minimalgear

The sh*tting trowel

2011-06-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

Wild camping is made up of a series of activities that either make or break your enjoyment of the trip. One of my first trips was a cycling trip around the Ring of Kerry (No sniggering at the back!). That's where I was introduced to the fine art of taking a dump in the great outdoors. An activity akin to that other bastion of a good trip- wild swimming, and so the label, 'wild shitting' was born. A stout saxon label that described it perfectly. On that trip, we used our spoons to dig the hole, the ultimate ultralight implement, but so enjoyable was the activity, I soon upgraded to a real trowel. So of course, what to call it but a shitting trowel. (The companions to the shitting trowel were my piss sandals, used for midnight calls of nature). I'm not the only person to find it a peaceful and contemplative activity. 'Made in England by gentlemen' detailed a trip up the CDT where the author took a photo of every 'poo view' for the entire 6 months.
My first trowel was a good old folding mini entrenchment tool. It dug nicely, cut through heather roots well and had a nice big blade. The handle was always stable but I was a bit nervous of it folding back. It also weighed 150grams. When I began to lighten up I traded it in for a plastic B&Q garden trowel which I bought as a pack of three for a pound. I took the slimmer trowel, reduced the width even further, shortened the handle and drilled holes in it to reduce the weight to a much more acceptable 50 grams, the same ballpark as the legendary orange coghlans trowel.
This was still pretty heavy, however. A snow stake weighs 25 grams and is certainly usable as a trowel. There are tradeoffs here, however. The width of the blade is not so efficient as it's so narrow. It's not so comfortable in the hand and I tend stab a hole in the ground rather than scoop. The rounded end is no good for cutting through heather roots. It does, however double as a tent peg, especially for high tension guys such as the main guy on the Gatewood.
Then I saw the Rob Kelly potty trowel (Americans are much more polite than us Brits about bodily functions it seems). For 10 grams, you can get a fully functioning trowel with a nice wide blade. I splashed out and in a couple of weeks it was here. Stright away I was out to dig a hole in my lawn. It feels nice in the hand despite the thin nature of the titanium. You can use it like a normal trowel and it scoops well. It is certainly very strong, amazingly so for the weight. The main downside of it is that the extremely short nature of it makes it much more difficult to get to the bottom of the required 6 inch hole. Rob also does a 'Big dig' which is bigger and comes in at around 25 grams. I think as a trowel, that it's probably better to get that size. On the other hand, I generally only use the trowel for 5 minutes in a weekend, but I carry it for hours. A little faff doesn't bother me, it's still a step up from the snow stake and much cooler to own!

Which is my best trowel? The B&Q, without a doubt- comfortable, useful, efficient but 5X the weight of the potty trowel.

P.S- apologies for the frequent use of the word 'shit', but I'll leave you with a quote from an American (Stephen King I think?)
"If he stepped in Sh*t, then write that. 'He stepped in sh*t.' don't work around it. but also don't make a habit of overusing it." (Although I suspect I may be guilty of the latter!)

Nice idea

2011-06-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

The weight has been steadily creeping up on little bits and bobs. Grams, of course, but the only way I got my weight down was by bits and bobs and grams. The trouble is, I got here by thinking my way through things- I don't need this, I don't need that. Now with everything cut out, I'm going back up- I could do with this, it would be nice to have that. I always wanted light combined with function. Then you get a genius idea like this. For water I carry a mineral water bottle and a 1l platypus which I only fill for camp. So hows about replacing the 25g platypus with a bag ? I always liked Colin Ibbotson's water bag idea, but it seemed a lot of work plus the bag seems pretty vulnerable. Hows about using a pour and store bag? I have to thank Whartson Hall for this-it's tougher than a sandwhich bag, it carries more than the litre the platypus carries if you overfill it. It has a wide opening for filling too. On the minus side, it's going to burst open if you drop it, but I rarely drop my Platypus. As a counterbalance, it's less vulnerable to falling over than the Platypus because of its lower centre of gravity and the gusseted bottom means it's nice and stable. Weight? 11grams- half the weight.

Speaking of cagoules...

