ABSTRACT
Alex Roddie (2021) sets himself a challenge: to hike Scotland's Cape Wrath Trail alone, in winter, and without communications technology. And then, almost immediately, his tent floods, and he calls home for backup. He writes (p. 25):
As I packed up my sodden gear and stuffed it into my sodden rucksack, I couldn't shake a sense of failure; that in reaching out for help over my electronic lifeline I had already compromised the spirit of what I was trying to do. … Start chipping away at the shaky foundations of self-sufficiency and isolation underpinning what is, let's face it, an artificial challenge, and you might as well go on a bus trip to Cape Wrath instead.
