Go Outdoors Blog Awards 2014

Go Outdoors have launched a new walking blog award, there is a shortlist of fifteen blogs and I have been luck to be one of the fifteen.

Its a great honour to be on a list of blogs that include Chris Townsend, Keith Foskett, David Lintern and Alan Sloman.

 All these write and promote that outdoors much better that me. The winner will be decided via a poll on the Go Outdoors website, I encourage everybody to pop across and vote. If you choose to vote for me, then a BIG thank you but if not then vote for one of the BIG little guys.

RIP

It seems as though the Outdoorbloggers forum has finally had it day and has expired.

If you weren't a regular or don't even know what it was, it was a forum set up circa 2007 for new bloggers to have a place to ask questions and get feedback on setting up blogs and general chit-chat about the outdoors.

In the early days it did have a big core group of users and was a pretty active site but over the last 18 months/2 years very few people were using it, I guess this was because more people were happier to use places like Facebook and Twitter for their conversations.

Its a shame that it just disappeared; as there was some good stuff on there and may have been worth saving and archiving somewhere.

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On a brighter note; I have updated the blogroll, I have removed some of the blogs there don't exist anymore and have added some new one's. The new one's have along side them.

Buzzed

I'm use to seeing these in Scotland, Lakes and even Yorkshire but not over the 'burbs of London.

All for the Olympics

Not my annus horribilis, that's probably next year.

Over the last six months, I have been thinking where is blog has been and where it is going, and whether I should continue with it.

I have always stated that it was primarily for me to write up trip reports and have photographs from these trips available for Peter & Keith to see; up until 2009 I spent eight years backpacking with these guys.

Keith, Peter and me somewhere in the peaks

Gradually others found it and started following or subscribing and slowly it built up a reasonable number over the years.

I wouldn't say I was a prolific blogger with rough 350+ posts over six years and the grammar and spelling at times have been pretty bad, there are reasons for this but I won't go into them.

Not surprisingly the most viewed posts are either trip or gear reviews, but then I guess we're all interested in when people have been or what gear they are using.

The last eighteen months have seen no backpacking trip reports posted; the main reason for this, is that after finishing TGO2010 and going back to work, I found that I had to take a fairly substantial pay cut.  It also seems that public transport has become quite expensive especially travel in the South, the cost of a trip to somewhere like Dorset is almost as much as a trip to Scotland but a trip Scotland means at least a week away which then only adds to the expense.  Even local campsites that use to change a couple of pounds a night are now asking £8-12 even for a backpacking tent.

I had hoped to enter the TGO2012 as a present for my fiftieth or failing that do something similar but neither are now looking possibly; although I didn't apply for the TGO as I knew I wouldn't be able to afford to do it.

The only thing at present keeping the blog alive are the equipment reviews and I'm not sure how much longer they will be appearing.

I did try to get out for a couple of trips in the past year but both times they were scuppered due to illnesses in the family.  So for the first time in near ten years, I haven't managed to spend any time in the outdoors.

I honesty can't see next year being any better and the chances of getting out are going to be even more limiting.

There will be at least one more post before the end of the year but after that who know.

If I do manage to do something, I'm sure it will appear here at some point.

Help for Heroes-Everest Base Camp challenge

Most PR stuff I receive via this blog is usually trying to sell me something or asking to promote some new piece of equipment, without actual seeing the said item.

But today I have a request to promote a walk to Everest Base Camp.

I know copy and paste of PR emails can annoy some but this get the point across much better than I could.

Setting off on 4th November 2011, the Everest Base Camp Expedition will see wounded hero Lance Corporal Jonathon "Frenchie" Le Galloudec, 30, trek 75 miles over 19 days, reaching a height of 17,590 feet. The expedition is considered an enormous challenge for even a fully-abled person. Jon faces the physical and mental challenges of this trek, the first since beginning to walk without the aid of walking sticks, which include undertaking grueling acts of physical exertion while living with the day-to-day reality of constant pain, and difficulties with balance on unforgiving terrain.

In June 2007, Jon sustained a gunshot wound to his spine while serving in Iraq, which has left him partly paralyzed. His best friend was killed while trying to rescue him. Jon was told he would never walk again and his ongoing recovery, supported by Help for Heroes, has astounded doctors.





To keep upto date with the Expedition, there is a website/blog and a facebook page

The best-laid schemes and all that!

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

This post should of been about how I have a wonderful few days walking in the Peak District, about how I met up with some like-minded people and had a great time, but it's not.

The weekend before I was due to go to the Peaks, my mum was taken into hospital with a bad infection.  I wasn't to worried as 1. she'd had this kind of thing before and 2. my sister would soon be back from her holiday and could deal with things while I was away.

My sister arrived back on the Saturday and was complaining of pains in her chest and on the Sunday was taken into hospital and diagnosed with having a mild heart attack (this was her 2nd).

Things took a turn for the worse on the Wednesday with my mum; I was informed that her would have to have a blood transfusion, with this mind and my sister still in hospital I cancelled my trip to the Peaks.

