The Great Outdoors August issue - Snowdonia & Trail Shoes

Castell y Gwynt

The August issue of The Great Outdoors is out now. I've written about my recent overnight stormy Snowdonia trip - and there's a double-page photo of my camp that makes it look much more peaceful than it was! In the gear pages I review fourteen pairs of trail shoes - one pair of which I wore in Snowdonia. Also in the review section Judy Armstrong looks at six pairs of sunglasses and gives some good technical information for choosing a pair, and Daniel Neilson the new Keb Eco-Shell Jacket. 

In the rest of the magazine Will Renwick walks the West Highland Way; there's a look at some classic trails worldwide; Jon Sparks praises Clougha Pike in the Forest of Bowland; David Lintern pays tribute to the Mountain Bothies Association; Ed Byrne and Carey Davies both go wild swimming; Roger Smith worries about the proposed potash mine in the North York Moors National Park and about Lancashire County Council rejecting fracking; and Jim Perrin writes about Thin Paths by Julia Blackburn. The Hill Skills pages looks at walking and backpacking with kids with advice from Emily Rodway, Daniel Neilson, John Manning, David Lintern, Ian Battersby and more.

Rewilding, Wind Farms, Wild Flowers and Wildlife

A Wild Place - Forest & Mountain in Glen Affric

Much conservation news can be negative and disturbing. All too often it’s about another threat to nature and wild places. This can present conservation as a dour and depressing subject and can easily make people turn away. Such news needs balancing with a positive approach that is attractive and forward-looking. Not just trying to defend what remains but also looking to expand and renew it. This approach is expanded in George Monbiot’s excellent book Feral – you can read my thoughts on it here. Now Feral has inspired a new organisation, Rewilding Britain, whose ambitious aim is ‘to bring about the mass restoration of ecosystems in Britain’. Great! We need the optimism of big dreams like this. 

Of course rewilding is taking place in many places already (Creag Meagaidh, Abernethy Forest and Glen Affric amongst them) and is promoted by many organisations such as the John Muir Trust, which recently won an award for woodland regeneration on its Knoydart estate, and Trees for Life , which is restoring large areas of forest. Both these bodies support Rewilding Britain. 

Caledonian Forest in the Cairngorms

At the same time as rewilding has had another push – and the idea of bringing back animals like wolves and lynx ensured that the launch of Rewilding Britain received masses of media coverage – there has also been good news regarding the threat to wild land from wind farms. Two schemes that would have been very damaging have been rejected - Beinn Mhor near Glen Affric and Limekiln in the Flow Country in Caithness -  with landscape values prominent in the reasons given. I hope that this means that the proposed wind farms at Allt Duine in the Monadhliath mountains, Talladh-a-Bheithe on the edge of Rannoch Moor and Glen Cassley and Salachy in Sutherland will also be turned down on the same grounds. It would be illogical not to do so. (The John Muir Trust has a campaign on the Sutherland proposals). Whilst rewilding is essential we also have to protect what we have.

 

Papers, books, discussions, meetings can easily come to dominate and there’s always a danger of losing touch with the reasons for them, losing touch with nature itself. Going out and refreshing your spirits in the forests and mountains is also essential. This year the natural world seems particularly profligate. Wild flowers abound in vast numbers. I cannot remember seeing so many before. Meadows are covered tormentil, eyebright, clover, daisies; buttercups and more; great swathes of colour below the nodding grasses. In damper areas ragged robin and orchids form huge colonies. Foxgloves line stone walls and woodland edges. Animals and birds are breeding in large numbers too. We’ve lost count of the number of baby rabbits we’ve seen in the garden and there have been young squirrels too and many juvenile great spotted woodpeckers, greenfinches, blackbirds, robins and more. For the first time we’ve seen young goldfinches on the feeders too.

Hungry young Blackbirds

 

The outlook is optimistic.

Jottnar Hymir Neoshell Smock Review

The wet weather of the last few months has given me more opportunities to test waterproof clothing than I would have liked. One top I really like is the lightweight Jottnar Hymir, made from Polartec Neoshell, my current favourite waterproof material. My review of the Hymir is on the TGO website here.

