Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2022 i Trail

There’s a moment, about 18 minutes into the excellent new Netflix documentary 14 Peaks, where you struggle to believe what you’re seeing. Nimsdai Purja (above), the star of the movie and the hottest property in global mountaineering right now, has just descended to the safety of his tent after summiting Annapurna, but is already preparing to go back up. After learning that another mountaineer has spent the night stranded alone, high on the world’s 10th highest mountain, Nims and two members of his team don’t even think twice about going back to rescue him. What follows is an astonishing feat of skill and bravery, dangling from a wire beneath a helicopter operating at its altitude limit, before being dropped onto Annapurna’s upper slopes and bringing the casualty down to safety.…

THIS MONTH’S WINNER Langdale Pikes Lake District “We drove from Ambleside YHA to Dungeon Ghyll in the mist and rain wondering why! Mist up to Stickle Tarn, then suddenly we’re above the clouds! Reminded that the sun always shines even if we’re in the Earth’s shadow or under cloud. Press on, you never know what good things are in store...” Paul & Sam Travell, Nottingham Helvellyn Lake District “Get to the summit and you can have your bacon and beans, I keep telling my son Max.” Rob Davis, Yorkshire Snowdon Snowdonia “Myself and John and Joe Twigg, Ian Cass and Geth Huw on Snowdon’s summit, enjoying stunning scenes right across Snowdonia. First dusting of snow of 2021.” Andy Weir, Holyhead Ben Lomond Trossachs “My wife, Mary, and our Sprocker, Jess,…

The hills are hollow. Or at least, they’re full of holes. Exploring the tunnels that perforate the mountains is a risky business, and best done with the aid of an experienced guide. Go Below run underground mine adventures in north Wales, with their Ultimate Xtreme tour – a monumental 7-hour, 5km underground exploration of the Cwmorthin mine by via ferrata, ziplines and abseils – being their flagship outing. This is the adventure that Trail has signed up to, and when you’re taking part in an activity that’s so extreme it has to be spelled with an ‘X’, the only thing better than one experienced guide is two. “I’m Elton and this is Jonty…” “As in…” “Yes. We’ll be guiding you through the mine, giving you a taste of what lies…

K2 PAKISTAN/CHINA, 8611m The ‘Savage Mountain’, as K2 has come to be called, is often touted as the world’s most dangerous peak – but if it weren’t for its grisly reputation (for every four people who stand on the summit, one doesn’t come back), it might be better known for its spectacular stature. Viewed from the south-east, the world’s second highest mountain looks every inch the 8000er it is. A 4000m chunk of meaty, pyramid-shaped mountain stands clear of the nearest bit of earth, cutting a devastating profile above the Godwin-Austen Glacier. Rash summit attempts most certainly aren’t advised, but gawping from a distance is unreservedly encouraged. THE MATTERHORN SWITZERLAND/ITALY, 4478m They don’t come much more iconic than the Matterhorn. This elegantly whittled peak taunted mountaineers for decades before it…

■ ERRATICS Boulders which have been transported, via glacier, far from their outcrop – sometimes many miles distant. Any huge boulder not in the fall line of a cliff, crag or slope is likely to be an erratic. They’re also typically a different rock type to the rock that they’re now resting on. ■ THE TRIMLINE During glaciation, mountain tops poked out above the ice sheets, islands of rock among swathes of white, and on some mountains you can see the line where the glacier began. Above, the hill is covered in weathered rock debris, below the hillside is scoured by ice. ■ U-SHAPED VALLEYS The track marks of an ancient glacier, U-shaped valleys have high, steep sides and a flat or rounded valley floor. Buttermere, Glen Coe and Nant…

FABRIC Walking socks need to offer total comfort to the wearer but also be able to cope with many miles of trekking without disintegrating. In other words they need to be soft, wicking and tough. Most sock brands achieve this by using combinations of natural fibres like wool (but not cotton – it holds onto moisture) and synthetic material such as nylon, varying the mix depending on the specific intended use of the sock. PADDING The ball of the foot, the heel and the Achilles are key pressure points on the foot. Cushioning in these areas combined with light elastic compression provides extra padding and support for long days on your feet. SEAMS As seams can be points of friction leading to discomfort, the best walking socks are seamless or…

DIFFICULTY MEDIUM DISTANCE 12.5KM TIME 5 HOURS TOTAL ASCENT 838M PEAK BAGGER STATS WAINWRIGHTS 2 TRAIL 100s 1 The north-western fells of the Lake District are full of great tops and interesting ridges, but Grisedale Pike (791m) and Hopegill Head (770m) rank as two of the best summits of the group. The lovely pyramid of Grisedale Pike just begs to be climbed when seen from the Vale of Keswick, and the ridge that runs to Hopegill Head is rugged and makes a splendid walk. Both these classic tops have awesome views from their upper reaches which take in a good portion of Lakeland on a clear day. This route takes the classic way up Grisedale Pike from Braithwaite along the great ridge of Sleet How and has the advantage of…

