The last 7 years have flown by in the blink of an eye. One minute I was marrying Traci in Las Vegas and spending our Honeymoon walking the John Muir Trail through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Then suddenly my eyes open again and I now have 9 cats, 10 grand children, and almost halfway through my 40’s and I hadn’t spent a single night since the honeymoon wild camping until a few weeks ago.

So what happened?

I’ve been thinking about this the last few months. When I returned from my honeymoon my day job underwent the biggest change of my career. I had worked in IT since leaving school and had been at the same public sector job for the previous 12 years. I had just transferred to the private sector as part of the UK governments Transforming Rehabilitation programme and the company I was working for had to create an IT system from scratch in an incredibly short time. I found myself central to this.

Work, Work, Work

Over the 6 years that followed my life just turned into constant work, there was always something to do. I was starting work earlier and regularly working late at night. Even when not working it was still on mind, how I could solve some problem or other. Halfway through those 6 years I became the Manager of the IT team which just added more pressure. Shortly after taking that role the UK Government announced the early end of the contract we were working under. The role then turned into even more work transferring everything back to the UK government. The first 6 months of 2021 was basically spent working, often 7 days a week and up to 18 hours a day. You can only do that for so long..

End of an Era

While those 6 years may have sounded like a nightmare, it certainly wasn’t all bad. I learnt more in those 6 years than most people ever have the opportunity to learn in a lifetime, often these days you are put into knowledge silos and are only responsible for specific tasks. There I did everything IT and was given the freedom to do it, even within the extremely strict government restrictions imposed upon us.

June 24th 2021 was officially the end of that role and for most people in the company it was. We converted into Civil Servants, as did I. However, my work for the company didn’t end there, I had agreed to shutdown all of the systems and securely erase everything. The plan was for everything to be complete within 3 months. Unfortunately, part of the work involved keeping a finance system running until it was audited. The auditors clearly worked to a different timescale and dragged it out until March 2022. Myself and the Finance Director were the only remaining staff, the Director left once the Audit had complete. I was then left to transfer the data to an external company who would store the financial data, this also took longer than I hoped. I had to keep various systems running for 12 months, while working a new full time job and also helping Traci with her new direction...

Traci

Not only was I working all the time, so was Traci. She was working at a doggy day care which she loved but it was long hours and was often covering weekends. We were so tired. The weekends we weren’t working, you didn’t really feel like going for a long walk.

2020 brought lockdowns and with it people didn’t need anyone to look after their dogs, Traci found herself made redundant.

Instead of moaning or maybe as well as moaning, she decided to take a new career direction. In the late 80’s Traci had worked as a seamstress at a clothing factory before production was moved over seas for cheaper labour. Traci had continued sewing as hobby or to fix things. She had mentioned how she had always wanted an embroidery machine. This is where another journey started...

Dare 2 Dream

We initially bought a second hand embroidery machine from Ebay, it still used 3.5” floppy disks, we just couldn’t get it to work. So bit the bullet and bought a new Brother Single needle machine. Neither of us really knew what we were doing. We started watching various people on YouTube and embroidered various T-Shirts for family and friends. An Etsy shop and Website followed and Traci had a business (Dare 2 Dream). We no longer watched films or shows on Prime, not that we had much time anyway. Our spare time was now spent watching and learning machine embroidery from YouTube.

While this was Traci’s business I was finding myself drawn into it just as much. Anything computer related was my job, embroidering the items was Traci's.

Through watching YouTube we started wanting a bigger and better machine, OK I wanted a bigger machine that would allow us (notice it’s now us) to do larger items and much more quickly. We bought a large second hand industrial embroidery machine like those we had seen on YouTube, but a little older. It had it’s issues but it enabled us to do embroidery for local companies and create designs that would be impossible on the small Brother. Fast Forward another year and we bought a brand new version of the industrial machine, we have constant orders from Etsy and return customers. I felt we were getting more organised, Traci was more comfortable with the industrial machines and I think we were getting there with the computer side of things. We were trying not to work weekends or too late at night, but we still weren’t making any money

Too much

The full time IT job hours were starting to creep up and weekend work planned in. I had insisted I wasn’t going to work long hours again for an employer, you are never appreciated and no one notices the strain it puts on you, it just isn’t good for your health, but I found this happening once again. However, an end finally appeared for those systems I was keeping running for the old employer.

It was already becoming clear that we needed to sort ourselves out, we were constantly tired, sluggish and had put on weight due to lack of exercise and eating rubbish. The day job was adding lots of pressures and that transfer to the Civil Service had not been carried out as it was supposed to. I eventually ended up off sick, which other than 2 heart operations I had never been off sick in over 20 years.

Dare 2 Dream was also adding more pressure on both of us for no return.

DIY

As well as the day job(s) we ended up completing several biggish DIY jobs; attic, kitchen, garden and dining room. The best advice I would give to anyone in a new relationship is to say you can’t do DIY, even if you can. Otherwise you will become an electrician, plumber, carpenter and a whole host of other roles. Maybe this is just because I’m cheap and refused to pay someone else to do something that I could.

Life Reset

2024 rolled around and we knew we had to do something, we had both put on too much weight, were unfit, stressed, anxious and just basically felt like crap.

