Who we are
OutdoorSCOT is a small operation. One editor, one voice, one set of opinions about what's worth doing in the Scottish hills.
Gary Innes
Founder and Editor
I've been walking the Scottish hills for over twenty years, starting with family trips to Glen Coe as a teenager and eventually working through all 282 Munros. I've bagged most of the Corbetts, a good proportion of the Grahams, and spent more nights than I can count in bothies from Knoydart to the Borders.
My background is in software development, which is why OutdoorSCOT exists as a proper web application rather than a WordPress blog. The technical infrastructure — 1,449 hill pages, interactive tools, real-time weather data — I built and maintain myself. The editorial content is written entirely from personal experience and primary sources, not scraped or generated.
I live in the Highlands. My regular hills are in the Cairngorms, Torridon and Knoydart. I ride mountain bikes badly and sea kayak worse. I have strong opinions about bothy etiquette, the correct way to ford a river, and why the NC500 has been bad for the single-track road network in the northwest.
I started OutdoorSCOT because the planning information I wanted — where to park, what the road is like, which bothy is worth the walk-in, what the mobile signal is at the start of the route — didn't exist in one place. That's what I'm building.
Contributors
Specialist sections are reviewed by people with direct experience in those areas. All contributors are identified on the pages they write or review. OutdoorSCOT does not publish anonymous content.
If you have specific expertise (sea kayaking, gravel cycling, ski touring, climbing) and want to contribute, get in touch at hello@outdoorscot.co.uk.
Data sources
Programmatic data on OutdoorSCOT comes from established, authoritative sources:
- Hill classifications and heights — Database of British and Irish Hills (DoBIH), maintained by the Hill Bagging community and cross-referenced against OS data.
- Bothy information — Mountain Bothies Association. Walk-in distances and condition ratings verified by site visits where possible.
- Mapping and grid references — Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 and 1:50,000.
- Weather forecasts — Mountain Weather Information Service (MWIS) and Open-Meteo API.
- Avalanche forecasts — Scottish Avalanche Information Service (SAIS).
- Water quality (wild swimming) — Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).
- Access rights and land management — NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scotland, and the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.