No right or wrong ways to enjoy the outdoors

I found much of interest in the Spring 2020 edition of The Great Outdoors – thank you!

Mountains were my passion for 30 years. In the 1970s I climbed nearly all the Lake District’s higher hills – frequently many times over; often, and happily, alone. Then in the eighties and nineties I reached the tops of more than half the Munros.

Sarah Jane Douglas’ writing (“Healing Hills”, p32) resonates strongly with me, when she says: “When I first started out hillwalking my lack of experience and ability matched the lack of confidence I had in my own self, but as my physical fitness and skills gradually improved … so did my mental strength.” That is a lovely article; very moving.

Harter Fell was the first ever hill I climbed on my own, after I was introduced to hillwalking in the Lakes, all those years ago, by kind friends. I chose the straight up and down route from Cockley Beck, not the much longer round described in your “Wild Walks” article - and found to my delight that it was well within both my physical abilities and my technical skills. What an achievement that felt! And what glorious long days in the hills it led on to…

But as for Crib Goch (“Escape”, p8), I had only one encounter with it, a few years after that adventure up Harter Fell. I did make it but with good reason, I’ve never been more scared in my life. It taught me a number of lessons, but fortunately by then I’d had enough good experiences that it didn’t put me off going back to the hills – so long as I kept within my abilities!

I also feel somewhat aghast your article “Top 10 Walks for Beginners” includes the Munro of Buachaille Etive Mor as a recommendation for someone’s first-ever hill climb [Alan Rowan writes about this in the context of taking new walkers out with an experienced group – Ed].

These memories may seem a bit disjointed, but I think what I’m trying to say is this – please don’t assume that everyone who gets into the mountains is super-fit or macho. Plenty of us get just as much pleasure and sense of achievement by doing things that others might think trivial. There are no right or wrong ways – just so many ways to enjoy long (and short) days in the hills!

Thank you for your excellent magazine. We look forward to it dropping on the door mat, bringing back such happy memories of times gone by.