I set clear hours for the day job, I now fully track the hours I work and stick to 37 hours in 4 days with a long weekend and the Friday intended for a long walk or overnighter. The massive amount of holiday and TOIL I built up is booked in over the next year.

We took the hard decision to wind up Dare 2 Dream, it wasn’t making any money and causing both of us stress. I am in the process of winding up the business I had to create to to keep those servers running for the old job, they still kept coming back asking me to help out. I also always had ideas I was going to explore, but never did and it’s just hassle that I don’t need.

Walking

This brings me back to the subject this blog is supposed to relate to walking, hiking, backpacking or whatever you want to call putting one foot in front of the other to reach some destination.

Over the last 7 years we have still been walking and completed things like the Allendale Challenge and numerous other walks but not like we used to and I never had the time to write about any of them.

It felt like our health was suffering with problems sleeping (for me anyway), lack of motivation and generally feeling like crap. We actively started watching what we were eating in 2023 and made a conscious effort to go for a walk. We entered and completed the Allendale Challenge again and the Durham Dales Challenge. We then slipped again and found we had no time for walking, the only walk I regularly undertook was walking a dog with Traci for an hour.

Now

It’s May 2024 and after starting this post over a year ago originally and having to rewrite it more than once as the months rolled by. We have now both lost weight after eating more healthy this year and exercising regularly. In general we feel better, no work stress, I’m over a stone lighter, both of us are fitter and those walking plans are back and happening.

We completed the Allendale Challenge again for the 6th time a month ago, I’ve just booked the Durham Dales Challenge in June and bagged more Wainwrights in the first 4 months of this year than the last 4 years combined, we have also been wild camping again, finally.

In 1 week we will be setting off from Mallaig on the West coast of Scotland heading for Montrose in the East via a 200 mile route on the TGO Challenge, it’s 14 years since my first and only previous TGO challenge.

Thanks

If you made it this far then thank you and I will try post more regularly than once every 7 years and in the future stick to the outdoors, but I felt I couldn’t just post a walk without writing something about the gap between posts. I am also exploring creating videos. We will see what happens..

Cats..

How could I almost forget those 12 cats...At the end of 2015 Traci came home with a cat she “rescued” we called him Nevis (yes after Ben Nevis). It escalated from there and we now have Skye, Snowden, Whitney, Hamish, Lochy, Journey, Munro, Macdui, Meadow, Brook and have inherited (S)Tink. Sadly Nevis who started all of this passed away in February 2020, Whitney in 2022 and Journey earlier this year which is heart breaking but we will never forget them. We now have 9 cats and wont’ be adopting anymore, hmm.

Traci my wife has walked a large number of the Wainwrights too and we did start tracking her total but again at some point we fell off the wagon and lost track. Over the last year walking has suffered with the day job regularly consisting of 12-15 hour work days often eating into my weekends, outside of work I feel like all I've been doing is DIY. Traci's list of DIY projects has been ever expanding. So much so that I have now recorded her confirming that we are only "doing the attic next year" 2017. If anything else is mentioned this recording will be played back to her. I think I may need to create a special shortcut on my phone for easy access to the recording.

Years ago I bought "Walking the Wainrights" by Stuart Marshall which is a guide to completing the Wainwrights in 36 walks. On one of my previous Wainwright bagging attempts, I started following his routes but from the start I was cherry picking and choosing the ones containing the big hills. This time though I intend to start from the beginning, Route 1 and finish with Route 36 no matter the weather or the desirability of the fells included.

I am intending to write a very short post after each, with the route name/number, a GPX of our route, Wainwrights included, a rating and a short summary along with a few pictures. I may expand on this but don't want to make a massive time commitment of writing complex trip reports that will be just the same as the hundreds of others out there and offer nothing extra that you couldn't find done better elsewhere.

If you think this sounds like a good way of bagging the Wainwrights, please buy the book not because that link could earn me a few pence but because it's a good book and will offer more that just downloading my GPX files which you are of course welcome to do. You would be missing out on the route descriptions and the alternate 2 day routes which could be useful in Winter when the days are short or the weather just not conducive to an enjoyable day. Anyone who plans their own routes will understand how much work must have gone into planning these.

The latest version of the book is several years old (2009), mine is even older. This is obvious when reading about access problems to certain fells like the Nab which should no longer be an issue, hopefully I can highlight anything I find that is out of date. The route descriptions and maps are more of a guide than an exact planned walk, the maps are very basic and hand drawn.

Below are the 36 walk titles, you will either need to buy the book or wait until I've completed them all to see the actual routes.

