By: Blonde Two
You might remember that before my trip to Scotland, Cicerone sent me a copy of ‘Walking in the Cairngorms’ to review. Here is what I thought:
I have come to the conclusion that a good walking guide book should encourage you to expand your horizons and abilities. This should occur at the same time as warning you off attempting walking projects that are beyond your personal realms of safety.
Cicerone’s ‘Walking in the Cairngorms’ does exactly this; it does it with confidence, it does it with accuracy and it does it with a big enough touch of humour to make you want to read it from cover to cover.
I am not sure if reading from cover to cover is what you are supposed to do with walking guides; but I did it with this one and I thoroughly enjoyed doing so. This really is a book for walkers rather than strollers. The author, Ronald Turnbull (a man of knowledge and humour whom I would really like to meet) has included low level ‘easy’ walks of two to three hours and all of them have clearly been carefully planned to include different walking experiences. The range of walks is extensive, and at the more difficult end takes you (but not me this time) into the heart of the Cairngorms via rocky gorges, leaking bothies and daring scrambles.
I used the guide in two different ways; I completed two whole ‘lower level’ (there is always a hill in Scotland!) walks, but also used it to plan my venture into the mountains themselves.
Sadly, after days of waiting for weather changes, the mountain venture was reduced to a foggy ascent of Cairngorm Mountain via the marked tracks of the Coire Cas route; but here we are back to my original point, the Cicerone guide encouraged me to consider further options but also helped me to make the right decision for the conditions (sleet up on the tops).
My lower level walks however, both went according to plan and for both, the chosen route and the guiding instructions were excellent. My favourite of these was a 3.5 hour exploration around the Glenlivet Estate. It included a regenerating native forest, deer, some open moorland, a beautiful glen and a 570 metre hill (Carn Diamh); what more could a walking Blonde want? I definitely wouldn’t have been able to organise all of this on my own. The author had obviously taken great care in providing instruction; the ‘rutted ride’ was indeed rutted, the ‘plank footbridge’ did indeed have planks and the ‘confusing cow paths’ briefly confused this Blonde.
We Blondes have discovered that writing walks for other people is not easy. It takes time and it takes local knowledge. Whilst reading and using the Cicerone ‘Walking in the Cairngorms’ Guide, I was in awe of Mr Turnbull’s depth of knowledge and level of research. I would thoroughly recommend it to any walker who is contemplating, planning or has already embarked on a trip to that area. I am pleased to say that my copy is looking a lot more used than it did before I set out; and I have plans to go back to the stunningly beautiful Cairngorms and dirty it (but not them) a bit more!
Thanks Cicerone – nice work!
I have just written an objective review of my Macmillan Way walk on my blog including my thoughts on the official guide; see my post “Macmillan Way Summary” 15th June.
For me a walking guide should have these attributes:
Clear, unadorned walking instructions (any local history or subjective stuff should be completely separate, preferably in a different text and or colour, and in a different location). Even if it is inserted in different text and colour it is irritating to read: “turn left at the church…”
“The Saxon church which was built…” (here we get ten lines of history which our eyes have to scan before picking up the next walking instruction during which you have lost the flow of the sentence you were reading).
Distances given instead of phrases like, “after some distance…” and “soon…”
Consistent phraseology instead of three different ways of saying the same thing, e.g.: “keep to the right of the hedge”, “keep the hedge on your left”, “follow the hedge”. These can be reduced to “hedge on right”, or “hedge on left”.
Use of compass points – instead of saying “diagonally left across field” say “north-west across field”
Nearly always use compass points instead of; “left” and “right”.
Any maps should be on the same page as the text to which they relate.
In most of Cicerone’s guides they have followed those lines and I reckon they are the best guides on the market. Guides like your Cairngorms one are ok for day walks where you are not too concerned about weight so you can take the book with you. For long distance backpacking the whole book often contains information you do not need. I buy the guide and massacre it, just taking the pages I need, all of which stay in my rucksack except for the ones needed each day which I have in a polythene bag to stuff into my pocket for easy and quick reference as I walk. I would add that I do have a reverent feeling for books and I do sense some guilt when I massacre these guides.
Hi Conrad,
I’m glad you like our guidebooks. We try very hard to make them the best guide possible – we are all walkers too and it would seem that we share some of the same bugbears!
Just a thought though… instead of massacring our books each time you do a longer walk, why not buy the ebook edition? Kindles last weeks on a single charge and are easily read in bright sunshine, if you’re lucky enough to get any! Also, if you buy them both of our website you can get the ebook half price. Not a sales pitch but a genuine suggestion that may save your poor torn up guidebooks. 😉
Best wishes and I hope you continue to enjoy your walking.
Hannah
Cicerone Press
Hi Hannah.
I may well have met you because I live in Arnside and call in at Milnthorpe when I want to buy a guide.
I thought about the e-book option whilst I was writing that comment. At the moment I have the whole of the UK on Ordnance survey 1:50000 on my iPhone and on my iPad-mini. I use the phone map during the day whilst walking and do my blog and next day’s planning on the larger screen of the iPad-mini in the evening.
I carry the following items which all have their bespoke chargers:
iPhone
iPad-mini
Camera
pay-as-you-go mobile on Orange to supplement usually poor Vodafone signal on iPhone
Mili sleeve charger for iPhone
Adding all that lot together they form the largest item of weight I carry including my tent.
I’m not sure, if your ebook would download to the iPad-mini, if so it may be an option, but battery life could be a problem. I would not want to add yet another semi-fragile device to my weight in the form of a Kindle, and I already use iPhone and iPad to read books.
I know I could find answers by looking at your website, but your reply here may be of interest to fellow bloggers and backpackers.
Apologies to Two Blondes for hi-jacking their blog for a private exchange.
Hi again Conrad,
Yes our guides are available in iPad format, or you can buy the Kindle format and use the Kindle app. Once you have put the book on your device you can access it offline so battery shouldn’t be a massive problem although iPads do use more battery than a basic Kindle. Our ebooks also work fine on an iPhone so you would have plenty of options. 🙂
I hope this helps!
Hannah