The mustelidae family has been getting a big blogpress lately.You know how you wait ages for a bus and then 3 come all at once? Well, first there was Annie Dillard's epiphanic weasel; then there were my own running stoats; and now comes Chris Townsend's dramatic stoat event in his garden (Stoat Encounters of the Third Kind?) involving 2 stoats, 3 pheasants, a coal tit and a sparrow hawk. A word about Chris Townsend, a member of the UK hiking community's blogerati. An outdoors enthusiast, he's been gear guru for tgo magazine since 1991. He's also a photographer, and author of 16 walking-related books. Chris has trekked many trails and long-distance paths including the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Arizona Trail in the USA; and he's walked from the toe to the tip of Britain, from Land's End to John O'Groats. I remember reading what I think was his first book, The Great Backpacking Adventure (Oxford Illustrated Press, 1987), which I enjoyed very much at the time. But his writing style and ability have improved by leaps and bounds since then. A book of his that's become a bit of a classic is The Backpacker's Handbook published by Ragged Mountain Press, one of the McGraw-Hill group of companies. As I write I'm looking up at my own copy on the shelf above my desk. It's a 440 page practical guide to backpacking equipment and technique. Indispensable. This sentence comes from the chapter On the Move: Skills and Hazards: One bear-country saying is that the way to tell the difference between black bears and grizzly bears is to climb a tree - black bears will climb up after you, grizzlies will knock the tree down!
Showing posts with label Tgo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tgo. Show all posts
Monday, 3 September 2007
More Stoat Stories
The mustelidae family has been getting a big blogpress lately.You know how you wait ages for a bus and then 3 come all at once? Well, first there was Annie Dillard's epiphanic weasel; then there were my own running stoats; and now comes Chris Townsend's dramatic stoat event in his garden (Stoat Encounters of the Third Kind?) involving 2 stoats, 3 pheasants, a coal tit and a sparrow hawk. A word about Chris Townsend, a member of the UK hiking community's blogerati. An outdoors enthusiast, he's been gear guru for tgo magazine since 1991. He's also a photographer, and author of 16 walking-related books. Chris has trekked many trails and long-distance paths including the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Arizona Trail in the USA; and he's walked from the toe to the tip of Britain, from Land's End to John O'Groats. I remember reading what I think was his first book, The Great Backpacking Adventure (Oxford Illustrated Press, 1987), which I enjoyed very much at the time. But his writing style and ability have improved by leaps and bounds since then. A book of his that's become a bit of a classic is The Backpacker's Handbook published by Ragged Mountain Press, one of the McGraw-Hill group of companies. As I write I'm looking up at my own copy on the shelf above my desk. It's a 440 page practical guide to backpacking equipment and technique. Indispensable. This sentence comes from the chapter On the Move: Skills and Hazards: One bear-country saying is that the way to tell the difference between black bears and grizzly bears is to climb a tree - black bears will climb up after you, grizzlies will knock the tree down! 
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
The Great Outdoors
I've read The Great Outdoors mag - or tgo as it now calls itself - right from the very first issue. (Though mainly for the unsurpassable essays by the legendary Jim Perrin it must be said.) I used to read it standing up for long periods in W. H. Smith until I could afford to buy it myself (maudlin sound of violins please!) There's no serious competition. Country Walking I find yawningly anodyne and middle-of-the-road, and Trail just makes me cringe. Ok - I know I'm probably the wrong age to appreciate it, but I just can't stand Trail's self-consciously trendy style as it tries to capture the outdoors youth market. So congratulations to Cameron McNeish for an excellent periodical. The mag's had its fair share of problems over the years with layout and presentation, but there's never been another monthly publication which could ever hope to match its maverick and committed philosophy. Long may it continue.
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