January may seem a long time ago (where has this year gone?) but you might recall it saw the publication of our Annapurna trekking guidebook, written by veteran Himalayan trekkers Siân Pritchard-Jones and Bob Gibbons. However, over in Kathmandu – a calling point for almost every Nepalese trekking expedition – they recently held an official launch for the book.

Check out the photo below of authors Siân and Bob, along with Pawan Shakya of Himalayan Map House:

If you’re an aspiring Himalayan adventurer, watch out for forthcoming title Trekking in the Himalaya, which has been edited by prolific guidebook author Kev Reynolds, and contributed to by Siân and Bob, as well as many other experienced and insightful Cicerone writers.

Here at Cicerone we hope that our guidebooks are so expertly written, it’s like having the author alongside you as you complete one of their routes. But this summer, we’re going one step further (no walking pun intended…)

We’ve teamed up with Large Outdoors, a fantastic guided walking company, to bring you a series of three guided walks from our Lakeland FELLRANGER series. Not only will you be taken expertly from start to finish with the Large Outdoors team, but you will also be in the company of Mark Richards – author of the FELLRANGER series.

High Street from above Bleawater Crag (The Far-Eastern Fells)

So if you’d like to meet the man himself, get an insight into why set himself the task of writing eight books about 227 fells, and how he went about completing it you’re in the right place. And what better place to hear about it than halfway up a mountain?

There’s three walks to choose from: High Street on 20th July, Catbells on 21st July, and Wansfell on 18th August. Don’t worry about the difficulty – Catbells in particular is suitable for the whole family to enjoy, and you’ll be in safe hands with Mark and the Large Outdoors team.

For full details of the walks, and how to book your place on them, please visit the Large Outdoors website. Happy walking!

It must be the start of the prime walking season in Britain, as walking festivals are starting to appear thick and fast across the country. And, as well as some great walking opportunities these are also a chance to meet some Cicerone authors.

This weekend Ulverston is the place to be, with both the Ulverston Walking Festival and the Backpackers Club weekend both commencing on 27th April and based at Ford Park.

The Ulverston WalkFest runs from 27th April to 6th May, with a variety of events and walks on offer. Part of the schedule is an Outdoor Trade Show, on Saturday 27th at Ford Park, where you will find a Cicerone stand and an opportunity to browse through some of our titles, as well as several other outdoor retailers. Look out for prolific Cicerone author Paddy Dillon, who is sure to in attendance throughout the week.

The Backpackers AGM is running just for the weekend of 27th and 28th April, but it is a packed two days. On the Saturday is your chance to hear author Mark Richards talk about his Lakeland Fellranger series; and with the final volume arriving in June, what better time to get a little inspiration from the man himself?

From The Far Eastern Fells, by Mark Richards

Finally, on the Sunday, the Backpackers have organised a table-top sale. This is the time to bag a bargain, with many of our ‘seconds’ – previous print runs or old editions – on offer at knockdown prices.

If you’re not near Ulverston, but find yourself in the north east of England, there is a festival for you too. The Haltwhistle Walking Festival has the exact same dates as Ulverston, and on 29th April features a talk by Paddy Dillon on the Reivers Way – a route which he knows so well he literally wrote the book on it!

Don’t forget, you can keep track of many walking festivals on our homepage – keep an eye on the Diary Dates section on the right hand side. If you know of a festival that we haven’t mentioned on there, be sure to let us know and we’ll be happy to add it to the list.

Exactly 40 years ago on 10th March, a young man called Mark Richards built a stone cairn on Hare Shaw above Haweswater, among the eastern fells of the Lake District. Mark was one of the very few people to have accompanied Alfred Wainwright on a fell walk; evidenced by a grainy photograph taken by him that day, which depicts Alfred and his wife Betty on the summit of the neighbouring Hugh’s Laithes Pike – the exact date is noted on page 228 of AW’s Pictorial guide to the Outlying Fells.

Alfred and Betty Wainwright, Hugh Laithes Pike, Haweswater 10 March 1973

Recently Mark visited the same outlying fells as he completed the research for his final guidebook in the new Lakeland FELLRANGER series, and so the ‘baton’ of comprehensive guidebooks to England’s most beautiful mountain landscape is carried into a new generation.

The Lakeland FELLRANGER series aims to inspire, rather than instruct – in Mark’s words, ‘to unleash the latent wandering spirit in each one of us’. In eight volumes, each of the 227 fell chapters describes a plethora of walking routes of differing characters and difficulties which can easily be combined to make ascents, descents, traverses or ridge routes.

Two further anniversaries occur this month; it is 40 years since the publication of Mark Richards’ first guidebook (The Cotswold Way), and the publication of Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk, for which Mark Richards also accompanied AW during his original research.

The publication of Mark’s guide The Far Eastern Fells on 15 June 2013 marks the completion of the Lakeland FELLRANGER series.

After a recent ‘research’ trip to the Hebridean isle of Lewis, Cicerone author, Peter Edwards, was telling a friend where he’d been only for her to respond ‘Lewis? Isn’t that Harris’s ugly twin?’

Lewis and Harris are actually part of the same land mass, their territories delineated by the natural barrier constituted by mighty Clisham and the other Harris Hills. These hills are the most popular destination for serious walkers visiting the Outer Hebrides with good reason, and Harris is indeed an extraordinarily beautiful ‘island’, but the ‘ugly twin’ epithet for Lewis is wildly innaccurate!

Though perhaps less ‘popular’ with visitors, Lewis has some fantastic walking to offer, from rugged and dramatic coastal walks, to challenging and remote hill-walking; there are also many glorious, empty white sand beaches for something a bit more relaxing.

Our trip was very much enhanced by Richard Barrett’s Walking on Harris and Lewis, which is the definitive guidebook for walks on the Long Island – as the twins are also known – and is also rammed full of interesting accounts of the island’s history, geology, flora and fauna as well as information on local services, covering all bases.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the premiere of Cicerone’s very first film.

And where better to start than with an interview with one of Cicerone’s most prolific authors, Paddy Dillon, about his Walking and Trekking in Iceland guidebook.

We’re hoping to do many more short videos like this, so watch this space for the next one…