IT is unfortunate that in your report of the hillwalkers rescued in the Cairngorms you describe them as having "conquered" Ben Macdui (“Helicopter lifts lost Cairngorms walkers and their dogs to safety”, The Herald, Octo-ber 23). Anyone with any experience of the hills knows that the hills are neutral: getting up and down again – surviving –is desirable but only possible with good preparation: doing it in good weather with a viewa nd so on is a bonus. The rescued party seem to have lacked preparation, equipment and knowledge so their survival de-pended on others.
Sir Edward Whymper's counsel was to "Do nothing in haste; look well to each step, and from the beginning think what may be the end." He could have added: remember that the hills don't care whether you get up and down or not.
Brian Chrystal,
55 Craiglockhart Road, Edinburgh.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here