Route 1 - The Greater Grisedale Horseshoe
Route 2 - A Glenridding Circuit
Route 3 - The Greater Fairfield Horseshoe
Route 4 - The St John's Vale Skyline
Route 5 - A Kitkstone - Dovedale Circuit
Route 6 - A Mell Fell Medley
Route 7 - The Eastern Martindale Fells
Route 8 - The Western Martindale Fells
Route 9 - A Swindale Round
Route 10 - The Greater Kentmere Horseshoe
Route 11 - A Troutbeck Medley
Route 12 - Grasmere to the Langdale Pikes
Route 13 - The North Central Fells
Route 14 - High Raise and Greenburn
Route 15 - A Stonethwaite Medley
Route 16 - The Scafell Group
Route 17 - Great End and Glaramara
Route 18 - The Head of Langdale
Route 19 - The Coniston Fells
Route 20 - An Elterwater Excursion
Route 21 - An Eskdale Medley
Route 22 - The Skiddaw Group
Route 23 - The Blencathra Group
Route 24 - Back o' Skiddaw
Route 25 - Back o' Blencathra
Route 26 - The Coledale Horsehoe
Route 27 - The Newlands Horseshoe
Route 28 - The Wythop and Lorton Fells
Route 29 - A Whiteside - Grasmoor Round
Route 30 - Great Gable and Neighbours
Route 31 - The Moseedale Horseshoe
Route 32 - A High-level Tour of Wast Water
Route 33 - The Buttermere Marathon
Route 34 - The Loweswater Fells
Route 35 - Low Fell and Fellbarrow
Route 36 - The Far Western Fells

This website has been on hold for a while, unfortunately I didn't do a lot of walking in 2014. A few walks locally, the Durham Dales Challenge, Scarborough to Whitby, a couple of walks in the lakes and a trip or two to Scotland. In previous years I would have done this in 1 month.

Traci and I have a few things planned for 2015, the biggest of which will be our July wedding in Las Vegas. Our Honeymoon will be walking the John Muir Trail (presuming we get permits) then returning to Las Vegas to relax, if that's possible in Vegas.

The main reason for this post is to provide an update on the footpaths around the area I live and in particular Kitty's Wood. I wrote about the situation back in June 2012. A quick refresh to save reading the full post is the local land was previously owned by Durham County Council and leased as a farm. The farm closed several years ago and was demolished in April 2009, the Council then decided to sell off the land. The farm land had lots of footpaths across it that locals had walked for years and the Council had maintained, but the council had never added these paths as official Public Rights of Way (PRoW). The new land owner then decided to close the majority of these paths which angered a lot of people.

My take on this was always that the main problem was with the Council in the first place. Selling the land without making these paths PRoW, the land owner legally was perfectly in his rights to stop people walking across them. Even though he must surely have known the extent to which these paths were used, but probably didn't expect the response. In any case this led to considerable effort by a small group of locals and later the Ramblers to have these paths officially recognised.

I am happy to report that almost all of the footpaths I originally highlighted are now official PRoW, with a couple of exceptions. Seven new paths have been added to the definitive map and in due course will appear on Ordnance Survey maps. I have already updated OpenStreetMap with these paths and their official designations.

I would encourage everyone to check their local footpaths to ensure they are recorded as official PRoW. If you find they are not, then you need to collect evidence of their use with written statements from as many people as possible but these will likely need to be recorded on the correct forms and a modification order will need to be applied for all this should be explained by your local council. My experience of the process was not good, requests to apply for a modification order were ignored or people were told the Ramblers had already applied but this turned out to not include the same information or the same paths.

The whole process is not easy for an individual to carry out unless you have experience of the process or have lots of spare time, most of us don't. I would encourage you to approach the Ramblers who do have plenty of experience of this sort of thing and my local Council took more notice of them than anyone else.

There are still a couple of paths missing or recorded incorrectly, a footpath that was always used as a bridleway and did have a bridleway sign at each end up until a few years ago is still only recorded as a footpath (FP 43/45). A short footpath which even has a Durham County Council sign on it has not been added as a PROW and several footpaths which are still marked incorrectly (FP 45). Again these are failings from the PRoW team at the Council who would only listen to the Ramblers and told others that they had applied for all the same footpaths, which is why these are missing. The existing footpaths which are marked incorrectly I have reported to them repeatedly long before the land was sold and nothing has ever been done. The whole thing highlights just how difficult it can be for individuals.

I would really like to see the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) help in this area, they appear to be increasing their support for walkers in recognition that the majority of their members are more likely walkers not Alpine mountaineers. They are moving in the right direction with the help of people like Chris Townsend and Carey Davis but appreciate they focus on Mountain areas.

The problems faced by the public appear to be stacking up, there are deadlines for claiming footpaths but Councils and the Ramblers appear to be working to differing information. With an increasing backlog of work for PRoW teams and dwindling staff numbers, resources and uncertainty for those that remain I can feel for them, I'm in the same situation myself.

The public need help and guidance from the likes of the Ramblers and the BMC preferably a combined message. We are all working for the same thing after all.

If I decided not to follow that ML path the money (£450) wouldn't be wasted because I knew I would gain new skills which I'm always eager to learn. I originally hoped to do the course at Glenmore Lodge, having heard good things from others who had attended. Unfortunately they were fully booked, my next choice would be in the Lake District.

Top of the list was Apex not just because they begin with A, but because the prices were competitive, included accommodation in Holly How Youth Hostel where I had stayed before and they had good feedback on their courses.
Upon arrival at the Youth Hostel I checked in and waited for the others to arrive. The other attendees had a range of backgrounds and reasons for attending. I was surprised that some had never wildcamped a night in their lives.

Entry Requirements

To attend a Mountain Leader course you are supposed to have a minimum of 20 Quality mountain days, be registered with the Mountain Training Association in your country and have a log book completed to show that you have this experience.
I had typed my log book up and had over 40 quality mountain days from all over the UK, this was only a fraction of the quality days I could have actually entered.
Not everyone else was this organised or experienced, some had not completed the log book at all. Some clearly didn't have anywhere near that level of experience.