Igloos, Storms, Lightning Strikes & Snow - It's Summer!

The Allt Coire nan Eoin

The heatwave came. Glasgow was hot. I wasn’t. I was inside building an igloo and then watching it being filmed. On the hottest days of the year I was wearing winter mountain clothing and needing it. The first day we spent almost twelve hours working on the igloo (and discovering that artificial snow has strange properties), finally venturing out into the Glasgow night an hour before midnight. The air was warm. The city felt unreal, basking in the heat. The next day it was back into sub-zero temperatures and playing with fake snow. That evening I was on my way home, watching torrential rain lashing down as the heatwave broke.

With that rain came thunder and lightning. Back home I had no phone line or internet connection. The wall socket was dead, fried by lightning. A frustrating day was spent talking to BT help people who assured me nothing was wrong with the line – ‘you must have left the phone off the hook’ was one comment (I’d disconnected the phone and the router whilst away anyway). Finally it was agreed that an engineer would come out and check the line – in a week’s time. During that week, when I did bits of work in various cafes that had wi-fi, BT sent me texts saying tests showed the line was fine and I’d have to pay if the fault was with my equipment. I knew it wasn’t. When the engineer did arrive it took him a few minutes to confirm the wall socket was blown and just a few minutes more to replace it. Back online!

Sunshine in Glen Spean

 

In between the café wi-fi sessions I headed off into the hills for sanity and escape. The plan was for a two-night trip. The weather thought otherwise. I drove across the Highlands to Glen Spean in sunshine. The hills looked wonderful. The evening was warm as I set off through flower-filled meadows into Killiechonate Forest. There was a gusty wind though and I knew this was meant to strengthen during the night so I intended finding a sheltered site at the forest’s edge ready for a climb onto the Grey Corries ridge the next day. The wind did indeed become stronger, much stronger. I reached the forest boundary where a hydro dam lay across the Allt Coire nan Eoin diverting much of its water into a tunnel. Above the dam the river, running free, crashed down in a series of cascades and water slides. Also above the dam the wind hammered down the open slopes. There was nowhere sheltered here. I retreated into the edge of the trees and pitched the tent beside some alders. The wind was much gentler. There was a pink sky after sunset. Maybe the next day would be sunny? The forecast said the wind would ease during the morning and any clouds would clear in the afternoon.

A sheltered site?

A roar woke me before midnight, a roar of wind rushing down the glen, wind that soon shook the tent. Then there was calm. I dozed off. But soon the wind returned with another great roar. I slept on and off, woken frequently by the huge gusts and then, in the early hours, heavy rain. After finally giving up on sleep I looked out to mist drifting across the tree tops and steady rain falling. The wind roared on. For a few hours I stayed in the tent reading but eventually I felt the need for more space so I packed up and ventured out. The river was spectacular as it tumbled over crags and slabs. The hills were hidden in the cloud. Above the waterfalls the battering wind and driving rain made walking difficult. There was no sign of the storm easing. Tired from the disturbed night I retreated again, this time back through the forest to my car and then to hot food and coffee in the Stronlossit Inn in Roy Bridge. The rain continued to pour and did so all the way home.

Storm clouds race across the Cairngorms

 

A few days later the forecast was for equally stormy weather, though much colder. Much, much colder. Snow was predicted. Snow in July. I couldn’t resist. In the Cairngorms it was certainly cold. I wore hat, gloves, fleece jacket and waterproof jacket and trousers all day. Showers of rain as I set off turned to wet mist on the summit of Cairn Gorm. The northerly wind was fierce. I wandered over to the subsidiary summit Cnap Coire na Spreidhe and sheltered behind big granite boulders. There was a hint of whiteness in the bits of wind-flung drizzle. Back on Cairn Gorm I waited to see if it would snow. The temperature was just above freezing.  I sat amongst some rocks out of the full strength of the wind, watching the mist. Then a white splash hit a rock followed by another and another. Big wet snowflakes were falling. They touched the stones, lingered for a fraction of a second and then were gone. But it was snow. 

In the Cairngorms storm