The Great Outdoors August issue

In the August issue of The Great Outdoors I review nine three-season sleeping bags and three types of compass.

The issue is about holidays in the UK but the highlight is Alex Roddie's feature on his Haute Route Pyrenees walk and how it changed him.

Other main features are James Forrest on the Glencoe hills and Suzanna Cruickshank on wild swimming in the Lake District.

James Forrest appears again in the TGO Book Club where readers discuss his book Mountain Man. 

In shorter pieces Roger Smith calls for more tree planting, Ramblers Scotland president Lucy Wallace is optimistic about all the new people discovering the outdoors post-lockdown, TGO Challenge co-ordinators Sue Oxley and Ali Ogden enjoy climbing their local Munro after lockdown restrictions eased, and Jim Perrin praises Blencathra.

Book Review: Our Place: Can We Save Britain's Wildlife Before It Is Too Late? by Mark Cocker

My much-thumbed copy, complete with coffee stains

Wildlife and conservation organisations have huge memberships. We are often described as a nation of animal lovers. Yet the natural world is in serious decline. Mark Cocker asks why this is and what can be done about in this important book.

Much of the book tells the story of organisations like the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts, campaigns successful and unsuccessful (especially Cow Green Reservoir and the Flow Country), plus the government bureaucracies set up to look after 'nature'. Small local successes exist but overall the story is of big failures. Too many committes, too much rivalry, too many acronyms, too many designations. And a big split, the 'Great Divide', between landscape conservation and nature protection, as if these were unconnected. But these organisations, however big, were unable to combat the devastation of the environment "largely through the instrument of farming and forestry policies".

The book isn't just a requiem for what is lost however. Mark Cocker looks at the core of the problems and the radical change in attitudes needed for change. "Ecological thinking entails that we see ourselves within nature, and that we understand everything we do has ecological consequences. We can, in truth, never escape nature." (Italics are the author's).

The tangle of designations, says Cocker, "have constructed a barrier to the general public's understanding of nature and of environmental activity". He calls for just one name. The same, he argues, applie to organisations. "The most important single measure to improve all environmental effort would be to forge genuine systemic unity among all parts" - an "NEU - National Environmentalists' Union".

This is a thought-provoking book packed with facts and ideas and well worth reading by anyone concerned with the future of nature in Britain, our future in fact.

Along the Yukon River & through the Klondike Goldfields. Stage 4 of my Yukon walk, July 13 - August 3, 1990

Beyond the little settlement of Carmacks (see my last Yukon post) I would not cross a road or pass through a village or town for twenty-two days. Yet during this long remote section of the walk I met more people than on any other. This was because for half the time I followed the Yukon River, down which a procession of canoes and small boats drifted and paddled, pulling into the bank to camp, and for much of the second half I was in the Klondike goldfields where there are still miners working.

I was still alone most of the time though, only camping with others on a few nights. The river is the way to travel here. I met no-one else on foot. I could see why. The land is forested and gently rolling. I could walk all day and see little change. The walking was tough at times too. There were paths and old tracks in places but sometimes I was bushwhacking through dense spruce forest.

This forest was beautiful in a soft, subtle way though, and there was much wildlife. That included bears. I never saw one but I saw plenty of signs such as droppings and tracks. I made sure to cook and eat well away from my tent and to hang my food in the trees, though few of these had branches long enough to stop a determined bear. Usually I set my kitchen up by the river, my bedroom back in the woods.

The first half of the walk was hot, very hot, with temperatures in the 30s Celsius every day. Even in the shade of the trees I sweated continuously. At dawn and dusk there were mosquitoes. Drifting down the river did seem appealing.

After a week I arrived at the abandoned settlement of Fort Selkirk, which was being restored as a historic site. Here was where I was meeting the Youcon Kat tour boat, which was bringing my supplies from Whitehorse. I was two days early however so had time to relax, watch the river, and talk to people. I laid out my gear and photographed it. An awful lot, I thought. It was.

