Issuu

October - December 2020 //

In this issue 1. Bikepacking in Am Monadh Ruadh 13. The Cairn Project: creative magic in the outdoors 19. Finding the ‘why’ in the Weminuche 29. In conversation with: Chris Burkard 43. Shetland: life on the edge 59. Sudanese sands 69. Night-watch — a short story 75. Trail de Akagera: the conservation of experience 85. A night on Ololokwe

Bikepacking in

Am Monadh Ruadh Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountains, or Am Monadh Ruadh in Scottish Gaelic, form the highest mountain massif in the British Isles. Cairn Project Ambassador and keen bikepacker, Annie Le, tackles their misty trails on two wheels WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS ANNIE LE

Just as I think Neza will never forgive me, we reach the top and the mist clears. Our high rounded summit offers views through the mountains and down into the forested glens below. We smile at each other, grateful to share this incredible place and thankful to be at the high point. We pause to snack on trail-mix and oat cakes before tackling the way down. This descent is hard, steep with rocky steps and water bars. Neza glides down it, on her rigid, heavy bike. My worries about whether she would enjoy such a trail put to rest. As we wind down through boulder fields, deer grass meadows and dark lochs it’s no time before we reach the valley floor. Time to find somewhere for the night. Flat ground is easy to find in the valley, but ground that is not pockmarked with hard sedge hummocks is sparser, and it is with relief that we find somewhere suitable for both our tents. Silence falls as we busy ourselves getting the stoves on and making tea and food. A nearby stream gurgles and chatters to itself. A frog hops through the grass, making the most of the short summer warmth. I love the moments of contemplation in camp. The stillness — just listening and seeing. A chance to absorb the landscape and process the day’s scenes. Dinner eaten, we chatter quietly, in the comfortable manner of having spent a great day together, building friendship through a shared love of space and movement. Night creeps in and I fall asleep listening to the breeze whisper its secrets. We pack quickly in the morning as the midges hassle us in their determination to feast on our blood. Their bite is sharp and results in perfect pink dots that itch and annoy for a couple of days. No lazy cups of tea are to be had with them around. We start by riding down through a lush, forested glen. The variety of textures and greens from the pick ‘n’ mix jumble of trees is a rare sight in Scotland. The obsession of a wealthy few to keep the land overstocked with deer to hunt has all but destroyed any hope of the rebirth of our native forests. Here, however, the land is managed by a conservation charity and their efforts to replant the forest are obvious and appreciated. 8

Creative Magic in the Outdoors WORDS ALISON WRIGHT & SARAH CASTLE PHOTOGRAPHS THE CAIRN PROJECT & EILEEN ROCHE

‘Do what brings you to life.’ Brought to life is one way we’d describe the experience of standing atop Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the continental United States, on a blustery and unseasonably cold September morning. Exhilarated and exhausted are also adjectives that come to mind as we conjure up memories of the final moments of our John Muir Trail thru-hike in 2016. It had been a freezing early morning climb at the end of a long 212 miles through California’s High Sierra to reach the Mt. Whitney summit. And in that moment, on top of the US, we were celebrating the accomplishment of a goal more than a year in the making. It seemed like an end point — a triumphant one. In retrospect, that triumphant end was just the beginning. In the course of planning this 12-day expedition, we’d stumbled upon the idea of turning the adventure into something bigger: The Cairn Project, an adventure-driven nonprofit that expands outdoor access for girls around the United States. Knowing how transformative outdoor adventure can be for young women — seeding self-esteem, inner strength, and the tenacity to embrace the unexpected — we based the mission of The Cairn Project on a vision of fostering our future leaders and environmental stewards.

Chris Burkard Chris Burkard is an accomplished photographer, creative director, speaker and author. He spends the majority of his time travelling around the world’s wild spaces, photographing untamed and powerful landscapes. Wilder’s Editor, Jan Fox, recently asked Chris about his past adventures, his motivations to shoot, and what advice he would give to aspiring photographers in this digital age. WORDS CHRIS BURKARD & JAN FOX PHOTOGRAPHS CHRIS BURKARD | CYPRESS PEAK PRODUCTIONS

Thanks for your time, Chris. I understand you’re currently on an epic 900 km bike trip across Iceland’s interior. You’ve said before that Iceland is a favourite destination of yours – what is it that draws you to this Nordic island in the North Atlantic?

