Next Book: The Pacific Crest Trail

Below Mount Jefferson on the PCT in Oregon

My next book will be an account of my 1982 hike from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. It'll be called Rattlesnakes and Bald Eagles  and will be published next year by Sandstone Press, which has already listed it on its website, though I haven't yet started writing it. I have however sorted through my old Kodachrome 64 slides, many of which will appear in the book, and looked through my journals, which will form the basis of the book. As the PCT has changed in some respects, particularly in popularity, since my walk I'll be including updates plus a history of the trail. 

The PCT was the most personally significant of all the long distance walks I've done, the one that set me on the path of explorin wild places. I'm really looking forward to writing this book. I won't be starting until the summer though. I have the Scottish Watershed to walk first.

Snow camping in the High Sierra on the PCT

Heavy Snow Falling

Heavy snow falling, Strathspey, 5 p.m., April 28, 2013

New The Great Outdoors: Pacific Crest Trail, Backpacking Abroad, Stoves Review & Load Monster Pack Test

High Sierra scenery along the Pacific Crest Trail

Just out: the latest The Great Outdoors magazine. This is the Spring issue, sandwiched between April and May. A main theme is hiking overseas and my contribution to this is a big feature on my Pacific Crest Trail hike, illustrated with my old Kodachrome slides (another one of which you can see above), which have mostly scanned very well. My backpacking column is also about hiking overseas, in particular to places with guaranteed sunshine. In the gear pages I review 13 stoves - four meths burners and nine canister stoves - plus the big Osprey Xenith 88 load monster pack.

On the overseas theme this issue also has suggestions for ten great trekking destinations ranging from the Himalaya to Norway from Ben Lerwill (I've been to six of these and would recommend them all) plus, in the Hill Skills section, advice on dealing with high altitudes from  Nancy Chambers and Nigel Williams of Glenmore Lodge and on staying healthy in general overseas from Helen Barnard of Plas y Brenin. In the same section Kev Reynolds looks at trekking in the Himalaya and Tom Shearman at trekking in the Andes.

This issue isn't all about foreign travel though and there's plenty of British stuff. This includes an excellent feature on a first backpacking trip to Knoydart by David Lintern and suggestions for weekend walking in the Lake District from Hanna Lindon.

Elsewhere in the magazine Ben Lerwill describes the mountaineering history of the Pen-y-Pass Youth Hostel in Snowdonia; various writers, including myself, consider digital technology in the mountains; Ed Byrne tries bushcraft in a wood somewhere in deepest Oxfordshire; Roger Smith looks at the privatisation of the Search and Rescue helicopter service and also discusses what appears to be a shift in the Scottish government policy on wind farms on wild land; Jim Perrin praises Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes; Daniel Neilson reviews seven sub £140 waterproof jackets; and Judy Armstrong tests six pairs of women's walking trousers.

Fresh Snow in the Cairngorms

The Cairngorms, April 27, 2013 - from left Bynack More, Beinn Mheadhoin, Cairn Gorm, Stob Coire an t-Sneachda, Cairn Lochan

After three days of cold, showery weather with a brisk north wind, night frosts and hints of hail and sleet in the air last night more prolonged rain set in, rain that was snow above about 500 metres. The clouds lifted today to reveal the mountains clad in white again. Winter is not yet over in the Cairngorms.
 

Cairn Gorm, April 27, 2013

Grizzly Bears and Razor Clams Book Review

Seatttle Backpackers Magazine has published a lengthy and positive review by Karen Sykes of my book Grizzly Bears and Razor Clams. You can find it here.

Cairngorms In Winter on the Big Screen

April Squalls on Meall a'Bhuachaille

The Northern Cairngorms from Meall a'Bhuachaille

Spring progresses slowly. At least this year. Yesterday I walked through Ryvoan Pass and over Meall a’Bhuachaille. There was no sign of leaves appearing on the birches, rowans and willows, no buds on the tips of the pine branches, no new green shoots amongst last year’s faded dead grass, no colour in the brown heather. I did though find the first frogspawn of the year; a thick, gelatinous mass in a shallow ditch.

The first frogspawn

 

The waters of An Lochan Uaine were ice free, unlike three weeks ago when it was frozen solid. The waters were rippled by a cold north-west wind, a wind I felt once I left the trees for the open slopes of Meall a’Bhuachaille. The bulk of the hill blocked the full force of the wind though and it was only as I approached the summit cairn that it really hit me and I needed to zip up my jacket and don a warm hat. The temperature was just +4ºC and the wind was gusting to 32mph. That makes for a windchill factor of around -8ºC and my face certainly felt very cold. If I’d stayed long I’d have needed more clothing.

An Lochan Uaine

Meall a’Bhuachaille is a splendid viewpoint for the Northern Cairngorms, showing the great dark green sweep of Glenmore and Rothiemurchus Forests rising up to the high corries and the Cairngorm Plateau. Far below I could see the wind ruffling the surface of Loch Morlich. The mountain tops were still snowy. Up there the wind would be fiercer. I was glad I was going no higher than Meall a’Bhuachaille’s 810 metres.

Cairn Gorm & the Northern Corries from Meall a'Bhuachaille

Out over Strathspey I could see grey squalls streaking across the land; hazy masses of precipitation. One arrived just as I was leaving the summit with a quick blast of hail soon followed by wet snow. It was over in minutes but a reminder that winter still lingers. Buffeted by the wind I was happy to descend back to the trees and shelter. On the edge of the forest a walker was sitting under a big pine and heating water over a fire of pine cones in a wood-burning stove. We chatted for a while and then walked together back down into the glen. It had not been a winter day but it had not felt like a spring one either.

  

Squalls sweeping over Loch Morlich