My pack was about to get much heavier though. The Youcon Kat arrived. I unloaded my food box. I had packed enough food for fifteen days. I knew I'd need it but I wasn't looking forward to carrying it all.

At Fort Selkirk I left the Yukon River, having been advised that following it would be difficult. The alternative route wasn't easy at first though, with more dense forest to negotiate and several rivers to cross. After six days the first signs of the Klondike began to appear. Ruined cabins in the trees. Old roads. Then blasted terrain. Working gold mines. The romance of the 1890s exists in the tourist area around Dawson City. Beyond it is the reality of an environmentally highly damaging process, the land stripped bare, great gouges hacked out of the earth.

I was relieved to reach Dawson. I had a bad cold, which didn't help my feelings in the goldfields. I was tired too. From here I would be back in the mountains. But first I needed a rest.

I wrote a book about the walk. It’s long out of print but I expect there are second-hand copies around.

Photographic Note: I carried two SLRs, the Nikon F801 and FM2, plus Nikkor 35-70, Nikkor 24mm,and Sigma 70-210 lenses, plus a Cullman tripod. Films were Fujichrome 50 and 100 slide ones. The total weight with padded cases was 4kg. To digitise the slides I photographed them on a lightbox with my Sony a6000 with a Sony E 30mm macro lens.

What's in name? Wild camping, backpacking, backcountry camping, bivouacking ......

Walk into the wilds with your camping gear on your back, pitch your tent, sleep, pack your tent, move on. What are you doing? Backpacking, wild camping, or something else? The name shouldn’t really matter, it’s the activity that counts. The name is just a convenient label, shorthand to describe what you do quickly so others understand. The name becomes a symbol of identity too. It joins you to a tribe. With others using this name you can make assumptions, share experiences, use words that may mean nothing to those outside the group. 

In the last few decades wild camping has become a common description to describe those of us who camp in the hills, in wild places, having carried everything in on our backs. Much more recently wild camping has been used by the mass media to describe roadside camping outwith campsites, sometime not even in tents but in campervans. In particular it’s used to describe those who leave litter including discarded tents and other gear, light fires, hack branches off trees and generally cause mess and damage.

Unsurprisingly there have been strong objections to this recent use of wild camping. People don’t want their style of wild camping with its philosophy of leave no trace sullied by association with campers who leave a mess. People are concerned too that if wild camping gets a bad reputation in general then there may be restrictions placed upon it that will affect everyone. 

To address these concerns there have been suggestions for a name change for wild camping or a new name for those causing problems. For wild camping ‘bivouacking’, ‘lightweight camping’ and ‘leave no trace camping’ have been suggested. I don’t think these will catch on. In the UK the first usually means sleeping out without a tent (in some countries it does include using a tent, as long as it’s not tall enough to stand up in). The other two are not, I think, specific enough. Wild camping is, I suspect, here to stay. The mass media is slow to change. As to changing the name for the campers who leave a mess all the ones I’ve seen are pejorative – ‘dirty campers’ and similar. I don’t think this would be helpful. There are likely to be many of these campers who simply don’t know what they should be doing. Education and help can achieve changes in behaviour. Insults are unlikely to do this.

 

For myself, I’d be quite happy to go back to backpacking to describe the activity. When I started out in the early 1970s there wasn’t a word in the UK for it. I went fellwalking and camping. Then the word backpacking was imported from the USA, where it was used to distinguish those who carried all their gear on their backs from those who used pack animals. The first books I bought on the subject all had backpacking or backpacker in the title. The Backpacker’s Club was formed and there were backpacking columns in camping magazines (there were no walking magazines). I had a name and a tribe. That continued through the 1980s and early 90s. My first three books all had backpacking or backpacker in their titles.

Then the mass media began to use the word to mean “a form of low-cost, independent travel, often staying in inexpensive lodgings and carrying all necessary possessions in a backpack” (Wikipedia definition) and I had to get used to being misunderstood when I used the word outside outdoor circles, except in the USA where it still meant the same. Around the same time ‘wild camping’ came into being, to describe what backpacking used to mean. And now ‘wild camping’ is changing meaning too. Damned awkward thing language. It just won’t stay still. 

