Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2015 i Trail

You’ve got to love Britain. Winter is dark, but not crushing; colour explodes at either end of it; and in summer the days incrementally lengthen like a cat creeping towards full stretch. They reach a sufficiently supernatural length on 21 June – a time of year in the most northern reaches of Scotland when, if you climb just a little higher than the horizon, you can still feel the sun on your face at 10.35pm, with traces of light often still in the sky after midnight. This part of the country is like Scandinavia-lite, and when the solstice rolls around and you feel like experiencing that entrancing, late light on high in locations where you can look over Britain’s frayed northern coast, you have two choices. Ben Hope is the…

Go: the Lake District Do: hostel hopping When someone says ‘Youth Hostel’, what do you picture? I can’t be the only one with memories of miserable school trips staying in musty buildings filled with flea-bitten furniture. I can still taste the gruel served up by geography teachers from grimy self-catering kitchens, and I can still smell the stale bed sheets and grubby mattresses where I lay awake pining for my mum. Those experiences ensured that I went out of my way to avoid Youth Hostels for the next 20 years, which – it turns out – was enough time for them to be totally reinvented. Not only has the Youth Hostels Association (YHA) invested over £30 million in modernising the majority of its properties over the last five years, it’s…

Go the Lake District Do solo tarping OPENING MY EYES, MY HEAD , IS CLEAR. COLOUR INVIGORATES MY RETINAS. CRISP AIR FILLS MY LUNGS. I’M AWAKE, AND I’VE NEVER BEEN MORE SO. Last night, I’d climbed 400m up the side of the Lake District’s Raven Crag, and rigged a basic shelter between a couple of weather-worn pine trees clinging to a cliff ledge. The tarp – a simple square of nylon – is still tight, raking down to the mossy ground on my windward side. With nothing but fresh air between me and the cinematic view swirling around the 7km-long empty stretch of Thirlmere, I hardly know this simplest of shelters is there. Honestly, if you haven’t ever woken up without that usual tenty smell of unwashed feet, sweat and…

Go Snowdonia Do portaledging If hostelling is fun, wild camping is bold, tarping is rough, cave dwelling is unhinged and bivvying is nuts… then you’d be forgiven for thinking that cliff camping is batshit crazy. To put it in perspective, you hang off a sheer face on a fabric platform roughly wide enough for two adults to lie head-to-toe. This is anchored onto whatever protrusions of rock or tree look unlikely to snap in half in the night. Then you settle down above the chasm below and try to sleep. Sounds improbable. But that’s where Trail’s guide for the night wants to prove you wrong. Sam Farnsworth may be only 26, but he’s been climbing big walls for a decade – and when his teenage self came back from a…

Imagine you’re alone on an Alpine face. There’s nothing but air above and below you for hundreds, perhaps thousands of metres. The rock under your fingertips is dark and very cold. There’s nowhere to go but up; and if you keep your focus and avoid accidents you’ll eventually feel the warmth of the light breaking over the mountain’s summit and be done. For Tom Ballard this was the winter of 2014. “The timeframe is very short,” the 26-year-old alpinist tells Trail . “If I’d had a different set of conditions it just wouldn’t have been possible. I picked the right year to try.” He’s explaining how between December 2014 and March 2015 he became the first to solo the six ‘great north faces’ of the Alps in one winter season.…

In Britain we view mountains as fairly static things. When we think about bits dropping off we tend to think about younger, more dynamic ranges like the Alps or Himalayas. Our peaks feel like safe old things that have done all their falling down and will remain as they are forever. But this is far from the truth. Although they’re not currently holding glaciers and don’t experience a high frequency of incidents, rock and stonefall among our crags and peaks is a real danger. It’s all part of a natural process. There are numerous actions at play including weathering, freeze-thaw, avalanches, rivers and seismic activity. In human lifespan timescales, mass movements (like the slab that collapsed in Lord’s Rake on Scafell or the rock slope failure on Druim nan Ramh…

QUESTION Should I roll, fold or stuff my tent when putting it away? Karen Childs, Ongar ANSWER Graham Thompson GT – Trail’s technical editor for nearly 25 years – is our walking gear guru. The key is that you don’t put too much stress on any areas as that could potentially damage the tent. It’s also useful when unpacking the tent that it is not a tangled mess. But equally if you were to fold your tent the same way every time, then stress would be placed on the same areas and this could potentially weaken those areas. So a light folding process that keeps the tent neat so it is easier to pitch when needed is a good start. Then roll it gently to fit inside the stuffsack. However…

