Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2025 i Country Walking

This month I’ve been… ALOT CAN HAPPEN in a week. Apollo 11 went to the Moon and back. The Berlin Wall went from hated barrier to symbol of change. The Doors recorded their debut album. A week can change the world. Specifically, yours. The week remains our standard unit of holiday, such that we’ve evolved extraordinary abilities to switch off, decompress and unwind over the course of seven days, before raising the shields again, ready to get back to the good fight. And that time is so precious that we usually spend a fair bit of time planning the blazes out of it to make sure not a minute goes to waste. But why do that when your favourite magazine can do it for you? Five sensational destinations, five perfectly…

Spice up your miles with one of our quests this month, post the result in the Facebook group and our favourite 20 completers will win a Golden Badger! You have until 3 April for this crop. Literally priceless! 11 KEEP BRITAIN BEAUTIFUL Grab a bag and do a litter pick on your next walk and take a pic before you bin it. And if you find something curious then tell us all about it… 12 HOP TO IT Easter’s approaching fast so keep an eye out for bunnies -and mad March hares – on your walks and share your best pics. Bonus points if it’s carrying a basket of eggs. 13 SHOW US YOUR BEST-LOVED MAP We love paper maps so tell us about your favourite and share a pic – the…

Kes the conker-colour Cocker is an inveterate explorer, often finding his way into the unlikeliest of places when we’re busy putting the magazine together. In fact he’s hiding out in this issue for you to find! Spot him (not on this page) and you could win over £47 worth of Mountain Paws goodies -just email the page number where you found Kes, along with your address, to: ifoundkes@LFTO.com by 28 March 2025 putting ‘Kes Spring’ in the subject line. Congrats to Fiona Berryman from Tasley, who spotted Kes on p59 of the February issue, and wins this month’s prize! GREAT PRIZES WORTH OVER £47…

WE ARE COMING to the end of what I might call ‘board game season’, those cold months of short days and dark nights when even the hardiest of us walkers might prefer the fireside/centrally heated living room/electric blanket to Sharp Edge or Crib Goch or even a circuit of the teashops of Stow-on-the-Wold. There is no shame in this, and, as said, this is the perfect time of year for Cluedo and Trivial Pursuit or maybe something a little more esoteric. I’m a board game geek so come Christmas, pals and family can be relied upon to add to our collection. The hit of this year chez Maconie was a German game called MicroMacro – Crime City, which involves tracing the perambulations of various dodgy/odd/adorable characters across a city map…

I SPENT THE best part of my late teenagehood and early twenties skint. I’d sit behind lorries on the A9 to increase the fuel efficiency on my aged car. Anything that cost more than £3 at the supermarket was considered off-limits. And, living in Scotland, where the right to roam means you can pitch up almost anywhere you like with a tent, the thought of paying for a campsite also seemed like a mad waste of money. But now that I am older, wiser and approximately 35% less broke, I have rediscovered the luxurious joys of campsite camping. How fabulous it is to have hot showers. How nice to be able to store your sausages in a fridge, and to know you’re not about to be shouted at by an…

PASSENGER Cabin Recycled Sherpa blanket, £90 We never thought we’d fall in love with a blanket, but this recycled sherpa option from Passenger has changed our minds. It features an unbelievably soft lining for cosy comfort (adding much-needed warmth on chilly nights), packs into its own pocket with a handle for easy transport, and includes snap buttons to function as a hands-free cape (!) or to connect with other blankets. Ideal for road trips, vanlife, and campfires alike. passengerclothing.com TENTBOX Go, £995 The TentBox Go is the lightest model that TentBox makes – and as it happens, is also the lightest rooftent in the world. At 33kg, it weighs a full 17kg less than the TentBox Lite, which we reckon makes a hell of a difference in terms of fuel…

VIEWFINDER Festival fever In August 1970 the Isle of Wight hosted one of the largest human gatherings the world had yet seen. The Guinness Book of Records estimated 700,000 people crossed the Solent for a music festival headlined by Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Who and Joni Mitchell. Now each May sees the ‘Diamond Isle’ host one of Britain’s biggest walking festivals, as hikers flock to explore its 500 miles of footpath, heading out on the trail of dinosaurs or the dawn chorus, following in the footsteps of famous names including Alfred Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria and Hendrix. This year it runs from 10-18 May, with the annual Walk the Wight (below) on the 11th: a 26½-mile hike right across the island from Bembridge in the east to The Needles…