It's been a tough couple of weeks but slowly things are getting better, mum is out of hospital and is slowly getting back to her old self.  My sister is also out but has been told to take things easy.

And Me; well my fortnight holidays didn't go to plan but I'm hoping I may be able to do something in September to make up for it but have to wait and see.

Top Ten

It seems as this blog has been chosen as one of the top ten UK Outdoor Recreation blogs over at Cision

Action packed First Issue

I haven't bought an issue of Trail magazine since the September 2003 issue.

I know this because I have every issue up to and included that one.

I can't fully remember why I stopped buying it; it may be because there wasn't enough to interest me or the general content seemed to be getting pretty bland and predictable.

Trail is celebrating its 30th birthday this year, so I thought I'd take a look back at issue one.

Back in the mists of time; July/August 1990 there were as far as I remember only one or two U.K based walking magazine; and that was The Great Outdoors and Country walking (the sister magazine to Trail), at that time I always found The Great Outdoors to be for the bearded, red sock brigade and only bought it on a handful of occasions. Country walking was always for the day walker and had very little to interest me.

So with the arrival of Trail Walker (that's what it was called back then) there was a new kid on the stands, it looked fresh, entertaining and fitted exactly the type on walking/backpacking I was into at that time.

A look at the FIRST ACTION PACKED ISSUE

When first published it was a bi-monthly magazine and I think it was like this for the first year.

Much of the issue is in black & white with only a handful of colour pictures and colour adverts.

The editor-in-chief was Keith Nelson

The first article was called Around the roof of England by Paddy Dillon; which is a 2 day youth hostel route or a 3 day backpacking one taking in Scafell Pike, Scafell, Helvellyn and Skiddaw.

Test report was on seven backpacks including Karrimor Panther 4, Mag Mor Spectre, Berghaus Pulsar, and Lowe Alpine Outback II.

The letter's page covers interesting questions like 'how to put a rucsac on', what is the best stove/fuel and it seems as meths burners are pretty thirsty beasts. My favourite letter is 'What's the ideal rucsac weight?' with the answer being the maximum recommend safe weight for a laden rucsac is 1/3 of your body weight.

A second article by Paddy covers the Pennine Way with a very detailed outline of the route and where to stay each night.

Other articles include a Pyrenean backpack, Crib-Goch Scramble, and how to make the most of scrambling.

There is also the weekender section which covers the Marsden-Edale classic, the Buttermere round, two days over Dartmoor and a two day trip around Lochnagar.

Adverts in the magazine include the OS new national trail guides, Mag Mor makers of the best British rucsacs, Bourne Sports,
HF holidays, Ron Hill and Bivvy Bug there are also 5 pages at the rear Advertising Trail Breaks.

So that's a look back at the first issue of Trail, I guess things haven't really changes that much, although the biggest thing missing form this issue is no web addresses.


Trail Walker Issue One

Waymarking the Hills

Just picked up on an article over on grough entitled Waymarking would be 'dumbing down the mountain', this is an ongoing debate as to whether Scotland's mountains should be waymarking as is done in Europe.

The debate was started by a journalist named Iain MacWhirter; who published article in The Herald newspaper back in July.

In the latest article of grough; they mention an interview with Iain Macwhirter and David Gibson, chief officer of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland on BBC Radio Scotland's Morning Extra show. This particular show went out on Wednesday 26/08/09 and luckily this can be picked up on the BBC iPlayer.

The actual interview starts at roughly 31.30 minutes into the programme, and does get a bit heated.

The show is available for more 5 days on the iPlayer.

That'll teach me!!

I shouldn't copy and paste.

There was a mistake in the post about the 'Meet the Bloggers'.

The correct details are below:-

Details:
Date: 29/11/08
Time: 12:00 - noon onwards
Location: Don Pasquale in the Market Square in Cambridge
Directions Can Be Found Here: http://www.donpasquale.co.uk/index.php

Outdoor Bloggers Open Meet

Darren over on Whitespider1066 has arranged a 'Meet the Bloggers' meet; next month in Cambridge.

The full details are as follows:-

Fancy meeting the folks behind the blogs you read? Next month a meet up is being held in Cambridge where a group of UK based Outdoors Bloggers are getting together and inviting you to come along and join them for a drink and a chat (and possibly a bite to eat).

Sadly we are not all rich and famous yet, so you will have to buy your own food and drink. What we can assure you is that you will have a great time, great food, and meet new like minded folks.

If you intend to come along could you use the following contact page to drop us a line so we can get a rough idea of numbers.

Details:
Date: 29/11/08
Time: 12:00 - noon onwards
Location: Don Pasquale in the Market Square in Cambridge
Directions Can Be Found Here: http://www.donpasquale.co.uk/index.php

Back to the Future

Or more like back to the past. Playing around with Google's 2001 index of the Web and came across this:-

The original londonbackpacker; this was the first website I had, it had only been going a few months.

