Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2022 i The Great Outdoors

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HOW QUICKLY COP26 has faded from the memory. As I write this it is less than two months from the conclusion of the green jamboree in Glasgow, yet it almost feels as if it never happened. The conference followed a familiar course, culminating in a closing statement which looks great at first reading but actually contains so many ifs and buts as to make it barely worthwhile producing – and includes the now traditional last-minute climbdown to keep the big hitters on board (in this case it was concessions over the phasing out of coal production). This has been the pattern since the ground-breaking Rio Declaration of 1992, which at least had the effect of firing the environment up the political agenda from the basement, where it had lain neglected…

SO THIS WAS IT: the moment I’d been wondering – and worrying – about ever since the email from my son to say we’d got the permit for the John Muir Trail. We’d walked for a week and a day through one of the world’s most beautiful mountain ranges, below mighty pines and soaring granite mountains. We’d spent an afternoon on the fantastic surfaces of Half Dome. We’d camped beside five lakes, each more lovely than the last. We’d crossed three passes, each slightly higher than the last. And now, at Muir Trail Ranch, it was time to reunite with the orange barrel we’d put into the US Mail a fortnight before. The barrel with all our food for the remaining seven days on the trail. And to find the…

THE VAST MAJORITY of visits to the mountains are safe, successful and fun. But on rare occasions things, well, don’t quite go to plan. We all hope the worst won’t happen – but if it does, what equipment or apps will come in useful? How do you call for Mountain Rescue, and what do you need to tell them? If your phone hasn’t got signal, how do you attract attention? How do you stay warm and sheltered if you need to wait for help? Thankfully, a range of equipment, techniques and procedures have been developed for dealing with emergencies and attracting help, and knowing what they are can literally prove life-saving. KIT: what do you need in your pack? Let’s look at a few key pieces of gear that come…

BEST BUY Atom Packs Mo EP50 £265 925g lightweight, pockets, tough fabrics nothing Capacity: main body 45 litres, side pockets 2 x 2.5 litres, front pocket 5 litres Materials: EPX200 recycled 200 denier fabric body and base, 210d Robic Extreema side pockets, shoulder straps, hipbelt, Dyneema front and bottom pockets, 500 D textured nylon backpanel Top closure: roll top with stud closure and three buckles and straps Back system: plastic frame with removable alloy stay, 8mm closed cell foam padded back panel Back sizes: S-XL Hipbelt: shaped, padded, five sizes: XS-XL Pockets: stretch mesh front pouch, 2 open side, 2 mesh shoulder strap, stretch base Features: side and front compression/attachment stretch cords, ice axe loops Load capacity: 19kg atompacks.co.uk Chris is very impressed by this long-distance hiking pack from Lakeland-based…

Our walks this month 1 Cairngorms An Socach 2 Lake District Red Pike & High Stile 3 Cumbria Howgill Fells 4 Brecon Beacons Fan Frynych 5 Shropshire The Stiperstones & Heath Mynd CONTRIBUTORS…

1 Start/Finish Roadside at Howgill GR: SD631966 Take footpath E to Beck House. Continue ahead, through gate. Cross field, R at fingerpost then kink L to follow fence. Triple gate (Beck Houses Gate) leads onto open fellside. 2 Path heads NE above Ellergill Beck. Cross beck and follow path curving N then NW to Whin’s End. Traverse NE to Blind Gill, cross, traverse NW then N to saddle between Linghaw and Fell Head. 3 Continue N, skirting E around Blake Ridge to top of Black Force. Cross Little Ulgill Beck, traverse NNE then drop to Blakewith Bottom. Climb fellside E to saddle S of Docker Knott. Head SSE, across Over Sale and Taffergill Hill then climb SE to Wind Scarth. 4 Follow ridge SW to Break Head then drop L,…