DIFFICULTY EASY DISTANCE 10KM TIME 4 HOURS TOTAL ASCENT 415M The rounded outline of Ben Bhraggie, which rises to nearly 400m above the village of Golspie, is a prominent landmark when travelling through Sutherland in north-east Scotland. Pronounced Ben Vraggy (and meaning Speckled Hill) its heather-clad slopes provide a marvellous half-day in the hills with exemplary and far-reaching vistas in all directions. Its summit is adorned by the controversial statue to George Leveson-Gower, the 1st Duke of Sutherland whose notorious policies on land reform and ownership led to the catastrophic Highland Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries. After his death in 1833, a subscription was started to build a monument in his memory and, despite his reputation, enough money was raised to build the 30m high statue, known locally…

ULTIMATE WEEKEND ▲ 3 ROUTES ROUTE 10 High Raise & Helm Crag ROUTE 11 Seat Sandal & Fairfield ROUTE 12 Silver How & Grasmere While many associate Dove Cottage and Allan Bank with Wordsworth, fewer know that Easedale was one of his (and particularly his sister Dorothy’s) favourite haunts, with thousands of verses being composed along its delightful banks. There’s even a good scramble on the rocks of a waterfall (best in dry and warm conditions!) and the tarn shores are fantastic for a wild swim or casual bouldering. High Raise is one of the most central peaks to be found in the Lake District, with stunning views across all quarters of the Lakeland fells. Fairfield is a bucket list classic, and Seat Sandal is often forgotten yet is well…

LAKE DISTRICT SEAT SANDAL There are plenty of hills in Britain that, if we’re being honest, wouldn’t bring much to the table if it weren’t for the company they keep. Take Seat Sandal for example, a sort of oversized grassy hump perched on the edge of Lakeland’s Eastern Fells above Dunmail Raise. You can climb it easily from the busy streets and cafés of Grasmere and be back in time for a pot of tea and gingerbread just a couple of hours later, but if you did that you’d be spectacularly missing the point of this 736m fell. Geographically Seat Sandal belongs to Fairfield, a big bruiser of a mountain that dominates the southern end of the long, thin mountain range that carves the Lake District clean in two from…

“When I went on K2 in winter, that was the most peaceful and steady climb I ever had,” says Nirmal ‘Nimsdai’ Purja MBE, Nepal’s record-pulverising mountaineer and star of hit documentary 14 Peaks. Let’s be clear, he’s talking about making the first ever winter ascent of the world’s second highest, and second most perilous mountain – without supplementary oxygen. K2, the Savage Mountain, where still-air temperatures hover around -40°C in January and blizzards obliterate blue-sky views in seconds. A mountain more technical, with more extreme weather and a higher death rate than Everest, and a giant, overhanging serac beneath the summit which releases avalanche and rock-fall without a creak or crack of warning. The only mountain with a higher death rate per summit success is Annapurna and that was first…

[HOW TO] SEE A BROCKEN SPECTRE 1 Get on a ridge. The effect is caused by the sun shining down past you and casting your shadow onto the clouds below, so you need to be on an unobstructed edge. Ridges like the Aonach Eagach are fantastic for this. 2 Get on a pointy summit. The same principle applies, and the best effect will be had from standing on a pointy precipice with just clear air around you. 3 Aim for a high pressure day with cool temperatures but high humidity – the same conditions you need for a temperature inversion. This will keep the clouds down in the valleys. 4 Go out in autumn and winter, when cloud tends to hang out down in the glens late into the morning. 5 Start early. In…

THE LATEST INNOVATIONS IN OUTDOOR KIT More and more products are being made from recycled plastic materials, and this is undoubtedly a good thing. However, unless the products themselves can also be recycled when they reach the end of their useable lives, they will still eventually join the 73% of clothing that currently ends up in landfill or incinerated (according to EMF Make Fashion Circular Report). With the 73 Zero Insulated Jacket (so-called because the aim is to get the 73% of clothing that ends up in landfill down to 0%) Bam collaborated with textile recycler Project Plan B, whose groundbreaking fibre-to-fibre technology can recapture the polyester from clothing, turning it back into fibre grade polyester and yarn ready to be woven into another garment. “Bam’s insulated jacket is the…

