On Travel

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move”

 R.L. Stevenson

"Use the quads God gave you!"

American fender sticker, referring to quadriceps rather than quad bikes

Drive through the highlands on a summer weekend, and you will find cars, tents and campfires by every scenic parking place. The Land Reform Act in Scotland allows wild camping, and undoubtedly it is a better way to spend Saturday night than watching The X Factor.

But I still feel these folk are missing out. Research by the Forestry Commission showed that 90% of visitors stay within 200 yards of their car. It’s as if they are attached to it by an umbilical cord.

You can also see this reluctance to leave the vehicle when walking the splendid South West Peninsula Coast Path. Often you will have the path entirely to yourself for miles, but it is easy to tell when you are approaching a coastal settlement - you start seeing people. Once you have gone a quarter mile past the village and car park it is deserted again.

Bill Bryson once observed that every fifteen minutes on the Appalachian Trail, he walked further than the average American did in a week.

On one occasion, Sigurd Olson travelled to a remote lake by float plane – a lake he had previously visited by the methode traditionelle: four days of paddling and four nights of bivouacking. The satisfaction of achievement and feeling of remoteness were no longer there – he had lost more than he had gained.

Remoteness, solitude and wildness depend on distance, but mechanised transport telescopes distance. Even the mountain bike is guilty in this respect. And one of the best guardians against desecration of wild land is the ‘long walk in’.

On the need for wilderness

In some men, the need of unbroken country, primitive conditions, and intimate contact with the earth is a deeply rooted cancer gnawing forever at the illusion of contentment with things as they are….I have seen the hunger in their eyes, the torturing hunger for action, distance and solitude, and a chance to live as they will. I know these men and the craving that is theirs…

                                    Sigurd Olson ‘Why Wilderness?’ American Forests 1938

Sigurd Olson wrote so intensely about the craving for wilderness because he experienced it powerfully himself. But why do people feel this desire to abandon comfort and head out with paddle or pack to wild country?  At best they will come back with insect bites and aching muscles, and at worst they may not return at all, like Chris McCandless. Why do they do it?

Polar bears do not thrive in the desert.  Our modern life is stressful for much the same reason: we find ourselves in an environment very different from the one that evolution adapted us for. The wilderness trip is a return to what is natural for us. Although the wild may seem superficially unfamiliar for the city-bred outdoorsman, on a deeper level it ‘feels’ right. Or, as John Muir put it: “Going out, I found, was really going in”

Another reason is freedom. We may live in a democracy, but we are still subject to a particularly cruel dictator - the one on your left wrist. After the second or third day on the trail the modern concept of time is forgotten and becomes a virtual unreality. Instead we become more tuned into natural rhythms - sunrise, sunset, tides and moonstate - because they matter. You can speed ths process up a bit by leaving your watch behind.

 

On stoves

I have never trusted petrol camping stoves. One moment it is a practical domestic utensil:  a millisecond later, people are running away from you shouting ‘Achtung, Flammenwaffen!’ while you try to extinguish your tent.

The answer, for once, is alcohol. The Scandinavians in particular like using alcohol stoves, which should blow away the argument that they are no good in the cold. One of the best stoves for the wilderness traveller is the Swedish Army Trangia. I guess the Swedes had been stockpiling these for when the cold war turned hot, and now they are readily available as unused surplus.

It consists of a Trangia brass meths burner that is slightly larger than the civilian version, an oval billy tin with a hanging bail and hook, a windshield, and a combined frying pan/lid that has a short handle with D-rings to allow the fitting of a wooden handle extension. You make this yourself from a handy branch, and it makes cooking over a fire much easier.

There is also a fuel bottle that looks dangerously like a hip flask, but this is intentional – in cold weather you carry the fuel close to your body so it will ignite easier. Just don’t confuse it with your ten year old Laphroaig.

Some sets include a traditional Scandinavian drinking cup or kuksa, although it’s made of olive plastic rather than birch burl – the Swedes may be traditionalists, but they are practical too. It all fits together with room for a lighter, spork and brew kit. The only downside is the weight – about 1.2kg all in.