Either as a tough one-day challenge, or as a more leisurely two-day overnighter with time to enjoy the views from all 14 Wainwrights, this route is one of the best in the Lake District. Traversing pretty much arrow-straight at high level through the centre of the fells, it pretty much guarantees a sheer variety and quality of views that’s hard to beat. In good weather, at least! Don’t forget to look back over your shoulder to Skiddaw as you rise up Clough Head, then seek out the head of Ullswater from Stybarrow Dodd. At Helvellyn summit the panorama out west is superb, with Great Gable etching a sharp profile on the distant skyline. Not forgetting the classic views over the sharp eastern arêtes of Swirral and Striding Edges. It’s also…

Yr Aran is like a rock-walled sentry guarding Snowdon’s stunning south ridge. At 747m, it’s not a big peak by Snowdonia standards. But it rises 250m above Bwlch Cwm Llan – the saddle that separates it from the mighty Yr Wyddfa – so any attempt on its slender summit is always going to involve some big reascent. And the fact that it’s not well-served with paths only adds to the challenge. This walk – a fairly tough outing for just over 8 miles – is actually the true horseshoe of the lovely Cwm Llan. It starts by gaining Yr Aran’s east ridge through a mix of hard work and perseverance, and it then takes on Snowdon’s airy and underrated southern ridge all the way to the summit. The Watkin Path…

Crossing a whole mountain range in one go is a great feeling. Crossing four of them (and a whole National Park) is even better. This route links all four Brecon Beacons massifs in a huge three-day wild camping epic that can be lengthened or shortened at will. The description uses public transport to connect the start and finish, but it could just as easily be done between car parks at the eastern and western ends, saving a few miles of walking plus a long and slightly complicated bus journey. The middle day has been deliberately designed as the longest day as there will be no need for transport at either end. A four-day approach would make it possible to break this into two. TRANSPORT Buses Talgarth and Brynamman can be…

Highest mountain climbed? Ojos del Salado at 6893m in Chile. Unfortunately I hadn’t acclimatised, so reaching the summit wasn’t enjoyable! Scafell Pike, Snowdon or Ben Nevis? One of the reasons I like mountains is the solitude, and Ben Nevis has a nice, quiet side as you run off the CMD Arête. Why do you love mountains? They remind me how small I am and every so often they remind me that I need to respect them. Everyone loves the views but I can have just as good a day battling the elements. Most memorable outdoor day? Walking to Rocking Stones in the Peak District on Christmas Day in 2006 with my husband and dogs. The weather was foul but six months earlier – the week after I was diagnosed with…

SUILVEN NW HIGHLANDS Robert Pinate from London, in a picture taken by his brother Simon Morley looking back east across Meall Meadhonach and Meal Beag. Robert says, “I had wanted to climb Suilven for over 10 years, and finally I got the chance in March. ” The guys wild camped overnight by Fionn Loch too. HARRISONSTICKLE LAKE DISTRICT Ryan O'Connor (back row) with Tony O'Connor, Michael Allcock, Nicola O'Connor and Peter Kennedy, after completing a memorable first ever scramble up Jack’s Rake. Siblings Nicola and Ryan from Liverpool were celebrating their 34th and 29th birthdays respectively. The pic was taken by a passing walker. HELVELLYN LAKE DISTRICT Hayley Hodgetts from Staffordshire, enthusiastically finding herself on Helvellyn for the very first time after making the ascent with her husband Rob, mum…

Go Glen Coe Do a summit bivvy Of the thousands of people who gawp at Buachaille Etive Mor’s angled apex every year, almost none of them will sleep on it. There are a few reasons for this. For a start it’s fortress-like. Its eastern face looks absolutely unattainable from the banks of the A82: too sharp, too sheer, too bad. For seconds the actual summit itself looks like little more than the prick of a needle, a night on which would be as comfortable as kipping atop the Shard. And if you need thirds, this is a dramatic and weather-beaten thousand-metre hill that heralds the entrance to Glen Coe and some of Britain’s most eloquently sculpted mountain terrain. The nagging thought dominates that this is simply not a place for…