 

Backpacking in its original meaning has been subdivided by proponents into traditional, lightweight, and ultralight backpacking. All these refer to the weight of equipment carried. The activity remains the same. I wrote about these labels here. Then there is thru-hiking, which means backpacking a multi-day route, usually a trail, to distinguish it from weekend backpacking. It’s also a relatively new description and didn’t exist when I began hiking long-distances. I was a thru-hiker before the term existed!

Possible alternatives to wild camping could be borrowed from North America just as backpacking was. Frontcountry camping and backcountry camping make sense. Backcountry has been taken up by ski tourers here to distinguish themselves from resort skiers. Perhaps wild camping could become backcountry camping and roadside camping frontcountry camping. Perhaps.

 

Whatever the name good practice, which means minimum impact camping, is essential and I think all of us who go out and camp in wild places should not only do this but should show we do it, both to set an example and to let those who might want to restrict our activity know that the majority of us are responsible.

Poisoned eagle, disappeared eagle. Please write to politicians.

A grouse moor in the Eastern Highlands

Since I wrote the post below a satellite tagged young golden eagles has disappeared in the Strathbraan region of Perthshire, a raptor persecution hotspot (see Raptor Persecution UK). There is now a Parliamentary motion lodged by MSP Alex Rowley, calling for more to be done about the killing of birds of prey in the Highlands (again, see this post from Raptor Persecution UK). Those of us in Scotland should write to our MSPs asking them to sign this motion so it can be debated in the Scottish Government.

Wild Justice, the RSPB, and Hen Harrier Action have also started an e-action so people can send a pre-written letter to their MSP/MP/MS about raptor persecution and the damage done by driven grouse shooting. So far, 41,000 people have sent letters. Please join in.

Original post:

A young white-tailed eagle has been killed by poisoning on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park, the latest in a series of deaths and disappearances of birds of prey on or near grouse moors. (see Raptor Persecution UK). This is a disgrace and has rightly caused a big stir on social media.

This latest case makes a mockery of the National Park designation. I have to say I'm not surprised though. There are areas of the park and the Eastern Highlands I won't visit again as they are wildlife deserts with bulldozed roads, animal traps, and ugly muirburn. Their sole purpose is to ensure there are large numbers of grouse for a few people to enjoy killing.

Nothing seems to be done to curb the wildlife slaughter on these industrialised grouse moors. It's time that changed (my view is that driven grouse shooting should be banned). One way to do this is to put pressure on the Scottish government and I urge everyone concerned to email the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and the Environment Cabinet Secretary, Roseanna Cunningham.

firstminister@gov.scot

CabSecECCLR@gov.scot

Many people have already sent emails and the progress of the campaign can be followed on Raptor Persecution UK.

Thank You

I'd like to give a huge thank you to all those who've supported my blog with donations. I really appreciate this. 

I love doing this blog but it does require time and effort that could be spent on paid work. The blog will always be free but your donations do make a big difference. Thank you again.

Camping in the Lake District in the long hot summer of 1976

In Hollow Stones

As the rain continues to beat down outside I've been sorting through more old photos and came across some from a very different summer, one where it was dry for week after week after week. 1976. I made several trips to the Lake District, alone and with friends, walking and camping in the fells. The heat made for an indolent relaxing idyllic time, ambling to the tops, relaxing in the sun. A summer like no other.

Near Bleaberry Tarn with Crummock Water far below

My pictures, taken on an old point-and-shoot Instamatic, are soft and grainy and the colours have faded. They do bring back that glorious summer for me though.

A rare cloud! Great Gable from Lingmell

Bowfell Links from Three Tarns

Scafell Crag from Lingmell. My pack is on the right - Camp Trails Ponderosa bag on a Camp Trails Astral Cruiser external frame

Hollow Stones