Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i The Great Outdoors

IN THE FRAME Buachaille Etive Mor Evie Caldwell Size: 148x210mm (A5) Medium: digital illustration BUACHAILLE ETIVE MOR is one of Scotland’s most iconic hills, and its drama is often captured in works of art. This piece by Evie Caldwell offers a refreshing take using digital illustration. “I adore Buachaille Etive Mor,” Evie told TGO. “I’ve shared some very special times and trips passing this mountain, and wanted to capture the magic of it in my illustration.” Evie creates images that covey important issues, like climate change, body image and mental health. “I find it almost meditative when I’m hiking and just being in the hills, and drawing mountains and landscapes has a similar effect on me,” she explains. “I sketched the scene with pencil and paper then scanned it into…

36% OF PEOPLE IN SCOTLAND spent more time outside in 2020 than before SORA wants Scottish pupils to spend 1 week at outdoors centres There are 36 full - time Access Officers across Scotland 58%of people in Scotland intend to spend more time outside in future It is estimated that walking tourism contributes £1.26 BILLION to Scotland’s economy twelve outdoor organisations have put together the SORA Manifesto ARCHIVE “Edward Abbey once wrote that the existence of wilderness should be seen as a compliment to civilisation. Any society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness, or lacks the desire to preserve wilderness, is simply not worthy of the name of civilisation”Cameron McNeish The Great Outdoors, March 2000…

The Yorkshire Dales is all about character. It is perhaps most famous in the wider world for the Three Peaks challenge walk; but this is one of the most distinctive, characterful upland landscapes in Britain, a realm of wide, glacier-gouged valleys, where isolation has preserved a unique rural texture shaped by centuries of sheep farming, all coloured and influenced by the underlying limestone geology. 1. THE THREE PEAKS We all know about that Three Peaks, but this is the original. A roughly 38 kilometre (24 mile) undertaking, with around 1500 metres (5000 feet) of ascent, this round of Pen-y-ghent (694m), Whernside (highest hill in modern-day Yorkshire at 736m) and Ingleborough (723 metres) – all proud lion-shaped summits – is no walk in the park, as much because of the long…

by Matt Newbury and Sophie Pierce Published by Wild Things Publishing, £11.99 If you’re anything like me, your first memories of tentative dips into outdoor water involve the blue seas and stunning Cornish beaches of childhood holidays. Cornwall offers some of the UK’s most picturesque swimming locations but many of the best involve the added adventure of a coastline or inland walk. Finding these locations can be a challenge. With soaring cliffs and hidden rivers, Cornwall offers plenty of opportunity for exploration – but also perhaps swimming disappointment. Cue Wild Swimming Walks Cornwall. Matt and Sophie are both keen and experienced outdoor swimmers. The joy both of them get from their swimming adventures is evident in this book, as is their love of the countryside and coastline of the South-West.…

As someone new to the outdoors, being a novice at everything just makes it more of an adventure. Last year I decided I’d walk a section of the Wales Coast Path and wild camp along the way with a friend. After weeks of research, endless scrolling, reading blogs, kit reviews and recommendations, I felt ready. Pitch late, leave early and pack light, that’s what all the advice said. Not long after setting off, I realised that I had ridiculously over-packed: my bag was 15kg and included a full-size chopping board and several other whim purchases I thought I’d need. I had ambitions of fine dining outdoors. We reached the place where we had planned to camp on the first night, but struggled to find a suitable spot, and ended up…

The Great Outdoors GREAT REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE: Get your first 3 issues for £5 Continue to save 25% after your trial Have each issue delivered directly to your door for FREE Receive a subscriber e-newsletter** Every issue includes walking routes, skills and technique advice plus gear and equipment reviews Offer ends 18 June 2021 SUBSCRIBE TO THE DIGITAL VERSION Pay just £29.95 for 13 issues VIST shop.kelsey.co.uk/TGOP0521 Content you will enjoy every month TESTS & REVIEWS Tested on the hills or reviewed by the TGO team to provide you with the best advice on what to buy INSPIRING STORIES Get inspiration for your own adventures and be transported to the wild places with compelling, beautifully illustrated features SKILLS Whether you’re new to the hills or a mountain veteran, we give…

