Hikerdelic Journal

Inner Circle - Gareth Butterworth

Our recurring series of chats with pals of the brand is back, albeit in a slightly different guise this time. Inner Circle is what we call this feature and Gareth Butterworth is now in ours, we reckon. Gareth is the main head behind Psych Fest, subject of our latest collaborative tee. We thought now was a good time to get under his skin a bit and find out more about Psych Fest and the man himself. Here's what he had to say. When you're done with this, head here to see the range. What is Manchester Psych Fest then?Manchester Psych Fest is a one of the UK’s leading city centre music & arts festivals. It hosts 12 stages plus multiple pop-up activities. Over 80 live music acts + DJs, Art, Food, Talks, Film, stalls & workshops. You're the man behind it, how did it start? It started off as an all-dayer at the Night & Day Cafe on Oldham Street in Manchester, with 8 acts playing. Each year I grew it by adding venues around the Northern Quarter. In 2019 we shifted the festival over to Oxford Road to have access to bigger venues so we could attract bigger, more established acts to play the festival. It has kept growing each year with our main stage now being Manchester Academy 1 this year. Psychedelic music is a pretty broad church. Can you define what makes a Psych Fest band relevant? It totally depends on how people perceive what psych music is to them. It’s more of a social movement than a genre of music. I don’t think most bands start out and think ‘I want to be a psych band.’ Stereotypically it stems from 60s/70s 'far out' music. Lots of reverb. 8 minute songs, crazy visuals. Whilst some of that is relevant to us, we feel like we want our idea of psych to expand beyond that, very much like what the whole psych experience is supposed to do the mind. There’s certainly a world which a lot of artists don’t fit but its not as narrow as some people might think. Not to us anyway. We love the logo and imagery you do. Who deserves the credit for that? There’s a bunch of designers. My brother Mark who is a creative director at The Hut Group, Louise Rivett who runs Naftys and a designer at Cooneen and They Bryant who’s a freelance designer in Scotland combine to create all our assets. Louise is the designer who has worked exclusively on the Hikerdelic range. Her creative mind goes to places that I can’t imagine. She’s responsible for most the illustrations and assets.Which bands or artists are you most looking forward to seeing this year? Excited to see GOAT headline. We’ve wanted to book them for years and its finally happened. I love Jadu Heart and I’m buzzing for Sex Week :) It's been going more than 10 years now, who have been the highlights in that time? Courtney Barnett headlining in 2019 felt like a moment. It was when we shifted over to Oxford Road and felt the festival was moving in the right direction. The Horrors are one of my all time favourite bands and they played at midnight at Ritz in 2024. I was buzzing. The very first Psych Fest at Night & Day - I was on the back door helping bands load in, TOY who were headlining pulled down the road in their van, bottles of wine in hand with All You Need is Love blasting out their van. It was quite amusing. It was only about 2pm. Tell us more about yourself? For a start you're an increasingly rare breed. A football fan who actually regularly goes home and away. Ha, yes I suppose. If I’m passionate about something then I get really into it. Maybe a bit obsessive. I go United home and away and apart from this season, in Europe too! I went my first game in 94 and never really looked back. I live in Stretford with my partner and 2 year old daughter Rene. So a lot of time and energy goes into the fam now. I like travelling to different places and doing intense mad research on them. Then I end up going the same 3 places I like. Sorry, sounds a bit like a dating profile now. I also DJ now and again. I also love clothes. I own a lot of Japanese brands. Pick store is good for that. Plus a mass variety of Hikerdelic socks. I always make sure to go to the best menswear store when I ever I go a new city. Manchester needs more. Although I get the difficulty of making a shop stack up in this day and age. I was in Toronto recently which was ace for clothes shopping. Along with Manchester, Edinburgh and Brighton are part of the programme. Would you like to grow it beyond that? There’s talk of other cities or collaborating in Europe but we’re just so busy right now. It would need to be strong collaborations with extra team members. As a follow up to that, where would be your dream city to take Psych Fest? Paris. Logically it makes sense. The crowd is there for it too. But there’s been absolutely no talks of it thus far. What's the future for Psych Fest? We’re always looking to expand in the city. New bits of the festival here and there. Keep it fresh. This year we have grassroots music panels and a masterclass performance from YIN YIN. Plus some poetry. We don’t like to rely on the same ideas. We have a stage at Projekts skate park which debuted in 2024. That’s been a huge success. So more of that kind of creativity.

