Latest News From Mountain Innovations

BBC 'MOUNTAIN'

- the inside the snowhole story!!
If the conversations I have had are anything to go by, no doudt many of you are wandering "did Griff sleep in the Snowhole?" Well the answer is no. I did what little I could to persuade Griff and the crew to spend the night in one, but to no avail. Though, give Griff his due, he had previously spent a night in Suileag Bothy at - 8 deg (1st programe) which is a lot colder than it gets in a snowhole. As we were about to leave, and having experience the snow hole, he did wonder whether we shouldn't stay rather than hiking over a snow covered mountain in the dead of night!! - you can only but try. We did feel that Programme 3 didn't seem to flow as well as the others with all that hopping back to "The Ben". May be a bit of very last minute editing, as we were expecting the snowholing piece to be longer than the brief 6min. Overall though, folks opinion seemed to be that it came over well and the series as a whole was very good. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. There was also a sizeable article in the Radio Times on the Snowholing promoting the start of the series. If any of you miss the series, or part of, it is available on DVD at around £23 The is also a book to go with the series - available at all good retailers as they say.

FRAOCH LODGE DEVELOPMENTS

Our new extension to Fraoch Lodge is now finished, we've moved in and it's all operational! It's a big improvement. The main point of entry is now the rear of the Lodge There is a new purpose built self-catering kitchen, which now contains the tea & coffee making facilites so you can feel you're able to help yourselves any time you want. It is much improved on the old outhouse affair. The new extension is now fully central heated by our new automated wood pellet boiler via underfloor heating downstairs and radiators upstairs. The 2 upstairs bedrooms in the house are now also heated via radiators by the pellet boiler. The whole of the main house is now heated by wood in one way or the other and over time we are planning to heat the other bedrooms from the boiler. All the hot water is provided by burning wood. With many our holidays and all of our courses running from Fraoch Lodge we think we can safely claim to be Scotland's most carbon neuetral walking holiday provider.

INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAIN LEADER

Andrew gained his IML this summer so is now qualified to lead groups around the world. It's a case of watch this space for our new foreign trips. We have earmarked the 3rd week in September for our first trip to Slovenia's beautiful Julian Alps but as yet this is not yet confirmed. We will contact you as soon as we have more information.

WILD KNOYDART

We have completely revamped our Knoydart walking holiday. We have decided to upgrade the standard of the accommodation we use and base our holiday at Inverie. We have shied away from this location in the past due to the distance between the village and some of the summits but we now have permission for vehicle access to some of the hill tracks which will make a big difference. With a change to some of the hills on the itinerary this has meant the walking has become slightly easier i.e. it has now become a grade 2 holiday. It is also a 6 day holiday with one of the days being a complete rest day so you can just chill-out or explore Inverie. That evening we all troop down for a meal in the local pub famed for it's wild food both from the land and the sea. We are looking to book Glaschoille House 

"OUR NEWS"

Our Swiss holiday at the beginning of June was great fun, even if we did have to turn back from one or two proposed hut visits as there was too much snow on the ground. It was nonetheless good preparation for Andy's return trip at the end of August for his IML assessment. We may even run a trip to the Valais in the future.

FORTHCOMING WINTER AVAILABILITY

Winter enquiries and bookings started very early (June) for this forthcoming winter season - perhaps after the summer we had many of you aren't finding it too dificult to imagine winter. There are 4 snowhole trips running with bookings already in for 3 of them, and one fully booked. If you're thinking of joining the TV star (Andy) for one of these trips this year it would pay to be organised and book as soon as you can. The Hogmanay trip has already completely sold out even though we have put on an extra course.

There are also a couple of masseurses in the area who are interested in working with us. If you are interested in this service please let us know and we'll see what we can do about setting it up for you. (Only available for holidays based at Fraoch Lodge.)

Confirmed Spring and summer dates and prices for 2008 have just been posted on the web site. We do already have some advance accommodation bookings, especially in June so have had to timetable some of the trips around these. If you are considering bringing a group up to the Highlands, do think about using Fraoch Lodge as your base. We can also offer to hire out the Lodge in its entirety now we have completed the building work.

THE WEB SITE

The 2007 photo gallery, including some spectacular shots from the Empty Quarter trip, will be complete by the end of October. There'll also be some taster pictures for Switzerland to join the Slovenia images. The new web site for Fraoch Lodge has not progressed much over the summer season as despite the perceived poor summer we have been very busy. Andy has run just as many trips as previous years and there seem to have been more visitors than ever joining us at the Lodge.

PRESS COVERAGE

Andy duly made his star, all be it brief, appearance on the "Mountain" programme with Griff Rhys Jones as mentioned above. Felicity Martin, a Scottish journalist for Outdoor Pursuits, came out with us in July (on part of the Cairngorm 4000ers trip) and is due to publish an article with the magazine shortly. We're also due to have a small piece appear in the Independent on Saturday 13th October as part of a larger article about 50 best winter holidays. Keep an eye out for it either in the paper or on the web. Hope to catch up with you soon.

Regards, Andy & Rebecca