Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i The Great Outdoors

Hello The Great Outdoors is Britain’s original outdoors magazine, inspiring exploration from sea to summit, valley to mountain top for more than four decades. We’re here to help you make the most of your time outside. Be it with skills advice, ideas for new walks or activities, fresh points of view on nature or breathtaking adventure stories near and far, our focus is on you – the outdoors community. It is a family affair. Our small team works with emerging writers and photographers alongside those with many decades of experience, allowing all to speak in their own voice and share the ups and downs of real, life-enhancing tales from the trail. Making room for everyone remains the heart and soul of Th e Great Outdoors. We are also proud to…

7 varied routes in England, Scotland and Wales Winter is a season synonymous with staying indoors and hibernating. But for some hillwalkers, the call of crunching crampons on snow and ice sugaring our landscapes is simply irresistible. If you’re too busy refreshing the MWIS forecasts to plan your next winter mountain outing, let our experts save you a job with some of their favourite hibernal hill routes. It’s just up to you to make sure you’re winter-hill-ready first. Need some guidance? Flick to page 46 for winter hill skills from the best of the best at Glenmore Lodge. Our walks this month 1 Gleouraich & Spidean Mialach West Highlands 2 Collier Law & Fatherley Hill North Pennines 3 Burnhope Seat North Pennines 4 Newlands Round Lake District 5 High Raise via…

18.5km/11.5 miles/6.5 hours Ascent 489m/1605ft Ian Battersby hopes for Winter on the Wear and a freeze on the Tees BURNHOPE RESERVOIR laps quietly above the village of Wearhead, and by following Burnhope Burn and tributaries uphill you’re sure to summit Burnhope Seat. At 746m the trig point used to be the top of County Durham (shifting borders now pin the title on Mickle Fell), but it’s trumped by its own crown, driving another metre skyward across the border in Cumbria. Further west, a working ski tow on Burnhope Seat’s western flank surely makes these moors a favoured wager for Winter. On this freezing day a decent frost was the hope, useful for firming up any squelch on top. The ground was frozen so solid that spikes would have eased the…

14.5km/9 miles/5-5.5 hours Ascent 777m/2550ft Vivienne Crow finds even grassy ‘bumps’ can have a dark side I LOVE THE WAY Winter adds excitement to even the most low-key of hills. Stybarrow Dodd may be able to shout proudly that it’s part of the Helvellyn range, but it’s little more than a pimple on the mountain’s muscular northern arm – a slight bump on a broad, mostly grassy ridge. Add strong winds, low cloud and snow, though, and it becomes something more commensurate with its 843m altitude. This is my sheepish way of confessing to a moment of unnerving disorientation in a white-out on the fell last Winter. Cloud had been blowing in and out since I started climbing from Glencoyne. I knew to steer well clear of the quarry pits…

IN THIS ISSUE Max Leonard and Henry Iddon are both fascinated by the evolution of outdoor gear. They recently co-authored the book Mountain Style, and in this issue they team up to share an intriguing insight into the world of hill fashion (page 34). Max is a writer and the publisher at Isola Press, which makes adventures in illustrated books. Henry is a photographer, filmmaker and independent scholar of mountaineering history whose images and film work are held in various UK and international collections. Isis Taylor is a Yorkshire-based outdoor adventure writer and photographer who loves hiking, trail running, paddleboarding and wild swimming. She’s the founder of the female outdoor community Her Outdoors Collective, which aims to get more women enjoying the outdoors. On page 56 she describes a hike through the…

IT WAS THE SUMMER OF 1985, and Dave Sexton was pitched up on the shore of Mull’s Loch Ba watching conservation history unfold. His tent leaked, the weather was wet and the midges were particularly bad, but Dave wasn’t complaining. He’d waited years for this opportunity, pestering the RSPB head office in Sandy by post until they’d finally offered him a seasonal ‘species protection’ contract on Mull. His job was to join a team conducting 24-hour surveillance at one of Britain’s most exciting nesting sites. A pair of white-tailed eagles – reintroduced to Scotland in 1975 – had built a nest on the island, and conservationists were hoping they’d produce the first chick to be born in Britain for nearly a century. Dave had already spent one summer season surveying…

FROM ABOUT THE AGE OF 13, my Christmas and birthday presents from my parents generally consisted of various bits of outdoor clothing, usually matching with my younger sister. One of these items was a Patagonia R1 fleece, which almost 20 years on is still a key piece of my winter layering system, and feels as good as new. There’s a reason a couple of top climbers wrote a very catchy song about the R1 and how many big objectives have been climbed in these fleeces! The microgrid fabric was a real step up from the classic fleece, both in terms of warmth and weight. Getting out winter climbing I noticed the difference immediately, and I felt much more comfortable hanging around on belays, but not too hot when back on…

11.2km/7 miles/7 hours Ascent 1177m/3863ft Roger Butler enjoys a dazzling winter sunset after ticking off two fine Munros THE ROAD OUT TO lonely Kinloch Hourn, past Loch Gerry and Loch Cuaich, is one of Britain’s longest cul-de-sacs and any drive here is always going to be an adventure. But it’s also the gateway to splendid ridges and remote glens – and the slopes begin right next to the narrow strip of tarmac. Better still, there are a number of excellent well-constructed stalkers’ paths offering swift and straightforward routes up into the hills. Gleouraich and Spidean Mialach form a fine pair of Munros and their tussocky slopes above the loch lead up to a series of steep north-facing corrie walls. These act as buttresses to a graceful stony ridge that looks…

