Dry weather, Skye Sculptures, Helmets, BDQC and the Adventure Show

Having a few days off with the family and it looks like the timing might be good given the weather forecast. We have however had a great summer so far; it has been particularly dry this year and crags, moors and lochs have all been showing it.

Spotted that the Skye Sculpture Group have started tweeting. These folks have been improving the view of Sgurr Nan Gillean at Sligachan and are raising money for a statue of the iconic Skye mountaineers John Mackenzie and Norman Collie. Good work.

If you haven't seen it this video from the BMC gives an open, balanced and informative view of why they think wearing helmets is a good idea:

Whilst you do hear the argument that studies of skiers show that people may take more risks when wearing a helmet I personally believe that the benefits of modern helmets outweigh any negatives and try to buy one that I don't even  notice I'm wearing. I'm all in favour of assessing whether you need to wear one or not and given the amount of climbing I do in the mountains or at busy crags I probably wear one about 95% of the time.

The Black Diamond QC lab have more good advice on the lifetime of your climbing gear here.

The Adventure Show was back on BBC 2 Scotland last night. Definitely one of the best things on telly these days. Watch it on inlayer here. I especially enjoyed the bit where Cameron McNeish did the via ferratta on the Ponoch. I've done it a few times now and its a great value half day out. Here is a picture of a group I took up it a couple of years back:

And finally... some stunning images here from the Travel photographer of the year competition.