Yes, a team and I are currently doing a bike route through the interior of Iceland. It is amazing to see the country I’ve been to so many times in a different and unique manner. I have travelled to Iceland dozens of times, but I am usually there for commercial photography, and getting to experience the country by biking through it gives me a whole different perspective. Although the route has proved more difficult than I originally imagined … I truly believe that Iceland is one of the most beautiful locations in the world. It is by far my favourite place in the world. It holds so much opportunity for adventure and surf. Everytime I shoot there it is like walking on another planet. The geography, along with the people of Iceland, keep you coming back. Breanne (my wife) and I joke about living in Iceland when our boys get a little older for six-months at a time. I’ve been 40 times and have no intentions of stopping.

Your ‘mission statement’ as a photographer, and more broadly as a storyteller, has inevitably evolved with time. What are your key motivations to shoot today, and how has this changed from your first forays into photography? Overall, my main goal is very simple — I hope to inspire others to explore this beautiful earth and to see how much can be enjoyed when getting out of your comfort zone! However, my motivations have in fact changed over the years, especially recently as a storyteller. To be honest, when I first started I was 19 years old and in the beginning it was just about travelling, seeing new places and filling pages of my passport. However, now I think it’s really evolved into telling stories about places that can’t necessarily speak for themselves. The wild places of our planet are at stake and I think the most meaningful thing I can do these days is lend my voice to them. A lot of the adventures that you undertake involve a high level of physical exertion, and your current biking trip in Iceland is a good example. How much of a motivation is the physical challenge of these trips for you? I’ve learned that there is nothing in life worth pursuing that isn’t going to require us to suffer, just a little bit. I like to photograph things that require you to be a part of the action — mountain biking, surfing, skiing. Anything really that requires you to go out and work to get the shot. When I have to put in more effort and lose a bit of skin. Those times are the times I feel most alive.

Life edge on the

Lying roughly 100 miles off the coast of Scotland, the Shetland Islands are Britain’s most northerly outpost. Local resident, Susan Molloy, shows there’s more colour to life on these islands than their bleak portrayal in the hit TV crime series, Shetland PHOTOGRAPHS & WORDS SUSAN MOLLOY

Sea stacks of varying sizes are dotted alongside the islands, including the Drongs off the coast of Hillswick: sharp granite spikes that rise from the water like mythical beings. Glance over the edge and you’ll spot gannets, fulmars and puffins suspended on the breeze. Seabirds scatter the remains of sea life across the islands — crab claws and sea urchin shells that provide an occasional crunch underfoot on coastal walks.

S u d a n e s e sa n d s Flanked by a sweeping bend of the Nile, Sudan’s little-visited Bayuda Desert is a rich geological and historical landscape, with ancient Nubian pyramids, sand dunes, acacia forests and vast savannah plains WORDS LOUIS SUPPLE PHOTOGRAPHS NICHOLAS HOLT & LOUIS SUPPLE

Photo | Nicholas Holt

A BBC newsflash the night before I was due to fly out reported a gun battle between the military and supporters of Bashir in the streets of Khartoum, so there was good reason to be cautious. I was expecting a tense atmosphere on arrival, with soldiers on every street corner. But this wasn’t the case. The city seemed full of optimism, and most locals that I spoke to were excited to see what the future would hold following the fall of the ‘dictator’ Bashir. Our final preparations for the expedition in Khartoum included a meeting with the Minister of Environment in his opulent government office. With five plasma televisions and luxury interiors, the room was more akin to a suite at a five star hotel than a government office. After convincing the Minister that a military escort was really not necessary, and successfully acquiring a caravan of hardy camels from the market in Omdurman, we travelled to El Metemma, a small town near the Ethiopian border where we would begin our expedition. For the next ten days we would trek across the little-visited Bayuda Desert.