A Love Letter to Small Shorts

Wearing a pair of shorts that look three sizes too small for you might just be one of the strongest looks of all time. Even more so if they’re khaki and appear to have survived an encounter with a grizzly bear. Sadly, in recent decades, we’ve slowly drifted away from small shorts - but we, for one, would like to pledge our allegiance to the length that ruled supreme in the 1970s. If you took part in any outdoor activity in the ’70s and weren’t wearing a small pair of shorts, were you even really doing it? Back then, small shorts were the staple uniform of climbers, hikers, and mountain bikers - maybe for the easy mobility, or maybe because duck canvas was expensive, but one thing's certain, they were cool back then, and they're cool now. This sentiment is why we’ve introduced our new Strolling Shorts, taking direct inspiration from 1970s outdoor legwear. They’re not very short, but they’re definitely not long either. We see them as the perfect introduction to the world of small shorts - a realm that, in some cases, can get pretty extreme. Start short, then go shorter. To fully express our love for small shorts, we’ve gathered a few images of backpackers wearing them during the golden era. Enjoy.

The gritty grafters who rewrote the story of UK climbing

Before performance fabrics and curated Instagram feeds, there were adventurous young lads from backstreets and redbrick terraces who found their adventure not on the cover of a brochure, or even in the ruins of post-war urban decay, but in the shadowed cracks of northern crags. When you try to locate the roots of UK climbing, two names loom large: Don Whillans and Joe Brown.Their story is as much about class, character and culture as it is about carabiners and climbs. Though we never really used them as a muse, their relevance to what we try to do with Hikerdelic is staring us in the face. They started out as ordinary people doing extraordinary things with humour, heart and a little bit of attitude. These weren't privileged explorers, the type of which seemed to prevail back then and indeed now. They were from humble beginnings in the industrial conurbation around Manchester. They didn't see barriers to entry, they saw opportunity. Joe Brown was born in 1930 in Ardwick, just to the south of Manchester city centre. His dad died when he was still in short trousers which meant his mother raised seven kids on next to nothing. It's a story common of the era and the area. Joe left school early and started working as an apprentice plumber, slipping between jobs and climbing scenes with the resourcefulness that was inherent in inner city kids back then. Opportunity didn't always present itself to those in the less wealthy areas of the city, which meant those who wanted to achieve something different with their life were forced to look harder for their chance. Like former Coronation Street stalwart Billy Tarmey and guitar genius Johnny Marr, Joe refused to allow his Ardwick roots hold him back from becoming known and respected at the thing he had natural aptitude for. Don Whillans came from Salford, the city that shares a close border and core characteristics with Manchester yet has a proud history of its own. Born in 1933, Don was apprenticed as a plumber too. The parallels between the two men are uncanny: born a few miles apart, same trade, same fire in the belly. Don was said to carried more of a hard edge, however. At times abrasive, Whillans was uncompromising to a fault, and while physically and mentally strong, he was known to like a drink and smoke, which is probably what led to his demise from a heart attack aged just 52. Until Brown and Whillans came along, climbing in Britain was dominated by a particular crowd. It was all gentleman’s clubs and home counties vowels, Cambridge graduates with waxed moustaches and maps of the Alps. But in the 1950s, something shifted. Brown and Whillans emerged onto the scene with cheap bikes, rolled-up sleeves and an attitude more at one with Manchester than the mountains. Their reputation as outliers helped them stand out in the climbing scene as characters. Above all else though, they were excellent, and adventurous climbers. Joe Brown earned the nickname "The Human Fly." His ascents of climbs like Cenotaph Corner in North Wales and The Skull were done in battered boots with little more than instinct and a sense of balance that bordered on the supernatural. He climbed in his own style, fluid and flexible.Whillans, meanwhile, carried a more imposing frame. Stocky and strong, he took on savage routes with a mixture of brute force and tactical cunning. He co-developed gear (like the famous Whillans harness) and tackled climbs others simply didn’t dare to try, and not just in locations in the UK. Most famously on Annapurna’s South Face in 1970, he and Dougal Haston made the first successful summit via that route. Both Brown and Whillans regularly climbed with the renowned Chris Bonington.What made Brown and Whillans legends wasn’t just their climbing, though that was impressive. It was their attitude. These weren’t men chasing medals. They weren’t fussed about records. They just wanted to climb, and live life large while doing it. Their stories are steeped in pub lore and dry humour. Whillans was famously asked by a journalist how he justified the risk of high-altitude expeditions. “Well,” he said, “you’re never more than a day away from a pint.” It’s easy to romanticise the past, but Brown and Whillans weren’t saints. They could be spiky and in doing so they undoubtedly smashed a hole in the class ceiling of British climbing. They proved you didn’t need money or connections to be at the top. They paved the way for working-class climbers, hikers, and adventurers who didn’t see a route up the mountain for themselves. They showed that if you had a bus fare, a pair of boots, and a bit of attitude, you could take on the rocks too.They were of the city and of the hills, showing a duality that wasn't previously there. It's this mentality that makes them so interesting to us here at Hikerdelic. Their stories show the most meaningful outdoor experiences don’t need ultra-tech gear. You just need to turn up and have the right attitude towards altitude.Joe Brown passed away in 2020, aged 89, after a life packed with climbing, invention and understated brilliance. Don Whillans died in 1985, but together with Brown left behind a legacy that seems to grow every time their tales are retold. Sign up to the Hikerdelic Newsletter for some pretty smart offers, plus more stuff like this, featuring outdoors legends, culture crossovers and deep dives into rambling folklore.

