Walk Britain’s best bits
Loving this month’s free fold-out map? Now take a closer look at all corners of our magnificent hillwalking isle
We remembered something important while we were creating the Hillwalker’s Map of Britain you’ll find lovingly tucked behind the cover of this issue of Trail – which is that Britain is a very special place to go hillwalking. Stuck at home for much of this past year, feeling like the walls are closing in around us and dreaming of escaping to some exotic faraway mountain range, it’s easy to forget what we’ve all got within striking distance of our homes. Spring is the time of year to start hoping and dreaming. When snow and ice begin retreating from our mountains and the green shoots of new life fill their slopes and valleys. It’s the season when most of us take our boots out of the loft, pick out a peak on the map, then go climb it without the need for axes and avalanche forecasts.
To celebrate that fact, we’ve created a collection of the best excuses to explore Britain’s hills and mountains on foot this spring, when hopefully restrictions will be lifted far enough to let us all travel further afield than the cities, towns and villages we’ve been pacing impatiently around since the turn of the year.
Over the next 10 pages you’ll find a list of adventures and locations that not only showcase the bountiful variety Britain’s uplands have to offer, but also the almost endless variety of locations you can do it in. From the Cornish coast and Dartmoor’s ghost trails, through Yorkshire’s hills and Cumbria’s waterfalls to southern Scotland’s golden eagles, almost all of us are just a short drive away from a great hillwalking region (sorry East Anglia residents). So choose the one you can do once lockdown ends or, even better, make a list and work through them all as soon as you can!