Nevertheless, it is ideal for places like the UK, where a fire is not always safe, legal or feasible. Much as I like a campfire, I often choose not to have one if I cannot be sure of leaving no trace. Ordinary cooksets are useless for cooking over a fire – they have no hanging bail and short handles. The army Trangia is designed for wilderness cooking.

A petrolhead once told me that his stove would run on anything from Croatian brandy to napalm, and would boil a litre of water in four minutes. It did, but sounded like a jet engine while doing so. If you have to melt snow for water, the petrol stove probably has its place, and for fast-and-light mountain travel I use a Brasslite and titanium pot. For everything else, the slow, silent, dependable Trangia is hard to beat.

On silence

The horizon was black and gold, but not for long. The sun was flowing behind the mountains like sand in an hourglass, fast enough for the movement to be visible. It struck me that our sun must always cross the sky with such speed, but without a reference point we fail to notice it. Time can be like that too.

There were two islands in the loch – tiny forests arising from a watery looking glass that stretched away, beyond the bow, further than I could see. I considered the more distant island, but the wise outdoorsman does not choose to make camp in the dark.

A few strokes of the paddle and I was beaching the canoe on the shore, leaving bright smears of green plastic hull on the jagged schist. I rubbed them off with the back of my knife, uncertain if this was Leave-No-Trace ethics, or just Obsessional Compulsive Disorder. If I start picking up the bullets when deer stalking, I’ll get professional help.

Rigging the tarp and setting a pail of loch water to boil took a few minutes, and I sat on a heathery stool, on an unnamed island, in Loch Laidon, surrounded by Rannoch Moor. Rannoch Moor, for those who don’t know it, is big – at least by Scottish standards. Canadians might not think so.

And I listened to the silence. It was, after all, what I had come for.






City life does not lend itself to contemplation. That's one reason, I live in the country. But here too, it can be hard to escape man made noise. If it's not distant traffic, it's 50 hertz mains hum from electrical installations.


Even in our wild country, it can be hard to get away from the sight and sound of civilisation. The Peak District National Park of northern England is a gem; beautiful by anyone's standards. There, two thousand feet above sea level, lies the Kinder plateau, which despite the modest elevation is still serious mountain country, as the local rescue team can testify. And on the edge of the plateau is a very curious phenomenon - the Kinder Downfall. It's a waterfall, but when the wind blows the right way air is funnelled up the ravine, blowing clouds of spray into the air. It's the nearest thing to a geysir this side of Reykjavik.


It is said that you can see the spray clouds of the Kinder Downfall from Stockport, several miles to the north. This is undoubtedly a good thing, but the corollary is not: you can also see Stockport from the Kinder Downfall.


There is value in protecting any wild land, whatever it's size. But to be truly wild, it needs to be out of sight and earshot of civilisation. That means protecting large areas.

On the 'Che-Mun'

“The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence is part of it and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, the shores. . . . There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness , and of a freedom almost forgotten. It is an antidote to insecurity, the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfactions. When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known."

                                                                                                            Sigurd Olson

The First Peoples of North America made technological marvels from scratch: the tipi, the stone tomahawk, the papoose and, greatest of all these, the canoe. It puzzles me that we use their original word for the first three, whereas ‘canoe’ comes from a Spanish word, in turn derived from the Haitian word for dugout boat – which is very different and hugely inferior to a birchbark canoe when it comes to wilderness travel. The Ojibway – the people who perfected the canoe - called it ‘Che-mun’.

The canoe is a magic carpet – it opens up places inaccessible to others. No other boat can be so easily carried from lake to lake. It will take you places that even Argocats and good hill boots cannot. Freedom and independence are built into the very thwarts and gunwhales – it is no great thing to carry a month of supplies. The man who has set out with a rucksack on his back feels the exhilaration of knowing he can be utterly self-reliant for the next few days, using only his outfit and what he can wring from nature by skill. The paddler can multiply that feeling by eight.