Numbers and Reasons

There were 5 of us who arrived for the course on the Sunday evening, also Marc from Pass and Peak who is a qualified Mountain Leader tagged along to keep his hand in and helped out for the first few days. We were joined on the Tuesday by Dean from Active Edge who I had more in common with (not paragliding) but I will get to that shortly.

I already mentioned my reasons for attending but the other attendees generally had different reasons. Two were from the Glasgow hill walking club and they wanted to learn skills to help with the group walks they did. Another attendee worked for the scouts, but was more of a climber. There was only one who was really doing the course for the mountain leader qualification so he could use that as part of his business as a paraglider teacher, this was Dean who joined us on the second day after having started a course previously and breaking an ankle.
There was 3 males and 3 females which I think is unusual, generally I believe the males outnumber the women.

What do you learn?

Below is a overview of the things we covered in my course, I can't guarantee I got this in correct order, it was over a year since my course.

Weather Forecasting

The weather reading was really interesting and I learned a lot, I understood what an isobar was before the course but not much more. Each evening we spent time studying the next few days weather charts and making our predictions. We would also review what we had predicted for the previous day. This could sound dull to some, but I really enjoyed this and I now read the synoptic charts myself before heading to the hills as well as checking what MWIS say.

Navigation

The first full day started with finding out our natural pacing by walking 100m and seeing how many steps it took. We then did compass work and map reading with lots of practise. While I could read a map well and had basic compass skills, this highlighted I needed more practise. We were each taught about a different plant that we would then have to point out to the others and explain more about it. The day finished back at the Youth Hostel with predicting the weather and reviewing our previous predictions.

Rope Work

The second day was Rope work and steep ground, we also practised map and compass work. The rope work was another area I was keen to learn in, while I climbed indoors the techniques used on the Mountain Leader training is very different. We had fun trying out the different knots, altough you can get away with only one. You learn everything you need to lower someone down rock faces with only a rope and no other climbing equipment (we had helmets). Besides for the brushing up my map reading skills this was the most enjoyable part of the week. Again the day ends with the weather for the coming days and review.

Rope practise & Trip planning

Day three we practised steep ground and crossed loose shale, again map and compass work. We then put our new skills from the rope lessons the day before to practise by setting up everything ourselves with the instructor checking just before we lowered each other. We then headed back to the Youth Hostel to do some planning work, this involved planning a trip for groups as if we were qualified mountain leaders. We would have to take into account the ability of the people we were given, the weather, the area, the desires of the group and a lot more. This was actually easier for me than the others because I knew the Lake District far better than the others but I don't really like doing this. Again we finished with the weather.

Overnighter

Day four is the day we would be setting off for our overnighter, obviously to me this is nothing new but for several of the others this was a huge deal. One had never done a wildcamp before and it looked like from the size of her pack that she had brought the entire contents of her house. A slight exageration, I'm not sure she had practised pitching the tent she had borrowed either. Yes I took the Trailstar, you can imagine the others faces when I described it. Yet it wasn't the only one in our group, Dean also had a Trailstar and had read my review and pitching guide for it. I wonder how often 2 Trailstars had been used on an ML course at that point.

The weather was poor when we headed out, I don't think it stopped raining all day. We spent the day taking turns navigating the rest of the group to the locations we were given. You learn a lot more than just navigating but taking into account the groups abilities and pacing rather than racing off. After a wet day navigating we pitched our shelters, the instructor was keen to look at the Trailstar and was happy with it. I think he had visions of me and Dean having to share his tent with us. We then practised river crossings not in the river because it was in flood. A few hours rest before we had to get up for night nav.

Night Nav

This was another part of the course I was looking forward to, when we emerged from our shelters not only was it dark but the fog had descended and we could only see a few feet ahead of us. Perfect weather for really learning. We may as well have been blind folded the visibility was so poor, yet the rain had stopped. The streams were flooded and we had several to cross. I think all of us enjoyed the night nav, it's the perfect way to put all skills learned earlier in the week to practise.

The final day we walked back to our pickup location which was at the Old Dungeeon Ghyll. We then returned to the Youth Hostel where we were individually debriefed by our instructor.

Debrief

The instructor was very happy with me over the week and with my levels of experience and knowledge. I didn't have much I needed to work on, he commented on the depth of experience I already had. He did comment on footwear because during the week I had discussed my dislike for boots which I had worn all week. He said they had passed people with Trailrunners but while that might be fine for the guide, if you were actually leading you would probably want to wear boots so that your clients who have less or no experience wear boots that they should be safer in. He wore trailrunners when not working.

Reading

While training to become a Summer Mountain Leader there are a couple of useful books that are worth reading:

• Hill Walking: The Official Handbook of the Mountain Leader and Walking Group Leader Schemes
• Hostile Habitats

The above are essential reading even if you have no interest in leading. The following 2 books are useful if you decide to go for the Winter Mountain leader or one of the climbing awards.

• Winter Skills: Essential Walking and Climbing Techniques
• Rock Climbing: Essential Skills & Techniques

Summary

I loved it, the people in my group had a wide variety of skill levels but all were there to learn and no one dropped out. I decided not to persue a career Leading. I will continue to take friends and family out walking but I would hate the planning side that I would need to do if taking paying customers, which is strange considering how much I love maps. I would just prefer not to have the hassle, I go walking to get away from things not to take more potential problems with me.

