The Great Outdoors February 2021

I HAVE BEEN KEEPING a lid on the wanderlust for most of this sad year; what’s the point in tormeting yourself with thoughts of lofty adventures when it’s neither practical or desirable to make them happen? But with the first vaccines going into arms as I write, my imagination is stirring again. So in this edition of The Great Outdoors, we have permitted ourselves a small, careful measure of a commodity which has been in short supply recently: optimism. Check out Ben Lerwill’s excellent round-up of life-affirming long-distance walking ideas on p26, and Anna Richards’ mouthwatering journey through glacial Patagonia on p34. ‘Winter’ is an unpredictable quantity in the British hills and mountains, but this issue continues to celebrate the season at its sparkling best through features by David Lintern (in…

Ben Lerwill Ben is a writer, walker and children’s author. He began 2020 with a three-day hike across Kenya’s Maasai Mara conservancies and ended it with a loop around Gloucestershire’s wintry Slad Valley. He has big (but still half-formulated) plans for 2021, all of which involve spending as much time as possible outdoors. His books for children mainly focus on wildlife and the natural world; the latest, Wild Cities, is published by Puffin and explores urban wildlife around the globe. He has a weakness for good music, train journeys and remote pubs. Anna Richards Anna is a writer, outdoor adventurer and travel specialist from Cornwall. With travel restrictions in place, she has swapped Patagonian peaks for pasty-fuelled adventures along the Cornish coastline. She has been paddleboarding at sunrise and sea swimming through bioluminescence…

“This was a last-minute adventure over the famous Aonach Eagach ridge: a challenging, exposed scramble in summer and a Grade II mountaineering route in winter. “We set off from Inverness in the early hours, heading to potentially climb a new route in Glen Coe – only to be presented with a fallen tree blocking our way into the glen. My fast-thinking companion, Chris, suggested we do the Aonach Eagach instead. Obviously my answer was yes. “It was a day of traversing in the clouds, with limited visibility. Soft snow made it hard going. But as the sun set and the clouds lifted, the ridge came into view. Breathtaking.” Instagram: @opnavex…

Shona Cammack Size: 20x25cm Medium: oil on canvas FOR MOST FOLK, walking to a remote Scottish bothy is challenge enough – but not for Shona Cammack. She packs her paints, pens, brushes and adventure sketchbook and – while everyone else relaxes by the fire – aims to capture the magic of bothy life. “I’m driven by colour and strive to create beautiful, harmonious paintings that showcase the joy of outdoor adventure, friendship and the beauty of Scotland”, she tells TGO. Based in Edinburgh, Shona is inspired by her adventures in the Highlands. “I paint bothies, mountains, beaches and the people who explore them”, she explains. “Many of my paintings feature the mountains and wide-open beaches of Scotland that I love so much. I paint in watercolour and ink when I’m out and about because…

MORE THAN 100 artists and celebrities, including household names like Stephen Fry and Jarvis Cocker, have voiced their support for a campaign to open more of England’s countryside to the public. In an open letter to prime minister Boris Johnson, the diverse array of high-profile signatories – including The Great Outdoors columnist Jim Perrin – threw their weight behind the new campaign to extend the CRoW (Countryside and Rights of Way) act to cover woodlands, rivers and Green Belt land, in order to give millions more people easier access to nature on their doorsteps. The letter was published on November 30 to mark the 20th anniversary of the CRoW act, with other signatories also including authors Ali Smith, Robert Macfarlane Helen Mort and George Monbiot; artists Jeremy Deller, Jacqui Morris and Alan…

LOSING DOUG SCOTT and Hamish MacInnes within a fortnight leaves a huge hole at the top table of mountaineering. Both lived extraordinarily full lives, both spent much of their time pushing the boundaries further than often seemed possible, and neither of them suffered fools gladly. Hamish MacInnes was not only a climber of the very highest rank; he also used his skills in a series of truly splendid adventures, which he then wrote about to give the rest of us vicarious pleasure. His leadership enabled Clint Eastwood to perform on his own in The Eiger Sanction, and he helped with the dramatic swordfight on the Cioch pinnacle on Skye for Highlander with another big man who has recently left the scene, Sean Connery. In between all this he was constantly refining…