21km/13 miles/6-7 hours Ascent 1100m/3600ft 1 Start/Finish Parking by Brundholme Road on N edge of Keswick GR: NY267241 Take track (Spoonygreen Lane) leading NE over A66 towards Latrigg. Go through small gate and keep ahead to junction by old gatepost. Go L on track, up to gate and continue around N side of Latrigg to gate and car park. Turn R to end of lane. 2 Cross stile and turn L through two gates. Continue to small gate. Well-used path climbs to gate/stile and continues up to broad shoulder by Jenkin Hill. Ignore gate/stile on R and follow path, with fence on R, to cairn on Little Man. 3 Walk NW, with fence on R, and climb to large cairn at S end of main ridge. Walk N over plateau…

13km/8.1 miles/4 hours Ascent 290m/950ft 1 Start/Finish Simonsbath car park GR: SS774394 Return to the main road and turn right, soon leaving it to the left to take a well-marked footpath (the Two Moors Way), following signs for Cow Castle. 2 In 3.5km, beyond the gate below Cow Castle, leave the path to the right for the steep but short climb to the flat summit, leaving at the far side to regain the path. 3 Cross the Barle at the bridge, turning right to follow a signed track to Blue Gate. In 1.5km join a minor road. 4 Cross the main road at Blue Gate, bearing just north of west across open ground beyond to find a good track, turning right. 5 Turn right on meeting the Barle again and…

Alex Nail Alex is a full-time mountain photographer and a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. He’s known for shooting locations that are a little off the beaten path, and he regularly summit-camps to capture mountain views in beautiful light. He’s currently trying to get fit and shake off his lockdown belly after months of inactivity, and has plans to hike extensively in Scotland over the summer. His eye-popping feature on combining photography and backpacking in order to capture the mountains of Fisherfield is on p46. Helen Iles Helen is a landscape photographer and walking guide living in south Snowdonia. She is also a busy member of the South Snowdonia Search and Rescue Team. She has spent the winter exploring her local landscape from her door, but with lockdown easing…

ON APRIL 12, overnight stays away from home will finally be permitted in England. It’s hoped that Wales will open up to visitors from other parts of the UK on the same date – and Scotland could follow suit on April 26. With wild camping and multi-day backpacking trips once again on the menu, many of us are panting to make up for lost time. We asked TGO contributors from across the UK to share their plans. Chris Townsend, equipment editor, Cairngorms LOOKING FORWARD TO: backpacking in the North-West Highlands Before lockdown a year ago I was planning a two-week backpacking trip in May in the North-West Highlands, working my way north from Strathcarron to Dundonnell over as many summits as possible. It was disappointing to have to cancel this…

HERE’S A SIMPLE QUESTION for you – who is the current Secretary of State for the Environment? Give up? I won’t tell you just yet, but I think you’ll agree that for the whole of the lockdown period Mr X has been pretty well invisible. Yet he has a massive job to do. As I write this, the gates of the wider countryside are about to be thrown open, and the eager masses pressing on those gates will be let in. Are there proper management plans ready for them? I suspect not, and I don’t think Mr X does either. The most visible sign of forward thinking recently has been the (fairly low-key) relaunch of the Countryside Code. It is meant to provide us with a menu of actions for…

tgo.ed@kelsey.co.uk Postal address The Editor, The Great Outdoors, Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent ME18 6AL. Please include a phone number and postal address. The more things change… Just sitting down to read an old book, Walks in the Moffat Hills and the Lowthers, by Jim Manson. Given the recent debates around crowd numbers in the countryside, the intro seemed a familiar topic – and it was written 23 years ago! “In recent years, a certain amount of concern has been expressed about the rapidly increasing numbers of people taking to British hills – numbers which in some places are testing the delicate relationship between landlord and walker to the limit. And let’s be honest, the behaviour of some of the more recent devotees often…

