Highland Wildcat Trails Golspie

13/09/2026

13/09/2026

WHAT A FANTASTIC RESPONSE!!

In about 48 hrs of posting about our Crowdfunding appeal for the flyover replacement and additional tasks, you have donated over £1,400!!

That's far exceeded what we thought was our ambitious target of £1,000.

A heartfelt thanks to all of you - not only does this really help us with the funding, but it gives us a real boost, knowing that there are so many folk out there who appreciate and love these trails as much as we do. You may not live close enough to help with maintenance tasks, but you care enough to give so generously, £500 in one case - a HUGE thank you (you know who you are down there in England! 😍)

Have I gushed too much 😊 - but seriously, this is just brilliant! 🤗

11/09/2026

GREAT NEWS!.... AND A CROWDFUNDING APPEAL

As many of you will have noticed, our iconic wooden flyover urgently needs to be replaced. We have been working over the summer to obtain quotes and funding for this and are very pleased to announce that KILBRAUR Windfarm Community Fund have pledged £15,800 to replace the flyover with an identical structure using new larch. We need to secure the remaining 20% - £4,000 before works can begin. All the materials will have to be helicoptered into the site - this is included in the full project cost of £19,800.

As the quotes were written about 6 months ago there are things that got missed off the funding proposal (we are not professional project managers, I'm afraid!).
One of these is the making of a temporary bypass route for walkers and mountain bikers to keep all safe during the projected 4 weeks of the construction - we are awaiting a quote for this.

The other is the purchase of a secure metal box to locate up in the woods in which to stash heavy tools overnight during maintenance weekends to save lugging them up and down the hill every day which is quite exhausting after a full day's working! Having the helicopter for the flyover project is too good an opportunity to purchase such a box and get it flown up there.

SO WE ARE CROWDFUNDING to fill the gap in our income when the parking machine was broken for the whole of June to help us fund the above. If we can raise £1,000, we will be able fill the funding gap without digging too much into our reserves. It's quite ambitious for a small organisation like HWC, but you have to admit it, these trails are pretty unique in the N Highlands so must be worth it - we certainly think so!

We have a paypal account for donations - there is a QR code at the carpark or you can follow this link:

https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/LRFY5F9PZCFUJ

We are all volunteers and every bit of support, be it financial or comments and shares on our FB posts, gives us the enthusiasm to work to keep these trails open and safe for everyone to enjoy.

MANY THANKS from the Wildcat crew and all who ride the trails!!

14/08/2026

Help needed!! to complete the strimming and blowing of the trails after a big impromptu effort last weekend didn't manage to finish the job.

We brush cut and blew most of the bracken etc from all of VTOL and Duke's Hazard (and it was a definite Hazard - hazard to navigation as well as riding as you can see from the photos!) and blew all of Running the Gauntlet in the trees below the flyover.

We ran out of time and fuel to attack the bracken on the lower parts of Lactic Ladder (as someone on Trail Forks kindly reminded us!) so that's a priority for the 23rd. Also cutting or pushing back the old bracken from edges of the blue climbs before it topples over onto the trail. We might even get some mtb 'archaeological digs' done on the overgrown slabs of Duke's and Gauntlet - it's amazing what a bit of work reveals under the mats of vegetation and dirt to bring the trails back to their full width glory!

Let us know if you can make it for 0930 at Rhives carpark by replying here. (Please wear suitable clothes and footwear for the weather and the work described above and bring your own water, food etc. Work gloves would also help if you have them as some of ours seem to have been off on their holidays!)

Many thanks!!!

21/07/2026

Minor Crisis!!

Our parking ticket machine has broken again and it may not be cost effective to get it mended. So we have set up a QR code system for carparking and also for donations - the QR codes will be going up in the carpark over the weekend so it would be much appreciated if you could use them and let us know what your experience of using them has been like.

As with any QR codes, do not use them if a sticker has been put over the top..... please let us know ASAP if you think that they have been tampered with in any way by emailing [email protected] or by posting here.

