dkcrw

20251121 Can tech be sustainable?

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For most of the last year I have been working at the University of the Arts London to develop its first digital sustainability strategy. UAL is Europe’s largest specialist art and design university. It has around 25,000 network users and a large and varied digital estate that includes laptops, AV kit, media workstations, shared graphics hardware and multiple data centres. It is a significant producer and consumer of digital media, which is why the strategic investment in developing a new net zero strategy called for a specific focus on digital emissions.

20240806 Crater Lake to Bend (mile 2002)

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

One of the things people are most often curious about the trail is where we get our water from.

There are a variety of different ways you can make the water found in lakes, streams, puddles and ponds drinkable. These range from filters and purification tables, to good old fashioned boiling. The most popular by far is the Sawyer Squeeze, a no-frills filter making impressive claims (99.99999% effective against bacteria and protozoa, lifetime warrantee). In contrast the least popular gadget by far were the UV sterilization pens, which we saw only once when someone approached us to borrow some water because they had broken theirs. However, all of these methods require a decent quantity of dirty water to get started, and finding the water can prove difficult.

20240731 Truckee to Crater Lake (mile 1824)

Tue, 08 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We had met Big Shrimpin’ back when he was called Cameron, at Mandy and Diego’s place in Wrightwood. This had also been where we met Windwalker and Wonder Woman, and where we were reunited with the Frenchies who we had not seen since Scout & Frodo’s place in San Diego. The world of trail names is confusing and was not something I looked forward before starting the PCT. Grown adults calling themselves things like ‘gumball’ or ‘storm’ seemed highly cringe, and I put it down as another American eccentricity to be tolerated like tipping or baseball. Big Shrimpin’ had got his name the way both Grace (Lady Pilgrim) and I (Ranch) had got ours, which was by having someone shout it at us enough times that it eventually stuck.

20240724 South Lake Tahoe to Truckee (mile 1158)

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It was the worst night’s sleep on trail by a country mile.

Comments on FarOut for the Donner Ski Ranch had suggested that weary hikers could cheat the system by heading to camp on a gravel patch behind the large piles of mulch just visible from the deck of the restaurant. One of the key differences between backpacking in the US and other countries is that ‘dispersed camping’ (putting up a tent essentially anywhere) is permitted on many public lands. This contrasts with the position of the UK and many other places where the default assumption is that you cannot camp unless told otherwise. However, even the freedom land of America cannot escape the bylaws of modern life. Often when the PCT strays close to roads or towns there will be fewer camping opportunities, either because of posted notices stating that it is not allowed, or because the trail is so frequented by muggles (day hikers) that there are just no suitable spots. The Donner Ski Ranch was one such place.

20240718 Bridgeport to South Lake Tahoe (mile 1050)

Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We awoke in the historic Bridgeport Inn to a historic stink. We had been unable to find anywhere to do laundry in town the day before and so had attempted to do it in the hotel shower with a detergent pod and a drybag. With nowhere to dry and clothes hanging everywhere in the tiny twin room, the three of us were stuck marinating all night in there with it. Fortunately we had the foresight to cram our hiking shoes into the small chest of drawers at the far end of the room, but there was definitely a funk in the air by the time the hot July sun rose over town.

20240714 Yosemite Valley to Bridgeport (mile 963)

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In his 1958 novel The Dharma Bums Jack Kerouac’s main narrator, Ray Smith, takes a trip out of San Francisco with fellow zen poet and general mountain-man friend, Japhy Ryder, to climb the Matterhorn in the Sierra Nevada. I read the book following a field trip to the Cairngorms in Scotland during my first year at university. A friend had recommended it and I related to the main theme: the conflicting pull of both town and country. The dilemma posed by the story is simple: how to participate in the enlightening power of nature, while not missing out on the wild San Francisco jazz parties?

20240710 Red's Meadow to Yosemite Valley (mile 948)

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Yosemite Valley is simply the grandest example of vertical granite cliff faces to be found anywhere on earth. It is home to both Half Dome and El Capitan, iconic and instantly recognisable features, as well as innumerable other climbing objectives, hiking trails, and waterfalls. It is incised by the Merced River, and it has been made famous by outdoorsmen as varied as John Muir and Alex Honnold. Most pertinently for me, it has been appearing as one of Google’s stock images on our smart TV for the past year. A stock image I was lucky enough to visit in real life this summer.

