Outdoor Discoveries

Coincidences or mind-reading?

Last week, I picked up a copy of the latest edition of Country Walking and it features ideas with which I have been toying for a while. High Cup Nick and Teesdale on the Pennine Way are among these as is a circular walk from Ingleton that takes in Twisleton Scars and Ingleborough, yet another route that I’d like to reprise. Even, nearby Shutlingsloe and Tegg’s Nose get a look in too so Cheshire’s hill country does not get neglected either.

The week before, the current edition of TGO arrived on my doormat and it features two places that I have visited recently: the Howgill Fells and Gower. The latter of these only saw me again last week and I enjoyed a circular walk taking in Rhosili Down and a pleasant stretch of the Welsh Coastal Path between Rhosili and Port-Eynon. The TGO route differed from these coastal ambles but going inland and uphill for much of the way. Gower is not big but it attracts a lot of folk of a sunny day and the roads cannot take the traffic so that’s worth bearing in mind. That also has the effect of severely delaying buses as I discovered. Sensibly, I decided to overnight in the area rather than trying a day trip so the delay caused no mishap and I was indoors before a weather drama featuring lightning, thunder and heavy rain unfolded. Looking along that coastline again is causing me to conjure up yet more walking ideas.

TGO’s Howgill Fells route is an overnighting affair too and explores hills that I only glimpsed from atop The Calf. While a day walk would be more what I am after, it has made me think about approaching these hills using somewhere other than Sedbergh, again using the 564 bus service between Kendal and Kirkby Stephen. The Llyn in Wales is another walking possibility of which this month’s TGO has reminded me and there’s the prospect of a circular hike into hills from Achnashellach train station on the Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh line too for pondering, especially as I have played with using an out and back train journey along that railway to occupy a day when the weather isn’t as favourable for going out of doors.

While the overlap between my thinking and what’s to be found in walking magazines may seem uncanny but it could also be that I am just ranging over so much of Britain when playing with possibilities that overlap with what others are thinking is inevitable. Then again, they may be reading my words on here too…

Reassembled

After last weekend’s bout of madness on the web hosting side of things, this place is more or less back together again. Along the way, there may have been a lot of poking around backups to get things sorted but there are also were reminders of places where I haven’t been for a while as various entries saw reinstatement. In some cases, I ended up asking myself if it really was that long ago when I last was in some areas. The Brecon Beacons is one such hill wandering destination that hasn’t been savoured for quite a while and Pembrokeshire and Perthshire fall into the same category as does Galloway. Maybe I should poke around here more often whenever I run out of ideas though the likes of TGO should keep replenishing them, especially as I am catching up with a few issues of the magazine at the moment.

These inadvertent reminders have had me recalling how things were when I first started out blogging and how far things have moved since then; those early postings were more pithy and there may a point in returning to a little bit of that, especially if it means that you hear from me more often. There was a lot of talk about motivation and hibernation even in those days and those haven’t gone away though interruptions by work and family life make their intrusions known too. In one respect, seeing what I have already written should stop me repeating myself too often but being confronted by unfinished business is another counterpoint to those occasions when it is too easy to say that I have seen enough of hill country. After you, there always are new sights to see even if it is different light falling on a familiar location.

A New Look for TGO

While the weather did its best yesterday to lure us into thinking that a heatwave was in progress, today has proven that it wasn't to last long at all. In fact, there's a stiff north-easterly wind to take the edge of the temperatures. While some may bemoan the cooling down, it does make things better for those who plan enjoy the outdoors in a more active way. This evening saw me take my bike for a short cycle and that wind certainly didn't make temperatures feel at all icy and I wasn't long getting up some heat of my own making.

Before all that, the latest issue of TGO arrived on my doormat this morning and it looks as if the magazine has got a dramatic overhaul. To someone like me who is amazed by what is being done to computing interfaces in the world of technology, it was a reminder of the period of change through which we are going at present; I even spotted copies of TGO on a shelf in my local Sainsbury's too! Some changes have to be fought and these include the mad experiment that is onshore wind farm technology or daft political moves like selling off Forestry Commission land and other such crazy countryside-wrecking initiatives instated by our current U.K. government. However, some change require adaptation and even embracing. It might be said that the alterations to TGO are an example of the latter.

So TGO now sports a brighter look with the sort of full binding that we haven't it lost a few years ago in favour of using a staple binding, now the more expensive option if you believe the editor of Photography Monthly. That change in presentation brings bigger pages and larger photos. With regard to content, there seems to have been a wholesale reorganisation with Wild Walks coming near the back now. It does seem that much of the usual stuff is in there though you might wonder if it is in danger of getting lost given the other changes. However, there's now a hill skills section and Jim Perrin's column is a single page affair focussing on works of outdoors literature that have inspired him rather than a double page spread of his ruminations drawing on various works of literature. That distinction may no sound so clear but it is how I see it.

