The scourge of our beautiful country -the midge -has survived through to November due to the unseasonably warm autumn weather.

Scottish Midge

Normally after September they are killed by ground frost however the tiny blood-sucking insects are still biting, meaning they are still breeding – despite it being well past the end of midge season.

Frosts and snow in the hills in the last few days will hopefully have killed them off because our stocks of midge nets are now very low.

To read more about the dreaded midges late autumn rampage in the Scottish Highlands see the report on the BBC website

Braemar Ventile Smock in the Alps

Interesting how some major outdoor retailers seem to be overcome with hype of new fabrics and forget that fabrics such as Ventile are still being used in mountaineering -because they work.  

I walked into the local outdoor store of a major Scottish headquartered outdoor retailer several weeks ago to find two models prominently positioned in the entrance, one was displaying ‘mountaineering 50 years ago’ and the other ‘mountaineering now’.

Today’s mountaineer was a female dummy clad in a brightly coloured and contoured Goretex jacket and matching trousers  – she looked very attractive -whereas the ‘50 years ago ago mountaineer’ was wearing a frayed Ventile jacket with a hemp climbing rope over his shoulder and well worn triconni nailed boots stuck on his feet.

The young shop manager was rather startled when I suggested that Ventile was very much alive in mountaineering and that a small Scottish company called Hilltrek Outdoor Clothing still made Ventile Technical clothing which was widely used across the world for mountaineering. In fact I told him that I was one of a loyal band of Ventile users.

I didn’t get a reply just a blank look which suggested that this was the first time he had heard the word Ventile. One of his older colleagues had to explain that this was the fabric used in the display dummy and which climbers wore in the olden days.

The founder of this outdoor retail chain was a well known Edinburgh based climber -perhaps his old climbing gear had been dug up in the loft?

I left them to reach their Gortex jacket sales targets and possibly the young manager will do a google search on ventile and mountaineering – or am I hoping for too much?

The founders successors seem to have lost their way.

Our new Liathach Cotton Analogy Smock is on its way to Leeds University Centre of Technical Textiles for Rain Room Testing.

The Liathach will be our top end Cotton Analogy Smock combining an outer of Ventile with a Nikwax Analogy® Pump Liner.

When passed each garment will have a Nikwax Analogy® Waterproof badge as proof of its waterproof capabilities.

The Leeds University Test Centre was set up by Nikwax to test the Páramo brand. The test process is rigourous and consists of:

• Mannequins are clothed in fleece cotton tracksuits and balaclavas.
  These are absorbent but do not wick easily, which aids detection of water movement.
• The Liathach Smock will be placed over the top.
• The clothed mannequin is positioned under the shower tester with one arm pointing forward and the other slightly downward to mimic a walking position. The mannequin revolves six times per minute, for up to four hours.
• Heavy rain is simulated – with a range of drop diameters at an intensity of 28-32mm per hour some 10 times the intensity of normal heavy rain in the UK).

See Leeds University Test Centre for more info.

We have donated a Made To Measure Dee Wading Jacket to help raise funds for a conservation and education program on the River Dee, our local river.

The River Dee rises at 4000ft on the high Cairngorms plateau, the highest river source in the UK, and flows through Caledonian Pine Forests and farm lands to the North Sea at Aberdeen. It is one of the best salmon angling rivers in the UK and has several designated nature conservation sites along its route.

 The River Dee Trust carries out restoration and conservation measures on the River Dee and is raising funds for a  £2.2 million project to deliver an education program, support a tree planting project in the Upper Dee and help fund further easements of man made barriers to fish migration.

The auction ends on 30th November

To bid for the Dee Wading Jacket see lot 42