A quickly devised 2-day circuit of the northern hills of the Whinlatter Forest and the southern fells around Coledale.

The outward section, designed to include my one remaining unclimbed Dewey 500m top in the Lake District (Ullister Hill), follows the arc of hills from Lord's Seat to Graystones and descends to the pass at Spout Force and Scawgill Bridge.

The return section ascends to the Coledale fells via the north ridge of Ladyside Pike and Hopegill Head to reach the highest point of Eel Crag, then traverses its east ridge to Causey Pike. The route crosses the valley to Skelgill and follows the Cumbria Way to Keswick.

The main purpose of this trip was to test our research into the use of public transport for long journeys since our decision to go carless. This was my first backpack using entirely public transport, an opportunity to test the Advance Ticket rail booking and seat reservation system and the use of local bus services. It all proceeded extremely well and at very low cost.

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A 3-day route around the hills of Cwm Tawe combined with a short one-off excursion to claim Craig y Llyn, one of our two remaining hills on the 600m Sims list. Yr Allt, the other Sim hill, is traversed on the main circuit.

The apparently popular approach to hill bagging where you drive a car as close as possible to the summit, claim the top and drive off again, is one that normally we thoroughly dislike. However there are a few cases where the technique fits quite well and Craig y Llyn, the historic county top of Glamorgan, is a case in point. It lies on the Coed Morgannwg Way trail (CMW) but this route did not appeal as a backpack. The hill is blighted by extensive forestry operations and a wind farm is under construction near the top, leaving the views from the northern edge as its only merit.

A return to the Brecon Beacons was long overdue and we designed the Tawe route to include our first lakeside exploration of Llyn y Fan Fawr, approaching from the east and taking in Moel Feity, another new Dewey 500m top.

With a forecast of hot sunny weather following an already dry spell, and given the limestone geology of this area where streams can disappear underground, we predicted problems maintaining water levels and took our Platypus water container to supplement our usual bottles – how right we were.

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A 4-day backpack of the Kintyre Way (KW) waymarked trail in Argyll, running through the peninsula from Southend in the south to Tarbert in the north.

This is the old variant of the Kintyre Way that included the 5.4miles (8.7km) B843/B842 road walk link from Campbeltown to Machrihanish. Many walkers sensibly avoided this, as I did, by taking a 17-minute journey on the local bus service.

The weather forecast was highly unusual: warm or hot sunny days for a week ahead in Scotland but often wet with thunderstorms farther south in England. I took the opportunity to pack my gear for this trail backpack at the last minute, despite some misgivings about the timescale including a bank holiday weekend.

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A 2-day route around the hills and moors south of Alston culminating at Cross Fell.

The outward route closely follows a section of the Maiden Way Roman road (MW) from the flank of Park Fell, a new Dewey 500m hill, to its highest point near the summit of Melmerby Fell. It then heads into the broad and little trodden, wild and remote region of Cross Fell's north-western approaches for a pitch on Green Fell.

The second day completes the traverse of Cross Fell and heads north-east through an area of old mines to join the Pennine Way (PW) for a couple of miles. It then branches off westwards into grouse-shooting country over Staneshaw Rigg to Greencastle Tarn, descending Rotherhope Fell via a vehicle track to the River South Tyne and rejoining the PW to Alston.

Much of this route is about spacious landscape views, but also crosses stretches of wilderness of great character where atmosphere and feeling predominate over visuals. There were a few walkers on the two short PW sections, but for the rest of the trip the whole area was deserted. Cross Fell still retained small pockets of snow on its northern face.

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A 2-day route around the fells of the remote Warcop military exercise area culminating at Mickle Fell and returning via Cronkley Fell and the south side of Maize Beck to Murton Fell.

Recent surveys have added two new 2000′ tops to the Nuttalls list, Long Fell and Tinside Rigg, that I was keen to visit to maintain completion status. Another visit to the area had in any case been on the agenda for some time, partly to explore the Tinside Rigg region and also to more fully experience Mickle Fell by doing a complete traverse of its long curved ridge. The route also gives an obvious opportunity to add a couple of new Dewey 500m tops, Roman Fell and Murton Pike.

Some sections of the route are rough and trackless, boggy and very remote, a superbly wild landscape but one that can appear confusing even in clear weather.

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A 2-day route around the moorland hills north of the attractive town of Stanhope, a new area for us, mainly on easy tracks and paths.

The outward high moorland section arcs around the moors of Stanhope Common, visiting the three Dewey 500m summits defining the high points of these rolling hills that stretch into the far distance to emphasize the vastness of the landscape.

The return section descends the Boltslaw Incline to Rookhope and joins the Weardale Way, first following Rookhope Burn to Eastgate then the River Wear back to Stanhope.

The moors are intensively managed for shooting and have a rather different character from our grouse-worrying treks farther west and elsewhere that we walked years ago. The heather is cropped and burned for a plentiful supply of new young shoots and supplemented with many grouse feeding units, a tamer and much easier landscape than those knee-deep excursions.

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A leisurely 2-day traversal of the north-western side of Nantgwynant, visiting Craig Fach, Llyn Llydaw and the Hafod y Llan walk above Craflwyn Hall, some new pockets of Wales for us to explore and giving us a superb pitch on the eastern ridge of Y Lliwedd.

At 609m, Craig Fach is in the elite group of Dewey hills that are also Sims, one of three that we had yet to claim. It is also a fine example of a hill that we probably wouldn’t otherwise have explored due to its very close proximity to the most popular honeypot in Wales, but turns out to be a secluded and delightful little gem.

None of our previous trips to the area have included the lakes enclosed by the Snowdon horseshoe, this was an opportunity to visit one of them, Llyn Llydaw, and view the mountain architecture from a new perspective.

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A 4-day backpack of the Cowal Way (CW) waymarked trail in Argyll, running through the peninsula from Portavadie in the south-west to Tarbet in the north.

I enjoyed this backpack almost entirely in glorious conditions and I was very surprised to find nearly all of it totally deserted. Apart from locals in the towns and villages, the only people I saw on the route were two couples near Sruth Ban waterfalls and a few starting out on the popular Succoth path to The Cobbler.

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A 2-day circuit of the eastern arm of the Glyderau, approaching Bwlch Tryfan from Capel Curig via Gallt yr Ogof and Y Foel Goch and returning via Llyn Bochlwyd and the byway of Telford’s old road along the valley.

I walked this approach on my Tryfan East solo backpack in 2014, the main objective of this trip was to make that excellent tent pitch at Llyn Caseg-fraith together on a joint trip. The conditions were even better this time, two days of superbly clear and sunny weather with the last remnants of snow to spice the scenery.

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A 2-day circuit from Nebo of the mountains and little trodden cwms in the south-western half of the Nantlle ridge, a region of Wales we last visited thirteen years ago.

In our quest for new pockets of territory to explore at a slackpacking pace, we approached Mynydd Graig Goch on its north-western ridge via Llyn Cwm Dulyn, while the focus for the second day was the undoubtedly little frequented area below the crags of Craig Cwm Silyn, including the corrie lake with its companion and some nameless pools on the higher ground between Cwm Silyn and Cwm Afon Craig-las.

This short spell of warm and sunny August weather was the perfect time to experience the vibrant colours of the heather and bog vegetation, particularly on the second day below the crags when picking our way through the mixture of boggy ground, fallen boulders and heather that make this a superb fragment of wild Wales.

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