping sorted as quickly as possible so you can spend your free time enjoying the great outdoors, we hope this Christmas gift guide featuring our books helps to make your life a little easier. There’s something here for every type of outdoor enthusiast, from weekend adventurers to aspiring high-altitude mountaineers and everyone in between, sure to inspire them towards many more adventures.
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Walking
The Munros
This fully revised fourth edition of the Scottish Mountaineering Club’s original and best-selling guidebook The Munros describes the best walking routes on Scotland’s 282 mountains above 3,000ft. Comprehensive descriptions in this definitive guide recommend ascent and descent routes for each of the Munros and their 226 subsidiary Tops, with maps of the peaks and principal surrounding hills to help you plan the most enjoyable journeys through Scotland’s wild landscape. The descriptions are brought to life throughout with vivid photography that illustrates the dramatic beauty of these much-loved mountains.
The Cairngorms & North-East Scotland
Shortlisted in the guidebook category at the Banff Mountain Book Festival 2024, this new book, written by Iain Young, Anne Butler and Heather Morning, sheds new light on the Cairngorms & North-East Scotland. It’s aimed at those wanting a deeper appreciation of this unique region of Scotland, encouraging enjoyment at a slower pace. It’s an ode to the wonder of these mountains and their surrounding uplands, amongst whose nooks, crannies and sweeping plains newcomers and aficionados alike will find inspiration for journeys of all lengths and a bewitching sense of space and timelessness. The book contains routes for 169 Munros, Corbetts, Grahams & other hills described, maps for almost every route and hill, as well as chapters on long distance walks and passes through the mountains, insights into the flora, fauna, geology, stories, people and history of the area, and sublime photography throughout.
The Grahams & The Donalds
Following on from the Scottish Mountaineering Club’s best-sellers, The Munros and The Corbetts, this revised and expanded guidebook recommends the best journeys on the next principal listings of Scottish hills. Written and compiled by some of the foremost authorities on the Scottish mountains and brought to life with maps and vivid colour photographs, this richly illustrated guide details more than 250 routes, including, where appropriate, logical combinations with neighbouring hills. Whether you’re looking to climb all the summits on Scotland’s principal lists or just want some great days off the beaten tracks, The Grahams & The Donalds is a book no hillwalker should be without.
Scottish Hill Tracks
Scottish Hill Tracks is a unique resource describing 350 routes for walkers, cyclists, riders and runners to explore the paths, old roads and rights of way which criss-cross Scotland’s hill country, from the Borders to Caithness and on the surrounding islands. This rich, sprawling network journeys through farmland and forest, moorland and coastline, bladed ridges and high plateaux, deep glaciated glens and peatlands—and much else besides. This guide is an essential companion for anyone with a keen interest in Scotland’s cultural heritage and for whom wide horizons, wild places and adventure beckon.
Mountain Legends
Harold Raeburn: The Steps of a Giant
Harold Raeburn was one of Scotland’s greatest ever mountaineers, with a legacy of prized lines scattered far and wide across the Highlands. With extracts from Raeburn’s own elegant writings and accounts from his friends and climbing companions, The Steps of a Giant is an intimate portrait of a master craftsman, chronicling his outstanding mountaineering record while digging beneath the surface of his modest reserve to reveal a complex, driven character upon whose shoulders subsequent generations of climbing luminaries stand.
One Man’s Legacy: Tom Patey
One Man’s Legacy chronicles the brief but brilliant life of Dr Tom Patey: bard, musician, and one of Scotland’s foremost climbers and mountaineers. By drawing on Patey’s essays and verses, published collectively in the celebrated One Man’s Mountains, the narrative is imbued with dry wit and gentle satire, and brought to life by unseen images from renowned photographer John Cleare and the Patey family archive. Supported by a foreword from Mick Fowler and first-hand insights from some of the leading climbers of the last century, including Sir Chris Bonington, Joe Brown and Paul Nunn, One Man’s Legacy celebrates a complex, larger-than-life character who rightly deserves his place in mountaineering history. This book was shortlisted for Mountain Literature at the Banff Mountain Book Festival in 2023.
The Fox of Glencoe
The multi-award winning book The Fox of Glencoe chronicles the adventures of the legendary Hamish MacInnes and his achievements in the field of mountaineering. Throughout this rich collection of tales, Hamish’s unorthodox character and pragmatic approach to risk and loss are conveyed with wry, elegant style, offering a glimpse into the mind of one of the greatest mountaineers of our time. A portrait of a life lived to the full, The Fox of Glencoe captures a bygone age of adventure and exploration, and will strike a chord with anyone with a spirit of adventure, and who sees possibilities rather than constraints.