The 1977 Yosemite Dope Lake incident

Every now and then, you come across a story that feels more like a fairytale than real life. And along the long, winding trail of climbing mythology, a few tales stand out - not for superhuman feats of endurance, but for their sheer surrealism. Chief among them is the most infamous, far-fetched, and mind-blowing story of them all: the Yosemite airplane crash of 1977, better known as Dope Lake. Ask anyone about Dope Lake and you’ll get a different version of the story. But here are the facts: in the dead of winter, a Beechcraft twin-engine plane - crammed to the wings with Mexican red-hair marijuana - lost its bearings in a snowstorm and crashed into the frozen expanse of Yosemite’s Lower Merced Pass Lake. The wreck sat quietly beneath the ice, holding not only the bodies of the two pilots but an estimated 6,000 pounds of weed, shrink-wrapped and waiting. Word didn’t take long to travel. News of the crash filtered through the trees and into Camp 4 - the infamous stomping ground of Yosemite’s dirtbag climbers, who spent their days scaling granite walls and their nights dodging Park Rangers. Suddenly, a new kind of expedition presented itself. Allegedly tipped off by a radio call relayed by a climber’s Park Ranger girlfriend, a small group of dirtbags set out on the initial hike to the crash site. What they found was nothing short of a miracle: a plane embedded in a frozen lake, surrounded by bales of high-grade hash. They hauled back as much as they could carry and made their way - slowly and carefully - back to Camp 4. Their return sparked something close to a second Gold Rush. Word spread like wildfire, and soon climbers from across the region were making pilgrimages to Dope Lake - some reportedly bringing chainsaws to cut through the ice and free the bales. Supposedly, some dirtbags walked away from the affair with their pockets well-lined, and there are rumours - unsubstantiated, of course - that this is how Yvon Chouinard got Patagonia off the ground. Not saying we buy that… but it's a good story. The product itself, by all accounts, was absurdly potent. Joints were known to singe eyebrows on lighting, thanks to jet fuel soaking into the bales during the crash. Sadly, though, the high times didn’t last. Eventually, the DEA caught wind of the operation and shut it down. But by then, the legend had taken root. Dope Lake became climbing folklore - a hazy crossroads of wilderness, rebellion, and wild opportunity. Slogan tees appeared, emblazoned with: “I got mine at Lower Merced Pass.” The tale even helped inspire the 1993 musclebound mountain thriller Cliffhanger - well worth a watch, by the way. Stories like Dope Lake don’t come around often. And to us, they represent the raw, unpredictable magic of the outdoors. One day you’re climbing El Capitan; the next, you're hauling 30 kilos of jet-fuel-steeped weed out of a frozen lake.

