The Outdoors: Show Reflections

Just back from the first day of the Outdoors Show which will be the last one that is based in Birmingham. From next year the show will be based at the Excel Centre in the East of London. The show has changed a great deal since it was launched, as a direct response to the national foot and mouth outbreak. The idea, back then, was to celebrate the outdoors and give localities, adventure companies, gear manufactures and the outside world in general, the opportunity to get people back into the habit of the ‘outdoors’.

This year’s show follows the trends of recent years in that is smaller, both in terms of footprint and the numbers of exhibitors on show. Increasingly this is a show that is based around the appearance of ‘outdoor celebs’ such as Kate Humble and Simon King. These folks are obviously very popular but coming to watch them is an expensive business. By the time you’ve bought your train ticket, or driven and paid for parking, bought a ticket and then the extra ticket for the celeb shows you won’t have much change out of £50. However, you don’t have to see the celebs and there is a lot else on offer. And if you’re a walker of backpacker much of what you want to see is free. In many ways the smaller nature of the show makes it all a little more pleasant. There is more room to move around in and the exhibitors have a little more time for talk.

I’ve come back from the first day with a clutch of short interviews and some catch-ups with old favourites. Kev Reynolds told me about his trip to the beautiful land of Bhutan, which is only now being put on the mass tourist map. Unusually, for Kev he spent last summer here in the UK walking the South Downs, which is of course on track to become the next National Park. Kev Reckons that he enjoyed himself just as much as he would have done in the Alps! He also tells a story about Compeeds and blisters on his bum!

Paddy Dillon, of course, has been busy during the last year. His new book on the Pennine Way is about to hit the shelves and new books are on the way that look at walking in Sardinia and Greenland. (Cicerone staff reckoned the mafia had more than met their match with Paddy, and if you’ve ever met him you’ll know what they mean!). I talked to Paddy about Greenland which sounds like a fascinating destination. At the moment the only guidebook on Greenland’s ‘Arctic Trail’ is in German and by all accounts is not very good. Paddy’s Arctic Trail guide will, I suspect, turn this walk into something of a popular, wilderness, classic. It sounds a paradise for wild campers and Paddy’s walk would fit nicely into a two week break.

Elsewhere it is evident that more momentum is building up around walking weekends, walking festivals and the like and I’ve captured a few interviews that look at these.

Trail Photography

I was keen to have a look at some of the new high end ‘compact’ cameras and to have a chance to play around with them. The micro four third cameras from Olympus (Pen) and Panasonic (GR1) offer a new way forward for backpackers who want to produce quality photographs. However, these are not quite as compact as you might think. You do loose the prism that is a feature of the DSLR and the bodies are reasonably compact but the zoom lenses that come with them are still pretty bulky and mean you still can’t slip them into a compact camera pouch. For my money GR1 had the best feel. I also had a look at the new GXR system from Ricoh which is built around interchangeable lens and censor units. This looks very well made, feels very robust but is very expensive.

Perhaps it is not yet time to try any of these. I found myself drawn back to the Canon Powershot G11 which uses a smaller censor and yet still produces good RAW files. The lens of the Canon truly compacts into a camera body.

The Canon is cheaper than the other cameras but I must admit my mind kept falling back on the cheaper Nikon DSLRs, the 3000 and the 5000. I’ll be looking at the specs to see just how heavy these are compared to the Panasonic. For those of you who are interested, no I still haven’t upgraded my main SLR!

Cicerone

Forgetting Kev and Paddy for a while, the Cicerone stand was again the main hub for walkers, always busy with punters keenly taking in the new range of books. The new range of Great Mountain Days Out books has now been expanded to include Snowdonia, the Mountain Ridges of England, Wales and Ireland and others I think. These books join the Mark Richards book on the Lakes and are just as well produced. These are guides to study at home or in the B&B rather than to take on the hill. The all feature great walks, wonderful photographs and maps.

An intriguing new book Europe’s High Points is well worth looking out for and tomorrow I hope to interview the authors, Rachel Crolla and Carl McKeating. The authors set out to explore the highest point of each European country (leaving aside the issue for the moment of what Europe means). I assumed we were talking about the Alps, Dolomites and so on. But I had a great conversation with Jonathon from Cicerone who quizzed me on things like “Come on then, which is the highest point in Denmark?’. A fun book this and something else for the baggers amongst you to have a crack at.

Finally, I can reveal that one of my most awaited books is almost here. I’ve talked before about Kev Reynold’s the Pyrenees: A Complete Walkers Guide, which is a wonderful book. It is a real work of reference to poor over when planning your summer trek during the cold and dark winter nights. For a few years now Cicerone have promised a similarly authoritative and comprehensive work on the mountains of Scotland. Chris Townsend is producing this and I know from talking to him what an exhausting project this has been. However, the text is now complete and the book is just about to enter its design phase. This is one book that can’t come quickly enough for me.

I shall be back at the show tomorrow and hopefully will catch a few more interviews.