Ascent 1182m/3878ft 17.3km/10.7 miles/7 hours James Forrest enjoys one of the best horseshoe ridgewalks MOSEDALE, COLEDALE, Deepdale, Kentmere, Fairfield, Hartsop, Fusedale or Newlands – which is the Lakes’ best horseshoe ridgewalk? The competition is fierce, and there’ll probably never be consensus among the opinionated hillwalking community, but the cream of the crop might just be this route: the Newlands Round. It’s a bona fide Lakeland classic, featuring iconic peaks, world-class views and a wonderful sense of circularity. The round – a high-level, summit-bagging loop of Newlands Beck – sticks to the high ridges, and bags six Wainwrights. On the eastern section you’ll tick off Cat Bells, Maiden Moor and High Spy; on the western leg it’s all about the twin tops of Hindscarth and Robinson; but it’s the bit in…

12.3km/7.6 miles/4 hours Ascent 903m/2960ft Norman Hadley extends a cramponned toe into the snow LET’S JUST SAY the Helvellyn Edges round is unquestionably the finest winter circuit England’s mountains offer. Often (too often), it is the only abode of reliable snow. But be warned: if you’ve sauntered along these ridges on a dry summer’s day, the winter experience may be an order of magnitude more serious, extending a cramponned toe into mountaineering. Preparation is key, so study the forecast in the days leading up to your ascent. Check too the excellent daily snow reports from the Weatherline Fell Top Assessors service. You can also get turf temperatures from the BMC website and up-to-date webcam imagery from the ski centre on nearby Raise. Even in the last four years, I have…

A magazine subscription is the perfect gift: • Personal, thoughtful and fuels their passion • Provides enjoyment all year round • And saves you money on the shop price! GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS FROM £22.99 OVER 45 TITLES TO CHOOSE FROM VISIT SHOP.KELSEY.CO.UK/XMAS25POR CALL 01959 543 747 AND QUOTE ‘XMAS25P’ Lines are open Mon-Fri 8.30am to 5.30pm. Calls are charged at your standard network rate UK customers only. Offers end 31st January 2026…

Dundee Mountain Film Festival 5-7 December Fife In its 41st edition, Dundee Mountain Film Festival is housed at Abertay University with a Sunday fringe at Dundee Contemporary Arts. An eclectic programme features films from the Vancouver Mountain Film Festival and a special Saturday morning Scottish film extravaganza showcasing the Irvine Butterfield Memorial Lecture. With four programmes across two days, speakers include alpinist Leo Houlding, filmmaker and former TGO Reader Awards winner Kevin Woods, Sean Green (otherwise known as The Grizzly Munroist) and climber Shona Marshall – as well as her dog Betty! As usual there will be exhibitions from the arts, trade and voluntary sector. This year the festival’s resident artist is Phoebe Sleath. Cost: £9.38-44.04 ■dmff.co.uk Sphagnum moss planting with the BMC 12 December Goyt Valley, Peak District In…

“Gogoniant i Dduw To the enduring memory of Janet Haigh who even as late as her eighty-fourth year despite dim sight and stiffened joints still loved to walk this way from Talybont to Penmaenpool.” YOU’LL FIND THAT INSCRIPTION carved on a slate tablet where the path over from the lower reaches of Afon Mawddach begins its zig-zag descent towards little Pont Ysgethin, in the lovely valley that leads down to Talybont. There, a long line of beaches stretch from Harlech to Abermaw. Pont Ysgethin is perhaps best known for the photograph by Fay Godwin that was used on the cover of a delightful book by Shirley Toulson on the drovers’ roads of Wales. Fay used to visit me frequently when I lived at Abergafren, which looks across Traeth Bach towards…

16.9km/10.5 miles/5.5 hours Ascent 388m/1305ft Ian Battersby skis across snows dumped by a Weardale whiteout AFTER WEEKS OF nights above freezing and gloomy greys, a cold snap and a fall of dazzling snow offers an appealing remedy. Weardale can seize on a blizzard, yet its main road is kept conveniently clear, easing access after an overnight dump. Stanhope Burn with attendant woods of slender white birch wriggles with glee to higher ground. A backward glance may be gratified by a hushed barn owl working muted, snow-smothered banks of hidden holes for voles. Knee-deep snow had been freshly worked by an earlier riser, but all tracks vanished at the snowploughed lane. The next half mile demanded an hour of wallowing toil, finally forcing unforeseen retreat and reconsideration. Skis allowed progress the…

16.5km/10.2 miles/5.5-6 hours Ascent 759m/2490ft Vivienne Crow extols the forgotten virtues of our valleys IT’S ALL ABOUT the summits, isn’t it? Or is it? Sometimes, in our never-ending desire to get ‘high’, we hillwalkers forget that mountain landscapes are as much about the valleys as they are about the peaks. With this in mind, I set out last Winter to wander up Greenup Gill and down Langstrath – two of Borrowdale’s side valleys. To link the two, I’d need to cross High Raise. At 762m, it’d be the highest point on the route but not the walk’s raison d’être. The valleys didn’t disappoint… Ancient oak woods, gnarly in their winter nakedness; boulders lying scattered at the foot of crags; birch and rowan clinging to rocky gills; hummocky moraine revealing the…