Here at TGO, we’re not all about ‘conquering’ summits or acting rashly for the sake of ego and bragging rights. This magazine, with its heritage in backpacking, has long been an advocate of humble, slow journeys through awe-inspiring landscapes with the power to make us feel small. Connection is the accolade; inner peace is the prize. And yet, living in our modern-day culture of convenience, there is something to be said for embracing challenge; having a goal to aim for which stretches beyond your comfort zone and enables you to explore new territory – both within the landscape and those fabled mountains of the mind. And when you picture mountain challenges, the UK Three Peaks immediately come to mind.
These timed challenge routes tend to favour the fast and bring out the competitive side in even the most holistic hillwalker. But Britain’s three highest peaks are so much more than their numerical value in feet and minutes. Get to know them better and discover alternative ascents in this issue. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to spend a night on each, getting to know these high places more deeply. Indeed, camping in the mountains under a star-speckled sky is perhaps the ultimate reward if you’re willing to take on the challenge of self-sufficiency. But with new kit innovations, you can ease the burden and bring an element of comfort with you. In our three-season camping gear guide, Britain’s most experienced testing team share the kit they trust and the little luxuries they won’t leave home without. After all, embracing challenge is one thing – but there’s more to being outdoors than suffering!
Cover image: A pitch overlooking Tryfan, Eryri/Snowdonia | Credit: Chris Homer / Shutterstock
Highlights of this spring camping kit special include:
- Britain’s most experienced testing team on camp kit they trust & little luxuries they won’t leave home without
- The UK Three Peaks: how to climb our highest summits in the most adventurous way
- Our experts map the routes of alternative mountain challenges you may not have heard of
- Minreet Kaur and her mum, in recovery from blood cancer, commit to a first-time camp in the Cairngorms
- The Roof of England: Vivienne Crow is your guide to a brand-new backpacking trail
- Bella Falk goes beyond the safari on a women’s-only trek with the Maasai through the Loilta Hills
- 42 novel outdoor skills for you to try – featuring five mini-guides to kick start spring
PLUS: Jim Perrin paints a portrait of Ben Nevis; we escape to the CMD Arete; Nadia Shaikh goes rockpooling to glimpse the shore crabs; get the latest news from the mountains; and check our calendar of walking events.
Read on:
Good things come in threes: It’s a century since the first Three Peak Challengers summited Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Yr Wyddfa in 24 hours. Today the challenge gets bad press – but, argues Hanna Lindon, it’s all about how you approach it…
“I once met Batman on Ben Nevis. He came sprinting down the Pony Track in the silvery twilight before sunrise, closely followed by Superman and Scooby-Doo. A nod, a hand-raise, a quick ruh-roh from Scooby, and they were gone; absorbed into the haze that hung over Fort William. If you spend much time on Ben Nevis (or on its fellow ‘highests’, Yr Wyddfa and Scafell Pike), you’ll know that Batman, Superman et al are fairly regular visitors. The same goes for dinosaurs, Teletubbies, Minions, Star Wars characters and, randomly, over-sized plush bananas. This is the mad world of the National Three Peaks Challenge; a world brought into being exactly a century ago, by three mountaineers who had absolutely no idea what they were starting…”
Dancing shadows: Confined to the house with chronic illness, Louise Kenward discovered a community of artists continuing to connect with the natural worlds from their beds and homes. Here, she explores the rich and multifaceted relationships disabled people can have with the outdoors – and shares perspectives drawn from her anthology Moving Mountains: Writing Nature Through Illness and Disability.
“Going outside and connecting with the natural world looks and means something different to us all. My own connection with nature has particularly grown through my experience of illness. For many years, I haven’t always been able to leave my home. That’s not meant a disconnection with the outside world, even if it has meant a disconnection from the human one. Noticing the small and slow has helped me navigate my own periods of smallness and slowness. More readily overlooked, these are no less significant to the large and fast movements across landscape outside we more typically see represented. I have learned a great deal from these quiet times. I look more closely and notice things more readily. Light changing and shadows dancing up the walls showed me fragments of life beyond my window when I was bed bound. It reminded me that change is constant, something that has been invaluable to hold on to, even if there are times when it feels impossibly slow…”
Making memories: London based journalist Minreet Kaur got in touch with The Great Outdoors and asked: How should two absolute beginners approach their first wild camp in the Cairngorms? There was more – Minreet’s mother Pritpal was in recovery from blood cancer. Could we help? How could we not? An idea took hold, and last September, we teamed up with guiding company Trek Scotland and went for a walk…
“The Cairngorms feel monstrously huge and oddly familiar at the same time. For many walkers – and I suppose my mother and I too, now – they’re a place of firsts. The first high mountains, the first experience of weather that can switch in minutes, the first time on paths that seem to launch you across seemingly limitless horizons into empty space. Even talking to people that know them well, there’s a side to these mountains that remains undefinable, out of reach. For my mum and I, the scale certainly challenged comprehension. We arrived as complete newcomers and didn’t know what to expect, equal parts excited and nervous to head out on our first wild camping trip. I genuinely wasn’t sure how either of us would cope, but uncertainty is partly what defines adventure, right?! And since my mum’s diagnosis of myeloma, we don’t know how long we have together. There are more memories to be made…”
Walking with the Maasai: Wild encounters, culture-crossing conversation and nights beneath the stars – Bella Falk goes behind the safari scenes on a Maasai-guided trek through Kenya’s Loita Hills
“Donkeys and pit toilets aren’t typically part of the Kenyan safari experience. Head to the Maasai Mara or Ambroseli and the closest thing you’ll get to a donkey is its striped-pyjama-clad cousin, the zebra, alongside graceful giraffes and snoozing lions. You’d probably be spending your nights spent in boutique lodges featuring handcrafted furnishings and ensuite bathrooms. But this is no ordinary safari. I’m on a ‘walking safari’: a nine-day adventure that, alongside the usual wildlife drives and scenic sundowners, includes four days of hiking and wild camping through Kenya’s Loita Hills…”
Camping gear special: Britain’s most experienced gear testing team share their ultimate toolkit for hitting the pause button in the great outdoors
“And relax – the tent is up, a brew is on and the views are outstanding! Inside our new annual guide to the best time you can have with your hiking boots on, you’ll find the finest 2 person tents, sleeping bags, mats, stoves and more, and plenty of advice for choosing – and using – the outdoor gear that works best for you. Sometimes, it’s good to just stop, isn’t it? We hope that this is your toolkit for hitting the pause button in The Great Outdoors…“
