Dolomites, Skis, Snow & Polartec Neoshell

Three evenings, two days and most of a morning in the Passo San Pellegrino ski resort in the Dolomites were sandwiched between days spent on trains, coaches and planes, which made for a somewhat hectic and slightly unreal experience with too little sleep and a surfeit of good conversation, rich food and snow. In the midst of this came the launch of Polartec's first waterproof fabric, Neoshell, garments made from which I and others tried out on the ski slopes and, in my case, for a steep wander up untracked snow in the forest on snowshoes. A full report on Neoshell - what it is, what it's supposed to do, what I think - will appear in the June issue of TGO. Suffice to say for now that after trying two jackets and a pair of trousers in different weights of Neoshell I am tentatively quite impressed.

This part of the Dolomites - an area I had never visited before - is a vast web of interlinked ski resorts boasting 1200 kilometres of pistes. Above the tangle of lifts and runs rise the big limestone rock peaks, dramatic mountains inviting closer involvement though there was no time on this trip for more than standing and staring. A day's piste skiing was enough for me. After that I felt a great desire to escape the confines of lifts, snow fences, manicured snow and equipment that would only let me go in one direction - down. Borrowing some snow shoes (FTX - an Italian make that someone should import into the UK as they were excellent) I escaped for a few hours and broke my own trail through deep, heavy snow in quiet conifer forest to the base of some little crags covered with thick curls of snow. The climbing was sweaty and arduous and going back down not much easier. Movement was slow and I didn't make much distance. Yet it was still far more satisfying than sliding fast down a piste. (And a better test for the breathable qualities of Neoshell).

In Praise of Trains

A few days ago I was sitting on the train watching the autumn colours of the Strathspey woods slide past the windows and feeling relaxed with a day of views, reading, talking and buffet cars ahead of me. As the woods gave way to moorland and misty hills and the train began the climb up to the Drumochter Pass I thought how much I relish train travel, how enjoyable it feels compared with the stress of journeys by car, whether as driver or passenger. There is a freedom in train travel that just isn’t there when confined to a tiny metal box hurtling along in a mass of other harassed tin cans. Train travel is civilised, in fact. Train travel does not require attention to be given to the mechanics of travel or the behaviour of those controlling other vehicles. On trains you can think, contemplate, imagine, learn. After a car journey of a couple of hours or more I need some time to recover and adapt. After a train journey I am ready for whatever comes next. And that’s despite the appallingly mismanaged mess that is the British railway system; though it barely deserves the last word, being a hotchpotch of inefficient competing and interlinked companies that resulted from the botched privatisation of the last Tory government. British Rail was far better than the current shambles even though it was in decline due to years of under investment by uninterested governments. A return to a single nationalised company is the only way to have an efficient railway run as a public service rather than to make money but I can’t see any of today’s unimaginative, managerial, blinkered politicians even contemplating this. There is a Facebook Bring Back British Rail campaign, which I welcome though I can’t see it achieving its aim any time soon.

Train journeys feel part of my backpacking and hiking in a way that cars don’t, even though I travel by car more often these days, at least in the Scottish Highlands. Once, though, all my walks started with a train journey – to Windermere for the Lake District, the North Wales coast for Snowdonia, Edale for the Dark Peak and north into the Highlands for the Cairngorms, Torridon, Knoydart, Arrochar and more. Using trains there’s no need to return to a start point so they are ideal for through routes. There’s time to watch the landscape and the wilds too. Looking at the beautiful woods alongside Loch Lomond and then sweeping across the open lochan-dotted expanse of Rannoch Moor en route to Fort William and Ben Nevis. And on from the Fort beside the golden sands of Arisaig and Morar to Mallaig and the ferry to Inverie and Knoydart. Wonderful journeys! Sometimes alighting at lonely Corrour station and walking through to Glen Nevis and Fort William or across the hills to Dalwhinnie station. There are many options, many possible adventures.

Other countries, other trains. One of my favourite train journeys is that overnight from Stockholm north to Arctic Sweden. The big wallowing train lumbers out through the suburbs, past factories and houses and industry, as you settle down to sleep. Then morning comes with a vista of vast conifer forests and distant snow-capped hills. During the night the world has changed and is suddenly magical. Several years ago I caught the train south through the Channel Tunnel and on across France to the Queyras Alps. I left the train at dawn and walked up into the hills from the station. Two weeks later I walked back down again and caught the train home. Once in the USA, not the ideal country for train travel, I caught the California Zephyr from Salt Lake City to Martinez in California across deserts, mountains and rich farmland. In Martinez I visited John Muir’s house then caught more trains to San Francisco and Merced, where a bus took me to Yosemite National Park.

I think we need more trains.

Photo info: Top – train approaching Achnasheen station on a frosty morning. Canon EOS 350D, 18-55 lens@49mm, 1/640@f5.6, ISO 200, raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.5
Bottom - Hebden Bridge station. Sigma DP1, 1/80@f5.6, ISO 100, raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.5.