20240707 Bishop to Red's Meadow (mile 907)

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I quit smoking in January 2024 and barring one or two exceptions I have stuck to it. However, if there is one thing which will drive me back to cigarettes, it is the mosquitoes in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.

One of the above-mentioned lapses was in the climbing town of Bishop. It seemed there that every person we had met on trail over the past two months had assembled to share stories, and to get shitfaced on macro lager in a salty bar called Rusty’s. The next morning I awoke in a deserted hostel room with the familiar taste of tobacco in my mouth, and a half smoked pack of Marlboros in my pocket. The hangover added an immediate existential anxiety to all of our town errands that day, but the cigarettes would later come in handy, back on trail, as a tool for wafting away the disgusting blood-hungry creatures in times of need.

20240702 Kennedy Meadows to Bishop (mile 830)

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I am, at heart, a sea-level boy. I have lived nearly my entire adult life within an arm’s reach of the ocean, never directly on the coast but always unconsciously dictated to by the tide.

It is a big change to come to the mountains, real mountains, where for days and days the only real direction is up. Even in the lowermost valleys we rarely descend below eight or nine thousand feet, and climb passes above twelve thousand feet with alarming regularity.

20240618 Lake Isabella to Kennedy Meadows (mile 703)

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

When you see a bear, the correct response is to stand your ground and yell loudly. Black bears can, in theory, be found all throughout the Pacific Crest Trail, however it is usually assumed that they do not pose a problem for hikers until the end of the southern California section when the trail heads into more wooded and mountainous regions. The first bear we encountered was at Chimney Creek, around a day before we reached Kennedy Meadows - the traditional starting point of many hikers’ Sierra adventures.

20240613 Wrightwood to Lake Isabella (mile 653)

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Writing this from Lake Isabella where we are staying at the Kern Motel, so named for the river Kern which flows down south from the Sierra through this way. The area has seemingly seen better days. At the gas station slash liquor store, the shelves seemed empty of most things, apart from energy drinks (four new looking fridges, stacked with colourful cans and humming loudly), fish bait, and dick pills. The vibe was upbeat enough and the spotty teen behind the counter was holding himself well against the seemingly endless onslaught of requests and retributions from the customers coming in and out. I purchased four Evians and a small bottle of Jim Beam and headed back to the laundromat where Grace waited with Two Books and Big Shrimpin’ (trail names now becoming the standard way of referring to anybody). In the blazing heat I was glad that we had made it down off the hills, even if the town displayed all the hallmarks of a place grown a bit too comfortable with its methamphetamine usage. It really felt like we were out in the heart of the desert now, which felt strange given the enormous lake for which the town took its name, and the knowledge that we had got off trail to hitch a ride here at Walker Pass - typically seen by many to be the official end of the desert section.

20240527 I-10 to Wrightwood (mile 363)

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We have landed on our feet, and found ourselves in Wrightwood on Memorial Day weekend at the mercy of small-town post office opening hours. As Grace was awaiting the delivery of a critical replacement component for her bag we would not be out of here until the following morning at the earliest. We therefore had no choice but to chill out and take a day off. Fully relaxed in a buzzing café, where a troop of silver songbirds crooned covers of country classics, we drank chenin blanc and absentmindedly explored the map of the surrounding area.

20240516 Julian to I-10 (mile 209)

Tue, 21 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever heard a rattlesnake use its rattle in anger? I have, and it is LOUD. It doesn’t sound like it does in films, like a delicate castanet, slow and threatening. It is a harsh whirring, a vibrating, oscillating, terrifying VRWRWRWRWRW sound that fills every empty inch of air. I have seen plenty of rattlesnakes by now, but all of them either juvenile or so sedate that I was never in any real fear of danger. Coming down the north side of the San Jacinto mountain though, having just sailed over the mile 200 marker, I did hear one. And it not only scared the life out of me, but I jumped so high that I lost an earbud.

20240504 Campo to Julian (mile 77)

Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Writing this from the tent about three miles up from ‘scissors crossing’, a place name which meant nothing to me a week ago but which I now know well. It is eerily still, though just an hour ago it was gusty and the sky is threatening rain later. Big clouds are mounting up on the horizon. We abandoned one potential campsite earlier in the evening due to it being in a flashy looking gully and not wanting to risk getting washed down the mountain in the event of a storm.

20240426 LA to San Diego

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Amtrak Pacific surfliner drinking a light bodied Californian pinot noir.