1 Start/Finish Lane west of Norbury (limited parking near start of beech avenue) GR: SO350934 From parking space take track NNE, via beech trees, to Linley Hill. Continue for 2km then turn L to descend to narrow lane. Turn R, then immediately L on permissive track to cross ford. Continue to lane and turn L. 2 Take stile on R and climb through trees to open summit of Black Rhadley Hill. Head NE to gate, cross lane and take path into forestry. Leave trees before first rocky tor and continue NE on paths over cleared ground, past Nipstone Rock on L. Enter short section of forestry, then keep ahead over field to lane. 3 Cross lane and take established path N along main Stiperstones ridge. Pass Devil’s Chair rocks and…

Chris Townsend Our gear editor Chris has been enjoying snowy weather in the Cairngorms. He spent the winter solstice on Cairn Gorm itself and was enthralled by an optical illusion – a Fata Morgana – that made it appear there was a range of Monument Valley-like pillars and towers on the horizon. He also camped out on the vast expanse of the Moine Mhor in the western Cairngorms under a huge starry sky. He’s looking forward to many more such camps this winter. Back at his desk he’s writing a book about his favourite mountain range – the Cairngorms! Lucy Wallace Regular TGO contributor Lucy has had a fairly quiet few weeks, getting out locally in the Arran hills and waiting for winter to reboot after a spell of unnervingly…

ACCORDING to 80s popstars A-ha, the sun always shines on TV, and by and large that’s true for social media and guidebooks, too. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the weather is always perfect, gear performs exactly as it should and nothing ever goes wrong. It doesn’t take many hill days of our own to realise that those perfect smiles in the face of adversity are not a realistic portrayal of what really happens when hiking horrors strike! Risk is built into the outdoors, and that is an intrinsic part of the charm and the challenge. The weather can change, maps can be lost, compasses can be used upside down, tents can rip, and waterproofs can leak. It’s how we cope when they do that define us and the time…

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1 Start/Finish Parking on verge opposite Baddoch farm track on A93 GR: NO138832 Cross bridge over Clunie Water then follow track round SW to Allt Coire Fhearneasg. 2 Cross and climb W to Socach Mor, continuing on path to An Socach’s east top (939m). 3 Drop to saddle and climb W to main summit (944m). 4 Return to lowest point on saddle, descend SE to pick up track by Baddoch Burn. 5 Follow track NE to Allt Coire Fhearneasg and then back to start by inward route. Gradient profile Metres above sea level Always take a map and compass with you. ©Crown copyright 2022 Ordnance Survey. Media 051/19 1 Alan Rowan finds clarity in the Cairngorms WE WERE ON the final push through deep snow cover to An Socach’s summit when…

Share your views, your experiences and your favourite photos 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. Oozing quality I am a Mountain Leader, an International Mountain Leader, a DofE Assessor/co-ordinator and a hillwalker for 60 years. I’ve just renewed my subscription to The Great Outdoors and my February edition landed on my mat today. I felt I had to contact you to say how every issue just oozes quality. The standard of photos, artwork and content make for a quite outstanding publication! I occasionally buy (note, not subscribe to!) a rival publication and the difference is marked. That magazine looks cheap, sensationalist and so patronising in comparison that…

HAROON MOTA is a 36-year-old marathon runner and mountaineer. In 2020, he founded the hiking group Muslim Hikers as a way of encouraging other Muslims to keep active during lockdown, and he’s since led hundreds of people on walks across the UK. At the end of last year, the group posted photos of its Christmas Day walk over the Great Ridge in the Peak District. Its response to some of the racist and Islamophobic comments it received across social media went viral, leading to a wave of media interest and headlines on TV and radio and in the national press. Haroon tells us about his personal journey into hiking, why the recent abuse has backfired on the people who doled it out, and his hopes for a more inclusive outdoor…