UNTIL I HAD children, I had no idea how difficult it might be one day just to leave the house to go for a walk. I’d loved walking since my early twenties, when a desire to get fitter coincided with moving to live near the Yorkshire Dales. A visit to the Lake District cemented my love of walking, while a move to Scotland a few years after that transformed walking into something like a calling. Over the next decade I climbed more than 100 Munros, ticking them off with an easy resolve. Walking came to be how I got to know new places and, I now realise, myself. During both of my pregnancies I tried to keep walking, even as my body changed utterly, even when it behaved in ways…

YOUR COMPLETE BUYING GUIDE TO OUR TESTERS Outdoors devotee Lara Dunn and CW Head of Content Nick Hallissey have notched up thousands of miles on foot. They took these jackets to every wet and windy place they could find over the winter and early spring, including the Malverns, the Lake District and the West Pennine Moors. YOU ARE NOT, it would seem, a fair-weather walker. The evidence is compelling. First of all, you’ve stopped at this bit of the magazine, which is all about choosing waterproof jackets. Secondly, take even the merest glance at the Walk1000Miles community and there you are, all of you, treading the footpaths of the nation come rain, come shine. And you’re happy to do that because you know one essential truth: that in most cases,…

Sara Herbert-Mattick, Senior Office Manager Miles walked this month: 26 As much as I love being outdoors, I am also a fan of dark, enclosed spaces. Like my ‘cave’ in the ‘cellar’ of CW HQ, which is where I mostly work, especially when I’m handling orders for the Walk1000Miles Shop. Badges, medals, Golden Badgers, other assorted merch - it all comes through here. This month it’s been all about the 2025 completer’s medals. To the uninitiated, it could seem odd to be sending them out in February. But the thought of why people want them – to have as motivation and reward for doing something amazing – is incredibly heartening. It’s one of the best parts of my job. So from here in the cave, a heartfelt message: you are all…

PRIMUS Kinjia Stove, £180 Sturdy, stylish, well made and easy to clean, this ticks all the boxes for everything you’d want in a camping stove for everyday cooking. Sure, it costs a little more than your average two-ring burner, but you get a lot of performance for your money, as well as a lifetime guarantee of quality. We changed the coupling out for a hose that fits a Campingaz butane bottle rather than burning through smaller, more expensive canisters. primusequipment.co.uk VANGO Aurora Kingsize sleeping bag, £135 This king-size double sleeping bag offers duvet-level comfort and excellent temperature regulation, even when the mercury drops like a stone at night. With a comfort rating down to 1°C, the Aurora is suitable for all but the coldest of months, and it’s good value…

WILD CAMPING IS the super-hyper-concentrated laundry liquid of spending time under canvas outdoors. As a feral outdoor enthusiast it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, my favourite iteration of the genre due to its comparative simplicity. At its core, wild camping is about good decision making – it involves choosing the best camp spot, carrying in everything yourself, undertaking simple but methodical tasks while you’re there, and leaving no trace of your presence afterwards. Some of my most memorable wild camps include pitching up on the island of Hvar in Croatia in an abandoned olive grove, tent hidden by a crumbling stone wall. Another was last year in the Picos de Europa, watching the fog creep up the mountainside as dusk fell, enveloping our tent in its ghostly tendrils after a scorcher of…

THERM-A-REST NeoAir XLite NXT, £210 This is our absolute top pick for an all-season, super-lightweight, comfy sleeping mat that won’t let you down. An industry award-winning design, the Therm-A-Rest NeoAir XLite NXT weighs just 377g and has an R rating of 4.5, making it ideal for just about everything in the UK. It also packs down pretty small, and doesn’t take a huge amount of lung capacity or patience for inflation. 10/10 from us. thermarest.com RAB Ascent 700, £320 Coming in at just under 1.5kg, the Rab Ascent 700 is a top choice for a three-season sleeping bag. Made with 700g of 650FP duck down, it boasts great pack size and impressive warmth, and comes in a women’s version too. If you’re backpacking with a partner, each bag in the…

