GlenTanar estate will give away a Hilltrek made-to-measure Dee Wading jacket worth £265 to the fisherman who lands the second heaviest salmon on its River Dee beats this season.
The heaviest fish will win a weekend break in one of its luxury cottages.
Interested? See http://www.glentanar.co.uk/salmon_fishing.html
We are not using troubled Glasgow football club to test our jackets but they could use the money…
Glen Tanar Ranger Service provide outdoor education and environmental activities in Glen Tanar, the ideal location to test our Assynt Cotton Analogy Jacket. The estate has internationally important conservation sites – eagles and osprey raise their young here, the elusive capercaillie and Scottish crossbills live among the pines of the old forest.
Mike Martin, one of the rangers, is pictured on the Glen Tanar Rangers blog putting the Assynt Jacket through its paces on a Walking To Health walk.
To learn more about Glen Tanar and the work of the rangers see the Glen Tanar website.
| March 2, 2012 | to | March 5, 2012 |
Come to our Blue Cross Event this weekend.
No this is not an Scottish National Party Rally but is a one off event offering 50% off selected winter stock to make way for spring.
On offer will be winter trousers, down jackets,
snow boots, kids ski clothing, fleeces, warm baselayers etc.
Sorry this is not available on line - you will have to visit us in sunny Aboyne
We recently received a letter from a Gentleman who had been given one of our Glencoe jackets as a gift from his daughter. His use of Ventile has exceeded 50 years, as you can see from his photographs.
The black & white image was taken in 1957 “on the hills above Cannich”, and shows the wearer in a Blacks of Greenock Ventile anorack.
The second image shows the Hilltrek Glencoe being put to use on a “day of driving rain in the hills North of Keswick”. The wearer also reported “not a drop of rain inside”.
Here’s to the continued use of Ventile in the hills.
It was a cold and bright day on the 1st of February when Paul Whitehouse the famous TV comedian opened the salmon fishing on the River Dee at Potarch Bridge.
I was invited to join the opening ceremony and donned my Liathach Cotton Analogy Smock to combat the cold and naturally to show off the garment to anyone who was interested and there were a few.
Many local celebrities attended the ceremony including Ian Murray senior and Ian Murray junior, father and brother respectively of Davie Murray, who tested our Dee wading Jacket.
Young Ian is a man of many ’pairts’ including hillwalker, author, folklorist, fisher, bushcrafter, consultant etc. -see Ian’s website for more. His books are excellent and we hold them all in stock.
I spoke with many local Deeside celebrities during the ceremony including renowned kiltmaker Pam Blackhall, local artist Howard Butterworth, Neil Bain of Braemar Highland Safaries, local councilor Peter Argyle, Andrew and Jenny Cox of the Kinord Hotel, Derek and Jean McCulloch of the Lodge on the Loch. There were many more but there was too little time to get around.
Drams were provided to keep out the cold and food provided by the excellent local Potarch Hotel
Too find more about Paul Whitehouse’s love of fishing the River Dee see the STV video and the River Dee Trust website.
| January 21, 2012 12:00 am | to | January 28, 2012 12:00 am |
Come to our big Winter sale in Aboyne in Royal Deeside starting Friday 2oth and continuing through to Saturday 28th.
The sale will offer great discounts on our retail stock including down jackets, waterproof jackets, fleeces, base layers, walking boots, snow boots etc.
Brands in addition to our own include Rab, Helly Hansen, Odlo, Patagonia, Páramo, AKU, Meindl, Merrell, Hitech etc etc
We also want to clear our stock of Hilltrek one-off Lomond Jackets and Trousers, one-off and test Ventile jackets, trousers and smocks, fleeces etc. So there will be some great buys to be had.
I’m afraid that it is a retail sale only and not offered over our website -you have to visit us in beautiful Aboyne!
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.
We have listened to your feedback and redesigned the hood on the Braemar Ventile Smock.
There has been much buzz on outdoor and bushcraft blogs about the size of the hood on the Braemar Smock which spurred us on to do a little redesign. Some found the hood too small for larger heads and also for wearing climbing or cycling helmets.
The new hood, modelled here by John, is large enough to take a helmet and the volume can be reduced by a volume adjuster for non-helmet usage.
A visor gives additional protection from the weather and the three piece construction allows for ease of head movement.
We hope you like it!
‘If you can’t beat then join em’ step 2 -a second Hilltrek product is now available on Amazon.
Assynt Cotton Analogy Jacket
If you are an Amazon fan you now can buy both the Braemar Ventile Smock and the Assynt Cotton Analogy Jacket alongside an array of Paramo Clothing and other outdoor stuff in the Hilltrek store.
See www.amazon.co.uk and search for Hilltrek.