The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is back for 2022, bringing the latest action and adventure films to various venues around the UK and Ireland from January. This tour features two new collections of inspirational films from the planet’s wildest corners. “Banff events are a celebration of the great outdoors with a vibrant atmosphere – and we guarantee audiences will leave inspired to have an adventure of their own too,” said Tour Director Nell Teasdale. Banff Tour films are chosen from hundreds of entries into the Banff Mountain Film Festival, held every November in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The UK and Ireland tour starts in Leicester on 27 January and finishes in Wimbourne Minster on 8 November. The tour will show Exit the North Pole, depicting the perilous 1300km…

“That pale, long-visaged company That air in immortality Completeness of their passions won: Now they ride the wintry dawn Where Ben Bulben sets the scene. Here’s the gist of what they mean.”Under Ben Bulben, WB Yeats, 1938 THE OLD MAGE Yeats is for me and a myriad others the finest and most musical of late-nineteenth and first-half-of-the-twentieth-Century English-language poets. He may (more on this anon) lie buried in Drumcliff churchyard midway between “bare Ben Bulben’s head” and the farthest Rosses, which latter flicker magically throughout his early Symbolist verse. Every admirer of the fascistic old snob (and I’m wholeheartedly one of them) at some time makes his or her way in pilgrimage to his grave and – often as not in American academic accent – reads out his riddling epitaph:…

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Gear News New Berghaus initiative aims to make the outdoors more accessible for all Adapt is a new initiative from Berghaus, launched at the Kendal Mountain Festival last autumn, that’s designed to enable more people with physical disabilities to access the outdoors. In a pilot project Berghaus worked on kit adaptations with recovering quadriplegic Ed Jackson so he was able to climb peaks in the Alps, with guidance and assistance from Leo Houlding. Berghaus is now working with Ed Jackson’s charity, Millimetres to Mountains, to adapt kit for a number of its beneficiaries. berghaus.com; millimetres2mountains.org Jack Wolfskin releases new footwear made from sustainable materials The terraVenture range of low and mid hiking footwear is the first to feature Jack Wolfskin’s 100% recycled PFC-free waterproof breathable Texapore Ecosphere membrane. The inner…

Seams Internal seams should be minimal for maximum dexterity. Bulky seams, especially around the fingertips and thumb, reduce your ability to use equipment such as cameras, karabiners, rucksack buckles and even clothing zips. Leashes If you remove your gloves, it’s useful to be able to clip them together to dangle across a rucksack hipbelt or hook onto side straps. Wrist leashes and clips prevent your gloves separating or being dropped if you take them off. Measurements Bizarrely, gloves are usually measured in inches. To find your size, measure around the widest part of your hand – usually the circumference of your palm and knuckles – with a tape measure (excluding your thumb). It’s best to measure your dominant hand as it can be fractionally bigger. If you’re between sizes, you’ll…

1 Start/Finish Buttermere village car parks GR: NY174169 Pass L of Fish Hotel, then take track on R to cross stone bridge. Take path R, rising above Crummock Water to foot of Scales Force. 2 Path up L of waterfall, joining stream above for 400m. Main path turns up L, steep, to ridgeline. Follow ridge up SE to Red Pike. 3 Head S at first, then SE along ridge with big drops on L, to High Stile. Main cairn is on spur heading out NE. 4 Again head back S at first, to continuing ridge SE to High Crag. Down steep path to shoulder, then contouring L side of slight rise for steep drop to Scarth Gap Pass. (Short return back down L here.) 5 Ahead on slightly scrambly path…

1 Start/Finish Roadside parking in residential crescent by A470 just south of Tai’r Bull Inn, Libanus (GR: SN995260). Or use National Park Visitor Centre car park (GR: SN977262) Follow no through road west from A470 uphill to Argoed Lwyd (outdoor centre). Continue up track, which on a clear day provides good views of Corn Du and Pen y Fan. At top follow track round to L, passing car park and National Park Visitor Centre on L (well worth looking inside). 2 At road junction, go straight across and continue along track (restricted bridleway). Hill ahead of you in distance is Fan Frynych. Keep a look out for a kissing -gate and waymark post on L about 1km from visitor centre. 3 Go through gate and follow footpath, as indicated, heading…

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