Welcome to Blairgowrie & District Hill Walking Club Web Site.
Corona Virus Pandemic Update.
Update 24/02/2021. The First Minister provided the Scottish Parliament with an update on COVID-19 and related restrictions on 23/02/2021. Full details can be found here: Coronavirus (COVID-19): Strategic Framework update - February 2021
The key points, relevant to sport and outdoor activity are:
15 March, Sport: Non-contact outdoor group sport permitted for 12 to 17 year olds (this is already permitted for under 12s).
Gatherings: Outdoor meetings of 4 people from 2 households permitted.
5 April, Stay at home: 'Stay at home' requirement removed.
Gatherings: Outdoor meetings of 6 people from 2 households permitted.
26 April, Strategic (Levels) Framework: Return to a tiered level system, which includes regional variation based on data.
Further detail will be published in mid-March.
Sport: The levels system will support the phased re-opening of sport. The detail of what activity will be permitted in each level will be confirmed in mid-March.
It is important to note that the timings are indicative, and we await more specific details directly relating to sport, club activity and outdoor recreation from Scottish Government. Mountaineering Scotland will issue an update for members via email and further updates our website and social media channels this week.
During the current Government restrictions, and following advice from Mountaineering Scotland, the Blairgowrie and District Hillwalking Club will not be organising any Walks, Social Gatherings or Meetings until further notice.
The situation was reviewed by the committee via a Zoom meeting held on December 14th and will stay in place until the current Scottish Government restrictions are relaxed.
The key Scottish Government Guidance appears to be the paragraphs below:
To minimise the risk of spreading the virus, you must stay at home as much as possible. By law, in a level 4 area, you can only leave your home (or garden) for an essential purpose. Examples of reasonable excuses to go out include local outdoor recreation, sport or exercise, walking, cycling, golf, or running that starts and finishes at the same place (which can be up to 5 miles from the boundary of your local authority area). Although you can leave home for these purposes, you should stay as close to home as possible. Travel no further than you need, to reach a safe, non-crowded place to exercise, in a socially distanced way. You can go out into the hills with up to 2 people from 2 separate households and can meet outdoors for sport, exercise or social interaction.- The members of an individual or extended household can meet outdoors for sport, exercise or social interaction.
Mountain Rescue Teams are still responding, but Covid-19 has an impact.
Rescues will take longer than they normally do - PPE is designed for indoor environments, it does not work effectively in the mountains in winter.
Winter callouts are manpower intensive and hard work (lots of heavy breathing)- It is unlikely that they can protect the MR team or the casualty effectively if either a team member or the casualty is already infected.
They do work very very hard to manage risk but COVID is not a risk they can effectively manage on winter rescues, it will be luck whether they and you get infected or not.
What can we do if we are able to still visit the hills?- Be extra safe- Don’t push your limits or the conditions- Take extra emergency clothing and food.
Follow the "Thinkwinter" guidance and spend longer planning: https://www.mountaineering.scot/safety-and.../thinkwinter
What do you do if you need help? Call 999. Ask for Police, then ask for Mountain Rescue. They will respond, but it may take longer than you or they would like.
In the meantime,
we hope everyone continues to stay local and stay safe.
Welcome to our club website. Whether an existing member or a visitor we very much hope that you will find the website to be both interesting and informative.
Please take you time to browse the site, you will learn about the history and ethos of the club as well as our events programme and approach to safety in the hills.
If you are a visitor we do hope that you will consider joining us on one of our Sunday walks and hopefully then join us to enjoy the benefits of full membership.
For Visitors
You are most welcome to come along and we hope that you will enjoy walking with us and perhaps join the Club. You are welcome to come out twice with us as visitors, but we would ask you to join the Club on your third outing. Please browse our walks and feel free to contact the meets secretary if you wish to attend any - details on each walk page.