+++

Landed at LAX and made it through customs. Vindicated that I could finally say “I told you so” to Grace that the loose Nurofen I had in my washbag would not be a problem for homeland security and the TSA.

We had planned to stay in downtown LA for one night before heading off the following evening, naively assuming that it would be no worse than any of the other major European cities we were used to. Unfortunately California and Los Angeles in particular is at the centre of the USA’s escalating homeless crisis. With few of the social safety nets we are accustomed to in the UK, mental illness and structural poverty seem curiously unchecked in the worlds richest nation. This is, of course, is news to exactly no one. Everyone knows things are bad and that a lot of people are on the edge. But it rattled me nonetheless to see a lot of what we saw that day, especially in such stark comparison to the skyscrapers of Wells Fargo and AECOM, and the manicured grandeur of the Los Angeles Hall of Justice.

20240428 San Diego to Campo

Sun, 28 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

“It’s starting to get real now.”

How many times have I said that in the last 3 months?

At least three times since arriving at Scout and Frodo’s place; once when we filled in the remaining gear-gaps needed for the trail (tent stakes, hiking poles, knives etc cannot be taken as carry-on on flights) and once again when we got back from the grocery store with enough food to get us to the town of Julian, 72 miles up the trail. I said it a third time that evening, sat around the trestle table set up for us in the back garden with a handful of other hikers who would also be starting the trail the next morning.

20240423 Spain to LA

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Left the UK on Thursday 18th April and flew straight to Barcelona with friends. Every time I fly Ryanair I say that it will be the last time, but just as the delirium of parenthood comes to overshadow the pain of childbirth I cannot help but find myself back in the saddle. What a miserable airline it is though. We spent a few sunny days out on the Catalan coast, ate good food, and discovered that the universal comedy of Mr Bean does indeed transcend the language barrier.

20240416 Leaving England

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Location : Southwest London, UK

Distance : 12.6km

Route :

https://strava-embeds.com/embed.js

Woke up on Saturday and went for a walk around a busy Richmond Park. Saw some deer, looked at the deer, and bought a cappuccino from the little café. It was a beautiful morning and the paths were heaving. Later that day I saw friends and then the family visited my parents house, where I am now staying having left the flat in Bristol last week. That evening we went out for a curry. My mum made a cake.

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

20240405 Pacific Crest Trail

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Location : North America

Distance : 4,265km

Route :

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1ULrH9H1I47-2NfRzo3m1osepeaY4yt8&ehbc=2E312F&w=640&h=480]

What is the Pacific Crest Trail?

This summer Grace and I are going to walk 2,650 miles from Campo (the border of Mexico and Southern California) to Canada’s Manning Park. This is known as the Pacific Crest Trail and is made up of a series of backcountry tracks stretching through California, Oregon, and Washington. It has existed officially since the mid-20th century, but joins up historic trails through the much older national parks such as Sequoia and Yosemite. The trail crosses the San Andreas fault three times and traverses around 60 mountain passes. Around 10,000 people are known to have completed it, which is around 1,500 fewer than the maximum capacity of Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road. For context, in 2023 58,015 people ran the London Marathon.

20240210 Pen Y Fan

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Location : Brecon Beacons, Wales

Distance : 11.6km

Route :

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=140BE-8EsubSiJUGW-Fta-tQYh4JzVCU&ehbc=2E312F&w=640&h=480]

Started the day right with a breakdown on the A40. Having pulled over into a layby around 20 minutes from trailhead for something else, I was surprised to register the smoke pouring out from under the bonnet, and the acrid smell starting to fill the vehicle. Not what you expect after getting the all clear on your MOT the day before, especially having just had to shell out several hundred quid in repairs. Someone had not screwed the oil cap back on properly and it had worked itself loose in the 60 miles from Bristol to Brecon. The outlook was not good.

20160518 Alma

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This was originally published in EYESORE issue #3 in May 2016. The Alma estate regeneration is not due for completion until 2028.

The four towers of The Alma Estate, in Enfield, North London, will soon be demolished. Built in the 1960s, and at 23 storeys high, the blocks loom over the low-lying neighbourhood of semi-detached houses, overgrown underpasses and boarded up pubs.

Much of Enfield’s industrial past stems from this area. Munitions, transistors and light-bulbs were all manufactured here. I grew up here in the 1990s. I remember the falcons circling above the rusting gas holders. As the last of the local industry died, the estate itself - barely 30 years old - stood there defiantly.

