People & Place
Crofting, commons and the land nobody quite owns
Large parts of upland Europe are held under tenures that predate modern property law. They shape what the landscape looks like…
Imogen Vasse
Conservation correspondent, Earth Worth Exploring
Imogen covers land management and rewilding, with a background in ecology fieldwork before turning to writing.
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21 articles
Trails & Routes
Walking in heat is a different sport, and the rules are strict
Heat kills more walkers than cold in most of the world. The mitigations are unglamorous and they work.
Trails & Routes
Blisters are a friction problem, not a toughness problem
Feet do not need hardening. They need the rubbing to stop, and there are only three ways to stop it.
Trails & Routes
Wild camping law varies enormously, and assumptions travel badly
What is a right in one country is a trespass in the next, and the etiquette differs even where the law does not.
Trails & Routes
Pacing uphill: the conversation test beats any heart rate zone
Sustainable climbing pace is set by whether you can still speak in sentences, and almost everyone starts above it.
Trails & Routes
Descending is what actually injures people
Most walking injuries and most fatigue arrive on the way down, and the technique is different from going up.
Trails & Routes
Reading a hillside: what vegetation tells you about ground
Plant communities are a map of drainage, and reading them saves hours of walking through bog.
People & Place
Guidebook authors walk the route more often than you think
A good guidebook is field-checked repeatedly, and the ones that are not are recognisable within a few pages.
People & Place
Bothy culture is a set of unwritten rules that mostly work
Open shelters survive because almost everyone follows conventions nobody enforces.
Trails & Routes
Route cards are unfashionable and still the best planning tool
Writing the route down as legs, bearings and timings forces you to notice the parts you have not thought about.
Trails & Routes
Walking with children in hills, at their pace and not yours
Children are not small adults on a hill, and the trips that work are structured around what actually motivates them.
People & Place
Wardens, warden bothies and who is actually out there in winter
A small number of people keep upland infrastructure working through the months when almost nobody visits.
Trails & Routes
Scrambling grades and the point where a walk becomes a climb
The grade boundaries are about consequence as much as difficulty, and the transition catches walkers out.
Trails & Routes
Bogs, tussocks and the ground that steals hours
Certain terrain reduces pace to a fraction of what the map suggests, and it is predictable from the map if you know what to look…
People & Place
Shepherds, hefting and knowledge that lives in the sheep
Hefted flocks know their own ground without fences, and that knowledge cannot be quickly replaced.
Trails & Routes
Contour lines are a picture of effort, not a picture of height
Everyone learns that contours join points of equal height. The useful skill is reading the gaps between them as gradient, shape and…
Trails & Routes
The last hour of a walk is where navigation quietly goes wrong
Mistakes cluster at the end of the day, and not because the ground is harder. Tired decision-making has a recognisable shape.
Trails & Routes
Walking a familiar route backwards is not the same route
Reverse a walk you know well and the navigation, the gradients and even the view stop being familiar. It is the cheapest way to…
Trails & Routes
Forest is easy ground and difficult navigation
Nothing about walking in woodland is physically hard. Knowing where you are is another matter entirely, and the reasons are…
Trails & Routes
Stiles, gates and the hardware that decides who walks a path
A route is only as usable as its most awkward crossing point. The small ironmongery of a footpath is a quiet gatekeeper.
People & Place
Inshore fishing crews and the sea they are asked to share
Small boats working close to the coast are the fishing most visitors see and the fishing least represented in the arguments about…