How was your walking over Easter?

Our product manager, Philippe Galland certainly caught the weather in the right mood when he ventured all the way up to Ullapool over the Easter weekend with his wife Clare.

You can see his photographs of the trip here on our flickr pages.

And remember if you've any outdoors photography you'd lie to share with us, please email them to Zoe, (zbrookes@pentland.com), and we'll showcase them for you alongside ours.

We're delighted to report that Bill Oddie, ornithologist and all-round Goodie, wears our boots.

Indeed we're told he's been an avid fan of brasher Supalite GTX boots for many years, loving the lightness, softness and comfort of the full leather boot.

You’ll see him sporting them in many of his television series including the latest Autumnwatch and the new series of Springwatch due to be televised in May of this year.

Bill works closely with Country Innovation, who specialise in clothing and footwear for the bird/wildlife market and who are a brasher Premier Stockist and Key Online Specialist.

Commenting on our boots Bill says; My only complaint is that my Grandson’s feet have grown and he keeps pinching them, saying ‘Wow Grandad, these are cool!’.

Philippe, one of our product managers is off to Ullapool.

He tells us:

"We have now completed most of the key Munroes around Torridon and also climbed some exciting routes around Beinn Eighe, even managing to take in one of the most demanding ridge traverse challenges in the UK: Liathach.

Now we feel it's time to explore a little bit further North. This year – and because of the current winter conditions – we are off to Ullapool.

If there is a cold snap in the next few days, the snow will consolidate and some ice should form.

The plan is to complete some winter climbs such as 'Lord’s of the Gully' (Left branch. Grade III) on An Teallach."

In telling us about his plans for this Easter, Philippe was reminded of a trip a year or two back:

"Two years ago Clare my wife and I were exploring the mountains around Torridon. One day we decided to climb Bein Alligin. It was a typical Scottish April day: windy, rainy and snowy conditions :-) During one of numerous motivational 'Tea stops’, we found a pair of glasses lying on the ground. We completed the walk and at the car park I asked a couple of guys if they could tell me where I should drop these glasses ? The guy inspected them and asked me if I'd found them below the Horn of Alligin? Which actually  we had. The glasses in fact, by amazing co-incidence, were his! And he told me that he lost them up there last year! "

Zoe in Marketing, and her husband, (not forgetting black labrador Benjie), are heading of to Monyash in the middle of the Peak District camping and walking for 4 days. (And also not forgetting Zoe's new digital camera, which she's promised will bring back with lots of new photos for our Flick gallery.)

They are planning to do various walks in the Manifold Valley, with fingers crossed that the weather is kind and, indeed everything crossed to ensure as Zoe says that: " With my poor navigation skills I hope we don’t get lost !"

Note from blog Editor: 'Zoe. Keep the questionable map-reading skills quiet eh? We try to imply here that all brasherites are granite-hewn, survival skill expert, map-reading geniuses, not to mention; grizzly outdoor legends. Please don't spoil the illusion.'

Last but not least, Martyn Yorke our Product Developer is off to Burbridge in the Peak District bouldering for the weekend in preparation for his 10 day, hard-core bouldering holiday in Font in April

(Photo used with kind permission of allybeag on Flickr.)

Recently some of the team spent a very enjoyable day out in the hills with Sir Chris Bonnington.

We were in Wasdale, and it occurred to us that a combination of facts could just make this the most interesting valley in Britain.

Fact One:
Wasdale Head, is home to the smallest church in England. St. Olaf's.

Fact Two:
At 252 ft, Wastwater is the deepest lake in England.

Fact Three:
Wasdale has the highest peak, Scafell Pike at 3209 ft, (we know you knew that, but it is worth mentioning.)

Fact Four:
Wasdale was home to the biggest liar. Will Ritson, Victorian landlord of what is now the Wasdale Head Inn, he had a reputation for telling porkies. So much so that an annual 'Biggest Liar in the World' competition is held every year in his honour.

We think that makes for a pretty compelling combination.

Do you have another contender for the country's most interesting valley?

We'd love to hear from you.

Whoops, we’ve been so busy getting the blog up and running recently, we almost forgot to give a plug for the launch of our terrific new web site.

We’re really pleased with it, and hope you like it too.

It debuted a couple of weeks ago, and hopefully complements this blog with it’s mix of product information on both our outdoor performance and lifestyle ranges, retailer support, reviews, new product introductions, brasher background and a whole lot more.

As Zoe Brookes, our Marketing Manager here commented on launch day:

“We wanted to communicate our passion for the outdoors and educate visitors to the site on the breadth of outdoor experiences that can be enjoyed out there. The new site treats each visitor as an individual, recommending the right footwear for their preferred activity and encouraging them to share their experiences in the great outdoors.”

The site’s getting plenty of traffic from brasher fans new and old, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, why not click here and go and see what’s new for yourself?