If you have used the carpark during June and July when the machine was out of order, it would be much appreciated if you could make a donation to Highland Wildcat via this link:

https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/LRFY5F9PZCFUJ

Until the QR codes are up and/or the machine is fixed, we are receiving no income and could be up to £1,000 down as these are some of our busiest months....any donations will help to fill that big hole in our piggy bank and will help to keep us going (and help to pay for any repairs to the machine...).

If you haven't ridden at Golspie for a while and are feeling generous, a donation is always welcome!

As always your support is very much appreciated! We are all volunteers and want to see the trails continuing to be appreciated by all. Thankyou!

https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/LRFY5F9PZCFUJ

22/05/2026

RECRUITING!! (Sort of!)
Two years ago, a group of five of us took over as directors of Highland Wildcat Trails here at Golspie, each if us taking responsibility for an aspect of management (accounts, admin, trail maintenance, H&S, fundraising, IT etc)....all on a voluntary basis.

We are now down to three, and have lost our member with responsibility for trail maintenance (although a small group of lovely volunteers have offered to take on H&S and trail inspections between them)

Consequently, we are struggling to organise basic maintenance work days such as spring bracken strimming and blowing the trails clear of debris.

Our insurance requires the person in charge of a work day to be a voluntary director. However, we have funding in place to run a DMBinS DIRTT course in November....I will be putting a case to the insurance company that anyone who has attended this recognised course should be covered to run work days, director or not.

So if anyone out there wants the trails to continue, has some time to spare, is practically minded, and especially if they can join our team as a director, please get in touch....we need you!!

21/05/2026

Very sorry about this but we are having problems with issuing trail/car park passes at the moment...best not to try to buy one until we get it sorted.

15/05/2026

SLAM DUNC is now officially open!!
This black graded trail was hand dug by our
predecessor at HWC, George Duncan and was used for
the junior Highland Hardline events at Golspie until a
few years ago.

However, it was only formally included into our lease
from Sutherland Estates when George stood down 2
years ago. When we realised that our insurance
needed to cover it and it needed to be upgraded to
conform with modern standards, we had to close it until
we could arrange for an inspection and get the
upgrading works done by a combination of employing
Ronan Taylor (a local trail building contractor) which we
paid for from income from the carparking machine
(that's where your £5s go!!) and volunteer dig-days
amounting to 83 woman and man hours of work.

The start can be accessed via the blue climbs from the
car park up to the stone circle or by taking the forest
vehicle tracks from behind Rhives farm. Either way,
beware of other trail and track users and be
considerate to walkers on the shared climbs and to
farm and estate vehicles. It's on our new trail map and
on Trailforks

So pay us a visit and try it out!!

03/05/2026

Ben Bhraggie 24 hour hill race next weekend ⛰️
Car park will be busy due to this

02/05/2026

Some of you may have noticed some subtle improvements at Highland Wildcat over the last year or so.

One of the first things we did when we took over the management was to clear the carpark of a load of potentially dangerous rubbish that had been fly tipped, re-surface the carpark and add some picnic benches to improve the safety and enjoyment of locals and visitors to the trails.

The second priority was to improve the signage and add safety information to conform to best practice and have a new trail map produced to replace the 20 year old original one. Where possible, we have kept the signage to A5 size so it doesn't dominate the landscape but they should make navigating around a bit easier for those who are unfamiliar with the trails.

We could not have made theses improvements without the generous funding from the Kilbraur Windfarm Community fund - we are extremely grateful to them and very lucky to be within the funding area of an organisation which is so supportive of ventures such as HWC,

The most recent project is a new secure storage facility to replace the old wooden shed which the Estate had loaned to us over the last 18 years or so. This was situated at the other end of the village which didn't help work days to run smoothly and was so rotten that we feared that the next storm my blow it over! The new store is conveniently situated and has already made working on the trails easier, more efficient and less frustrating. Both Kilbraur and the Gordonbush/SSE Windfarm Community funds contributed to this and again, we are very grateful for their support. And, as ever, many thanks to the Sutherland Estate, from whom we lease the trails.

A huge thanks to all involved in keeping the trails at Golspie open and safe for all to enjoy and an very special thanks to Kilbraur and Gordonbush for allowing it happen!