Introduction
If you’re one of the UK “outdoor community” on social media, you may remember a gear retailer who made “podcasts.” They stopped trading recently, replaced with Valley and Peak.
Bob and Rose were pleasant, known for customer service, which included sweeties with your order and a phone call from Rose: “Hello. Have you received it? Is everything OK?” It was. Walking poles, if I remember correctly.
They made a podcast about backpacking, in which Bob referred to it as a “hobby.” It was very refreshing when it can be glamourised as a lifestyle while you’re thinking, hold on a minute. I walk locally several times a week, camp and walk a few times a year, have a long walk in the summer and in a good autumn.
With related interests – birds, flowers and so on, but not really a “lifestyle” and what it’s like for most people. I say this for balance, because you can feel a cognitive dissonance when the media portrays it differently.
I met someone in Scotland a few years ago with a curious story. More curious, because I’d met him the year before. There he was on a camp site in Glen Shiel. There he was again as I was climbing Slioch. He’d walked all the Munros, many of the Scottish islands (some of them are small and barely known) and was halfway through a second Munro round.
He never read walking commentary, he said, only the Scottish Mountaineering routes, after I told him I’d read favourable remarks about Slioch. Then he said he told no one about his hobby at work. Why, I don’t know, except for him it was separate from such an exchange.
For this Footnotes I’ll say a few things about big walks which also provides a context for my Corsica photo.
Walks
As the year brightens I can walk again in the evening. It’s my favourite time. In the Pyrenees I was always the last to leave camp, and arrived at a refuge only just in time for dinner. I don’t like abrupt, early starts and the evening is a fine time for being in the hills. Same in Britain. I kept a record of walks for two or three years and it’s pleasant, diary-like viewing. My phone text remembers “walkfoto evening walk now” and I wondered about it philosophically.
Featured Walks
As we nudge closer to summer everyone is thinking where shall I go? For a big or long walk, are terms I like, used by the fondly remembered Alan Sloman. I never met Al but he was interesting and amusing at X and very hospitable. I think the Great Outdoor Challenge cheese and wine party was his idea, enjoyed in the Scottish hills, and several times he tried persuading me to do the walk.
I thought about it. But the likelihood of bad weather means it’s not something I would do. I like camp sites in Scotland but even then, my last trip was abysmal. A clear but grey day when I walked above Kinlochleven, a rain free but cloudy afternoon in Glencoe then days, more days, and more days, of pea-soup drizzly gloom is not my idea of spring fun followed with a seven hour drive back to England. You have to commit with Scotland, more so for a long walk. You can get lucky and then it’s wonderful but it’s statistically uncommon.
So we think about an overseas holiday, which consists of a long walk. Partly because of the weather. Here’s some ideas.
I’ve considered the Ecrin mountains a few times but they are described as “challenging” or “tough” and with no explanation. Tough how? Ascent and descent is one factor for example, which leads some people to say the Pyrenees GR10 is tougher than the High Level Route because it involves more up and down. This is a good guide for the Ecrin GR54. It looks great, but so does Corsica, which I will now mention.
Corsica is also described as challenging but with little explanation. It’s not about navigation, route, or effort, which are about the same as the Pyrenees. Corsica is rough underfoot, and I’m not sure I would go there again. It destroyed my sandals, which is what I like for summer and also other times of year.
Most of the time I was watching my feet carefully because of sharp stone and rocks, as you do for example with British scree. There are good moments, and marvellous views, but also a constant sense of struggle which is sometimes dangerous.
I heard the next day a man was badly injured at the place I describe below, with a rough vertical descent of twenty feet. Hand and foot holds were required, in drizzly mist which made the rock slippery.
I was very careful. Drop a leg down slowly, find a hold, test it, stay as close to the rock as possible, find a lower handhold in advance, all the time monitoring balance and weight because if your rucksack swings backwards, you go with it. It’s a micro attention experience like yogic concentration. Time slows, as ten minutes become critical.
You may like Corsica, and it is popular, so you have to work out your own preferences and avoid sandals. The Ecrins I’m not sure about because the commentary is similarly vague. Why not be specific?
For those sort of questions there are outdoor forums where you can talk directly with walkers and read their reports. TrailGroove and BackpackingLight have a US emphasis although not exclusively, and UK Hillwalking is self explanatory. Kev Reynolds was known for generous advice at a forum which no longer exists. I asked him a few questions myself.
I had six long walks in the Pyrenees and know the central section quite well. The Basque country west and Spanish east are not as good, generally speaking, with dampness and dryness respectively. There are many options in between using the GR10, GR11, or HRP. The best walk I did was a combination of the Spanish GR11 and HRP.
Books
I don’t read much nature writing. It’s more novels, and occasional philosophy, which tends to be I Ching related. Not by design, but it makes sense if I have those interests. Two of my favourites however are Weeds and The Unofficial Countryside by Richard Mabey. I referred to him once with a French speaking friend. She didn’t understand, and it became a joke. Maybe? – you mean you’re not sure of his name? – so we referred to him as Richard Probably.
The “unofficial countryside” are words taken from George Orwell and Weeds describes the same idea. As Mabey says, and it’s a fine conclusion for these Footnotes:
| The wild gate crashes our civilised domains, and the domesticated escapes and runs riot. Weeds vividly demonstrate that natural life – and the course of evolution itself – refuse to be constrained by our cultural concepts. |