Remembering The Baltic Way

On the evening of 23 August 1989, nearly two million people across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania stood side by side, hand in hand, forming a human chain that stretched over 600 kilometres. Known as the Baltic Way, it was one of the most remarkable acts of peaceful protest in the 20th century - an unbroken line of people linking the capitals of Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius in a shared call for independence. The date was significant. It marked 50 years since the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a secret agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that paved the way for the annexation of the Baltic states in 1940. For decades, the pact had been denied or dismissed by Soviet authorities. In contrast, the Baltic Way made it visible—geographically, historically, and emotionally. Organised by the independence movements in each country, the protest was meticulously planned. Radio broadcasts gave instructions. Roads were closed. People arrived by car, by bus, on foot. Some brought flags; others came with candles or handwritten signs. But most came simply to be there. No stage, no speeches. Just presence. The chain itself was silent, almost reverent. Along rural highways and city streets, through forests and over rivers, strangers held hands. In some places, the line was dense; in others, it thinned and wavered, but it held. For fifteen minutes - at 7:00 p.m. local time - the Baltic people stood together as one. Not shouting. Not pleading. Just standing. It was not a spontaneous act. It was the result of decades of cultural resistance, political organisation, and quiet resilience. But in that moment, it felt both grounded and transcendent - a peaceful assertion of dignity after nearly half a century of occupation. The world took notice. The images - grainy, sunlit, resolute - spread quickly. The Baltic Way made a complex geopolitical situation strikingly legible: three small nations, long overshadowed, now unmistakably present. Within two years, each had restored its independence. Today, the Baltic Way is remembered not just for its scale, but for its clarity. It remains a model of civil resistance - calm, coordinated, and powerful in its simplicity. It’s easy to think of protest as something loud, chaotic, or angry. But the Baltic Way was none of those things. It was steady. Human. Intentional. Proof that sometimes the most enduring statements are made without saying a word.

The Archive: Climbing Magazines 1980 - 1990

Something that never fails to capture our attention is old outdoor ephemera. Leafing through tea-stained pages of climbing magazines is an activity we spend hours doing at Hikerdelic HQ, and we're fortunate enough to have amassed a pretty hefty archive as a by-product of this pastime. The golden era of outdoor catalogues is up for debate, but in our view, you can't get much better than the '80s and '90s. The colours were brighter, typefaces were bolder, and smiles were wider. There's something irrefutably motivating about magazines from this era. Something that makes you want to put down the bundle of paper and head outdoors to assimilate the feats of Joe Brown & Don Whillans. As much as our office could be a library, it's not. Therefore, the only way we can share our mountains of outdoor ephemera with you is through scanning pages and posting them here. So, sit back, start dusting off your hiking boots, and revel in the scans of the golden era below.

The Way We Were - Camping

Nostalgia is a key influence behind what we do here at Hikerdelic so from time to time we'll be sharing an insight into what inspires us from the past. There's something wholesome about camping in the olden days. Here's some of our favourite camping-related ads from the past.

Radio Hikerdelic #13

It's been a warm one so far this week and we've been bowling right into the heat with some summer sounds.

Hikerdelic & The Climbing Hangar take North Wales

It's the world's worst-kept secret, or at least Hikerdelic HQ's worst-kept secret, that a few people here are into climbing rocks. Trips to the kettle are frequently accompanied by conversations about weekend bouldering trips or post-work gym sessions. Our climbing-obsessed individuals are very welcome here, and rock-centric conversations are most definitely encouraged - they're probably the reason why a great deal of our SS25 offerings reference stone, whether that be Petroglyph carvings or Todmorden's Bridestones. Occasionally, the kettle conversations are followed up by something a bit more serious than an after-work session, and recently, that happened to be exactly the case... What started as a rock-climbing content ideas spitballing extravaganza quickly turned into a fully fledged collaboration with The Climbing Hangar. The parameters for the collaboration were about as open as they could be, but there was one rule - Hikerdelic and Hangar staff were to climb together and trade tees. A pretty good format for collaboration if you ask us. The location of choice was situated in the Welsh bouldering mecca of Llanberis pass, so after a quick Liverpool detour to pick up our scouse climbing accomplices, our crew headed for the fabled Wavelength Boulders. A short journey in the van and a few fistfulls of fruit pastilles later saw the gang tackle a typically meaty Llanberis approach to the boulders, cover one set of extremities in tiny shoes & the other in chalk. The outing was fantastic by all accounts, exactly what you want from a day's bouldering. A few sends, a few falls and plenty of laughs, all taking place in one of the most beautiful locations in the British Isles. Not bad. See our Petroglyph Tee here See what our friends at The Climbing Hangar are up to here