While we were doing the Mountain Leader Training there was was an Assessment course running at the same time. It was interesting to talk to them and It was obvious to me some of them didn't have the skills to be a leader. Only 1 passed out 5.

I would highly recommend going on the course even if you have no intention of taking the assessment and becoming a leader. The skills you will learn and refine during the week are worth every penny.

Unfortunately I forgot to take many pictures during the course and the ones I did take are very poor quality. Sorry about that.

Be aware that there have been changes to the course since I attended, the rope work has changed considerably. Please read this.

On a recent trip to the West Highlands I pointed out what I believed to be Schiehallion in the distance as we crossed Rannoch Moor in the car. I recalled how I had been told it was the mountain you could see from the most places in Scotland.
I decided that I would test if this was really true. I had a feeling it wasn't.

How do you do that?

Obviously I am not going to stand in every spot in Scotland and work out what mountains I can see, I would need several life times. Instead I will use Quantum GIS (QGIS) on a computer along with elevation data and a handy plugin or 2. I had recently read Michael Spencers blog post regarding Caleb's List which gave some helpful information, have a look at what it viewable from Arthurs Seat.

This could take a long time...

I said I would need several life times to do this without a computer, but even using a standard computer it takes a long time. I worked out how far to the horizon and I would work out my calcuation based on seeing the top of the mountain, or more accurately someone stood on the top.
My first run with the full data took 2.5 days just to work out where in Scotland you could view someone stood on the top of Schiehallion. When I looked at the data annoyingly it hadn't done it correctly and half of the data was missing. Here's what was produced.
Remember I wanted to find out which mountain was the most visible in Scotland, within my criteria which you can read in the Additional Technical Details further down this post. I decided to limit the mountains to only Munros initially, this would mean that I have to run the same process that I tried on Schiehallion for each Munro.

2.5 days * 282 Munros = A long time (705 days)

I am not the most patient person, 2015 for an answer is more than I am willing to wait.

Additional Technical Details

Software used:

• Quantum GIS
• Visibility Analysis plugin
• r.los GRASS module

Data used:

• OS Terrain 50
• OS Boundry-line

Extra data needed for calculation:

• Calculated horizon: 90 miles (from Ben Nevis)
• Limit to only the 282 Munros

The software used was Quantum GIS (QGIS), I tried both the QGIS Visibility Analysis plugin and the GRASS Line of Sight (r.los) module within the Sextante plugin.

The Terrain data is OS Terrain 50 Grid which I merged together to produce one large terrain TIF for Scotland, I then clipped this using the Scottish boundary (probably didn't need to do this).

I used Boatsafe website to calculate the horizon. This is different depending on your height, if you are stood on the top of Ben Nevis obviously you can see further than if you were at sea level. I decided to use 2 metres above the height of Ben Nevis, 1346m for all mountains. This calculated that the horizon would be just under 90 miles away, which I rounded up to 90. In reality the chances of actually being able to see that far are almost zero.

I also decided that I would use the following scenario, that if someone stood on the top of a mountain could they be seen within 90 miles without the direct line of sight being blocked by other hills. I have no way to calcuate trees or man made structures blocking the view and this would only increase the time taken to calculate.

The QGIS Visibility Analysis took 2.5 days to complete on my Core i5 3.2Ghz with 8GB RAM machine. Annoying QGIS is only a 32 bit program and only uses a single core rather than the 4 available. For some reason it didn't complete correctly, but even with half of the results it was still interesting to see how far away Schiehallion can potentially be seen.

I decided to try the GRASS line of sight (r.los) module in the Sextante plugin. I have found GRASS to be faster in the past than some of the built-in functions. This time I ran a test with a 25 mile view and this completed in 10 minutes.
Running the full 90 mile range in GRASS took 20 hours, the image at the top of this post is the returned data overlaid on Google Terrain.

To complete this using r.los is still going to take 235 days, unless I can build a multi-threaded version of QGIS (64 bit test version, not mulithreaded just released). This isn't planned until at least version 2.1, 2.0 is the next release. In the interim I will test with different viewable distances to find an acceptable processing time. The full 90 miles is further than anyone realistically could ever see anyway.

Once each mountains visibility is calculated, I convert the raster output to vector, crop using the Scottish Boundary-line data (removes visility at sea) then calculate the total area. This gives an easy figure to compare between each mountain. This figure could then be given as a percentage of the total area of Scotland eg.

Schiehallion is visible from 0.0105% of Scotland.

I have also ran the above for Ben Nevis which can be seen below

Ben Nevis is visible from 0.0151% of Scotland

You can already see if the above is correct Ben Nevis is viewable from a larger percentage of Scotland. I think other mountains maybe more visible than Ben Nevis.

The Most Visible Mountains (So far)..

1. Ben Nevis (0.0151%)
2. Schiehallion (0.0105%)
3. TBC...

Fixes

After generating the Ben Nevis and Schiehallion data I realised a couple of potential errors. I had calculated the Horizon from the top of Ben Nevis and used this for Schiehallion too, 261m higher than it actually is although this wouldn't actually alter the end results (Schiehallions height is used for the calcuation). Originally I used the QGIS visibility plugin which doesn't allow for the Earth's curvature (I don't think), r.los does allow me to choose this. I will re-run both Schiehallion and Ben Nevis without limiting the viewable range and enable the Earths curvature.

