Wednesday 30 September 2020
Book Review: Wanderlust Europe by Alex Roddie
Tuesday 29 September 2020
The Great Outdoors October Issue
Scrambles, dogs, Cairngorms, paddlepacking, Mercantour Traverse, waterproofs and more. There's lots of good stuff in the October issue of The Great Outdoors.
My contribution is a review of eleven waterproof jackets.
The scrambles are Ledge Route on Ben Nevis, the Cwm Uchaf Horseshoe on Snowdon, and Howling Ridge on Carrauntoohil, and there's advice on tackling them from mountaineering and climbing instructor Rebecca Coles.
Alex Roddie also encounters some scrambling high in the Alps on the Mercantour Traverse. His account of this long-distance walk is thought-provoking and his photos are mouth-watering.
A very different long-distance walk is undertaken by Stefan Durkacz in the Cairngorms - a four day circular route from Tomintoul through wild country but without ascending any summits.
Dogs are the subject of a feature by Helen Mort who looks at how canine companions can become an important part of mountain days.
In an unusual feature Anna Richards describes a combination of activities I'd have said was very unlikely - paddleboarding and wild camping.
Also in this issue there's a splendid opening spread of An Teallach at dawn by James Roddie; Josephine Hall's winning entry in a writing competition run jointly by The Great Outdoors and Black Girls Hike UK; an interview with Nick Hayes, author of The Book of Trespass, about the propsed new law to criminalise trespass; Roger Smith on the need for environmental education to be at the heart of our culture; TGO Challenge coordinators Sue Oxley and Aki Ogden on the future of the event; and Jim Perrin on Irish summit Galtymore.
Monday 28 September 2020
Face Masks: Reusable not disposable! Please!
Keen face mask for protection against hail on the Cairngorm Plateau |
We are all wearing face masks now. Or at least those of us who can should be wearing them. This means there millions and millions of face masks around. And many of them are disposable, which is becoming a big problem. "Disposable masks contain plastics which pollute water and can harm wildlife who eat them or become tangled in them." (BBC report). Too many litter roadsides, car parks, and other places. I've seen the blue scraps in the Coire Cas car park in the Cairngorms. I've not seen any in the hills yet but others have reported doing so.
Disposable masks are cheap. That's their one and only advantage over reusable ones. However washable reusable ones are far better environmentally and although disposable ones may be initially more expensive repeated use reduces the long term cost difference.
Tilley face mask |
Some outdoor companues have started making face masks. In recent months I've been trying washable reusable cloth ones from Keen Footwear and Tilley. Both companies are making the masks from factory offcuts that would otherwide be discarded as waste.
Keen masks are made from two layers of cotton canvas and have adjustable ear loops. They come in two sizes and seven colours and a pack of two costs £10.
Tilley masks are available in two layers of cotton or a hemp/organic cotton mix at costs of £20 and £25 for packs of two. They have a slit for inserting a filter and come in a variety of colours and patterns, including camouflage! I've been using the double cotton mask.
Both masks are soft and comfortable and easily washed. In cold weather they're good for keeping your face warm. I wore one on the Cairngorm Plateau for protection against wind driven hail and it worked well for this. I'll be carrying one in the pack throughout the winter now.
Sunday 27 September 2020
Thrunotes - a waterproof notebook for thru-hikers
Back in March I did a video interview with Russell Hepton, aka The Trail Hunter, just before he set off to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, and, of course, just before the Covid-19 pandemic started to really affect our lives. With trail towns locking down and the PCT Association advising hikers to get off the trail Russ made the very difficult but sensible decision to abandon his hike and return to Britain.
Using the savings left over from his PCT hike he set about designing a notebook specifically for thru-hiking as he couldn't find one he liked, saying that all those he tried were "too wide, too tall, too heavy and would fall apart after a few days". His aim was a notebook that was "strong, lightweight, waterproof and environmentally-responsible". The result is called Thrunotes.
Thrunotes is small - 13 x 9 cms - and light - 27 grams. It has 32 pages, of which 25 are for recording your walk. The remainder are for emergency information, contacts, trail angels, trail family details, and resupply points. The notebook is made from a recyclable waterproof tear-resistant synthetic material called YUPOblue and printed in England by Ashley House Printing Company, which has excellent environmental credentials. Clearly a great deal of careful thought and design has one into this product.
Thrunotes is designed so you can put the day number and mileage in the corners and then quickly flip through to find entries. There are circles you can use to highlight other information too.
