The missus and I took a long weekend over this past Valentine's weekend and today I gave her the best present possible - a long lie in while I took the dog for a walk. I recently picked up a new 1:25000 map and poring over it I spotted a great big lump of woodland 30 minutes from Inverness - perfect!
I left Inverness a cold drizzly mess so imagine my surprise when I arrived to a crisp winter day in the woods!
This woodland is managed by the Forestry Commission, so it didn't take long to find an FC classic - this stunner of a single tree in an area of previous clearcutting.
A few hundred metres down the track and the pooch was itching to get off the lead for a run around.
Much better!
In her element.
No prizes for guessing whose tracks these are.
A bit further along and there was a fallen tree where this branch was sitting about 5 feet above the ground. Is this a good example of deer stripping bark?
It's hard to see here, but this is actually a natural spring right at the edge of the trail. It was pumping out about 1 litre of clear water a minute easily.
Quite a nice view over some more clearcut fields.
And the requisite FC lone tree.
Despite the snow and ice, this tree obviously reckons the winter's nearly over - trying to push it's buds through the fresh snow fall.
This fresh shoot thinks the winter's done too!
A drop of melt-water hanging between two buds.
As I descended down towards the burn, the woods changed from commercial stocks to smaller, deciduous trees like these birches festooned with lichens.
In the soft ground near the burn there were several tracks like these, all about 1/2 an inch deep, but with indistinct marks in the bottom of the print. Deer perhaps?
I decided to sit and make a hiking pole under the cover of the birches out of the snow to at least count some of this trip toward bushcrafting.
Whilst I made the pole, the pooch took a paddle in the burn. Why she wanted to do this when this small pool 5 metres away was frozen solid is beyond me.
This is still an actively worked forest, with freshly felled logs stacked at the side of the tracks.
With that there are areas that are off limit. Unfortunately, this looks like the best track to get to a rather attractive waterfall so I'll have to trace out an alternative route bypassing this section of the woods when I come back next time.
With the weather setting in, it was definitely time to set off back home.
All in all a cracking day out!
I left Inverness a cold drizzly mess so imagine my surprise when I arrived to a crisp winter day in the woods!
This woodland is managed by the Forestry Commission, so it didn't take long to find an FC classic - this stunner of a single tree in an area of previous clearcutting.
A few hundred metres down the track and the pooch was itching to get off the lead for a run around.
Much better!
In her element.
No prizes for guessing whose tracks these are.
A bit further along and there was a fallen tree where this branch was sitting about 5 feet above the ground. Is this a good example of deer stripping bark?
It's hard to see here, but this is actually a natural spring right at the edge of the trail. It was pumping out about 1 litre of clear water a minute easily.
Quite a nice view over some more clearcut fields.
And the requisite FC lone tree.
Despite the snow and ice, this tree obviously reckons the winter's nearly over - trying to push it's buds through the fresh snow fall.
This fresh shoot thinks the winter's done too!
A drop of melt-water hanging between two buds.
As I descended down towards the burn, the woods changed from commercial stocks to smaller, deciduous trees like these birches festooned with lichens.
In the soft ground near the burn there were several tracks like these, all about 1/2 an inch deep, but with indistinct marks in the bottom of the print. Deer perhaps?
I decided to sit and make a hiking pole under the cover of the birches out of the snow to at least count some of this trip toward bushcrafting.
Whilst I made the pole, the pooch took a paddle in the burn. Why she wanted to do this when this small pool 5 metres away was frozen solid is beyond me.
This is still an actively worked forest, with freshly felled logs stacked at the side of the tracks.
With that there are areas that are off limit. Unfortunately, this looks like the best track to get to a rather attractive waterfall so I'll have to trace out an alternative route bypassing this section of the woods when I come back next time.
With the weather setting in, it was definitely time to set off back home.
All in all a cracking day out!
Blasts the cobwebs clear, doesn't it ? 