Ben Dolphin (@CountrysideBen) pointed out an excellent site Panoramas where you can view and download computer generated Panoramas of many mountains around the world, including Scotland. They are fantastic and happily the Ben Nevis ones look very close to my findings.

Help and suggestions

I am not a mathematician, geographer, cartographer or scientist just someone who loves mountains, maps and computers. I would be very surprised if I haven't made many mistakes in my calculations. If you are aware of any, please let me know or if you can provide any help. I find it fascinating and hope others do.

Holes in the data?

Although OpenStreetMap started in the UK it is a truely worldwide map. In many less developed countries and many developed ones too, OpenStreetMap is far more accurate and complete than any other map available. Yet if you look at many areas in the UK, things are missing. To use for walking purposes the standard Mapnik layer isn't much good unless you are navigating towns and villages.
If you want to walk in the hills you need contours, those orange swirly lines on Ordnance Survey maps. I said above the OpenCycleMap caught my eye, it is basically just the OpenStreetMap data styled differently with contours and relief shading added. There are other syles available that also offer Contours like Thunderforest Outdoors or Thunderforest Landscape. These omit much of the data from the standard map that you don't need for outdoor activities but keep things like pubs and toilets.

Dangerous

You would think that the Outdoors style would be the one to go for, but take a look at Ben Nevis. It has contours but those contours are STRM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) ones that dont' show the vertical drop if you wandered too far from the summit. They only show contours every 90m in the UK, 30m in the USA. In fact it doesn't look a bad descent.

Take a look at the Landscape style and it adds the vertical drop marked with the solid black line, much like Harvey maps show. Although still those contours are used that just aren't detailed enough. There are areas where the contours don't join up correctly either. Also the Outdoors map oddly omits walls, which I always find help greatly with navigation.
I'm not exactly selling OpenStreetMap for walking if it's missing potentially lethal vertical drops. The beauty of OSM is you can use the data and style it in anyway you like and add other data to create a totally unique map that has the details YOU want.

What data is available

If you live in the UK Ordnance Survey have released some "OpenData" which you can use. They actually released several complete maps but none of these are ideal for walking, they kept the Crown Jewels (Explorer & Landranger). The products that are usefull to supplement OpenStreetMap are:

• OS Terrain 50 (replacing LAND-FORM Panorama)
• VectorMap District

VectorMap district is actually an entire map product but we can borrow only the bits we need.
There are a lot of other sources of data out there for the UK and overseas. Natural England provide Open Access land data, so you could re-create those shaded orange areas. They provide a lot other data too but most is not needed on a walking map.

So what can we create?

Here's a very quick bodged together map just to see what this data looks like, you can see it's bodged together because it's not layered correctly and it looks to be honest horrendous, but you can see if it was styled, it would have everything we need. Ths was created in a couple of minutes using Quantum GIS( QGIS), to do this properly and produce a usable map at the end I prefer other tools. In the next post I will explain how to create a usable Outdoors maps using the data mentioned above.

Over the last year I have been thinking about maps a lot, from using them in my day job, planning adventures in my spare time and for future job plans. Living in the UK the most obvious maps to use are from Ordnance Survey and anyone who has even the most fleeting use for a map will generally be familiar with some of their maps. The paper Explorer maps of the Lake District that I keep in the boot of my car are looking very worn, although these days they rarely leave the boot. Why do they rarely leave their home?

Like most online outdoor walkers and bloggers I have used digital mapping for years, but always carry a paper map in case my digital device breaks or runs out of power. I rarely look at my paper map unless I want an overview of an area. Generally in somewhere like the Lake District I can recognise most of the landmarks and hills I can see around me. The map I generally have in my pack for this isn't an Ordnance Survey map but the Harveys Lake District map, yet this rarely leaves my pack either these days. All of this will be familiar to many outdoor enthusiasts who are embracing modern technology and using Digital mapping more and more.

There are problems with digital mapping and I don't mean running out of juice in your GPS device or smartphone. I'm talking about "Digital Map Lock In", this is the most frustrating and frankly old fashioned thing about digital maps.

What is Digital Map Lock In?

In the UK the biggest provider of outdoor mapping data is Ordnance Survey, many (UK people probably) believe them to produce the finest maps in the world. These are the maps used by the majority of people walking in the UK both paper based and digital. Yet due to the way Ordnance Survey licence, restrict and distribute their digital data they have produced and seam to actively encourage each company who uses their maps to produce outdoor mapping programs like Memory-Map, Route Buddy, Anquet or Mobile specific apps like Viewranger to create their own map format. Their map formats are "locked" to their program.

If I buy a digital map for Memory-Map, I can only use it in that program not in Anquet or anything else. This sounds very familiar to digital music a few years ago, the songs were locked to iTunes or Napster (legal version). If you wanted to play them in anything else you were out of luck. Unless you did a little research and broke the law removing the Digital Rights Management (DRM). What did people do? They downloaded MP3s illegally, the music industry tried taking people to court and dishing out massive fines but did it work, No!

