The first thing – and it really is the very, very first thing – you notice when you return to London from cycling pretty much anywhere in the UK that is not a city or large town, are traffic lights. Hideous, everywhere-you-turn, always-on-red traffic lights. I once counted 60 sets of traffic lights on an eight-mile journey between…
Category: Mountains
Guest columnist in Scottish Islands Explorer
Re-produced below is the text of a column I wrote for the now-available November/December 2011 edition of Scottish Islands Explorer. Written while travelling on the London Underground – the very antithesis of the Hebrides – the column discusses some of the island’s literal high points, from Conachair on Hirta and Skye’s Sgurr Alasdair to Clisham on Harris and Mull’s Ben More….
Reviews for The UK’s County Tops
Reviews continue to come in for The UK’s County Tops. Good ones, I hasten to add. The most noteable is from Grough‘s Bob Smith, who calls the guide a ‘fascinating little book’. Meanwhile, there is a write-up on a walking blog, My Pennines. And there’s also an extract of one of the featured walks (Cornwall’s Brown Willy)…
‘Needs more pubs’
Another review, this time from The Travel Editor. The reviewer loved the book (apart from a lack of pubs, it seems); I loved the review. The UK’s County Tops Pros: delightfully daft idea Cons: needs more pubs Verdict: superb travelwriting project Ranging from the 80m Boring Field in Huntingdonshire to the 1344m Ben Nevis in…
Outdoors Magic reviews The UK’s County Tops
Outdoors Magic has given an early welcome for The UK’s County Tops (the ‘ideal step’ for anyone weary of the usual hill lists), published last week. I’ve copied the text below – or click here to see the real thing. Just arrived is a new book from Cicerone, The UK’s County Tops by Jonny Muir,…
Book number 3 – The UK’s County Tops
It is always exciting to get books through the post, even when they are ordered and expected. I never tire of pulling open those brown card envelopes from Amazon. But when it’s your own book – a pre-release – inside that envelope, and you hold it, cradle it, for the first time, reflecting on the months and years (of toil) it took…
Munro-bagging becomes a little easier, again
My Munro-bagging efforts have been lacklustre in 2011 (and, for that matter, 2010). Living in England hasn’t helped. I managed 38 in 2009 (at a time when home was Inverness). My Munro count plummeted to a miserable one in 2010 (not including repeat ascents on the bens Nevis and Wyvis), although the one was at least a good…
Bob Graham musings
After emerging unscathed (and just a little bit weary) from the Lakeland Trails Marathon, I had the rest of the week to focus my athletic endeavours on the Bob Graham round. Not doing it, of course, but running the rule over various sections of the 60-odd mile route – and ultimately deciding whether such an undertaking is…
Mont Ventoux
There is something extraordinarily compelling about Mont Ventoux – a mountain of pain, a mountain of victory, a mountain of ghosts. The ascent – 1617m over 21.8km – is one of the most challenging of cycling climbs in the world, with its long association with the Tour de France elevating it to legendary status. Eddy…
A view from Ben Wyvis… at last
I’d never climbed Ben Wyvis on a clear day. A vast tract of the wild north that I knew must be visible from the summit plateau had been elusive during my previous four forays, hidden from view by obstinate walls of mist. Furthermore, life on the plateau had a habit of being wind-blasted and breathtakingly cold, even…
A view from the Highlands
Here’s a nice wee write-up about Isles at the Edge of the Sea, as well as a short extract, on the website of Highland Hill Runners. Extract from Isles at the Edge of the Sea by Jonny Muir: ‘Number 68.’ I was being summoned to the start line of the Goatfell hill race – eight miles of toil…
Heights of Madness 