Go Glen Shiel, Scotland Do scramble a stunner What would your perfect mountain day look like? It’s probably one of those questions with as many different answers as there are hillwalkers. Here’s mine. Somewhere out in the sticks, a healthy distance from the nearest drive-thru coffee shop, there’s a shattered turret of a summit with views of the sea. To reach it means crossing a sharp rock ridge, an exhilarating clamber with enough challenge and risk to leave a lasting impression. A mid-range scramble would hit my sweet spot nicely – not a route so easy that it seems diminished in hindsight, yet not one hard enough to break the flow with ropes and belays, and all that clutter. Once back on safe ground my dream route winds down to…

Crampons and ice axes Metal tools can rust if not stored correctly. After cleaning, ensure they are completely dry. If any rough edges have developed, or your pick needs sharpening, use a file to gently restore the metal. Don’t over-sharpen crampon points as they will wear down more quickly in use. Give your winter tools a wipe over with an oily rag or a light spray of WD-40 to help prevent corrosion. Wrap them in an old tea towel or sheet, and store them somewhere dry and with no great temperature fluctuations (lofts or garages are not ideal because of this). Down jackets and sleeping bags Remove them from their compression sacks (they should never be stored compressed) and allow them to air – they must be completely dry before…

MOUNTAIN HARDWEAR SCRAMBLER 30 £85 Hot because: Bombproof: that’s how the Scrambler 30 feels. The fabric is tough and abrasion-resistant, the lid is fastened with a solid metal buckle, and the whole sack is protected by OutDry waterproofing, negating the need for separate dry-bags. The shoulder strap padding is a little thin, but this is typical of a more scrambling-/ climbing-orientated pack. The webbing waistbelt can be stowed away altogether for use with a harness, there’s a rope strap under the lid and there are reinforced gear loops on either side for attaching karabiners and the like, clearly demonstrating the Scrambler’s target use (in case its name wasn’t enough of a clue). We say: It may not offer the comfort or capacity for long treks or heavy loads, but as…

START DO YOU WANT A BAG WITH SYNTHETIC OR DOWN INSULATION? DOWN ARE YOU LOOKING FOR GOOD VALUE OR PREMIUM QUALITY? VALUE DEUTER NEOSPHERE -4 £250 A frequent winner of Trail ‘Best Value’ awards, the Neosphere -4 has a lower comfort limit of -4 deg C so it isn’t quite as warm as some other bags here, but it’s still good for general 3-season use. In fact it feels slightly warmer than this temperature rating might suggest, due to the close fit it provides thanks to a unique internal stretch baffle system, which holds the insulation closer to your body than other bags are able to. The insulation is down, with a 675 fill power. The down is held inside diagonal trapezoidal baffles, which means there are no cold spots…

Welcome to Trail’s routes section: your cut-out-and-keep guide to the best days in the UK hills. Whether it’s an airy mountain scramble, a classic Lakeland fellwalk or a multi-day backpacking epic, you’ll find it here... written by experts, walked by you. • Trail Routes use OS mapping and gradient profiles, and are available to download at www.lfto.com/routes…

Height is not everything; Eagle Crag is evidence of that. Tucked away in the green folds of Borrowdale, it has everything a mountain should; but at less than 500m tall it manages to distil it into a few hard, craggy elements. First is a sweep of drystone-wall-enclosed farmland. There then follows a steeply rising ridge, which twists into a sheeptrack-thin terrace of pathways that hang above the valley floor. All this is capped off with a shattered castle of rock walls leading to the summit. Other peaks take hours of slog to pack in so many features. Once up top, the terrain settles down into a pleasant horseshoe walk amid gently undulating fells. Ullscarf is the highest point of this round, and it could not be more different to the…

The north-west Highlands have a lifetime’s-worth of mountain days waiting to be claimed. Some of the best days have laybys at the bottom so you can start climbing at the roadside, but a lot of the time you’ll have to plan ahead and head out into the hills for a day or two to bag that summit. The road we take to the start of this route hits a dead end, but after that dead end lies the Rough Bounds of Knoydart. Before you get there though peaks just as fine rise on both sides of the road; to the north they are accessible but to the south it’s a different matter. The views across Loch Quoich make the hills seem close – indeed if you’ve brought a kayak you…

