The Swiss Alps by Kev Reynolds. World Mountain Range Series.
And so to the point about the trip to Stanfords.
The Swiss Alps is the latest in the Cicerone Series of World Mountain Range Guides. These are no pocket guide books but rather works of reference that provide you with a massive amount of information, all in one place, that can be used to plan a holiday or a trek. This still relatively new range also cover’s Kev’s book on the Pyrenees and Chris Townsend’s book on Scotland.
If a trip to the Alps is on your mind at the moment then you’ll want to have a good look at this. These guides are very comprehensive and carry all the information you need to make informed choices about your trip, including: travel details, moving around the country, accommodation, day walks, treks, popular places and places where you can almost be sure to be alone!
These guides must be hell to write. Kev designed the concept of this series and a number of other writers have had a crack at producing one, but so far only Chris Townsend has able to deliver and still remain in one piece! The great achievement of these guides is they give you just enough information about a place or a walk for you to make more informed choices. I have used both the Pyrenees and the Scotland guides a lot!
Looking at the book — and talking to Kev — it’s clear that while this book was a mammoth task it was also a Labour of love. He told us that while he was writing he would start every day by looking forward to the short trip from the bedroom to his study and word processor. He knew he was going to have a great time remembering routes, places and people. I guess it’s not that often any of us can approach a word processor with that much enthusiasm!
Any how, if the Alps are you thing (or you think they may be), this is well worth checking out.
The Swiss Alps has 465 pages and over 90 detailed maps. It is designed with the beautiful clarity that we now expect from the Cicerone design team. It is a soft cover with a flap and costs £25. The ebook version has not been launched at the time of writing but I’m sure it won’t be too far behind.
More details, sample routes and so on can be found at:
The Swiss Alps, Cicerone Books
I recorded the usual fun and informative interview with Kev, and you can expect to see this on the Outdoors Station shortly (with a bit of luck).
Trek the Andes Blog …
Funny this blogging game. Jut when I’m thinking that it might be worth given it all up somebody comes along with a piece of flattery which lifts the spirits! This time it is Mark Smith who has written:
… I would like to say thanks for all the good reading and listening I have enjoyed for the last few years from your blog and podcasts. I am British but have lived out in Peru for the last 7 years so you can get a bit cut off from things at times so your musings have helped me keep in touch and mean I am able to skip around the local mountains nice and lightly with things like my Duomid that I would never have heard about otherwise.
Mark has recently begun a blog on trekking in the Andes:
I am aiming for a mixture of really good walk information such as walkhighlands, but put in a more pleasing to the eye format with lots of tales of trekking, backpacking and life of the mountain people. We have so many wonderful walks here which just never get done because people do not know about them and all that gets broadcast is inca trail, plus a few others. I would like to see people trekking other routes, for them to realise that backpacking is very possible here and also give a whole selection of day walks or couple of hour walks that people can just do themselves when here.
I notice that when overseas walking is discussed on the majority of lightweight or general walking blogs, it is mainly Pyrenees,Alps, GR20 and the States and I thought there might be people out there who would love to come trekking in the Andes but had just never thought of it.
Bad Gear? Is There Such a Thing?
Earlier today I realised that I haven’t yet posted a proper blog this year so I thought I’d better get on with it in case any of you have missed me! It’s time, I think, for a bit of a philosophical ramble!
A couple of weeks ago I found myself reading a piece from a fellow blogger that asked the question as to whether there was bad gear. His argument seemed to be that there wasn’t (I go into this below) but many of the comments seemed to agree with me that, sadly, there is.
And this got me thinking …
Review: The Wild Coast by John Gimlette
John Gimlette is a new name to me; I have Amazon’s recommendation system for discovering him. ‘The Wild Coast’ is one of those wonderful travel books that makes its focus on of the globe’s backwaters.
‘The Wild Coast’ is the story of travels in Guiana — the Land of Many Waters — named by local Amerindians. Guiana has 900 miles of muddy coastline and no natural ports. 80% of the land is covered by rainforest. According to Gimlette “… nowhere in South America is quite like it”.
Today Guiana,as a result of Colonialism is three different but connected territories: the ex-British colony of Guyana; the ex Dutch colony of Suriname; and French Guiana which is still part of France — Guiana still has members sitting in the French National Assembly.
Gimlette travels around each of the territories, through the fading colonial capitals and the marginal towns and cities on the edge of forests. He takes trips into the jungle and revisits a whole series of past projects aimed at levering, largely, mythical riches.
As an explorer and a writer gimlet serves us well. He is historical briefing is fascinating without getting in the way of the story. The people he meets along the way – who provide hospitality and who look after him on his travels — are affectionately remembered.
Guiana may be a backwater but, as an explorer, Gimlette was following is the footsteps of a number of illustrious predecessors, including Walter Raleigh, Evelyn Waugh and V.S. Naipaul. We learn much from the lives and experiences of these explorers.
The towns seem like almost any you can come across in South America, except more marginal. The forest — at times — has an almost ‘Heart of Darkness’ feel to it. And you might not be surprised that this marginalised country throws up all kinds of fascinating stories. Here are modern dictators, the cult of Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre, the true story (perhaps) of Herni Charriere — or Papillon — of Devil’s Island (who seems to have been a model prisoner). El Dorado is here – yet it really is — as are many household names who come from these nations, inlcuding politicians Bernie Grant and Trevor Philips, musician Eddy Grant and football superstar Ruud Gullit.
Above all this is a story of settlement and revolution, tribal wars fermented by western powers dashed hopes and dreams and of the strange, often twilight worlds, that have been left by the differing colonial powers. Each of the three territories is, of course, very similar but we do get a fascinating feel here of how each of the three powers, the British, the Dutch and the French, have created a new framework for the land they influenced.
There seems to be little hope here for dramatic growth or an economic miracle, anther these are nations that look to have a future much dependent on foreign aid. As a result I guess most of us will have few opportunities, or fewer reasons, to visit here. Yet Gimlette’s book is enlightening in all kinds of ways.
The best kinds of travel books are a wonderful mixture of travelogue, historical account, mythical tales and fascinating encounters. You will find all of these in the Wild Coast.
Gimlette proves that there is life yet in the travel genre. A very good read.
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