DIFFICULTY HARD DISTANCE 28KM TIME 10-11 HOURS TOTAL ASCENT 1085M PEAK BAGGER STATS TRAIL 100s 1 Kinder Scout isn’t just the highest hill in the Peak District, it also sweeps up a significant area of it. On a map, the plateau alone touches 23 grid squares. The whole footprint is considerably larger, stretching halfway across the High Peak area, from Ladybower to Glossop and Glossop to Hayfield. There are numerous routes up and down but to really get to know it, nothing beats this circuit of its sprawling plateau. We begin at Edale, where a café with a full-spread breakfast will fuel you on your way and The Old Nags Head pub awaits you on return. A short, simple pull gets you to the plateau then turns east to complete…

DIFFICULTY HARD DISTANCE 15KM TIME 6 HOURS TOTAL ASCENT 1300M PEAK BAGGER STATS MUNROS 2 What a fantastic way to approach this impressive 50m rush of white water, plunging into a large natural swimming pool – the via ferrata section of this route takes you over balancing logs, a skinny ‘bridge’ and iron rungs in the rock to reach the Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall. Located very close to the small town of Kinlochleven, the via ferrata to the waterfall and plunge pool is a short out-and-back into a deep gorge, less than 0.5km in length. The water is chilly year round, so even if you’re sensibly saving this route for summer (recommended), do the hiking section of this route first, as per the description. The hike is a wonderfully airy…

You could say it all started on 22 June 1935. An article appeared in the Daily Herald newspaper entitled ‘Wanted: A Long Green Trail’, written by the ramblers’ champion Tom Stephenson. “Why should we not press for something akin to the Appalachian Trail?” he asked. “A Pennine Way from the Peak to the Cheviots.” He imagined that the route would be “a faint line on the Ordnance Maps which the feet of grateful pilgrims would, with the passing years, engrave on the face of the land.” It took 30 years of lobbying and hard work to steer the Pennine Way to its official opening in April 1965. Throughout the 1970s, if you told anyone you were a keen walker, they would ask: “And have you walked the Pennine Way?” The…

Rising up like a huge whaleback, Pen-y-ghent is perhaps the most impressive summit of the Yorkshire Three Peaks. While Ingleborough and Whernside both stand taller in stature, the steep climb up Pen-y-ghent, particularly by its southern end, is surely the most exciting. Many tired feet stand on its summit, because as well as Three-Peakers, Pen-y-ghent is a highlight of the long-distance Pennine Way trail too. If you’re visiting Horton in Ribblesdale, it just demands to be climbed and can be bagged in a quick 1.5-hour ascent. If you prefer a longer walk-in, the Pennine Journey takes you through the quiet and scenic dales of Foxup Moor, where you can then tackle the steep rocky northern nose of Plover Hill. Whichever way you choose to climb it, Pen-y-ghent is one to…

MORE PUB ROUTES We’ve got 12 mapped routes that start, finish or visit a pub in our pub walk special this month! See page 83 10 ■ STICKLEBARN, LANGDALE National Trust-owned Sticklebarn is a slight wildcard on this best pubs list, but popular with Trail readers it surely is! We’re impressed with their efforts to reduce their impact on the planet, with the carbon footprint of every meal calculated and all profits put back into the local environment. There’s a proper bar and a great outdoor space with views of the wonderful Langdale skyline too. 9 ■ THE OLD NAGS HEAD, EDALE Probably one of Britain’s most well-known pubs, The Old Nags Head marks the start of the Pennine Way long-distance trail. To the north, Kinder Scout calls, and to the south…

Mountains for the Mind first appeared in the pages of Trail magazine in January 2019, backed by mental health charity Mind and some wonderful partners from the outdoor industry who have helped us spread the word over the past three years. Our mission has been simple: to inspire more people to get outdoors and walk in the hills and mountains for the benefit of their mental health. Along with six very brave volunteers (Ruth, Andy, Nick, Georgina, Andrea and David), who joined us on a Lake District walk and shared their own very personal stories of how mountains had helped them through tough periods in their lives, we began a journey that has taken us to places we never imagined possible. Mountains for the Mind has been the most rewarding…

TRAIL 100 PEAK PROFILE THE CALF 676M HOWGILLS ENGLAND GRID REF SD667970 DID YOU KNOW? The Calf is the highest point in the Howgill Fells. The most popular ascent is via the Cautley Spout waterfall, but venture away from the main path and you’ll find wide open fells walked by very few people. CLIMB IT Scan this QR code with your phone to download a free digital route up The Calf in the Komoot app: For years now, I’ve had a fondness for iced buns. I’ve also had a fondness for the Howgills, that group of big hills to the east of the Lake District. So you can imagine my face when I caught sight of those hills on a fine winter’s day, because they were iced to perfection. Before…