If you prefer your hills jagged and uncompromising, few places hit the spot quite like Glen Coe. With bare rock bristling almost everywhere you look, the vertical fun on offer here is limitless. Most famous of the hands-on routes is surely Aonach Eagach; but there’s far more to Glen Coe scrambling than this. The three routes described here each explore a different mountain on the south side of the glen. Starting at Grade 1, the Zigzags kick off a long circuit through the craggy complexity of Bidean nam Bian. Nudge up to Grade 2 for a little-known classic on Buachaille Etive Beag. Then for your grand Grade 3 climax, scrambles don’t come more epic than Curved Ridge on the mighty Buachaille Etive Mor. TRANSPORT Bus Glen Coe is on the…

THE AREA An Teallach occupies a portion of Scotland’s north titled ‘the great wilderness’. While the name may seem a little romantic from afar, it’s a sentiment that’s hard to argue with when you first lay eyes upon this great Torridonian Sandstone peak. It’s a steep and multi-topped cathedral of a mountain, and the area that surrounds it is as austere and unspoiled as any you’ll THE HILLS None of the 10 separate summits on the mountain is actually called An Teallach – that is a collective name for the whole massif. The others, as you’ll see overleaf, boast an eclectic spread of Gaelic names variously translating as ‘peak of the grey-green hollow’, ‘grey heel’, and ‘yellow finger’ – with An Teallach itself meaning ‘the smith’s forge’ or ‘hearth’, and…

Unreal views like this are the order of the day on The Black Mountain. In stark contrast to its dumpy, expansive eastern counterpart (the plural Black Mountains), this duo of enormous escarpments shocks with its scale. It’s an incredible piece of cliff: tall and long, folded and coloured like crinkled felt. The north face (pictured) crowned by the 749m Bannau Sir Gaer takes a sharp right at the jag of Picws Du, and another massive cliff dives south and faces east, the massif’s summit of Fan Brycheiniog an 802m giant. Like all of the Brecon Beacons, the whole thing glows green with life, but beneath this fecund skin the mountains bleed red dust. The sandstone beneath is the charging point for great rivers – the Tawe and the Usk have…

Flicking through some old copies of Trail, it dawned on us that every time one of our staff members burrows their way inside a remote mountain cave they can’t resist propping an arm against the roof in an attempt to look cool and intrepid. Which made us wonder, is ‘cave arm’ a condition that afflicts every hillwalker? Do you also suffer from it? If so, email your most striking poses to trailmagazine@bauermedia.co.uk with the subject ‘Cave arm’ and we’ll print the best examples in a future issue of the magazine. Happy caving!…

BIDEAN NAM BIAN WEST HIGHLANDS This is Trail reader Karol Wojcik, going solo in Scotland. He said, “The photo was taken a few weeks ago on Bidean nam Bian, south of Glen Coe. It was a lovely quiet day, with great visibility and stable snow. A priceless experience.” Each issue we’ll be giving away the new Summit 25/38 mattress from Multimat’s Expedition range. New materials make this self-inflating sleeping mat tougher and lighter for durability on unsupported expeditions. Tested to -35 deg C, its wedge profile maximises comfort and minimises weight while a warm zone improves tog value under the torso. THIS COULD BE YOU! Send your shots, marked ‘Summit selfie’ to trail@bauermedia.co.uk 24 TRAIL JUNE 2015…

Go east Cumbria Do a first wild camp I’ve been camping plenty of times. I grew up camping. It’s no big deal. You find a spot on a perfectly flat campsite pitch and you’re away. You have running water, and if you’re lucky the campsite shop has wood for a fire or gas for your stove. It’s more of an adventure than staying in a hotel, but it’s nothing to really get excited about. So when the Trail team proposed the idea of wild camping to me, I was intrigued to see if I would cope without the luxuries that ‘normal’ camping affords. How often is it that you’re so far removed from everyday life that you have to think about cleaning your water, or even where you’re going to…

Go the Cairngorms Do a rocky retreat “Having fallen from the crags, the stone reached repose leaving a handy hidey-hole beneath.” Some words to the wise : don’t wait until it’s dark to find the Shelter Stone, because you won’t. However moon-bathed and luminous the scene might be in your head, you can’t run the risk of that translating into reality on the day. Not in this place: here, you’re a long way from anywhere. If a lot depends on you finding the Shelter Stone – be it your comfort, or your continued existence – factor in daylight. The second consideration, then: even without the complication of darkness there are many big blocks of pink granite that, given the insertion of a wafer of doubt, could all be the very…

