Places, expeditions, articles

This section contains words-n-pictures web journals of my recent trips to the Spanish Sierra Nevada; the American ditto along the John Muir Trail, California; and to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

Here also are some of my recent articles, written for magazines like tgo (The Great Outdoors) or Lakeland Walker, including a couple that have won awards plus others that I've particularly enjoyed writing. Here are also links to one or two podcasts from the Outdoors Station, and captioned images from an Edinburgh talk/slideshow on bivvy bags.


how to walk across Scotland
A bit of lockdown nostalgia on the Cicerone Extra website here (and the basis for a future book, who knows?)
winner, Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild Awards: best technical freature 2021
immersion in the outdoors
Live stream from Cicerone Press, hosted by Amy Hodgkin, celebrating the 20th anniversary new edition of Book of the Bivvy. 60 mins, with some pictures at the beginning.
Bivvybag chat
Me, interviewed about bivvying by Bob Cartwright of The Outdoors Station. From 2012, now only preserved here. About 30 mins.

I want that job – guidebook author
Me, interviewed about being a guidebook writer by Dan Bailey. Posted on UKhillwalking.com. It's not all glamour and it'll never make you rich. But then that's really not the point. Dan Bailey talks bivvies, bad puns and sleeping in the car with prolific walking writer Ronald Turnbull, an author with 30 book titles to his name and a regular contributor to the outdoor mags.
Mountain Literature Classics
A series of short reviews of books which I consider to be classics, in fellwalking as well as mountaineering, from Coleridge by way of WH Murray to Bill Bryson and Muriel Gray; published on UKhillwalking.com
Austria Hut to Hut
A tour of the Stubaital Hohenweg, a great introduction to the thoroughly enjoyable art of Alpine hiking. Plus some commentary on Unna's Rules on access in Scotland and their adaptation (read: complete reversal) for Austria. On UKhillwalking.com. (For the article itself, click the image.)
Bivvy vs Bothy
me pretending to prefer bivvies vs Phoebe Smith pretending to prefer bothies. In fact they're both fine ways for a night in the hills. Posted on Cicerone Extra. (For the article itself, click the image.)
High time for the Southern Uplands
These hills deserve 44 days out of every hillwalking lifetime. Promotional piece for my book 'Walking in the Southern Uplands'. Article posted on Cicerone Extra.
Cornerstones: Sandstone
15-minute talk on Radio 3 'The Essay' about the Old and New Red Sandstones, recorded at Portishead, Somerset 2013: listen to (or download) podcast
A Long Walk -- and a Broad Stand
Coleridge and his 9-day fellwalk of 1802, which I rewalked in 2002 for Lakeland Walker magazine. Coleridge's own description of Moss Force, Newlands - to my mind the finest piece of outdoor writing so far - is only in print in academic works, so I've put it on the web.
web page words and pictures
Moss Force, Newlands from Coleridge's hill journal 1802
Walking the Border
A 5-day walk in 2011 from Gretna to Berwick, in the hoofprints of the small but effective Turnbull tribe of Border cattle thieves. Article posted on UKHillwalking.com.
The Spanish 3000s
A 5-day walk along the Sierra Nevada of Spain in June 2013 with more snow than usual for the time of year. Web journal (words and pictures) and a detailed route description for this remote and rather rocky walk across Europe's highest mountains outside the Alps.
John Muir Trail
Perhaps the best 200-mile walk in the world, from Yosemite to Mount Whitney in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. My walk along it was in September 2007.
web journal words and pictures
A podcast about walking the John Muir Trail and using Alan Castle's guidebook from Cicerone Press
podcast from the Outdoors Station
Does Muir matter? Short centenary article about the man, his walks, and his nights out with President Teddy Roosevelt at UKHillwalking.com
What the Human Body's For
ie long walks. Introductory essay for 'The Trail Walkers' Handbook', posted on Cicerone Extra. (For the article itself, click the image.)
Blue Ridge Mountains
Can trees please? Americans seem to think so, but I had my doubts on this 100-mile walk along part of the Mountains to the Sea Trail in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina.
web journal words and pictures
A Cairngorms Crag and Bag
The Cairngorm 4000-footers, over three days, by scrambling routes or easy climbs. Article published in TGO and winner of the OWPG Cicerone Award for Best Words-and-Pictures Feature 2006
pdf download 600k file, screen resolution
Dragon's Back Race 1992
The five-day race the length of Wales. Glyn and I came approximately last -- but we made it. The race is being re-run in 2012, with an entry fee multiplied by fifty. The first edition of Welsh Three Thousand Foot Challenges had a 12-page account of the run. This has been shortened for the current edition but you can download the original here.
pdf download 800k file, screen resolution
Night of Adventure
A talk in Edinburgh (for the charity Hope and Homes for Children) in 2011 where the brief was 20 images each appearing for just 20 seconds on a full size cinema screen. The 'Night of Adventure' comprised 11 outdoor adventurers. I was the tame one -- but at least my adventures, being hilltop bivvies, did indeed take place at night.
web page 20 images and their captions
video [external link] the images (squashed a bit) and me talking
Book of the Bivvy podcast
A podcast of me discussing The Book of the Bivvy can be listened to with the link below. The interview is 25 minutes or so. podcast
Three Peaks Ten Tors podcast
A podcast of me discussing my bookThree Peaks Ten Tors with a lot of digressions at the OS Outdoors (actually Indoors) Show in March 2007 can be downloaded with the link below. The interview is 35 minutes, the file is 16MB (so you need Broadband).(sorry, now deleted from The Outdoors Station)

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