I developed an index system for my walk notebooks many years ago but it's never involved a flip-through method like this, which I can see being very useful. As all the waterproof notebooks I've seen before have tear-out pages, which I don't want in a notebook that's intended as a permanent record, I've mostly used notebooks with waterproof covers but ordinary paper pages. Thrunotes is the first notebook I've seen with sewn-in pages.
If you only keep brief notes one Thrunotes might last 25 days. I'll probably fill three or four pages or more per day. Looking through my notebooks, which are bigger than Thrunotes, one 90 page book covers around 50 days. I'd probably need four Thrunotes for that long. They would weigh 108 grams. My 90 page notebook weighs 130 grams.
I think Thrunotes is excellent. I like the idea of a tough waterproof notebook I don't have to look after carefully. I'll be using it on my next long walk. What about day walks and short backpacking trips though? A similar notebook for those is promised soon.
Thrunotes cost £7.99 and can be bought from the Thrunotes website, which has masses of information including some interesting little videos.
Friday 25 September 2020
A Wintry Day In The Cairngorms
A week ago I wandered over the Cairngorm Plateau. The day was warm and I described the Plateau as 'benign, friendly, and welcoming' and wrote 'hard
to imagine the blizzards raging here but they will be soon'. (See this post). A week later and all has changed. The wind raged, clouds swirled, hail and snow fell. Gloves, hat, hood, waterproofs. No wishing I'd worn shorts on this walk! This felt like the start of winter.
Tuesday 22 September 2020
Book Review: Walking The Great North Line by Robert Twigger
Any book that jumps around between Stonehenge, Jack Kerouac, Wittgenstein, Pacerpoles, Edward Abbey, stealth camping, T.S.Eliot, Buffalo clothing and a myriad other subjects suggests an author with a lively, intellectually curious, and eclectic mind and that certainly applies to Robert Twigger. His book about walking from Stonehenge (actually Christchurch but then the first line does say “I didn’t start at the beginning”) to Lindisfarne along a straight line linking a series of ancient sites is one of the more unusual walking books I’ve read.
The book’s subtitle includes a reason for the walk: to Discover the Mysteries of Our Ancient Past. Does the author succeed? I have no idea! And I’m not sure Robert Twigger does either. But he does have a good walk with many entertaining companions, encounters and experiences.
Describing himself as a natural nomad the author is happy to trespass where he can without getting thrown off and camps in woods and other hidden spots, sometimes lighting a fire to sit round. Much of his walk is in what’s generally regarded as rural English farmland, yet he manages to find many wild places - though he does also walk through Birmingham.
I found accompanying the author on his walk interesting and enjoyable. Never being sure where his magpie mind would jump to next was always intriguing. This is a curious but worthwhile addition to the literature of walking. Recommended!
Friday 18 September 2020
On the Cairngorm Plateau
There are many summits on the Cairngorm Plateau, most notably Cairn Gorm itself and Ben Macdui. These summits are high points but not really separate mountains. They may look like it from below but once you are up on the Plateau they are just bumps in the vastness. The mountain is the Plateau. It can be enjoyed, explored and revelled in without visiting any named tops. It is a world in itself. Up here on this huge mountain there are rivers, lochs, glens, corries, grasslands, rocks and more.
I felt this strongly a few days ago as I wandered the Plateau in sunshine and stillness. I had no clear destination, no summit to reach. Or rather the Plateau was the destination. I went late when I knew it would be quiet and the light warm and golden. I thought it would be cooler too but climbing to the Plateau the heat slowed me down. I met many people descending. One stopped for a chat. “My legs are gone” she said. She’d been down to Loch Avon then up Beinn Mheadhoin and was returning the same way. “A nine-hour day”. There’d been climbers on the cliffs in the Loch Avon basin, but they said the rocks were too wet.
Once I reached the Plateau I was alone and saw no-one else the rest of the day. The heat spoke of high summer, but the fading and reddening grasses spoke of autumn. I looked down on Loch Avon and across at the great cliffs of the Shelter Stone Crag and Carn Etchachan, monumental glacier-carved rock architecture. A distant red spot was a tent not far from the top of the latter. I wondered if this belonged to the climbers I’d heard about. A superb camp site anyway.
On Hell’s Lum layers of wet overhanging slabs glistened. I ventured as close as I dared to the edge of the narrow gully that splits the cliff and gives its name. Far out beyond the dark slit the silvery waters of the Feith Buidhe crashed down gentler slabs.