2011-06-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've got a few items to do preliminary reviews for- a cagoule being one of them. The Marmot Mica jacket is part of my wet weather system along with Golite Tumulo pants and Mountain Laurel eVent gaiters. I have gone through a few waterproof jackets trying to find a decent one. Up until fairly recently I had been using a Berghaus Paclite jacket. The jacket is pretty much a classic- simple, straightforward and reasonably light. It was a nice grey colour too. There were two problems with it- one is that it was too big- I got a size medium in a sale which was ok but not fantastic. The other was that paclite tends to wet out pretty badly. I normally prefer to feel slightly chilly when I'm walking. That way when I hit uphills, I don't overheat. For that reason, my windshirt gets used a lot more than my waterproof. For that reason, a very lightweight packable jacket makes sense. I picked up a Karrimor Elite jacket in TK Maxx for £30. I'm guessing it was stock from a time when Karrimor were not the budget brand they are now and it's a pretty nice jacket. I was conscious I could still go lighter though. A pullover jacket makes sense and I really like smocks, but the Haglofs Oz vanished around the time I was deciding which jacket to get. The Rab demand pullover is a nice jacket, but the sizing was way to big on me even in the small. There have been a lot of positive reviews of the Mica, especially on breathability and the price is a real draw.

Clockwise from top left: Stereolab 'Emperor Tomato Ketchup', Marmot Mica, Golite Tumolo pants, Mountian Laurel Gaiters.

When I got it out of the packet, I was amazed at how flimsy it was. The material has a really soft silky feel, not like any other waterproof I've felt. The cut is pretty short and athletic nut because I tend to wear over-trousers if it's rainy enough to wear a jacket that doesn't bother me. There is a fairly stiff water resistant zip up the front which has a tendency to bulge outwards when the drawcord at the hem is tight, but that's something I've found in common with all full length zips. I do worry that it's not going to be super waterproof. The hood is really nice for me.

Having a small head means I find helmet compatible hoods massive.

There is a very simple velcro volume adjuster at the back, which personally I like. I don't have to tighten it much. The hood gives good coverage to the face and is comfortable. The peak covers nicely but is extremely floppy. I'm guessing I'll have to wear my cap to support it, which isn't too much of a hassle. Cuff adjusters are simple velcro and work well.

There's really not much to say about it, which is good. I like my jackets simple with no purposeless features. You can't fit a map in the pocket and the hood doesn't roll away. Fine by me! It packs into a pocket and when packed, it's nice and small. The two handwarmer pockets are made of the same fabric as the jacket, so they're waterproof. They get trapped under a pack hip-belt which is another bugbear of testers but which doesn't bother me because I never carry anything in them anyway. I wouldn't be bothered if they didn't exist. I wore it in the mist on my Christmas trip to the Black mountains and it breathed well on some reasonable cross country ascents. The weight? 183 grams. As yet, it has been untested in the rain...

Even less tested than the Mica are a pair of Golite's Tumulo pants. I've seen a few reviews of the jacket but not much on the trousers. With pleasing (almost) symmetry, they weigh pretty much exactly the same as the jacket- 185 grams on my scale. The fabric is not a silky as the jacket and has a nice matt finish. This, combined with a very lean cut makes them look almost like normal trousers. A nice change from my previous stalwart- Regatta packable trousers which were large, shiny and clearly overtrousers. At the thigh is a small mesh pocket with a water resistant zip. I'd prefer it not to be there, even though it's possible to pack the trousers into it. The zip doesn't have a pull on the inside, so if you want to do this, you have to stuggle with the zip a little. There's a small piece of shock-cord with a mitten hook on it for keys. At the bottom of the trousers, there's a short zip and a velcro closure at the bottom. The zip fits over my New Balance shoes but might struggle a little with larger boots. I have no idea why there are extra velcro patches for a tighter closure- the bottoms are elasticated and approaching shellsuit tightness at the bottom. For those of you who wear waterproof trailshoes-and in the Winter that's me- it seems like a design whose sole purpose is to funnel water into your shoes. The elastic at the waist is a little baggy on me and it's necessary to tighten the shock-cord that is also there. The shock-cord runs beneath the elastic and renders it totally redundant. The crotch runs a little high. I'm not sure if it's the athletic cut or just poor design. Either way, I wouldn't mind a little more sag there, especially when they're pulled up high for a good overlap between jacket and trousers- when I ride them on my hips, they're fine. Still, they're a pretty good price- Pertex shield is supposedly nice and breathable and they're hard to beat for the weight if they're staying in your pack a lot.

Despite what I said about funneling water into my shoes, I have a solution- My Mountain Laurel Gaiters. There's not a lot to say about them, other than they weigh 58 grams, they roll up nice and small and they have good coverage of the foot. They stay up well, which is a bonus for extra breathabilty. I've had the shock-cord on the bottom come untied a couple of times, but that's my poor knotting skills. The hook at the front of the laces stays on nicely and they do a decent job at keeping snow out, which is the main thing I use them for.