Go Mynydd Mawr Do a neglected peak Outline: it’s an important quality in our world. The way a thing cuts its dash against the skyline is what attracts, repels, thrills, turns off. It’s an instant, visual nudge that can mean the difference between ‘must climb’ and ‘move on’. For Victorian Alp-slayer Edward Whymper, it was the difference between the Matterhorn and the mighty Lyskamm – despite the latter being bigger, and a lot less likely to kill you. This is because Lyskamm is shaped like a pie and the Matterhorn is shaped like the Matterhorn. But it doesn’t mean Lyskamm isn’t interesting; there’s just something next to it that grabs your gaze quicker. It’s like standing Kevin Spacey next to Liberace. It’s mountain-in-the-charisma-shadow syndrome, and while this is all fine,…

A MID LAYER A thin layer worn over your T-shirt will keep the chill off, and sleeveless tops allow your arms to breathe. Pictured: Patagonia Nano Puff Vest £110 B TROUSERS If it isn't warm enough for shorts, a thin pair of windproof trousers will stop your legs getting cold. Pictured: Columbia Silver Ridge Cargo £50 C 2-3SEASON BOOTS Heavy, rigid boots aren’t as crucial in summer as they are in winter. Look for a light and breathable pair. Pictured: Mammut High Pro GTX £170 D SUNSCREEN Water-resistent cream that only needs to be applied once a day is perfect for sunny summer walks. Pictured: Riemann P20 £13.29 (100ml) E 20-25L RUCKSACK Less kit means a smaller, lighter bag. Make sure it's comfy, though. Pictured: Salomon S-Lab X Alp 20…

DD Hammocks DD Tarp 3x3 £35 Used by Tom Bailey, Trail photographer Used for 1 trip This was my first tarping trip (see page 48), but it's always appealed to me. You're truly in the wild, open to the landscape – and the challenge of rigging your shelter is exciting. The 3x3m DD Tarp is made from 190T polyester with PU 3000m coating. It has 19 attachment points, which is great; but it only comes with four guy ropes and four pegs, which is very basic. I used extra lengths of paracord to secure the shelter, whittled three extra pegs from wood and used two heavy rocks to hold it down. The rain fell all night but I’d pitched it tent-tight, so it was totally waterproof. I could move around…

There’s something undeniably tough about the walking in the northern Rhinogs (Rhinogydd in Welsh), yet it’s hard to put your finger on just what it is. On paper, this a short walk. And when you consider the first few kilometres follow lanes and good farm tracks, you’d think it was a doddle. But from the eerily magnificent standing stone circle of Bryn Cader Faner onwards, the nature of the ground, and therefore the walking, in this part of the range changes quite radically. Faint paths weave between gritstone outcrops en route to the uncharacteristically grassy summit of Moel Ysgyfarnogod. And from the day’s high point onwards, things just get more and more challenging – first with a battle to penetrate the turreted defences of Moel Penolau and then with some…

Commitment. It means making promises you know you’ll have to keep. It means saying yes, not knowing what harsh weather the way ahead may hold (well okay, you did download the MWIS forecast). It means heading down from Beinn a’ Chreachain, with the tall north slopes alongside falling to Rannoch Moor, and knowing there’s no way off this high ridgeline until you’ve crossed at least one more long Munro. In from the ruined tower, through the birchwoods and across the railway, you’re aware of that steep, wide mountain wall rising above the birchwoods. At last there’s a way up onto it, by stream and the corrie lochan. By the time you’ve hauled up onto Beinn a’ Chreachain you’ve put a lot into this already. So no more lurking and flirting.…

No fence lines, no roads, no agriculture, no ski tows, no lights, no villages, no signs, nothing but mountain in the raw. This is the view that greets you as you round the waters of Loch Pattack, and Ben Alder fills your horizon. That a mountain so large can be lost from the outside world on our busy little island never ceases to amaze even when you have set eyes upon it many times. This is the magic of Ben Alder, and once seen the draw to climb to its lofty summit is irresistible. Ben Alder is not a dash-from-the-valley mountain, though; its remote setting means that to climb it you have to fully commit and spend time on it. The very fast might grace its summit with a fleeting…