In reply to Jeremy Ashcroft:
emailed Trail today, as suggested- see below:
"Dear Trail,
I'm currently a subscriber to the magazine, and have been buying it fairly regularly since 2004. Over the years i'd say it has been the best magazine of its type. I felt that its strength lay in the variety of content- while its core was always walking, and the lake district and snowdonia would understandably feature very frequently, there was always a range of other activities covered too. These routinely included mountaineering, walking and climbing abroad, and rock climbing and winter climbing in the lower grades. Looking back over a range of old issues I've kept, there have been features on climbs like north buttress on the buachaille, domed ridge on braeriach, and cneifion arete, alpine routes on monte rosa and mont blanc, scrambles on mount olympus, and even other activities like a 3 day canoe descent of the spey.
I think this range struck the right balance of routes that could inspire people new to walking and climbing to try more adventurous things, without being too hard that they would seem forever beyond their reach. In fact, i think Trail can take some of the credit for helping me make the step into climbing, as the "make me a mountaineer" series that ran some years ago did exactly this, convincing me that these routes were something that could be within my ability.
However, there has been a clear shift in policy over the last year at the magazine. These articles have stopped altogether, with nothing harder than the same limited range of classic grade one scrambles as the upper limit of difficulty. There are only so many articles on crib goch and sharp edge you can read before the novelty starts to wear thin. Even the walking coverage has become more lakes and snowdonia-centric. This leaves a magazine that may be good for people new to the activity, but with little to offer long-established readers.
This is a shame, as i think there are very many people who carry out a range of outdoor activities in a range of locations, both in the UK and abroad, and there is no other magazine that caters to this market. I guess there may be commercial factors at play, but I can't see that limiting the scope of the magazine to the point that a section of the long term readers lose interest makes commercial sense.
And I think this is a fairly widely shared sentiment- I started a thread on the ukclimbing.com forum about it, which has had over 5000 views, with many people commenting that they would be interested in the magazine if it covered a broader range of features than it now does. It may be worth having a look at this to see what potential customers have been saying.
There is still the basis of a good magazine there- the feature this month on the history of climbing Everest was interesting; but that alone doesn't justify the cover price to me, and without something more, I can't see that I will be continuing my subscription. I hope that there is the potential to resume coverage of a broader range of activities, as the magazine did previously, as I still like the concept of getting a monthly magazine, and would be happy to pay a reasonable amount for it, if its contents were of sufficient interest,
Best wishes,
Gregor"
If anyone else shares these views, it might be worth doing something similar- who knows, if enough people do so, there may be a shift in the direction of the mag back to a more interesting range of articles,
cheers
gregor