The 'Che-mun' opens up the best places to bivouac. Many of our lochs have islands within them - some are relics of iron-age crannogs, but many are natural. And although the surrounding country is heather moorland, these islands are refuges of Caledonian forest, wooded with ancient Scots pines that have been thankfully uneconomical to cut down. They are tiny pieces of the land as it looked before man came. Wilderness, if you like.

When seeking wilderness, we are looking for places where the hand of man is not apparent. It’s difficult, especially in this crowded island. Years ago, I realised that the only way is to make a lot of effort. Lonely, beautiful places are always protected by distance. If they weren’t they would no longer be lonely and beautiful.

A while ago I was paddling on the sea loch Loch Hourn, returning from Knoydart – romantically and erroneously referred to as ‘Europe’s last wilderness’. It’s not, but it is nevertheless a stunning place, and somewhat inaccessible. There are no roads in or out. The only way in is by six miles of boot on rock, or in my case, six miles of maple through saltwater.

The wind and tide were in my favour, and I was making six knots with little effort. I overtook a party of mountain bikers, who were finding the path on the southern shore unpleasantly arduous. It’s bad enough on foot, and I did not envy them.

I pulled into a bay, dragging the boat through greasy seaweed. I had planned to make a brew, but a loud ‘plop’ and the sight of concentric ripples made me reach for the rod rather than the kettle. For the first time in my life, my first cast was successful, and yielded a bonny sea-trout, or sewin, as they are sometimes called.

I looked up and saw the mountain bikers had caught up and were watching from the opposite shore. Another cast. Another fish.

I know when to quit. I laid the silvery fish on the bow seat and pushed off.

On autumn

There’s a hint of colour in the broadleaf trees, and the pink-footed geese are back in Scotland after their Icelandic summer. It’s autumn.

I prefer the American term ‘fall’ – it just seems more rooted in nature. Even better is the Finnish term ‘ruska’ which translates literally as ‘brown’. The Finnish people are very much tuned into nature all year round, but they still make a special effort to visit their forests at ‘ruska’. It’s a good time to be outdoors.

On the outfit

There are people on this planet – and I know this, because I’ve met some of them – who can genuinely live (not survive, live) comfortably outdoors with no outfit other than a knife and perhaps a pot.

There are also rather more people who claim they can do this. I’ve met some of them too. Usually it’s rather easy to tell the difference. They fool themselves better than they fool others.

Although I subscribe to the ‘know more, carry less’ ideal, my own skills and experience put me firmly into the ‘know a bit, carry a bit’ camp. So, over the years I’ve accumulated a modest but decent outfit – rucksack, tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear, etc, that works well, weighs little, and most importantly, is familiar. Familiarity with your kit counts for a lot when both country and weather are wild. Some people change their gear so often they never venture outdoors with a familiar outfit.

And this is a trap that outdoorsmen are particularly vulnerable to. Kit is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. The latest shiny gear – what soldiers call ‘Gucci kit’ – has a surprising allure, and indeed it does bring a temporary feeling of happiness and satisfaction.

Research by psychologists shows that from the happiness point of view, you are far better off spending your hard-earned on experiences rather than things. This seems counter-intuitive, as the week paddling in the Quetico canoe country is gone in…well, a week, whereas the fancy Damascus steel outdoorsman’s knife will last long enough to become an heirloom. But it’s not as simple as that.

Time changes things. The latest fashionable kit becomes old and unfashionable, and the attraction wears off all too quickly – we become satiated. But time also affects our memories of experiences – we forget the physical discomfort, insect bites and drudgery, but remember the incandescent sunsets, the monster pike, the joyous elation of sheer freedom, and the campfires. Not for nothing did Sigurd Olson recall his campfire memories as beads on a chain, which spring to flickering, then roaring life when he thought of them.

Materialism is not a good thing. Research shows that people who are materialistic are very often self-centred, and that is a sure recipe for unhappiness. We would be better off buying a good but inexpensive outfit, and using the money saved to get to the jumping-off point. After that, your journey is free. And so are you.