A couple of sites to look at.

2011-05-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

I've had a couple of blogs pointed out to me recently by people posting comments and I'm always happy to flag up things I'm interested in.
Belfast bushcraft is what blogs are all about- someone who is passionate about something and is discussing his experiences as he learns and grows. A few years back, strongly influenced by Ray Mears I bought a huge bowie knife and carved myself a spoon. Me and Martyn still enjoy heading off into the local woods occasionally- close to a rather nice pub with a micro brewery- building a fire and hanging our hammocks. Belfast bushcraft does it properly though- flint knapping, carving little faces in a stick, fire by friction. A good read in a location which I know decidedly too little about, but which I'm now keen to visit.
Being passionate about a subject is taken to extremes over at www.thecagoule.com . The entire blog is dedicated to the humble, or not so humble, cagoule. Not all the cagoules are suitable for the outdoors, but I have a personal interest in vintage clothing and there are some rather nice vintage cagoules there. More than that, it reminded me to dig out my first 'decent' waterproof- a Peter Storm pac-a-mac. Nice.

The Coniston Round

2011-05-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

I'm certainly getting lazier when it comes to walking. It's not that I don't enjoy the walking, but the amount of it I do on any trip seems to be reducing. I could get all defensive about it and claim that I enjoy the camping more and to a certain extent that's true. Certainly there's at least a 60/40 split in enjoment levels but the fact of it is that I'm not up for flogging myself on. I'm lazy. It's supposed to be a holiday, and for me, a holiday means sitting around eating and drinking. So when Martyn suggested that we stay for at least one more in the Sun Inn in Coniston and I knew I was probably already more drunk than I should be for setting up a tarp, it didn't take much persuasion.
It had all started a long while back. The trip had been planned and cancelled twice before. The weather report couldn't make up it's mind whether it was going to be gale force winds and sub zero temperatures or actually fairly reasonable for the time of year. I wasn't too bothered. It meant I got several chances to repack my bag to try to accomodate the whims of the met office and, properly supported with some decent booze, packing my bag is one of the great pleasures in my life.

In the end I decided on a reasonably minimal kit, using only my Enlightened Quilt supplementad by my down trousers and my down inner jacket.

As it turned out, this was ideal and it all fitted into my new Z packs zero pack-just under 4 kg for the lot including food water and booze.

We decided on Coniston as we hadn't explored the area at all before. The Coniston round looked like a nice walk and as Martyn is also of the opinion that a reasonable length of walk is a day hike split into two days it seemed like a winner. Generally on the second morning we get up about 6ish and do about an hour's walking to get back early for our other halves. It does limit us in the walking we can do especially as we are limited to circular walks. Another must is a decent pub no more than an hour's walk from our first night's camp. Which is how we ended up in the Sun Inn. They had some decent beer and there were people to rip the piss out of, including ale snobs trying to humiliate the barman and a extremely well spoken racist trotting out 1950's stereotypes. In the end it was him that got us out of there plus the fact that we had no money left.

It was an easy walk up to the YHA, despite stubbing our toes on every other step. We tried for a few spots but gave up in the end and pitched on the river bank in full view of the hostel. We weren't sure of the legality but decided to ignore it. It was obvious we weren't party louts out to make a mess and the worst thing that could happen is that we would be asked to move on. I'd managed to get hold of a second hand Six moon Lunar Solo for Martyn in excellent condition. He'd had it as his Christmas present but it was a bit of a gamble. A tent is a very personal thing and I knew he was attached to his MSR microzoid. I was hoping that the 500g knocked of his baseweight plus the ability to sit upright combined with sizeable amount of extra floorspace would win him over. Trouble was, the Lunar Solo has a reputation of being a bit of a bugger to pitch taut and a first pitch drunk and in the dark was risky. Luckily my practice with the Gatewood Cape which is a similar design secured a decent pitch- certainly it was better than my tarp which I had to have three goes at before I was happy. We sat around drinking for a bit while a stream of pub goers returned to the Hostel. None of them batted an eyelid at us, if indeed, they noticed us at all.

