Unplugged #1: solitary bothy nights, unlocking the winter mountains, and finite FTW

Hello and welcome to Unplugged! For those of you who used to receive my weekly Pinnacle Newsletter, the format will be familiar. Why have I relaunched a weekly digest? Because I'm sometimes posting more than one blog post per week, and I don't want to overwhelm your inbox – but I want to resume updates on recently published material and what I've been reading. So this will be where I collect everything together: recent blog posts, details on recently published work, book announcements, upcoming speaking appearances, my photography, and of course reflections on what I've been reading.

To be clear: I will no longer be publishing every single blog post to the email newsletter. Every post will go to the website (and RSS), and will then be linked from this weekly(ish) roundup. Occasional special posts will still go out to the email newsletter, though. I'll no doubt tweak the format as I get into it.

I will no longer be posting links from my blog to any form of social media. So please don't think that you can follow me elsewhere and see my updates. This is going to be it!

Although I'm aiming for a weekly schedule, I'm not going to hold myself to anything rigid. Every week's different for me, life gets busy, weekends are often spent on the hill, and I'm wary about committing myself to something I can't keep up. Besides, Alpenglow Journal is still coming – an update soon, promise – and I want to leave capacity for that.

I sometimes think the Pinnacle Newsletter was one of the best things I've ever done in terms of online writing. It was certainly the most personal and informal way for me to chat with you, my lovely readers, so I'm excited about starting this up again in a new form!

Up here in eastern Scotland, a long period of dry, mild, and calm weather has come to an end (seriously, it's been crazy – weeks without rain). There's a sense that a long autumn is at last giving way to winter.

As always when the seasons shift, I find myself in a reflective mood. What have I achieved since the last seasonal change? Have I been living according to my principles, or have I allowed myself to become distracted? Have I succumbed to the temptation to take on work beyond my capacity? Have I done or made something genuinely worthwhile? And what course corrections do I need to make for the season ahead?

The thing is, such deep reflection is pretty hard to do in the world we have now, isn't it? We're constantly bombarded by opinions, priorities, ideas, entertainment. It all rains down on us constantly. Especially for people like me, remote creative freelancers whose work takes place via the internet. Ideas from outside are important, but one of my most deeply held beliefs is that we have to cut out the noise – cut out everything, at least occasionally – to be able to hear ourselves. That's pretty hard to do!

This week, I took myself off to a bothy for a midweek overnighter. Nothing fancy: just me, some candles and fuel for the fire, a dram or two of Glen Moray, a notebook and pen, and no smartphone. I saw no one, spoke to no one, and read nothing for the duration of my little outing. Practising what I preach, in other words.

After getting back, I realised that this was my first solitary bothy night since the final night of my winter Cape Wrath Trail almost six years ago.

I'll write up the full story of my quiet little bothy sojourn for Alpenglow Journal at some point, but for now I'll just say that I needed this. Maybe something like it is what you need too? It needn't be complicated. Just carve out some time for simplicity and silence, let your mind slow and quieten.

This week on Alexroddie.com

Another exodus from Twitter/X is underway... and, sorry to be a cynic as usual, but I've published an opinion piece on why I think Bluesky is a trap. It includes the line 'although I hate to say "I told you so", well, I told you so.'

In case you missed it from last week: A mountain before breakfast.

Recently published

The January 2025 issue of The Great Outdoors will be on sale soon, and in it you'll find two pieces from me. In addition to a mapped Wild Walk from Glen Coe, I have a feature called 'Unlocking the Winter Mountains', all about demystifying one of my favourite things: multi-day winter backpacking in the Scottish Highlands. It tells the story of a nice little two-day trip I conducted last winter over the Ben Lawers range. Through the story I pass on some knowledge about how to get in to high-level camping in winter – something that can feel intimidating if you haven't done it before. In discussion with David Lintern, TGO co-editor, I also wanted to give the reader a bit of a glimpse behind the curtain into how being a gear tester for the magazine can flavour our experiences in the mountains.

From my Ben Lawers feature:

We all have different reasons for going into the mountains. Mine are, in many respects, probably similar to yours – I'm gradually working my way through the Munros, I like pointy peaks with nice ridges – but being a gear reviewer adds complexity. Which gear do I need to test, and what does that testing require? Where can I go for the best photos? These may sound like luxurious problems to have, but I mention them because it's worth being hyper-aware of our individual motivations and how they might affect our decision-making process. Being over-committed to a particular route for whatever reason can compromise safety, so we need to keep having these honest chats with ourselves.

Upcoming

Kendal Mountain Festival

I will be at Kendal next week. This is the annual highlight of the outdoor industry calendar, and 'Kendal week' is always utterly crazy (the event technically only runs from Friday to Sunday, but it always seems to take over my life for an entire week). This year I will be working for Sidetracked magazine, but also catching up with team TGO as well as numerous other friends across the industry.

Now that ALINE Collective has been launched, we are staging our first open panel discussion (a KMF fringe event) on Saturday November the 23rd at 11.30am. You can buy tickets here. The event will be hosted by Rachel Sarah, but Davy Wright and I will be on stage during the introduction. On the panel will be Veronica Melkonian, John Summerton, Lyndsay McLaren, and Justin Cader. I'm really looking forward to what promises to be a candid open discussion about transparency in the outdoor industry.

Other events not to be missed include 'Adventure Inspired' – a behind-the-scenes look at Sidetracked magazine. This will be at the Kendal Town Hall on Friday November the 22nd at 4.30pm (sadly I can't be there as it clashes with something else I'm doing). John Summerton will also be talking about Sidetracked (specifically, our new book Voyages) in Basecamp on Saturday November the 23rd at 2.15pm.

