On a beautiful frosty Sunday I met one of our customers Dr Gordon Watt of Alford in the Keiloch Car park at Invercauld near Braemar wearing an earlier version of our Glencoe Double Ventile Jacket.

He estimated that the jacket, which was in pristine condition, was at least 20 years old.  

Although now in his 80′s Dr Watt has been an expert telemark skier, cross country skier and hillwalker.  The Glencoe Jacket, which he used both for walking and telemark skiing, has had minor refurbishment once in 20 years and had a modified moleskin collar.

Dr Watt obviously cares for his gear as he showed us an early Mountain Equipment Duvet jacket, at least as old as the Glencoe Jacket, which had little loss of down feathers. He also bought one of the early Páramo smocks from Hilltrek.

According do his daughter Dr Watt is a bit of a outdoor jacket and gear fan. He was using a Garmin GPS to navigate along the path to Alltdourie.

A man after my own heart!

Bill Brooker, one of Aberdeen’s most prominent climbers,  died late last year at the age of 79.

Along with Tom Patey, he was one of a small group of climbers from Aberdeen who pioneered new climbing routes  in the Cairngorms in the 1950s and challenged the dominance of climbers from Glasgow in the Scottish climbing scene.

As well a leading mountaineer, Bill was also prominent in Aberdeen and Scottish mountaineering clubs and organisations.  He was president, and later honorary president, of the Scottish Mountaineering Club. Bill was also involved in the North East Mountain Trust and the Mountaineering Council of Scotland.

He was one of our customers and, although we did not see him in recent years due to his illness, his wife Margaret and daughter occasionally visited our shop in Aboyne.

If you want to find out more about Bill there is much material on-line as well as written material.

One of the best on-line articles is  First and Last Climbs by Dave Craig  in the fine Footless Crow Blog.

Adam Watson’s excellent book  ’It’s a fine day for the hill’ recently published describes the Aberdeen climbing scene in the 1950s and has many references to Bill. 

His prominence in the Scottish Climbing is highlighted in the BBC  website in a background article to the The Great Climb.

There are also references to Bill’s in Scottish Mountaineering Club website and the Aberdeen University Lairig Club   on wikipedia.

You can also read an obiturary in the Scotsman

Bill’s exploits will be remembered by many.

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.

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

Mike in Braemar Ventile Smock

Customer Mike Wilkins recently sent us a photograph  of a recent trip in the Franch Alps wearing a Braemar Smock. He writes:

‘I enclose a picture from this years Alpine trip to Chamonix with one of your single olive ventile smocks on the summit of the Tete Blanche 3429m above Les Tours in Chamonix. It was a bitter wind of -10 with wind chill and with just a base layer and thin microfleece I was toasty under the smock’

We rested at a mountain lodge at 3400m for a few hours of sleep, during which time the Braemardried out completely.　

I ordered a Braemar windshirt from your company in early August (Order Number: MA085110001170) , as a component of my gear for a planned climb up Japan’s highest mountain, Mt.Fuji. (August 26th) Initially I was told there would be a delay due to stock shortages, but after informing you that my order was urgent, delivery time was reduced and the Braemar arrived in good time. 

At around 2:30am we continued on to the summit in still damp weather.　 We reached the summit (3700m) just in time for a lovely sunrise (5:10am) and triumph.　 Descent of the mountain was slow and steady, and we were greeted at the lower levels by a continuous downpour which really tested the smock. Again no problems, just some stiffening of the fabric but no leakage or noticeable wetness inside the smock.

Wherever the next hike/climb will be, the Braemar’s the first thing in (and out of!) my rucksack!

All in all I was extremely impressed with the performance of your product, which proved it’s worth from start to finish and now I have my sights set on a more ‘bespoke’ version made just for me!

 Musaab Aljanabi

Mt Fuji Crater

All the best

Musaab on Mt Fuji

So, many thanks for responding to my needs – I really appreciate it.　 Nowadays I find such communication between retailer and customer to be quite rare and it’s frustrating!

I was also invited to share my photos of the climb, so here’s a brief (and I hope not too boring) account of the climb and smock performance notes, plus photos attached.

We started the climb in earnest at about 2,300m (7550ft) to fair weather.　 After about an hour or so however, things changed and the tone was set for the rest of the climb (in total abut 12 hours) with fine misty rain and light wind.　 Conditions persisted, with rain getting heavier the higher we went, with only occasional breaks and gaps in the cloud. 　 Throughout this time, the Braemar smock dealt with the situation perfectly.　 Rain beaded and rolled off the fabric all over, apart from the hood, which stiffened (the famous ventile ‘cardboard’ effect) but remained effective.

Another point to note, and a key reason for my choosing ventile, was temperature regulation.　 Due to the fact that the climb was in summer, temperatures were wide ranging (from 20 to 4 degrees c, low to highest elevation) and as a result many people – especially those wearing more ‘modern’ garments – were sweating profusely in the early stages, so were just as wet inside as out.　 Not me however, the breathability of the fabric was great and I had no trouble maintaining a comfortable body temperature (btw, inner and mid layers were merino wool – merino long sleeve undershirt and Ullfrotte gilet).

View from Mt Fuji

John Green of Hilltrek is seen on the left is relaxing with Robbie MacIntosh of Anatom at the Scottish Game Fair at Scone in glorious sunny weather

We had a very sucessful Scottish Gamefair last weekend where we introduced our products and services to many new customers.

There was much interest in our Dee Wading Jacket and in our made to measure service.

Field Sports users are very familiar with Goretex but not with the atttributes and benefits of Páramo, Nikwax Analogy and Cotton Analogy.

Sometimes we felt like missionaries rather than an outdoor clothing business!

We also had Superfeet, Anatom Boots and Teko Socks on the stand from Anatom.

Are our products taking off at the Game Fair?