I woke early as usual. My internal clock has been buggered by work so that I find it hard to sleep much past half six. Martyn has no such problem and alone, with a somewhat tender head, I decided stick to my usual hiking strategy which is to sit and watch the view with a whisky coffee. When we were travelling in Croatia we arrived to catch an early bus at 5 am to find all the bus drivers sat around with coffees and big glasses of brandy. If it's good enough for people about to embark on a seven hour trip precipitous roads with eye watering hairpin bends, then it's good enough for me. Martyn concurred and popped a beer when he emerged. We sat for a while enjoying the sun and only got around to moving when the level of families already walking told us that we were way past an early start.

It was maybe this relaxed approach that meant we headed up the wrong valley. We had two options- hop over the High Fell ridge to get to the right valley or just head up to the top of the valley towards Wetherlam and turn left. Of course Martyn opted for the eye watering clamber over the ridge, so pretty soon we had sweated out all of the booze anyway. We quickly gained the top of Swirl How and felt like we deserved some lunch. There was a brisk wind, but hunkered down we could get the full benefit of the sun. We were making exceptionally poor progress- it was all very nice.

Back up on the ridge, the wind was very brisk. I broke out my secret weapon- a fleece T-hirt I'd got from Matalan for three quid. It provided just the right amount of warmth underneath my Tachyon anorak, and the hood made a nice difference to my comfort as well. Thus it was at half two in the afternoon I made a running descent towards Blind Tarn, out camp spot for the night. We briefly debated heading back to the Sun Inn instead but decided against it. It was a very nice spot and, just a few hundred metres away from the hordes on the ridge, it felt pretty isolated. I had a doze and then we chatted and ate.

I slept pretty well, except for the fact that the bivvy kept sliding out from unedr the tarp. There was a brief shower about four and then we got up and headed back. I've made a promise to myself to find somewhere a bit more off the beaten track for the next trip. Our last couple of trips have been swarmed with other walkers which is all very well but it is nice to get a bit of solitude. All the gear performed well apart from the sliding issue. Of course, the elements didn't really give anything a thrashing, but that's why I chose the gear I did. The zero carried very nicely, despite Martyn's comments that it looked a bit homemade and plasticky. I barely noticed it was there even with a couple of beers topping up the weight. The only thing I would change would be the two gram pegs I took- too short (just) for the caldera and no holding power.

2011-05-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

Prompted by a comment, I'm back. I've got some new gear and been on a couple of trips. Here's a taster of an April trip to the Lakes....

Or not

2011-03-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

Once again circumstances beyond my control step in'.I'll try to get some new gear up soon promise!

It's been a while...

2011-03-02T12:21:00.000-08:00

but I'm back. There's been a lot going on since the last post, all work and family related. I managed to squeeze in a very small overnighter- 12 hours worth- over Christmas. The Black Mountains- a very damp, muddy and misty trip, where I got the only snow of the winter- a spot of drifted slush on the paths on the way out. We're off in a week to the Lakes, however and I should get to test some new gear. Here's some pictures of the Trailstar in the Black mountains to be getting on with.

Enlightened Equipment link

2010-12-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

The link to Tim's site is working now: It's here

New toys

2010-11-29T06:27:00.000-08:00

I wanted to write this up a long time ago. It's been 90% finished in the edit tray for weeks now, but illness and family commitments have all conspired against me. Still, it's here now- enjoy!

There have been three recent arrivals here. The quilt, I've alreadt mentioned but I've also had packages from Goosefeet and Zpacks containing waterproof sock covers and a new zero pack with some assorted stuffsacks respectively.
I'll deal with the quilt first as it's the biggie. I've already mentioned the specs- it arrived in a little square box with a stuff sack and I eagerly spread it out. The overall quality is amazing- it's hard to imagine ever being able to make something this good, but I guess Tim gets a lot of practice! I compared it to my PHD minim ultra and it was definitely in the same league sewing wise. The attention to detail is nice.

All the fittings are as tiny as posible-super thin shock cord for the strapping combined with tiny cord locks and super thin static cord at the head and foot. The exceptions are the snaps at the neck and top of the footbox and the zip for the footbox. These are more substantial. The snaps are particularly secure.

The design of the footbox allows you to loosen the drawcord or unzip it totally so in hot weather you can vent as to your requirements. More likely in Britain it will be useful when wrapping it round me like a shawl or opening it up to dry. Because I'm so small, despite the original intention to make it a half taper, it's turned out pretty much a rectangle, this actually turned out well because it gives a lot more coverage when I'm on my side. The zip isn't a tiny insubstantial zip but it's still pretty small and light. The way the snaps are positioned, the metal doesn't come into contact with your skin if you're a nekkid sleeper.

