How to join Heading for the Scottish Hills – information for land managers
Published: 2023
Introduction
Heading for the Scottish Hills provides stalking information on Munros, Corbetts, and a small number of other popular hills, across the whole red deer range to help walkers plan hill routes which are unlikely to impact on stalking.
With increasing pressure on deer managers to meet cull targets because of the nature and climate change crises, and in some areas an increase in the number of people accessing the hills, ADMG, NatureScot and the National Access Forum have agreed that Heading for the Scottish Hills will cover both the stag and hind season from 2023.
Information required to join the service is given below, but any queries please contact [email protected]. Your DMG Chair or Secretary may also be able to offer advice.
Required information
Information provided needs to be very concise to keep the tables to a manageable size (if they become too hard to navigate, hillwalkers are less likely to use them). Whilst most information will stay the same we will contact you each year to check whether there are changes such as contact information or web links and to ask for specific dates when you will not be stalking (if applicable) over the coming year.
For hills that are accessed from more than one estate it is up to neighbouring estates to provide their information, which will be presented alongside the information you provide. If they do not provide any information, your information will appear on its own.
The general appearance of the tables is as follows:
|
Carn Dearg |
Glenmore Estate. Stalking between late Sept and 20 Oct and mid Jan to 15 Feb. No stalking on Fridays in September or any Saturdays or Sundays. Also no stalking on 21, 28 September, 3-6 October 2023 and 22-26 January 2024. The routes by the SW ridge from the car park on the A42, and from the west by Coire Buidhe, are always OK. Recorded phone message: 01234 678901. If further information is needed, please phone 01234 567890 (office hours only). |
|---|---|
|
Meall Garbh and Geal Charn |
North of ridge: National Trust for Scotland. No stalking issues. South of ridge: Glenbeg Estate. Stalking between beginning of Aug and 20 Oct and mid Jan to 15 Feb. No stalking on Saturdays or Sundays. If further information is needed, please phone 01234 567890 or e-mail [email protected]. |
Estates where there are no potential visitor management issues between hillwalking and stalking
Please email [email protected] giving the hill name(s) and location. This information will appear in the form “John Muir Trust. No stalking issues”. If the hill is on more than one estate, this message should be preceded by a concise description of the relationship between the hill and your estate boundary (e.g. “North of ridge: Glenmore Estate. No stalking issues”). Additional guidance is provided at the end of this document for estates with complex boundaries.
Estates where there are potential visitor management issues between hillwalking and stalking
Please fill in and return the form (available to download below) to [email protected] noting the additional guidance in the Annex for providing information about hills which are on more than one estate.
Keeping your message up to date
NatureScot will email you every year to check that your information is up to date, but please email [email protected] with any requested alterations as required.
NatureScot and ADMG
June 2023
Annex: Further guidance on describing estate boundaries
Most estates have fairly complex boundaries which can’t be described both accurately and concisely in words. Fortunately, however, an exact description is unlikely to be needed and the aim is simply to provide enough information for hillwalkers to decide which estates their intended route will pass through. Some useful pointers:
- If the entire hill and its approaches are on a single estate, don’t mention the boundary.
- Some rows in the table contain a single hill, while others include multiple summits (usually along a single ridge). The description should be set in this context and it will often be enough to say “south-east of summit” or “north of ridge” rather than repeating Gaelic hill names in full. This may not be possible for larger mountain groups which border onto multiple estates, in which case a more specific wording will be needed: e.g. “North of Meall Garbh-Sgurr Mor ridge”.
- In a few cases, boundaries follow less obvious routes that don’t link to strong features on the ground. In these cases, use as succinct wording as appropriate – e.g. “low ground north of Geal Charn” or “summit area and land to south”. A more complex example is: “Land in Upper Glen More catchment to east of summits and north of Carn Dearg ridge”. A few estate boundaries cross ridges at right angles rather than running along them. In these situations it should be enough to say something like ”land east of summit”.
- If it‘s absolutely necessary to refer to features other than major hills or ridges, be sure to use features that are named on the OS 1:50,000 map.