Dundee Mountain Film Festival

I have an upcoming talk at the Dundee Mountain Film Festival on Saturday December the 7th at 9.30am (tickets here). I was asked to give this year's Irvine Butterfield Memorial Lecture, and will be chatting a bit about my winter Cape Wrath Trail. There's a great selection of films on before my talk, too, including the excellent Thrawn. And don't miss Anna Wells speaking on the Saturday afternoon about her incredible round of the Munros in winter.

What I've been reading

Books

An advance reading copy of New Wild Order by my friend Andy Hamilton landed on my doorstep a few weeks ago, and I've been engrossing myself in this lovely account of a man who cares and thinks deeply about the way life should be lived. I sometimes feel that we're in an era of people not really giving a damn about anything or standing up for things that should be important. It's so refreshing to find someone living deliberately for a change.

On the face of things this is a book about trying to live a life closer to nature. But when you get down to it, I think the author's journey is what makes it so compelling. He isn't interested in being told how he should live; he wants to experiment and find his own way, even if that results in embarrassment, inconvenience, false starts, and dead ends. Likewise, he isn't telling us how we should live either. Instead, he encourages experimentation, self-knowledge, and a love of nature. For me, this good-natured striving for something better (even if it's hard!) is what makes the book such a rewarding read.

I'll write up a full review after publication date in February next year, but for now I'll post the endorsement I sent to Andy's publicist (I have no idea how they'll edit this, so these are my unfiltered thoughts and feelings about the book).

Andy Hamilton is a man who thinks deeply about who he is, where we’re heading as a society, and our place in the natural world. His journey through life has been defined by a quest to live more intentionally and learn more about nature, and now he’s keen to pass on what he’s learned. What makes New Wild Order such an essential read is the refreshingly enthusiastic way Andy Hamilton throws himself into his many experiments to 'New Wild' his life – and the candid way he reports back to us. This is no smug self-help guru passing on gospel truths about how life should be lived. Instead we’re invited along on a journey of learning with an author who isn’t afraid to get things wrong, is happy to admit he doesn’t have all the answers, but is passionate about helping us live a happier, healthier and more natural life. I learned a huge amount by reading this book, which is intensely honest, thoughtful, curious and often funny.

Another book I've been reading recently is Life on Ice by Lonnie Dupre (preparation for an interview I'll be conducting with this author soon). It's an eye-opening account of a series of gruelling polar expeditions in the 1990s and early 2000s. A standout quote:

The bear moved a bit faster, 50 feet downwind. I sent another flare, which exploded in the snow just behind him. This time, he sat back on his huge haunches, looking around as if to take in what was happening. He aimed his cold, black eyes at us as we huddled inside the entrance of the tent. I was terrified. For the first time in my life, I truly understood what it was to be prey.

Finally, I have been re-reading the excellent Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy by James Williams. This slim book is a well-argued and thoroughly researched treatise on how the digital attention economy (specifically, modern social media) may be compromising human will on a global scale, and I think everyone should read it. A couple of standout quotes:

When most people in society use your product, you aren't just designing users; you're designing society.

If the first digital divide disenfranchised those who couldn't access information, today's digital divide disenfranchises those who can't pay attention.

The total effect of these systems on our lives is not analogous to that of past communications media. The effect here is much closer to that of a religion.

Online articles

Simon Freeman, editor of the excellent Like the Wind magazine (which I've been working with for a couple of issues now), has published an excellent Substack post on the value of constraints inherent to physical media – and why people are turning away from infinity pools and back to these constraints. In 'Finite FTW', Simon writes:

Getting back to publishing, what would happen if there was no limit to the amount of content available to us? Well, we are all in the process of finding out. [...] Today there are side-effects of the infinite scroll that I believe are driving people back to analogue media – one of which is quality (and the lack thereof). Which brings me back to the job of an editor: making choices. [...] In an infinite scroll, quality doesn’t matter. What matters is quantity (and speed). More wins over better. In a magazine or a book (or theoretically in a newspaper), there should be no space for bad or even mediocre contents. Print titles that did not understand that and tried to compete with the internet on its terms, are either empty shells or have died.

On the subject of online vs. physical media, more vs. less, lower quality vs. higher quality, I keep thinking about blogging – how there was a moment when blogging was everything in the outdoor community, but over the last decade it has been dramatically hollowed out. Substack might be taking up that mantle again (early days yet) but my RSS folder of outdoor bloggers now only sees a handful of updates a month, and that makes me sad. Many previously great blogs have simply withered on the vine. One of the few outdoor bloggers in my circle to have kept going is Chris Townsend, and I really enjoyed his recent post on rediscovering Strath Nethy.

Finally, coming back to this little theme of intentional living I've been nurturing in this post, I found myself nodding to 'Protect your joy' by Kassondra Kloos.

Many years ago, I read a lovely article about battling burnout in Flow, the “magazine for paper lovers.” The author suggested visiting a favorite paper or stationary store as an antidote to stress. I think about this often, and for me it is perfect advice—there are few things I love more than being surrounded by vivid colors that have been crafted into postcards, letterhead, envelopes, and gift wrap: tangible, shareable joy. [...] Wherever it is, go there, and protect it.

In other news

If you needed any more evidence that analogue photography is back in the mainstream, look no further than the surprising news that Amateur Photographer magazine has started a new Film Photographer of the Year competition. I'll be entering!

That's all, folks

Thanks so much for reading! I'm going to borrow a version of Austin Kleon's newsletter signoff, and state that this is an ad-free, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication – and proudly so. If you like what you've read, please subscribe to receive updates in your inbox – or add my feed to your RSS reader. As a reminder, RSS will give you immediate access to every post I stick up on the blog, but if you subscribe by email you'll only receive this weekly(ish) roundup plus the occasional bigger and more important post.

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