Inner Circle - Finn Hall of Headstrong

Finn Hall is the main man behind Headstrong, a business born out of his desire to stay sharp and keep competitive. The use of functional mushrooms is something we've been following keenly here at Hikerdelic, so when we crossed paths recently it made sense for us to catch up and find out more.First of all tell us about yourself and how you came up with Headstrong. My childhood and adolescent years revolved solely around sport, namely BMX racing. I first got on a bike when I was 5, and didn’t leave one until I was 18. After a big injury I called it a day, but it’s hard to shake the training routine engrained in you over 13 years when one day it all stops. I put my energy into other forms of training whilst at university, and it was there that I began to experiment with functional mushrooms after coming across them online. At first it was just a personal endeavor, but after experiencing the benefits for myself I had a lightbulb moment and knew I needed to share this with the world. Some opportunities are too good to ignore and after that, my dissertation stood no chance. I launched two months before the end of final year.What do you think it is about mushrooms that has made them so prominent in a number of ways in recent years? There has been a huge shift away from mass-produced, lab-made products in recent years. People are naturally sceptical of large corporations in the supplement space and rightfully so, because more often than not, the quality of the product comes secondary to increased profit margins. As humans we are closely connected to mushrooms, sharing over 50% of our DNA with them, and when people realise they can supplement using something grown by the earth, it all just seems to click.What do you say to the cynics who suggest it's a fad?I think the cynicism towards functional mushrooms comes from people using them out of curiosity rather than necessity. This is something that I think is always important to touch on. Functional mushrooms are seen in a different light to other supplements because they are still relatively niche in the Western world, and therefore a little novel and exciting. Mushrooms have some genuinely incredible benefits but ultimately, they are intended to supplement in areas that you feel you may need support, and work alongside an already healthy and balanced diet - not replace. What they aren’t is a miracle cure and something to be used without intention, as it is then that people won’t experience their full potential.You've worked with some clothing brands on collaborative stuff. How did that come about?We worked with Hiking Patrol on a bespoke product to release alongside their FW24 collection. This initially came about from one of the guys at Diemme Footwear purchasing our Lion’s Mane in-store at Goodhood. They loved the brand, connected us with Hiking Patrol and we took it from there. It’s a great partnership and something both parties look to expand on in the future. We’ve also supported a number of brands such as Hoka, 66 North, Soho House and Healf at events/activations. I think the brand is well-positioned to move within these circles. I don’t want to be restricted by the stereotype of how a ‘Health & Wellness’ brand should act, so we will continue to push these cross-industry partnerships. Describe a typical day for yourself.I wake up and make myself useful. What would be your advice to a newcomer to mushrooms?Use when necessary, not when curious. Don’t just buy what's cheapest, chances are you’ll be left disappointed. Invest in quality products that show proof of being dual-extracted, organic, sufficiently dosed (1,500mg+), free from fillers, use only 100% mushroom fruiting body and are third-party tested. Due to a lack of regulation, the mushroom space is a bit of a minefield, with a lot of sub-standard products flooding the market. This might all sound a bit daunting to a newcomer, but if you’re serious about supplementing naturally with mushrooms, these checks are worth making to avoid being ripped off. To find out more about Headstrong, head to their website here

A look into the Futuro

Who remembers The Jetsons? It was a bit like the Flintstones but for the future instead of the past. Coming from the celebrated Hanna-Barbera stable of animated productions it first aired in 1962. Its vision of the future took in space-age imaginations, with cars replaced by flying saucers. At the same time, a similar aesthetic was influencing Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, whose Futuro pod design reimagined how humans might live in the future. Though fewer than 100 of these prefabricated non-flying saucers were made, their cultural influence far outweighs their practical impact on the world.As ever with the best designs, form followed function and this lightweight pod was first intended to be used close to a ski slope. Its rounded roof meant heavy snow would be more likely to slide off instead of accumulate.The Futuro embodies the spirit of late 1960s design, architecture, interiors, culture, and lifestyle in a single form. It served as a symbol of faith in the potential for better living during an era of abundant optimism. Today, the remaining 60-odd strong family of Futuros serve as powerful artifacts not to remind us of past failures but to inspire a sense of possibility for the future.Oh, and to take our heads to a slightly other-worldly place while thinking about designing t-shirts and Chore Jackets, more of which we'll share in due course.

Hikerdelic x Kelme celebrates football heritage

For our latest release, we've teamed up with iconic sportswear brand Kelme to celebrate football heritage.Launching as a pre-sale at hikerdelic.com only, on Friday 28th February at 5pm UK time, the Hikerdelic x Kelme 98 shirt comes in both short and long-sleeve iterations and features subtle edits to an enduring design.The shirt takes its inspiration from Real Madrid’s 1998 Champions League triumph, when Predrag Mijatović scored the only goal in a final victory over Juventus. This iconic win was the club’s first European Cup since 1966 and it heralded a new era for the Spanish giants. These were the formative years of the famous Galacticos, with homegrown heroes like Raúl and Guti graduating from the youth system in ‘94 and ‘95 respectively, and legends like Roberto Carlos arriving in Madrid in 1996. Head to our 'New In' page to get yours in the bag.