THERM-A-REST OC Vela double quilt, £289 This double quilt is a godsend for bothy-life, as it allows far greater temperature regulation than a sleeping bag. Bothies can get chilly, but when the fire’s lit and the room is crammed with people it can get super-hot too. The answer for sleeping comfortably, then, is this quilt, which can be used like a sleeping bag for colder nights, but can be opened up to function more like a duvet. Oh, and it packs down nice and small and weighs very little, so you can bring more whisky. thermarest.com CROCS from £25 No bothy trip for me is complete without my trusty Crocs (actual beloved Crocs pictured). Coupled with a pair of thick woollen socks, these are the shoes God intended for grubby…

SEEN YOU’VE WON? Email walk1000miles@countrywalking.co.uk with your address and a pic of you holding this edition to claim your badger! #minichallenge1 Sip a hot drink in a big view Because nothing beats a warm drink on a chilly walk #minichallenge2 Find a winter flower Celebrating the blooms that brave the cold #minichallenge3 Bag a local trig point Once used for map-making, now a top target for a local walk *WHAT’S WITH THE BADGERS IN #WALK1000MILES? Our mascot was born when, after we first introduced the now-famous Walk 1000 Miles badge, it was suggested we should start referring to people who wore them as badgers. Now you’re all caught up! Enter here: www.facebook.com/groups/walk1000miles #minichallenge4 Get a sunrise pic Making the most of those late winter dawns #minichallenge5 Take your Country Walking…

I must congratulate the team for many great features in your magazine, but especially the May 2024 edition, The A-Z of Hills and Mountains. Every article about places, as well as writers of guidebooks and the history of photography in the landscape, made one of the best magazines I’ve read in my 57 years of adventures in the outdoors. I have read it cover to cover many times and find it impossible to dispose of. I’m a retired Ordnance Survey draughtsman and live on Explorer map OL17 (Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa), with the Carneddau mountains close by. When I walk to the summit of the mountain behind my house on a clear day I can see the Isle of Man, the Mourne Mountains across the sea in Northern Ireland, Blackpool Tower, the…

SOME WILL SNEER at waterproof trousers, regarding them as an unexciting, inelegant accoutrement, an unloved insurance policy. ‘Show me the cheapest option then take me to the sexy rucksacks,’ they cry in gear shops. But not us. We recognise that at that moment when the sky gets angry and that oncoming wall of rain hits, there is no finer, smugger feeling than either pulling out that pair of overtrousers that’s been at the bottom of your pack for a couple of months – or, perhaps even better, knowing that your legs are already waterproof. So, whether you want overtrousers or all-day waterproof hiking pants, here are four options that can turn those dark moments into impervious, impregnable delight. BERGHAUS Deluge Overtrousers RRP: £60 Target Price: £30 Cheap but effective, these…

IN 2022, MY PARTNER and I bought a 15-year-old VW T5, converted it to a camper, and set off around France in it, living in it for six months before it broke down and cost us thousands of pounds at the garage and was scrapped. While we certainly can’t call it money well spent, we can call it an experience, and we sure as hell had a great time while living in our tiny home on wheels while it lasted. There’s no getting around it, though: vanlife is expensive and time-consuming. Buying a purpose-built campervan outright will often cost far more than a DIY job, but conversion doesn’t come cheap either – and that’s before you consider maintaining, taxing and insuring a whole new vehicle. For those with deep pockets,…

SIMOND Makalu Light III, £290 The Simond Makalu III Winter Sleeping Bag offers exceptional value for every season of wild camping, featuring 1100g of 800 fill power duck down for impressive warmth. Its alpine mummy shape with a central half-zip provides a snug fit, keeping you toasty no matter where you pitch. Weighing 1814g and packing down to 40×27cm, it’s slightly heavier than you’d want for longer, lighter backpacking trips but is guaranteed to keep you warm and comfy for shorter weekend wild camps. decathlon.co.uk VANGO Thermocore EXD, £140 A superb winter sleeping mat with 10cm depth, offering excellent comfort for side sleepers. Its silver thermal layer and R-value of 5.6 make it ideal for cold conditions. At 195×58cm (regular size), it packs down to 22x13cm and weighs just 740g.…