On Wilderness

A flash of white, perhaps two hundred yards away. 

Something was out there.

I sank down in the auburn heather, my left knee coming to rest in a deep pool of viscous peat that resembled Marmite.  Well, I had come to re-connect with the land, hadn’t I? 

For me, a clear vision of nature depends on two people – the ecologist Aldo Leopold, and good old Charlie Zeiss. A moment of fumbling with lens caps, and I had upgraded my 1x7mm eyeballs to 8x42mm of Teutonic optical wizardry.

Through the binoculars, the white flash became the rump of a roe, with the distinct tuft of white hair the deer biologists charmingly call a ‘tush’.

Doe. A Deer. A Female Deer.

The sleet on my face indicated that I would not, however, be seeing Ray, A Drop of Golden Sun.

The doe was clearly spooked, but not by me. She was looking over to my left, with that frozen watchfulness that indicates fear, not curiosity.  Unlike people, deer do not worry over nothing and I scanned round to see what had pressed her panic button. Heather, more heather, rock, Scots pine, heather…..and  hill-walker. A hooded human figure in shapeless red Goretex had just breasted the horizon.  I realised with some humility that I could recognise the gender of the roe deer, but not of my own species.

The doe rapidly departed scene right, doing a convincing impression of a springbok. The lady – or, possibly, bloke – in red plodded onwards, oblivious. I lay down my rifle and stayed low, letting the walker pass on unaware. Walkers come to the hills for peace and solitude, and I did not want to ruin someones day. I sat in the heather, thinking.

Most people who come to wild country – walkers, campers, mountain bikers, stalkers, anglers, birders – are coming for the same thing. There are also many millions who want to go but can’t, won’t, or daren’t. You will find them buying wildlife books, or feeding birds in suburban gardens, or watching Ray Mears on the television, or tending allotments. Sometimes you find them just sitting overfed and unhappy in armchairs, conscious that something is missing but unsure what.

We have far too much comfort, too much civilisation, too much food, too much company, too much time indoors. The desire – I call it a need- to get away from the trappings and complexities of modern life is in everyone. Some just feel it more strongly.

We forget that our present way of life is incredibly recent. I am not talking about electric toasters and television, or even windmills and spinning wheels. I am talking about such basic things as agriculture, which people regard as being of immeasurable antiquity, but in fact only dates back to the dawn of the Neolithic, perhaps 8000 years ago. Before that, we were hunter gatherers, using stone tools, for over two million years. 

One hundred thousand generations of man being so intimately connected with nature leaves an imprint on us today, with old desires and behaviour patterns hard-wired into our brains. We are all descendants of successful hunter-gatherers. The unsuccessful ones, of course, did not live long enough to have children.

Many things we do are irrational when considered logically. We still climb mountains when we could get a more comfortable workout in the gym. We enjoy real log fires when electric heating is the push of a button away.  Some of us fish and hunt, when it is easier (and, curiously, more socially acceptable) to buy clingfilm-wrapped meat and fish at the supermarket. Others enjoy birdwatching or wildlife photography, both of which require and exercise the skill of the hunter, but with a different reward for success. In all cases we are trying to satisfy old desires.

We can never be entirely divorced from nature, but we are in need of some serious relationship counselling. Man is an abusive partner who has controlled, manipulated and modified the landscape so much that the wilderness and wild country we so desperately need is ever under threat.

If you strictly define wilderness as land that shows no imprint of man whatsoever, then we have blown it. Everywhere on the planet the effect of man can be detected with instruments, whether it be atmospheric pollution or climate change.

Here in the UK we have no wilderness and precious little wild country, none of it more than seven miles from a metalled road. Even our wild country is modified and managed. The ‘deer forests’ of the Highlands no longer have any trees. As a deer stalker, I am a locum predator, occupying a niche that rightly belongs  -mostly - to the wolf.

Time spent in our wild country restores and uplifts us.  We talk of preserving it. Should we not be more ambitious and restore it?