Mark Avery’s Nature Book of the year 2021.
What do people who live in the mountains think about the ‘wild’? The return of bears and wolves – and soon lynxes – has consequences both for nature and for farmers. New website: www.wildingthePyrenees.com
My new book, The Implausible Rewilding of the Pyrenees, is now available from [best for me] and Amazon.
I haven’t read it yet, but Juanjo Garbizu’s Slow Mountain is on my Christmas wish list.
“The accelerated rhythm of life today is not just confined to the cities. It has been moving into the mountains, and is making them a focus of competition too. But not everyone sees the peaks in this way. Juanjo Garbizu hikes to slow down, creating moments when time is suspended (he walks without a watch). So he can enjoy everything the landscape has to offer, sharpening his senses by observing nature and immersing himself in the stimuli unique to mountains. This is the Slow Mountain, mountaineering at a leisurely pace, which Garbizu has made his own in this book: a manifesto for a return to the original spirit of mountaineering and hiking.” (Free translation of the synopsis; the book is in Spanish.)
I am reminded of Gordon Wilson’s Space for Wonder, a personal take on trekking in the Pyrenees. A highly readable guide to crossing the Pyrenees combining the three classic trails, it emphasises the importance of taking “the time to stand and stare”. Full of anecdotes, it shows that long-distance walking doesn’t have to be a hard slog.
The Senda Pirenaica crosses the Camino at the western end of the Pyrenees. I am returning there this year, staying in the Roncevaux/Orreaga Pilgrims’ Hostel so I have been reading about the ‘other’ trek.
Continue reading Review of The Journey in Between: Walking el Camino de Santiago by Keith Foskett
