This week on Pinnacle Reads, my links of interest include a couple of pieces on long-distance backpacking, a supernatural encounter below the Cairngorm Plateau, the frustration and joy of nature photography with a trail cam, and a lot more.
Shattered on the Pacific Crest Trail – a fantastic set of stories from the PCT.
Quiet Camp, Quiet Hills – Chris Townsend enjoys a first wild camp after lockdown.
Mystery at the Shelter Stone – this is a fantastic story, and the forum discussion is also worth reading. ‘Whatever was making the sounds was now within ten feet of where I lay. I was beginning to feel tense and uneasy, the hairs on the back of my neck bristled. The footstep sounds I was hearing were unlike anything I had ever heard before.’
I finally bought my own trail camera! – Ben Dolphin has discovered the addictive frustration and joy of trail cameras. There’s some great stuff in here, including some philosophical musings about how we perceive wildlife. ‘By zooming back into my memory, I see only the many standout encounters with wildlife in the garden over the years. That selective vision gives the impression that my garden is a bustling haven of biodiversity, but looking at it in that way completely does away with all the empty moments in between, likely totalling years, when absolutely nothing whatsoever happened. It gives a false impression of how regularly such creatures visit the garden, or where they go.’
Go Home Polish: Walking 1,900 km in search of home – great piece about exploring the idea of ‘home’ in response to the Brexit debate. Other themes in this project include connection and resistance.
Life finds a way: in search of England’s lost, forgotten rainforests – I’ve seen Guy Shrubsole’s project on Twitter, and this fascinating piece illuminates many of the secrets of these fragmentary ecosystems. Did you know that the UK is still home to scraps of rainforest?
Books won’t save you – books != technology. ‘It’s not that literature can’t be personally uplifting, or even morally improving; but when you insist that this is what literature is for, you make a claim that sits at odds with the manifest intentions of most writers and readers.’
Wild Campers ‘Caught’ By Thermal Imaging Cameras – this is deeply worrying.
Nature Before Work – another superb blog post from Andrew Terrill, who has got his life’s priorities the right way round.
Country diary: across the hillsides of heather, the fallen parachutes of spiders – Carey Davies encounters ‘high-altitude aviators’ on an ascent of Blencathra.
Wildlife photography highlights, April 2021 – my month behind the lens.
Until next time,
Alex
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