There are some familiar faces that look a bit different

Chris Townsend

Blogger

Leoville

and some things that haven't been invented yet

YouTube

Podcasting

Alpkit competition

Others had already posted about Alpkit's new shiny titanium cookware (actual titanium isn't shiny but you know what I mean :-) ).

But what they didn't say was that Alpkit have a competition to win, said shiny cookware. Up for grabs is a full set of the titanium cookware; all you need do is submit a one pot recipe.

The entry form is on the website; so if you're a Gordon or Nigella around the campsite get those recipes in.

Oh! and there's lego figs on the front page (wonder who thought of that!)

Vote Bob!

Podcast Bob has been nominated for an award, over at the European Podcast Awards.

So if you are a listener and enjoy the podcasts; pop along to the website and cast a vote for Bob.

The votes are for the Outdoors station and Backpackinglight Audio, so make sure you vote for both sites.

20,000 footpaths are at risk

Another E-Petition has appeared on the Government site.

Rights of way that are not recorded by 2026 could be lost forever, the full story is on grough.

The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 introduced a deadline for the recording of historic rights of way on definitive maps (the legal record of public rights of way). After 1 January 2026 most pre-1949 paths which have not been recorded on these maps will be lost forever. An estimated 20,000 paths could be lost because of this measure, including many in towns and cities. The government funded project to assist with the researching and recording of these routes has been terminated without recording a single path but when the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill was going through Parliament the then Minister, Michael Meacher said “ … we do not intend to [bring definitively to a close the exercise of determining the rights of way network] without ensuring that there are adequate resources to make it possible for all existing paths that can reasonably be found to be found.” The public therefore had a legitimate expectation that something would be done to record the so-called lost ways. Now that the promised resources have been withdrawn repeal of the cut-off date is essential.

E-Petition here

E-Petiton - The Government response

The wildcamping e-petition has finally received a response from the Government.

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page15826.asp

This Government appreciates the potential benefits of wild camping in England and its attractiveness to campers who already have the opportunity to camp in the wild in Scotland.

The Land Reform Act in Scotland allows for wild camping, but the land issues and the legislation in England are somewhat different. The introduction of wild camping in England would be a controversial issue, which would require both significant consultation and legislative change.

On open access land wild camping is prohibited under Schedule 2 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which lists all restricted activities. Therefore, new Regulations would be required to exclude wild camping as a restricted activity. Any change to the current rules on wild camping in National Parks and Ministry of Defence land would require new primary legislation.

The Government has no plans to allocate the necessary resources to consider proposals for such legislation at present, and is concentrating on following up the successful introduction of 750,000 hectares of open access land with new legislation on access to the coast in the Marine Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

2009 TGO challenge

The dates for the 2009 TGO challenge are 8th-22nd May 2009 and because this is the 30th challenge the numbers of entries has been increased to 360 for this year only.

It seems as though they will be adding some new starting points from next year and because of the increase in numbers will be putting a limit of challengers starting at the most popular start points of Oban, Malliag, & Shiel Bridge.

I have though about doing this challenge over the last couple of year especially after listening to Bob's podcasts from 2006 and 2007.

Next year would be a good year for me, as I haven't made any commitments yet to holidays and SWMBO has agreed in principal that I can go if accepted.

I just need to work out a route that would be suitable to me, how much it would cost to do and if I need to replace some of my equipment.

One thing that definitely would need replacing is a sleeping bag, I only have a light Summer bag (+3) and a heavy Winter bag (-10), I think I would need something in between; some where around the -3 mark would probably be good enough for that time of the year.

If I were to do it; I think that I would go for a low-level route although there do seem to be some tricky places crossing Scotland, the route out of Braemar looks to one of these.

I do have a funny feeling that next years event is going to way over-subscribed.

ATHiking...the Podcast

I've just come across this new-ish podcast. ATHiking...the Podcast, a podcast about hiking the Appalachian Trail.

So far there are only 4 episodes, with the latest being with Sarah from Freezer Bag Cooking.

I'm downloading them now; so haven't listened to any yet but should be good for the morning/afternoon commute.

Challenge Video 2008

Cameron has a two part video on the TGO challenge over on his site. Darren makes another appearance but it seems to be the same interview from this one.

It will be interesting to see if and when the TGO challenge will appear on the Adventure Show.

I.T.M.A

There are 7 new podcasts from Bob available tonight.

I must admit, I don't know how he does it. I have enough trouble writing one blog post!

For your listening pleasure this week; we have; five in the Cicerone Press series:-

Cicerone Press - Cycle Touring
Cicerone Press - The Ribble Way
Cicerone Press - Life As A Writer
Cicerone Press - The Book Of The Bivvy
Cicerone Press - Walking In Scotland

Followed by:-

The Gourmet Hedgerow

and then of course the weekly podzine

The Podzine 21/4/08

As I'm off to Scotland in a few weeks (yes; that what the train tickets were for!) the Walking in Scotland should be an interesting listen.

As usual all are available through iTunes or from The Outdoors Station







*I.T.M.A