Iain Cameron was nine years old when snow patches first captured his imagination, gazing out of his parents’ living room window at a dazzling spot of white high on distant Ben Lomond. His life has been inextricably linked with them ever since, becoming an expert in the field and writing more than 20 scientific papers for the Royal Meteorological Society. His new book The Vanishing Ice is a fascinating insight into a life dedicated to the study of Scotland’s snow patches and the environmental factors playing a part in their decline. In this powerful extract, taken from the book’s prologue, Iain describes the lengths ‘snow hunters’ go to in the name of research. I emerged at last, breathless, on to the plateau. The ominous-looking wintry squall that had been chasing…

Backpacking through the north-west Highlands along the magnificently wild, rugged and mostly pathless Cape Wrath Trail back in 2016 was enough to categorically convince me why trekking poles are a good idea. My poles proved their worth countless times, helping me fight my way through tangled heather, stay (mostly) upright on tussocky, ankle-breaking scrub, and gingerly probe the depths of various bogs, saving – on numerous occasions – what would have been my boot, gaiter and most of my thigh from disappearing into their oozing black depths. They also helped power me along when I was flagging, saved my aching joints, and propelled me up various energy-sapping climbs. All in all, I don’t think I’d have got to Cape Wrath without them. Academics at Northumbria University came to much the…

DIFFICULTY MEDIUM DISTANCE 12.5KM TIME 6 HOURS TOTAL ASCENT 950M PEAK BAGGER STATS WELSH 3000s 1 TRAIL 100s 1 This route works on a few levels. If you’re not quite ready for the big one, aka Crib Goch, then the South Ridge can be a good confidence builder. That’s not its only draw though – it’s a top day out in it’s own right. From Rhyd Ddu, the path snakes you up towards Yr Aran and through a particularly scenic quarry, which is lovely when it catches the morning light. The quarry leads you to Bwlch Cwm Llan, where the route then swings left and dramatically uphill, winding up a slate path and through a few scrambly sections at Allt Maenderyn. On reaching Bwlch Main, the route takes it up…

DIFFICULTY MEDIUM DISTANCE 21.5KM TIME 7 HOURS TOTAL ASCENT 945M The hillwalking opportunities of the White Peak are often overlooked, and yet if you’re looking for a minimountain in middle England, Shutlingsloe is it. This walks starts and finishes with the Cragg Inn, and visits the Cat & Fiddle which is now a café and distillery. This walk begins with the ascent of Shutlingsloe and a reward of fine views across the counties of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, and on clear days the Welsh mountains and the Irish sea. The walk through the Macclesfield Forest adds a pleasant softer element to the terrain. The route then crosses open moorland and a steep climb up to the Cat and Fiddle. From there the old drove road is followed to Three Shires…

ULTIMATE WEEKEND ▲ 3 ROUTES ROUTE 7 White Hill & Baxton Fell ROUTE 8 Totridge & Fair Snape Fell ROUTE 9 Dunsop Valley & Whitendale Here’s a quick-fire topographical teaser: “I’m a big lump of empty moorland in northern England. I’m not really in the Pennines and I’m just too far west to be part of the Dales. You might expect me to be covered in trees but they are few and far between. Who am I?” Answer: the undiscovered Forest of Bowland, where horizons of wiry heather reign supreme and fast-flowing rivers tumble through steep valleys and hidden cloughs. “And where am I?” Answer: deepest Lancashire, bounded by the Ribble and the Lune. This must be one of our least known Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and it is…

9.2km DISTANCE 820m ASCENT Grade 1 WINTER ROUTE GO THERE... when the more sheltered conditions around the ridge will be appreciated You can’t miss Moel Siabod as you drive west along the A5 into Snowdonia, as the hulking mountain stands proud as the guardian of Capel Curig, a bruising doorman of a peak, all muscle and attitude. The other side of the mountain, as seen from Snowdon to the west, is grassy-green slopes and mellow curves. But this is not the façade we’re interested in, for back on the mountain’s eastern side, tucked in beside steep crags, beyond mining ruins, and above forested slopes, is the Daear Ddu ridge. When not covered in snow and ice, the Daear Ddu ridge is a classic Grade 1 scramble. It requires some hands-on…

THE HOWGILL FELLS, CUMBRIA ★ CLIMB A STAR OF THIS ISSUE P30 WALK IT Park in one of the lay-bys just north-east of the Cross Keys Temperance Hotel (there is a bus stop) – it’s free but there aren’t many spaces. Take the footbridge just to the north of the parking area, crossing the river Rawthey. Look out for the small brown and white bird that is the dipper, as you cross and walk alongside the river. Follow the westerly path to the imposing Cautley Crag, taking a north-west path when you reach the Cautley Holme Beck confluence. Follow this upstream. This is the river responsible for Cautley Spout. For 1.5km the going is relatively easy. You should be on the northern bank of the river. Ignore the path that…