Over the last year or so there has been some confusion over the term ‘wild camping’, with media reports often conflating it with the sort of irresponsible roadside carnage-camping we saw many reports of last summer – but if that’s your bag, it’s unlikely you’ll be reading The Great Outdoors for tips! ‘Wild camping’ as defined in this article – and by the outdoor community in general – means the act of making lightweight, temporary camps, solo or in small groups, in wild places, and in locations which have involved a substantial hike to put some decent distance between you and civilisation. Most crucially, it involves being a responsible steward of the local environment, taking away all your litter, and leaving no trace of your presence when you leave. Doing the right…

BIDEAN A’ GHLAS THUILL, AN TEALLACH DISTANCE: 12.6km / 8 miles ASCENT: 1088m / 3569ft DURATION: 4-5 hours A relatively straightforward but steep walk from Dundonnell takes you up to the highest point on An Teallach, with fabulous views across to the Sgurr Fiona and the Corrag Bhuidhe Pinnacles. Whilst the ‘there and back again’ route should be within grasp of most keen hillwalkers, there is an exciting continuation along the ridge – the full An Teallach traverse – which should really only be attempted by experienced walkers comfortable with scrambling and masses of exposure. SLIOCH DISTANCE: 19km / 12 miles ASCENT: 1144m / 3753ft DURATION: 8-10 hours A long day walk from Kinlochewe. The route begins with a relatively flat 6km walk on the northern banks of the Kinlochewe…

Jack Wolfskin turns 40 This year sees the 40th anniversary of Jack Wolfskin. Back in 1981, Ulrich Duasien was on an expedition in the Yukon wilderness of western Canada, the place that inspired Jack London’s novel The Call of the Wild, when he heard a wolf howling and decided that Jack Wolfskin was the perfect name for his new outdoor brand. To celebrate the anniversary, the company has launched a 40-year collection featuring memorable retro styles including the Thunderblaze Jacket, based on the Thunder & Lightning Jacket from 1994. jack-wolfskin.com/40years Inov-8 introduces the first trail shoes featuring ‘graphene-enhanced foam’ Most trail shoes have carbon plates in the midsole. With its new Trailfly shoes, Inov-8 has replaced this with a grapheneenhanced foam, which doubles longevity as it is far more resistant…

16km/10 miles/5 hours Ascent 500m/1650ft 1 Start/Finish Settle railway station GR: SD817634 From end of station drive, turn R along Station Road and then L at T-junction to walk along main road through Settle. Just after market cross, take road on R that passes to L of The Shambles. After Co-op store, head left up Constitution Hill. Beyond last cottages, take track climbing R, following route of Dales High Way. 2 Soon after gate, bear R along steadily climbing grassy track. This narrows beyond dilapidated wall and swings E. Follow wall on L. Take either path after gate. Follow line of wall on R below limestone scars for 1.5km (still part of the Dales High Way). 3 Go through gate on R and turn L along surfaced track, joining the…

SCOTTISH CHARITY Venture Trust is launching Scotland’s first dedicated outdoor therapy programme. Supporting Scotland’s vulnerable young people (aged 16-25) and ex-service personnel, the service seeks to ‘harness the power of the outdoors’ by delivering therapy in urban outdoor and green spaces such as parks, community gardens, woodlands, beaches or local hills. Research from the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH) highlights almost half of people with mental health problems in Scotland felt they did not get care or treatment because of the pandemic. As well as this, The Princes Trust’s annual Youth Index, published in January, noted that 25% of young people feel “unable to cope with life” since the start of the pandemic, increasing to 40% for those not in work, education or training. Venture Trust’s clinical manager Andy…

by Cameron McNeish Published by Sandstone Press, £19.99 WE’RE ALL PINING to be out in the hills, but at least the latest book from Cameron McNeish can make us dream of better times ahead. The pandemic might have made us think, maybe just for a moment or two, what it would be like if we could no longer romp over ridges or clamber up through corries; but, despite having now reached that particular watershed, Cameron describes how the hills will always help us forget the woes of the world. Along the way, there are plenty of memories based around some of the characters who have shared times amongst the peaks and glens. He has learnt to adapt as those first bones began to creak and has increasingly realised that touching…