In the shallow valley above the tumble down to Loch Avon the Feith Buidhe was a shining thread stretching out to Lochan Buidhe. Beyond the waters rose Cairn Toul and Sgor an Lochain Uaine, the eastern edge of another great plateau on the far side of the hidden Lairig Ghru pass.
Clouds drifted by high above, one brushing the top of Cairn Gorm, another making a half-hearted attempt to become a thunderhead. The air was warm. In these conditions the Plateau is benign, friendly and welcoming. Hard to imagine the blizzards raging here but they will be soon.
On the slopes of Cairn Lochan the low sun lit up thin grasses, the seed heads nodding in the gentle breeze. Such delicate plants. Yet they survive up here, survive in the gales and rain, the snows of winter, the frosts and ice. Delicate and tough at the same time. Easily crushed. Storm resistant.
I left the Plateau as the sun approached the horizon. The hills glowed gold. Out towards the sunset they became outlines, layers of dark silhouettes. I reached the car just as the first stars appeared. I’d reached no summits, climbed nothing I could tick off in a book, but I’d had a grand mountain day.
Tuesday 15 September 2020
What I've Been Reading Online No. 24
Friday 11 September 2020
A Stormy Trip to Glen Feshie and Mullach Clach a'Bhlair
With a forecast for stormy weather and plenty of work to do at home I hadn’t planned on anything but a few short local walks this week. Then I heard from Carey Davies, editor of The Great Outdoors. He was coming up to the Cairngorms for a few days’ hillwalking and camping. Yes, I said, I could come along, especially as it was to Glen Feshie, a place I’m always happy to visit whatever the weather.
Soon after night fell heavy rain started and hammered down for several hours. At first, I couldn’t sleep in the hot, stuffy tent. Then the rain eased off and the temperature began to fall, a great relief. I woke at dawn to a cloudy sky and enough of a breeze to deter the midges. It was still warm. The overnight low was only 9°C and even though there was no sun the thermometer soon rose to 15°C.
Overhead the clouds raced past, rising and falling over the hills. There was a light shower and more rain seemed likely. However there were bursts of sunshine too, brightening the landscape. Above the glen rose the steep bulky eastern slopes of Mullach Clach a’Bhlair, the first Munro I’d climbed on my first camping trip after the Covid 19 lockdown was eased back in July. It had been stormy on top then. Perhaps today there’d be a view, if we could stand up in the wind.
After another bout of rain the skies started to clear as we walked up the track to the Moine Mhor. A walker descending said ‘looks like you’ll be there at the right time’. We paused to look into the depths of Coire Garbhlach, the only distinctive and rugged corrie on this side of the Cairngorms.
The blue sky and touches of sunshine didn’t last long. We reached Mullach Clach a’Bhlair in driving rain and a very strong cold wind. There’s no shelter on the summit, just a small cairn, and there were no views. We didn’t linger but were soon heading down the Druim nam Bo ridge. An estate worker in an ATV stopped and told us he was counting deer and had seen many in the corries to the south. We’d seen none, no wildlife at all in fact. Later though we twice had sightings of golden eagles high in the sky hanging in the wind along the edge of the glen. A raven hassled one of them but failed to drive it away. Eagles! Always exciting.
As we descended the visibility began to improve though the rain and wind didn’t lessen. This was more than a shower. Dark hillsides appeared under the clouds tearing across the sky. Waves raced across little Lochan nam Bo. A hollow provided shelter from the wind so we could finally stop and have a snack and a drink. As so often I was surprised at how dropping a few feet below a bank suddenly cut the wind. Sitting there in the heather it was hard to believe how powerful the wind was just above.
The rain only stopped as we reached the first trees. It was much warmer down here too and we were soon stripping off layers of clothing. On the floor of the glen there was no wind at all and back at camp the midges were biting. I packed up and set off down the glen, leaving Carey to spend another night in the forest. There were two more showers before I reached the car, and two more bursts of warm sunshine. I’d lost track of how many times my waterproofs had been on and off. My shoes and socks were soaked and the pleasure of donning dry ones at the car was unreasonably satisfying.
Despite the changeable weather, or maybe in part because of it, I’d enjoyed the trip. Having a companion, for the first time since early March, had been a key factor too. I wouldn’t have been there otherwise and if I had been here alone I certainly wouldn’t have gone up Mullach Clach a’Bhlair in that weather. Carey had never been to Glen Feshie before either and I always love introducing people to this special place.