Unplugged #15: A year on Substack, rehabilitating our relationship with adventure, and dances with editors

I've been thinking about rehabilitating our relationship with adventure lately, and I'm glad to see others writing about it.

Last week, my wife Hannah and I took a few days off to go hiking. Many readers will know that I’m a passionate long-distance hiker, and over the years I’ve enjoyed classic trails including the Cape Wrath Trail and Pyrenean Haute Route. But, while Hannah is an experienced hillwalker and has begun to dip her toes into more serious mountaineering, she had never come with me on a multi-day backpack.

We chose the Fife Pilgrim Way as our first such route together. It’s a relatively friendly trail fairly close to home, covering about 100km (64 miles) all said – a good distance for a first route, especially as Hannah is unused to carrying a heavy pack laden down with camping gear.

We had a great time! The landscape and history were fascinating. Yes there was some discomfort and fatigue, yes there were blisters – well, I got a blister, Hannah didn’t – but I’ll never forget the look of achievement on her face when we reached the cathedral ruins of St Andrews and she said ‘We actually did it!’

The Fife Pilgrim Way may not be the most awe-inspiring scenic trail in the world, but that really is not the point when you’re hiking with the one you love. A younger me would not have understood that. It’s about connection. It’s about presence.

I’ll have more to write about this adventure soon. Until then, I hope you enjoy this week’s issue of Unplugged.

From my desk

Recently published

🏔️ Hike An Groban: route guide

One of my recent Wild Walks for The Great Outdoors has popped up on the website. This is a great wee scrambling outing up near Gairloch that I enjoyed with my brother James and his partner Nicole last year.

Upcoming

🏃️ Like the Wind issue #45

Issue #45 of Like the Wind magazine will be published imminently – grab it while it’s on pre-order! We’ve put a lot of work into this issue and there are some fabulous stories. I’ll have more to write about it when it’s out.

📸 My upcoming talk at the Kingussie Festival of Words

The full programme for this year’s festival hasn’t yet been announced, as the organiser Nicholas has had a family emergency. Wishing him and his loved ones all the best. I’ve been advised that my talk is still going ahead, but the situation is of course fluid. In the meantime, do check out the organisation’s Facebook page for the most recent updates.

Recently processed film images

Here are three frames from the Northern Cairngorms this month. The colour images are Kodak Gold shot on my Olympus XA2, while the monochrome image is expired Kodak Portra 400 in 120 format (converted to black and white after scanning) shot on my Pentax 645nii. I seem to be in a phase of using slightly more modern and automated film cameras at the moment. Fear not; I doubt the phase will last. I do enjoy the fierce vignetting and optical quirks of the Olympus XA2, though… and the chiaroscuro look here is very me.

Art

A sketching session in Glen Tilt earlier this month. I don’t get as much time for drawing as I’d like, but I think I’m gradually improving as I remember old skills.

Dipping into the archives

May 27th, 2024: Hello again – a return to Substack, and a new era for this newsletter

Well, well! It’s been exactly a year since I returned to Substack. It’s interesting taking a look at this post from a year ago, outlining (in quite vague terms) what I wanted to achieve. I think I have a far clearer idea now, and I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made. Can’t wait to see what the next year will bring.

What I’ve been reading

Books

🖼️ The Art and Craft of Wood Engraving, Chris Daunt

I’m studying wood engraving at the moment, as I would like to learn this ancient craft. You know when you find an author with a voice that just feels reassuring? That’s Chris Daunt. He describes wood engraving as a timeless, lifelong art – like writing and photography, something you will feel a deep-seated calling for. And like writing and photography, there are no shortcuts. You must put in the work.

Just sublime. I aspire to be able to create art half as good as this

I like that the tools and techniques were perfected a century ago. This also is reassuring to me. In fact, Daunt makes a strong case for seeking out 19th-century tools, which are much better in quality. Sometimes things peak and then can never be improved, but after capitalism renders them obsolete they can have a long and glorious second life as an art form – more alive, perhaps, than during their commercial heyday.

