New TGO: Ski Backpacking, Digital Mapping & Cold Weather Kit

Descending from The Window, Creag Meagaidh

The March issue of TGO is in the shops now. My backpacking column is about ski backpacking, something I hope to do more of this winter and spring. I also write about kit for cold weather in the Hill Skills section, test the Teva Forge Pro Winter Mid WP boots and review 10 digital mapping programmes.

Elsewhere in Judy Armstrong reviews 12 pairs of trekking poles, though not my favourite Pacer Poles; Cameron McNeish tests the Montane Dyno soft shell jacket, which sounds excellent; and Ronald Turnbull answers a query about about keeping dry in the rain when bivvying – basically, avoid it if at all possible as it’s “not nice”! I knew there was a reason I liked tents. Ronald also discusses reasons for eating muesli with cold water – powdered milk blows away or gets in your gloves. Not if you mix it in with the muesli at home it doesn’t, something I do regularly, summer and winter.

There’s much else that looks good in this issue. The Almanac section opens with a lovely photograph of a cloud inversion and a wonderful sky in the snow-clad Ben Lawers hills by Peter Sandground. Cameron McNeish backpacks through the Minigaig Pass; Ian Battersby stays in a Lake District camping hut with his young son; Kevin Walker explores old mining villages in central Wales; Emily Rodway tries dog sledding in the Cairngorms; Ed Byrne learns some winter skills in the Glenshee hills; Ed Douglas visits Kinder Scout; Carey Davies describes the TGO Readers’ Trek in Aladaglar and Capadoccia in Turkey; Judy Armstrong goes walking and mountain biking in the North York Moors; and Cameron McNeish praises Great Gable. I particularly enjoyed Jim Perrin’s Hillwalkers’ Library as he writes about one of my favourite outdoor books, Colin Fletcher’s wonderful The Man Who Walked Through Time, describing it as “one of the outright classics of walking literature”. And finally Terry Abraham, aka blogger terrybnd, describes how redundancy led to his new life making videos of the Peak District (and excellent videos they are too).