Guided by a wily old camel trader called Bela, and his cousin Qatar, we followed an ancient trading route that nomadic pastoralists from the Bisharin tribe have used for centuries to trade goods in Egypt. The route encompassed a range of beautiful desert environments, from acacia forests and savannahs to sand dunes and prehistoric volcanic rock outcrops. We also passed graves and forts from the illfated Gordon Relief Expedition of 1885. We enjoyed reading about the comical antics of the British Army during their march across the desert. Sir Redvers Buller, Chief of Staff for the expedition, and an alcoholic, hired 46 camels to transport his Veuve-Clicquot champagne. To our astonishment, Bela navigated the entire route using his memory and the sun, not once stopping to check the GPS. His weathered face and the jagged scar under his eye were clues of a hard life spent in camel markets and trekking in the desert. Hard to read, Bela had a twinkle in his eye, but he rarely made eye contact, always seeming distracted. I couldn’t help but think that he was a little bit sceptical about our chances of successfully traversing the Bayuda. 64

Trail de Akagera:

The conservation of experience The first Primitive Trail in Rwanda’s Akagera National Park was conducted in 2018 by the Africa Trails Co. Seasoned Trails Guide, Brenden Pienaar, recounts the story of the ‘Trail de Akagera’, emphasising the importance of the most endangered phenomenon of our time — the experience of wilderness PHOTOGRAPHS BRENDEN PIENAAR & AVALON MEDIA AFRICA WORDS BRENDEN PIENAAR

Photo | Avalon Media Africa

which to explore Africa’s national parks and wild spaces. It’s a shift from the spectatorship of the ‘colonial’ safari and encourages participation in nature. No infrastructure development is required and the activity is seasonal, providing the area of operation with enough time to recover from an already negligible impact. Primitive Trails could therefore provide economic justification for wild (undeveloped) spaces, and may be incorporated into wilderness zoning and wilderness management plans in the future. Wilderness areas are under severe threat, and are of critical importance globally for maintaining biodiversity and large-scale ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration. They also provide baselines for assessing current and future man-made environmental impact. Essentially, they are the ‘control’ sites for the large-scale human experiment we currently have in progress on our planet. In September 2018, I returned to Akagera with mentor and friend Robert Bryden to start preparations for the Trail recce. Robert was influential in the establishment of the Mphongolo and Lonely Bull Backpack Trails in northern Kruger National Park in 2009 and 2011 respectively. Together we carefully studied the maps and decided to agree with the landscape and her contours. Most of Akagera’s geographic features are situated south to north, so it made sense to align the Trail accordingly. Based on many years of patrols, Jackson knew most of the wellwalked animal paths across the park, and was an incredible asset in laying out a more precise route, especially where the contours did get steep. Some of the other route considerations included the dense vegetation, and the high concentration of animals that the Trail groups were likely to encounter along the lakeshore, such as buffalo, elephant and hippo. It posed an unnecessary risk, so was subsequently avoided. The lakeshore also has an extensive road network and interaction between the Trail groups and self-drive visitors will negatively impact on both parties’ experience. We wanted the Trail to avoid as much of the existing infrastructure and activity as possible. 80

A night on Ololokwe

WORDS JAN FOX PHOTOGRAPHS PETER NDUNG’U

Camping on the summit of an icon of Kenya’s ‘Big North’

In the evening we enjoyed a fireside dinner, and planned the morning’s trek up the mountain. Our Samburu guide, Lemaiyan, told us it would take three hours to reach the summit, along elephant and cattle paths. We all retired to our tents early to prepare. At around 3 am I was woken up by a sudden racket. A troop of baboons was alarm-calling — their frenzied barks echoing across the valley. I doubt whatever spooked them was stuffed. At dawn I was woken up again by a commotion below. More high pitched calls, but this time by young herders driving their donkeys towards a stream. The steep valley sides amplified the clopping of hooves on the dry, rocky riverbed. We all gathered our supplies and met at the starting point of the hike. Campers up the mountain have to be completely self-sufficient, although we would be accompanied by a group of porters to help lug our equipment. The initial stretch of the climb was particularly steep. We weaved up the eastern slope along dusty, well-trodden paths, stopping frequently to take in the views and hydrate. There were clues everywhere of the other creatures that had used this route. We wandered past dry mounds of dung, and trees stripped of their bark by elephants. I’m often amazed at the terrain that elephants can navigate. The paths up Ololokwe seemed far too steep and narrow for such large, ungainly animals. 90

Wilder Magazine - Volume Two