🤖 I Hate the Internet, Jarett Kobek

I picked this up in a charity shop for 50p because the cover made me laugh. It was published in 2016 and is an unusual novel, not least because it’s structured in the same internet-brained way that a human being thinks when they have 65 Chrome tabs open. It’s a blistering and hilarious attack against the internet culture of the 2010s, the lords of Silicon Valley, and how software ate the world. It contains lines such as this:

And there was good ol’ Steve Jobs, better known as Hades. And not just because he was dead and rotting in the dank recesses of the netherworld, doomed for an uncertain term to watch projected images of impoverished factory workers on the rocky walls of oblivion. Basically, Steve Jobs was Hades because Hades was a total unyielding dick.

And it contains lines such as this:

Everyone in Silicon Valley loved Ray Kurzweil. He was their High Priest of Intolerable Bullshit.

I found myself reading it in the voice of Martin Silenus (Simmons, Hyperion) and this made it even funnier.

In some respects much in this book is spot on. In other respects it makes me think you innocent 2016 people are going to LOVE the 2020s.

Magazines

📸 Revelry Collection Volume 001

It’s here, and it looks great! Can’t wait to dive into this. Don’t forget you can read my interview with the founder Bentley Zylstra here.

From the web

🏔️ Adrenaline Addiction: Rehabilitating an Unhealthy Relationship with Adventure

Cole Noble, Quandary Mag, on choosing adventure for the wrong reasons… and the right reasons. So much I can relate to here.

I wrapped up so much of my identity and value into thrill-seeking, I also worried about who I’d even be if an injury knocked me out of commission again.

I wasn’t looking at it as a quick way to get a cheap hit from my body’s reward system; it was just nice to smell the trees, hear the birds, and feel the breeze.

🌿 Make Good Soul: A List

I really liked this piece from Alexander M Crow. He deals gently with the subjects of collapse awareness and hope, seeking a path towards balance. Some great practical tips on art as well as living a good life.

Read. Widely. As much as you can. Know when to switch between fiction and non-fiction, know when to choose lighter, ‘easier’ work over that which is more dense.

Find art you love, learn more about it.

🌿 The Ebb and flow

Gorgeous springtime nature images and springtime thoughts from Dawn Montrose, who mentions ‘mayglow’ here – an idea I once called ‘the ethereal, dreamlike radiance of blossom and mist and fresh greenery, intricate and floating and divine, as much emotional state as sensory experience’. These images encapsulate it perfectly.

🌄 Landscape as Home

Place, connection, loss. This is powerful.

I have written before about my habit of naming places, mapping my experiences onto the land. I have my own map in my head of the land near my old house. […] I found myself drawn, as I often do, to old maps of the area I lived, tracing the layers of history I walked on. […] Home to me, then, is the places I know intimately.

📚 Dances with editors

Putting my work hat back on for a moment, this piece from Ross on working professionally with editors (hello!) is spot on – especially on the relationship between writer and editor. Some great tips for being a good editor too.

Feeling pressured or flustered? You’ll probably skim the story, bash some feedback together, and the writer is left to now decipher your comments. Feeling present? Chances are you will provide considered feedback.

🥾 Moving Beyond the Back-Patting

Calum Macintyre has landed on Substack with a bang. I’ve come to really admire Calum’s frank criticism of the outdoor industry – but until I left Instagram I was mostly seeing it there, and that platform does not welcome dissent in the ranks. I think he’ll fit in well on Substack. Welcome, Calum.

🌄 Welcome to the Dark Mountain Project

The Dark Mountain Project has also arrived on Substack. This collective was writing about creative resistance against the Machine, collapse awareness, the end of capitalism, and the future of nature many years ago – long before these subjects rose above my own mental horizon. I’m so glad to see them still going strong at a time when their message is more essential than ever. Welcome, Dark Mountain Project.

That’s all, folks

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All images © Alex Roddie. Images produced using a camera and free of AI contamination. All Rights Reserved. Please don’t reproduce these images without permission.