20220415 Hermit bagging

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Location : Lochaber, Scotland

Distance : 35.0km

Route :

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1GnbRikde8Ore8bQN-di7FJ4VszRTiCE&ehbc=2E312F&w=640&h=480]

For a period of time toward the end of 2021 I could not stop talking about The Hermit Of Treig, a documentary exploring the fascinating life of Highlands recluse, Ken Smith. Photographer, diarist, woodsman, loner - whatever identity the world has tried to assign him, Ken Smith resists. Assisted by the generous filmmaking of Lizzie Mackenzie, Smith tells the story of his early years growing up in northern England, the violent upheaval that set him to travelling the Canadian backcountry in the 1970s, and his eventual return and subsequent journey north to build a new life in the Highlands. Mackenzie, who had never made a documentary feature prior to this, befriended him while working nearby - relatively speaking - in the Lochaber region of Scotland that Smith has made his home for the past 40 years. The film showcases everything that is good about Ken’s simple, secluded way of life, showing its beauty without glossing over the hard reality of a life outside society.

Blog

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

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Blog

Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

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20230626 Warren House Inn

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Location : Dartmoor, England

Distance : 39.2km

Route :

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1PQb6ztOFl0oJFEvEuaTXdMiTSfk94lo&ehbc=2E312F&w=640&h=480]

Though I’d already caught sight of the whitewashed walls and packed picnic tables, it was the smell of smoke that made it real. Legend has it that the fire in the Warren House Inn has not gone out since the still smouldering embers were transferred to the current building from a previous one over the road in 1845. We had just walked 13 hot miles from near Okehampton, off path and through bug country, to be here. The .gpx we were roughly following had been so bad that any faith in aspects of the route being true to life had long been abandoned. It was ironic therefore that the thing which had finally given me reason to believe that the pub before us was real, was the surely-fictional 19th century hearth.

20181201 Lea Valley

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This was originally published inEYESORE issue #4 in December 2018.

It was 7am and January, and though the puddles in Hackney were frozen, Colm the night baker of Church Street was awake too.

“ You’re what? A walk? Like a hike?”

He eyed me warily, before handing me a bun from the bulging blue carrier bag he brought with him everywhere.

“ What’re ye doing that for?”

Walking has many benefits over the car or train, even the bicycle. What it lacks in pace it makes up for in many small things you might never have noticed. In walking aimlessly away from home I wanted to challenge cosy assumptions and bring the truth to light. Good natured Colm had spotted the self-indulgence of it all instantly, but if he disapproved it never showed for a second.

20230709

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year I paid for a web app to delete 14 years worth of my tweets. It wasn’t a political act; it wasn’t a protest at the new ownership, nor was it out of fear that some past-life profanity would come back to bite me. It was the realisation that, at 28, I had now posted thoughts on a platform for roughly half my time on earth and that there was nothing I realistically had to show for it.

About

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, thank you for visiting my blog. I will try and post here often.

Danny

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Sun, 09 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Contact

Sun, 09 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

dkcrw

20251121 Can tech be sustainable?

20240806 Crater Lake to Bend (mile 2002)

20240731 Truckee to Crater Lake (mile 1824)

20240724 South Lake Tahoe to Truckee (mile 1158)

20240718 Bridgeport to South Lake Tahoe (mile 1050)

20240714 Yosemite Valley to Bridgeport (mile 963)

20240710 Red's Meadow to Yosemite Valley (mile 948)

20240707 Bishop to Red's Meadow (mile 907)

20240702 Kennedy Meadows to Bishop (mile 830)

20240618 Lake Isabella to Kennedy Meadows (mile 703)

20240613 Wrightwood to Lake Isabella (mile 653)

20240527 I-10 to Wrightwood (mile 363)

20240516 Julian to I-10 (mile 209)

20240504 Campo to Julian (mile 77)

20240426 LA to San Diego

20240428 San Diego to Campo

20240423 Spain to LA

20240416 Leaving England

Newsletter

Newsletter

20240405 Pacific Crest Trail

What is the Pacific Crest Trail?

20240210 Pen Y Fan

20160518 Alma

20220415 Hermit bagging

Blog

Blog

20230626 Warren House Inn

20181201 Lea Valley

20230709

About

Contact

Contact