Thanks to everyone for the helpful advice.
Unfortunately things didn't work out quite as planned, and on the days that I was free to fly, smoke from the dozens of forest fires in the area made visibility so bad that there wasn't a lot of point in taking off....
I managed one abortive bear-tracking flight. We gave up when we couldn't see the 10,000 ft mountain that we knew was 4 miles in front of us.
It's a beautiful area, and I hope to be able to do some flying there next year. By then, there'll probably be no forest left to burn, so the smoke conditions shouldn't be as bad as they are this year! It's pretty unforgiving terrain, though, and very empty by European standards. Just before I went, a British PPL rented a C172 from Springbank, and went flying in the mountains with two passengers. The weather was stormy, and they crashed close to the top of a mountain. The wreckage wasn't found for several weeks.... Very sad indeed.