Eventually some of the music industry realised that things were/are changing, the models of old were crumbling and that their old model didn't fit with todays generation. Spotify and similar services have appeared that offer consumers everything they had with their illegal sources (Napster, Limewire, etc) almost any song they desire in one convenient place and available on any device. People like myself were happy to pay for the service and I have done so every month since the first mobile app was released (3 years ago?). This model still has DRM with its restrictions, but I am happy to pay for it because I can listen to my music on everything I currently use (phone, computers, we browser and even now in programs like XBMC). I like the all I can eat model with the choice of millions of songs rather than the Amazon model of no DRM but paying for each song model. Who has made the most money from me, Spotify by a mile (£9.99/month for 3+ years).

All You Can Eat Maps

So what has all this talk of music got to do with maps, well we need the same thing to happen with digital maps. I don't want to be stuck using Memory-Map because I chose to buy a map from them 3 years ago or pay Viewranger for the same area again to use it in their app. I want to pay for my Ordnance Survey maps and be able to use them in any program or service and they be constantly up to date. I have no doubt someone is sat there thinking but you can't do that with paper maps. Exactly that's old fashioned and exactly the problem we have, we want new ideas not old ones.

I'm sure someone else would point out that Ordnance Survey provide an app for iPhone(OS Map Finder). I think this is the wrong move, I want Ordnance Survey to be the map producers and distributors with other companies providing software and services that use their data. I am happy to pay for a program or service and I have for AlpineQuest, MM Tracker, OSMand+ and many others.

What I would like is to pay a small monthly fee to have Ordnance Survey maps available in any program and always up to date. Ordnance Survey actually do already provide this service for business users, its called OS OnDemand and it starts from £1,500 rising to £20,000 per year. Slightly out of reach of the normal outdoor enthusiast. What I believe Ordnance Survey should do is offer a subscription map service for around £5 per month, this would allow me full access to their digital maps (possibly excluding MasterMap). They would provide the service and allow me to allow apps and services to use my subscription in the same way you approve access to your Twitter or Google account. This would provide an extra revenue stream for them, £60 per year from me and likely every other digital map user. This would mean apps like Viewranger would need to charge for their app again, I paid for at least one version of their app already.

Obviously the service would have to allow caching of maps, otherwise the service would be useless in remote areas. Providing always up to date maps at each scale and for the whole of the UK is the incentive that would encourage users to constantly subscribe.

Why would Ordnance Survey do this?

In recent years Ordnance Survey have generally had UK mapping to themselves other than the areas Harvey Maps provide, but the average person likely has not seen or used them. I have only seen them available digitally for one program (even worse than OS). There is also a new kid on the block, actually its not that new. OpenStreetMap (OSM) is celebrating its 9th year, but it is only recently that it is starting to become a realistic alternative to other major map providers like Ordnance Survey or Google for online maps. You may scoff at the thought of navigating the Cairngorms with an OpenStreetMap, but I believe its now almost possible if combined with contours and a grid.

Anyone who has attended a mountain leader course will have navigated largely using contours. Ordnance Survey Explorer maps can be very "busy" once you learn to use contours correctly. Take a look at Thunderforest Landscape and Outdoor maps for examples that use OSM data. They are still missing a few things in my opinion but the designer of those styles chose to omit some things like walls and fences. The biggest thing OpenStreetMap has going for it is that it is open and the data is freely available to use by anyone and can be updated by anyone. So if something is missing go and add it. I don't know about you, but I have spotted loads of mistakes on OS maps (intentional or otherwise) it can also take years for things to be added or removed. Not only should Ordnance Survey be worried but so should Google, they already borrowed OSMs model and now allow you to make updates to their maps using Google Map Maker. I am digressing, some of these thoughts will likely be discussed in future posts.

So returning to that question, why would Ordnance Survey do this. Well they could and should provide a service like this now, rather than waiting until OpenStreetMap have eaten away at their business. If they provided this service now I believe they would be opening up an untapped revenue stream and would be a leader once again. Almost all of the mobile apps available already provide OpenStreetMap as well as Ordnance Survey. If the free data becomes as good or better why would you pay?

Ordnance Survey needs to provide something that no one else can (currently) offer, don't forget there is already free "OpenData" release by Ordnance Survey that when combined with other free sources of data is potentially far better than what we currently pay for, keep an eye out for future posts.

Old Links to StevenHorner.com

I won't get into the technical side of it but I made a decision a lot of years ago that resulted in the inability to forward links to the new site. My advice to anyone setting up a site, enable permalinks.
Old links from external sites will take you to a custom error page which has links to the most popular posts:

• MLD Trailstar Review
• MLD Trailstar Pitching Guide
• Montane Lite-Speed H2O Jacket Review
• Routes: My Way

RSS Feed

If you subscribed to the RSS Feed for the site this also will no longer work, this time it's not me but Google who have stopped supporting Feedburner. If like me, you love RSS Feeds you can resubscribe by using the link at the top right of the site.

So why the change & the delay?

I was sick of the site running slowly, which was the result partly of the host (Godaddy), the platform (Wordpress) and my configuration of the site. The delay was mainly due to exporting the posts from the Wordpress and losing all the formatting, but the old posts are migrated. What this means is that I can now concentrate on new content, the delay to migrating the site has resulted in 0 posts in the last 6 months. There are several new posts either written or almost complete. I am looking forward to regularly posting again.

