Unplugged #2: the Kendal Mountain Festival, conserving energy, and something in the darkness to believe in

Hello and welcome to the second edition of Unplugged. I missed last week, because I found myself down in Cumbria for the Kendal Mountain Festival. This fixture in the yearly calendar always feels a bit frantic, and this year had an apocalyptic flavour thanks to Storm Bert (hello, flooding and cancelled trains!), but it's also a golden opportunity to catch up with far-flung friends and colleagues.

I always come back from Kendal feeling absolutely exhausted. But I wouldn't miss it for anything.

This year I only got to see one film: Amka by Eva Capozzola, featuring the polar explorer Lonnie Dupre. I had the pleasure of interviewing Lonnie in person at Kendal. Look out for my interview on sidetracked.com soon.

For the last few years a Kendal highlight has been the annual Danner Boots and Brews event, hosted by the agency All Conditions Media. Danner is a manufacturer of hiking boots based in Portland, Oregon, and I've come to really admire their dedication to traditional craft as well as buy it for life values (or at least as close as you can realistically get with footwear). Many of their boots can be recrafted, which can mean anything from a full rebuild to replacing the sole. Although this currently has to be done in the USA, which isn't ideal, it's a heck of a lot better than most outdoor footwear… which, increasingly, are disposable products. This year I selected the classic Mountain Lights, and will be testing them for TGO magazine over the coming months. It's got to be said that they fit 100% with my personal aesthetic.

As part of my work with Davy Wright and Rachel Sarah for ALINE Collective, I helped to run a Kendal fringe event! Our event, 'Inauthentic?', was a panel discussion around the theme of transparency in the outdoor industry. Is the industry as transparent as it could be? How can we do better? Why are so many creatives struggling at the moment, and why is there a disconnect between what brands and media are producing and what creatives can provide? Are the stories we present authentic enough? Is there room for everybody at the table? How can we create a more sustainable, equitable and authentic industry for everyone?

These are big questions, and it's fair to say that ALINE's scope is pretty broad... which, I'll hold up my hands and admit, meant we had a lot of ground to cover in the discussion. Some technical challenges and organisation snafus threw us, and we did not do a very good job of introducing ourselves or what we hope to achieve. I'd like to apologise for the freezing venue and poor sound. We'll do better next time!

Feedback has covered quite a spectrum: from tough but constructive to extremely positive. A lot of people turned up, and many people have got in touch to say the discussion uncovered new perspectives for them. So, although we got some things wrong, I think we got some things right too. It's a great place to build from as we continue to refine what ALINE stands for. After reflection, we've resolved to move slowly and take time to develop our ideas before moving the community forward.

Kendal also provides a litmus test for my little corner of the outdoor industry. So what did I pick up on this year? This is all anecdotal and filtered through my own personal experience and biases, but here goes:

• More brands are getting on board with the idea that we should be buying less stuff, of higher quality, and keeping it for longer.
• Print is not going anywhere. I saw more print magazines, supplements, and books being handed around, read, and enjoyed at Kendal than any other year in recent memory, I think.
• I saw more people using film cameras than digital cameras. At one point in Basecamp I looked around and could see three different people with film cameras swinging on straps around their necks. These were all people younger than me (I'm 38). Of course, most people were still taking pictures with their phones, but it's a start!
• Whisper it, but a consensus seems to be building that long-form storytelling is worth investing in, both in the written word and moving picture. And resistance seems to be galvanising against lowest-common-denominator short-form web slop. At our fringe event, a panelist comment 'I'd like TikTok to die' raised a cheer from the audience.
• Moving fast and breaking things is out; moving slowly and conserving energy is in.

I also managed to get a bit of anti-AI propaganda up on stage for our fringe event, which was quite honestly not intentional (I did not realise my laptop would be needed until a few minutes before we began). But it made me smile. See if you can notice it in the header image above.