While witnessing a restyle like that done to TGO does make you wonder if it is in danger of losing its soul, it's in the reading that you only can assess matters such as that and I have yet to give this month's issue more than an initial inspection. Nevertheless, there seems to plenty of continuity in terms of articles on walking and gear reviews. Those devoted to the types of related matters such as a photo essay on Patagonia or an interview with a landscape painter are not all that new to the magazine either. Big rearrangements can unsettle us but it does seem that nothing has been lost along the way in this case. Maybe I need to get reading and add to my list of trip ideas then…

Matters of terminology

Yesterday evening and overnight, a white blanket arrived in and around Macclesfield. A company Christmas night out meant that I was out in Manchester to see the white stuff blanketing there and Stockport too. Again the south of England seems to have been affected too with Twitter awash with transport companies telling what services are running and where. However, it seems that hardly anywhere has escaped with Wales and Scotland seeing some too.

There was a time when this sort of weather was enough to have me out doors pottering over the white coverings but it doesn't seem to hold the same appeal for me these days. Was it last winter's snows that broke the spell? Prior to that, snow was a short-lived visitor that never satisfied my curiosity and was enough to lure me out of doors, even to pace over local paths. Now, it seems that there is a feeling of extra effort required to get about instead, not that I don't have the ability of the kit to be able to get where I want to go.

All of this has me wondering if the same sort of becalming has affected my hillgoing. It's easy to point out causes such as changing job, having busy working weeks, not getting alluring weather or being tired at weekends but there may be another cause: have I more than sated my hill country appetite? With that in mind, it might be an idea to see if there are ways around this if it indeed is the cause.

Popping up accessible little hills might be one of them and my visit to Caer Caradoc last month was very much of this ilk; the fact that it wasn't crowded either helped for enjoyment of the walk. Ironically, this months issue of Country Walking has a feature on walking little hills and Hope Bowdler, not at all far from Caer Caradoc or Church Stretton, gains a mention in there as does Ysgyryd Fawr near Abergavenny. Maybe, creating a collection of little hills on my proverbial ideas shelf for easy planning could help to overcome any present torpor. This is far from list ticking because I like to go for walks to enjoy the surrounding countryside and not to say that I have "done" all the tops on a certain list or other.

The word "little" cropped again in my reading, this time in an issue of TGO that I was perusing on the way down to Oxford for a business trip. What I spied on those pages was a review of Cicerone's Scotland's Best Small Mountains. Since then, I have acquired a copy of the said guide as an eBook and discovered that smallness is in the eye of the beholder. With Country Walking, the sorts of heights are in the 300-500 metre category but many of the "small mountains" are in the 700-900 metre range. There are other contrasts too with some of the hills featured in the Cicerone book being out in pretty wild countryside, a counterpoint to the more genteel surroundings of those in the magazine. The guide starts in the north-west highlands of Scotland and works its way south and throws up a number of options worthy of exploring, some of which I have actually walked. Here, Ben Vrackie and Morrone come to mind but there are one or two others if my memory serves me correctly.

It might that both the magazine and the book are highlighting something of which I have grown short: ideas. There also is the need for time to ponder and plan such things, particularly for those longer excursions. Then, I might be able get things going again in 2011 but my ambitions are sure to be modest. After all, I have been developing a certain dislike for lofty terms like summits and peaks and now find referring to such things as tops to be much more amenable. Whatever I call them, there will be no obsession with these because it will be the walking, exploring and savouring that will matter above all else.

A nice little magazine

While on my recent trek to Wales, I spotted the quarterly Walking Wales Magazine. Confusingly, there also is a brochure published by the Welsh Tourist Board with almost the same title but that is a separate entity. While Scotland has TGO, Ireland has Walking World Ireland, and England has both Country Walking and Trail, Wales seems to have nothing apart from the slim compact periodical that I bought last Friday. However, it seems hard to get; the last time that I encountered an issue was while on an outing to Abergavenny a few years ago and I hadn’t seen one again until my visit to Dyffryn Ardudwy. Here’s a summary of what’s in the issue that I picked up (2007 Issue 2): feature articles on walking in the Wye Valley, in Gwydir Forest and among the Moelwynion, a "Great Walks" section sharing walks from around Wales, and news from the Welsh walking scene among other things. With content like this and an annual subscription costing only £12.95 and I must admit to being tempted, especially when I haven’t been seeing it on wider sale.