Apologies for the disruption, hopefully due to the design of the new site this should not happen again. If you spot any links that do not work or errors please let me know and I will fix them as soon as I can.

Update 18th August 2013

Another 8 months and nothing posted. There have been lots of reasons from drive failures and loss of completed posts to back problems and whole host of other things.

Something is stirring in many small villages and towns throughout England & Wales. In normally quiet villages, people are angrily discussing the latest happenings in the woods and fields around them. People who normally keep themselves to themselves are beginning to stand up and share their voice. So what's causing these normally quiet villagers to break their silence?

In a word "Access" or Public Rights of Way (PROW), in England & Wales there are around 140,000 miles of off-road routes that are classed as Public Rights of Way (PROW), that's over 5.5 times around the earth. These are shown on Ordnance Survey Explorer maps in green and Landranger maps in red. To be classified as a PROW a route needs to appear on the "Definitive maps" held by the local authorities. This then means that you legally have a right to use the route and the landowner should not obstruct or divert it (see Ramblers page for more information). So why are people becoming angry if they have 140,000 miles of paths to walk. In 2000 the government introduced The Countryside and Rights of Way Act which contained a cut-off date of 1 January 2026 for rights of way not on definitive maps. After this date those paths will be lost to public use. There have been estimates that up to half the walked paths in England & Wales are not recorded. You could find a path that has been walked for generations suddenly lost. 2026 may sound a long way off but add to the fact that almost all local authorities have a backlog of years to add these paths. According to Grough, Staffordshire County Council has a 17 year backlog which is set to get worse. Suddenly 2026 isn't so far away.

Most of us, myself included don't pay too much attention to reports like these until we feel the effects ourselves. Then suddenly there's a wake up call, in my case paths I have walked since I first put one foot in front of the other are suddenly barbed wired across and blocked off. I live in a small village in County Durham called Roddymoor, to the South of the village there are woods known as "Kitty's Wood", which previously was the site of mining and a coke works. These were landscaped over in the late 1960's and the wood was planted and footpaths put in.

The land was owned by Durham County Council and leased as Roddymoor Farm and the paths were maintained by the Farm and the Council. Locals from Roddymoor, Crook, Billy Row and the surrounding area walked these paths for decades with no problems. The farm closed a few years ago and the Council took back management of the land, who in these budget cutting times decided to sell the land. The land was put up for auction in 2012 and eventually the land was sold to a few buyers, Kitty's Woods included. Shortly after this problems started arising.

Paths were suddenly blocked with barbed wire and felled trees, walkers became angry and contacted the Council. They were told the paths were not PROW and did not appear on the "Definitive Map", the new landowner was perfectly in his rights to close the paths they had. This will be the first time most will of heard of PROW, Definitive maps, etc. now what do they do. There are still some official PROW through the wood but less than half of the ones people have walked for over 40 years.

I will stress here the new landowner has done nothing wrong, the paths which are on the Definitive maps are open. The Council also can't do anything now about these paths, unless they are added to the "Definitive map". The annoying thing to many who have walked these, is that the Council did maintain them, owned the land and never prevented anyone. They could have and should have added the paths as PROW years ago but we can only deal with the present situation.

So what can you do now?

The only option open to walkers prevented access is to fill out a "Public Right of Way User Evidence Form" for each path, along with any details you can provide. For a path to be added to the "Definitive map" it needs to be have been used for over 20 years. The Council need as many people to fill these out as possible providing as many details as you can. The forms are a nightmare to complete and most would look at requests for grid references and copies of maps and give up. It has taken days to fill out the forms. To make it easier for anyone with no access to mapping or any idea how to find grid references I have provided the forms below to download for each path with the grid references completed and the map with route drawn on. You can download and draw on these, adding any details you like. These should make the process a lot quicker. If you would like a blank form click here (Impossible to find on the Council site?)

Key to Map:

• Black dashed line = Existing PROW
• Red dashed line = Path NOT marked as PROW
• Purple dashed line = Existing PROW footpath should be bridleway (my opinion)

The Downloads below will hopefully be helpful and save time, the path names are made up for my use to reference them. See overview map to help identify which path is which, click the image to make it larger.

Downloads:

• Kitty's Wood Path Overview Map <-- Above map as a PDF
• Blank Form
• Durham County Council Definitive Map Extract
• Path B2 Form & Map
• Path C1 Form & Map
• Path E1 Form & Map
• Path F1 Form & Map
• Path F1B Form & Map
• Path H1 Form & Map
• Existing Path 43 Form & Map <--Should be a Bridleway

Further Information:

• Mike Knipe recent post on Kitty's Wood
• Durham County Councils Online Definitive Map
• Durham County Councils PROW section
• The Ramblers - Don't Lose Your Way Campaign
• The Ramblers - DEFRA and public rights of way
• The Ramblers - Access for Walkers <-- Good overview article
• Grough - Access group welcomes Government plans to update lost paths on maps
• Grough - Paths face extinction unless Government adopts plan

I finally returned several years after running the first Deerstalker 5k, this time talking Traci into running it with me. Watch the video above for an idea of the fun had, the HD version is better.