Recently published

Something in the darkness to believe in – 'In a very tangible sense, I believe that in this moment we relive the same fixed point in the lives of countless thousands of individuals, stretching back into deep time. Before, perhaps, there were buildings at all – just the glowing mouth of a cave.'

Building Alpenglow Journal: putting the idea on ice, and where I'm going from here – Earlier this year I announced big plans for a new kind of adventure publication, but after taking time to reflect I am scaling back these ambitions. Here's why – and how I'm moving forward instead. We can do a lot, but we can't do everything.

Upcoming

I have an upcoming talk at the Dundee Mountain Film Festival on Saturday December the 7th at 9.30am (tickets here). That's next Saturday! I was asked to give this year's Irvine Butterfield Memorial Lecture, and will be chatting a bit about my winter Cape Wrath Trail.

What I've been reading

Books

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. Something a bit lighter than my usual – and it'd been on my TBR list for about a decade. Enjoying it so far.

Online stuff

The fear of scarcity – An interesting piece by Steph Wetherall, who attended our 'Inauthentic?' fringe event in Kendal. 'There isn’t enough funding to go around because we’re all applying to the same limited number of funding opportunities and working from lean budgets. And as creatives, we’re often left pitching to a subset of publications that are interested in hearing from diverse voices. And when our own income - either as an organisation or as a creative - is on the line, it’s difficult to step away from the fear of scarcity into a place of generosity and sharing.'

Mountain Style: the history of British outdoor clothing – A great blog post from Chris Townsend about this fascinating new book. I had the pleasure of attending the launch in Kendal last weekend. Unfortunately I forgot to turn up wearing my vintage mountaineering kit; a few others who did all won prizes! The next morning I had to do a double take when I saw two guys strolling down Kendal High Street decked out in full 1930s-style mountaineering kit. What a time to be alive.

Rider Resilience – The Film – Nils Amelinckx, who sadly passed away in 2023, left a magnificent legacy in his work with Rider Resilience, which aims to show how cycling can profoundly improve lives. The film is out now.

This traveler explores the world without the internet. Could—or should—you do this, too? – It's so interesting reading how different people erect personal boundaries around their smartphone use. This writer adopts pretty much the same approach I did on my 2019 winter Cape Wrath Trail: no internet use, but non-internet smartphone use is permitted. The goal is to stop the device from preventing you being present. Also great to see stories like this becoming a bit more mainstream. 'There’s no scrolling, which in itself is a revelation.'

Revelry Collection – I came across this on Substack: a new coffee table adventure magazine that only includes photos shot on film. More of this, please.

New publisher Spines aims to 'disrupt' industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone – I can't imagine how anyone thinks this can possibly be a good thing. I very much doubt the founders of this terrible idea actually read books themselves. 'We want AI to do the washing up for us, not to paint the Sistine Chapel. We need humans and human skills for nuance, and there’s a huge amount that goes into the developmental editing process that simply can’t be replicated with AI. And I don’t think you’d want to anyway, as you risk losing some of the magic.'

A useful thought here about Substack Notes. 'Notes are a little like snacks. The more of them you eat, the fuller your belly… and suddenly there’s no room for dinner.'

In other news

Looking for Christmas presents? I have a small stock of these titles to send out as signed and personalised copies (UK only). The Wanderlust books are £40 and The Farthest Shore is £14.95, and for December I'll waive additional postage fees. Email me if you'd like one.

Please don't buy from Amazon if you can avoid it. I know it's cheaper, but I'll get a lot less money, my publishers will get a lot less money, and the publishing industry is suffering enough as it is. I'd always recommend buying direct from the publisher, from your local independent bookseller, or via bookshop.org. If you'd prefer not to buy directly from me, here are the best links for buying online:

• Wanderlust Europe: gestalten | bookshop.org
• Wanderlust Alps: gestalten | bookshop.org
• Wanderlust British & Irish Isles: gestalten | bookshop.org
• The Farthest Shore: Vertebrate Publishing | bookshop.org

That's all, folks

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