What I’ve been reading this week, 5 July 2019
Quitting long-distance hiking, a thin skin over rock, editing as therapy, and it could always be worse… Outdoors DNF – Why I’ve quit long-distance hiking – Keith Foskett analyses a big change. Every now and again it’s time for something new in life. A wild camp on Braeriach – Chris heads
My Pinnacle Newsletter now has over 400 members
When I started the Pinnacle Newsletter in January 2018, the plan was for it to take the place of my Facebook presence, which I shut down with great relief. I didn’t have particularly high hopes for the newsletter, and I had no rigid plan for content or strategy – I
What I’ve been reading this week, 28 June 2019
It’s been another great week for online reads, on a variety of topics from Everest to haiku. Long-distance walking The case for hiking with a heavy pack – I agree with the conclusion of this piece and its general thrust, but I think the author is assuming a little too
Went to mow the meadow
Is this an essay about solastalgia, automation, landscape, history, or just a little tale about a walker and an owl? I don’t know, but I hope you enjoy reading it. Nine o’clock on a midsummer’s evening, and I hike through farmland that had once been the grounds
What I’ve been reading this week, 21 June 2019
One consequence of staying away from Twitter is that my to-be-read queue of articles is a lot smaller, but I’ve still picked up a number of interesting reads this week (largely via good old RSS, which has a better signal-to-noise ratio than Twitter). Enjoy. Long-distance walking Hiking in Finland
Observations from the edge of the wood
At seven o’clock in the morning I emerge from the patchwork of woodland bordering Gunby Park. These stands of trees, interconnected by hedges and thickets, semi-wild, are undergoing a subtle metamorphosis as the early summer shifts almost imperceptibly to midsummer – a turning of the wood’s heart that only
What I’ve been reading this week, 14 June 2019
Women who walk or run solo, death and power in the Highlands, mental health and mountains, and the value of close observation… Long-distance walking TGO Challenge 2019: the gear – Chris Townsend’s summary of the gear he took on this year’s TGO Challenge – a few old favourites, and some
The summer 2019 Twitter burnout
I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet, although I have decided to suspend all personal social media activity for a while. It’s seven o’clock, and I’d usually be about halfway through my morning walk, but there’s a storm blowing out there and it’
What I’ve been reading this week, 8 June 2019
It’s been an interesting week for online outdoor writing, skewed heavily by the UKWildCamp controversy – but I’ve picked up a few other nuggets on long-distance backpacking, mountaineering, environment and more. Outdoors Why are thru-hikers already in the High Sierra? – I follow a couple of PCT hashtags on Instagram,
Three lessons I learned by going offline for a month on the Cape Wrath Trail
It isn’t really about technology at all. In January 2019, when attempting to explain why I felt compelled to leave the internet behind for my winter Cape Wrath Trail, I wrote that ‘For some years, I’ve been aware that I can’t think properly when my mind is