Tears of the Dawn
In Boarman Tasker winning Tears of the Dawn, Jules Lines, Britain’s most accomplished free solo climber, gives a rare and candid glimpse into the mind of one of climbing’s most audacious and determined legends. With eloquence and unexpected humility, Lines recounts triumphs, tribulations, friendships, romances and, perhaps most poignantly of all, his close encounters with death. It is a journey like no other, leaving the reader breathless, on edge, and dreaming of mountain tops and adventure.
Scrambling
Highland Scrambles North
This newly delineated guide describes some of the best scrambles and easy rock climbs in the North-West Highlands of Scotland, the Outer Hebrides and Rum. With 200 routes stretching from Sutherland in the north to Glenfinnan in the south, and from Uist in the west to Caithness in the east, its scope and range offer scrambling options across all levels and rock types. Keen hillwalkers can build their confidence on straightforward itineraries with a bit of exposure, and there’s plenty to whet the appetites of those who already have some experience and want to explore new territory on sustained, technical journeys requiring greater commitment.
Skye Scrambles
The definitive guidebook to scrambling on Skye and therefore an essential guide for any hillwalker wishing to venture into the Cuillin, the magnificent range of gabbro mountains for which the island is famous. The traverse of the main ridge of the Cuillin is fully described and new diagrams have been created to show the crucial sections. Although the majority of the routes are situated in the Cuillin, there are many other fine outings described in the neighbouring Red Hills and the dramatic landscape in the west and north of the island.
Winter
Scottish Winter Climbs West
Covering not only the classic winter climbing venues of Glen Coe and Ben Nevis, but spanning the Southern Uplands all the way to the rugged hinterland of Knoydart and Glen Shiel beyond, Scottish Winter Climbs West is a grand tour of the best winter climbing destinations across western Scotland. With over 1,300 routes and an abundance of new lines covering both familiar and lesser-known crags, its scope and range offers options for climbing across all levels and styles and in almost all conditions.
Scottish Winter Climbs
The only winter guide to cover the whole of Scotland and is an essential item for any winter mountaineer. This indispensable guidebook to winter climbing details over 900 of the finest winter climbs in Scotland, with an emphasis on the popular lower and mid-grade classics.
Summer Rock
Scottish Rock Climbs
Scottish Rock Climbs showcases 1,760 of the very best trad and sport routes across Scotland, covering a wealth of climbing never before presented in a single volume. Its breadth and scope takes in the Galloway hills; the outcrops of the Central and North-West Highlands; the mountain ranges of Arran, the Cairngorms, Glen Coe, Lochaber, Torridon, Assynt and Sutherland; the sea-cliffs of the north-east and north-west coasts, the Hebrides and the Northern Isles; and historical urban test-pieces at Dumbarton. Each route is presented on a diagram and supported by detailed information which has been gathered and compiled by local activists. It’s the book you need to inspire a lifetime’s worth of rock climbing adventures in Scotland.
Lowland Outcrops
From Ayrshire, into the Central Belt and up to the Stirlingshire hills, the Lowland regions of Scotland are within easy travel distance of its two main cities and the majority of its climbing population. Though perhaps lacking the grandeur of the Highlands, the Lowlands make up for this in variety and accessibility with dolerite quarries, adventurous greywacke sea-cliffs and basalt test-pieces. With over 1,900 trad, sport and bouldering routes, from esoteric gems to world-classics, the area holds something for everyone. Compiled and updated by local activists, this new guide presents the best that the Lowlands have to offer. With colour photographic topos throughout, inspiring action shots, detailed maps, public transport and accessibility details, it’s designed for both seasoned climbers and those taking their first steps onto outdoor crags.
The Great Sea Cliffs of Scotland
The Great Sea Cliffs of Scotland is the 2021 Banff Mountain Book Award-winning anthology of outrageous climbing adventures from 26 of the most extraordinary sea cliffs across Scotland. From the farthest-flung sandstone sea stacks of the northern isles to the granite playground of the Aberdeenshire coast, via the intricate archipelago of the Hebrides, all major sea cliffs on the Scottish mainland and surrounding islands are covered in five distinct sections. Each area is described in rich detail and accompanied by personal accounts that offer an intimate perspective of the distinctive nature of this unique environment, and the generous rewards for those willing to accept the challenge of these seemingly improbable lines.
Cover image: Deer in the Cairngorms © Andy Howard