DID EVER such a lowly hill have such a wealth of exclamation marks bestowed upon it? Especially one that rejoices in a local nickname like ‘The Pimple’? For all that, Win Hill is a summit for which I have long affection. One dismal morning in early February 1967, when I was dawdling over a brew in the barn at the back of Mo and Jacky Anthoine’s cottage in Nant Peris, I had an urgent message to ring my good mate Bill Bowker, then an instructor at Birchfield Lodge Outdoor Pursuits Centre in Hope, which was run by Manchester’s Wood Street Mission. For the most part it ran courses for disadvantaged kids from poor areas of Manchester and Salford – the milieu from which I’d emerged just a few years earlier.…

Eleanor Marshall, 25, PhD student from Rotterdam “My biggest fear is my imagination, as the dark and solitude play tricks on my mind. Was that sound a murderer? A wild boar? A primordial beast? It’s easy to think something terrible or paranormal is about to happen. I once woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of alien ray guns (it turned out to be ice cracking on a frozen lake) and was convinced extra-terrestrials were about to abduct me for probing experiments. But I managed to overcome these nightmarish imaginings by calling it my ‘two brains’. The illogical brain swoops in first conjuring up the madness, but then the logical one takes over and calmly explains the reality. I let logic win and then sleep like…

The Great Outdoors BEST BUY Patagonia Nano Puff Jacket £180 windproof, lightweight, recycled materials nothing Fill: 60g PrimaLoft Gold Eco recycled polyester with P.U.R.E. technology Shell: recycled polyester ripstop Pockets: 2 handwarmer, 1 inner Cuffs: elasticated Hem: drawcord Sizes: men XS-XXL, women XS-XL The lightweight Nano Puff insulated jacket has been through several updates in the many years it’s been in Patagonia’s range. The latest version, launched last year, is filled with PrimaLoft Gold Insulation Eco with P.U.R.E (Produced Using Reduced Emissions) technology. What this mouthful of a name means is that the fill is produced with a new manufacturing technology that removes the need for heat to melt the fibres and bond them together. By doing this, energy use and carbon emissions are reduced – the latter by 52%…

DAY 1 21km 13 miles/7.5 hours Ascent 1150m/3800ft DAY 2 33km/20.5 miles/10.5 hours Ascent 1200m/4000ft 1 Start Beattock, north end of village GR: NT078028 DAY 1 Follow SU Way signs under motorway, then lanes, a small hill and a beechwood. Track up to start of forest. 2 Down L over stream. Path then track E, then zigzag path up L onto high ridge. Cross Croft Head and down to col. 3 Rejoin SU Way up Selcoth Burn, pass Ettrick Head. Forest track past Over Phawhope bothy. 4 At Potburn, head up NW onto ridgeline. Cross Bodesbeck Law for overnight on the ridgeline, for example Bell Craig. 5 DAY 2 Follow ridgeline over Andrewhinney Hill and Peniestone Knowe to rejoin SUW. Path and track down to Tibbie Shiels. 6 SUW path…

26.5km/16.5 miles/8 hours Ascent 1050m/3450ft 1 Start/Finish Rhos Fach Common, 3km from Talgarth GR: SO188334 Park on roadside grass. Alternatively at Gospel Pass car park on route of walk (GR: SO237350), which shortens distance by about 6km/3.75 miles. Follow wide grassy track ESE towards foot of escarpment, soon ascending more steeply above Cwm Cwnstab on L to reach top of escarpment. 2 Head NE along escarpment past trig point to Twmpa/Lord Hereford’s Knob and descend to Gospel Pass (road). Continue up the other side to trig point atop Hay Bluff. 3 Turn R along well-surfaced path, soon following the Offa’s Dyke Path, which joins from the L. Continue to ‘Pile of Stones’ path intersection (SO270319), 5.8km/3.6 miles from trig point. 4 Turn R down path towards Vale of Ewyas, lower…