Coverage in general is very good- I could have probably have gone smaller width wise, but this allows me to layer under it. There is a bit of a knack to turning so that the edge doesn't ride up-you pivot on the bit of the mat that isn't covered by the quilt- I find it easier than turning, getting and then trying to jump my body in the air while twisting the hood around on a normal mummy bag however... The side sleeping picture doesn't show it but the edge of the quilt is still tucked under me on my back side.

You should be able to see on the spread out picture that there is very little taper in it- it's almost a rectangle. This was unitntentional on my part, but does give me more coverage. It' a reflection on my skinny frame that my torso measurement is similar to most people's footbox!

I'm really pleased with this- it's a nice step up from the minim ultra. I'm hoping to take a trip out with it next week and see how low I can take it combined with additional clothing and a vapour barrier. Nice!

I have achieved enlightenment..

2010-11-23T13:31:00.000-08:00

Or some other corny gag. My eyes are still bleeding from the customs charge, but my quilt is here, it fits perfectly and it weighs 334 grams. Lovely.

New quilt

2010-11-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

Just got an email from Tim Marshall to say my new quilt is finished! 332g, 1.5" of loft- should be good down to 4 degrees. I didn't go with cuben after thinking about the vapour barrier effect. Because cuben doesn't breathe, it's impossible to wear down clothing under the quilt to extend the range. A cuben bag will take you lower temperature wise and a cuben the same weight would probably take me to zero. I do like to take my down clothes for hanging out in camp and because I'd need to take a vapour barrier to wear under my down clothes I'd possibly end up carrying more weight. I've also expended a fair amount of cash on my down clothing and I want to use it! There is also the opportunity to layer it over my PHD minim ultra- something I couldn't do if it was cuben. It's 50g lighter than my minim ultra, should add 4 degrees, avoiding the cold spots that the sewn through nature of the minim results in. Anyhow, I'm very excited!

Montbell Tachyon Anorak

2010-11-10T13:04:00.000-08:00

I like the fact that it's called an anorak. Cagoule is also a word that's fallen out of favour, and it's probably a better word than anorak, but anorak will do for now. I once managed to convey the TV programme Bergerac to my team in charades by using "sounds like" and my anorak. Happy days.

I love my Rab Quantum windshirt. The cuffs were a bit tight for pulling up my arms, but it kept me warm and reasonably dry in a lot of different situations. I do find that my ears get super cold, however. In fact hoods in general add loads of warmth to a clothing sytem by protecting the face. A hooded windshirt is the answer, but at a weight/cost that didn't seem worth it. The Tachyon compares reasonably well in terms of price, but knocks 20 grams off the weight of my Quantum.

It's incredibly thin. Pertex Quantum- a fabric I found incredibly lightweight when I first felt it- feels way more robust. Light passes through it easily and it compresses amazingly.

The zip isn't as long as the Rab, which was a half zip, but I generally didn't need that much venting.

The hood fits really well, although it does have a bit of an odd ball shape when cinched up. There is a velcro tab to reduce volume at the back.

There is a little peak formed by a cord in the front. It's too floppy to stand up to wind but it's a nice touch and avoids the train spotter cagoule look.

The cuffs are elasticated. They feel a little rougher than the lycra binding of the Rab, especially at the seam. I can fix that with a little home mod though.The bottom hem has an elasticated drawcord.

It has the well designed and super lightweight feel of my Montbell down inner. It does look quite shiny and not a little crinkled. The words trash bag have been used, but I like that in a funny way. It weighs 61g in size small in it's stuff sack. The sack weighs 3g. Very nice indeed.

Tachyon arrives.

2010-11-08T13:35:00.000-08:00

It's really, really nice! More on it when I get a spare 2 seconds....

Prolite Gear

2010-11-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

Are a fantastic shop to deal with-my Tachyon is in the UK pretty much the day after I ordered. The tracking is brilliant, it should be with me on Monday- it was the same story for my Montbell down inner jacket. Instant gear gratification- I love it.

New stuff

2010-11-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

Ordered myself a couple of things- A quilt from Tim at Enlightened equipment, (Not a cuben though- more on that later) and a Montbell Tachyon jacket. I've been toying with the quilt idea for a while now- should save me weight and be warmer than the PHD minim ultra. Tim is another manufacturer who is fantastic to deal with. The Tachyon is a hooded windshirt so ideal for keeping ears warm and I love my windshirt. I've found that Montbell fits my body shape really nicely.

Lakes trip:gear review and brief trip report

2010-10-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

Trailstar
Having only pitched it once in the garden, it was easy enough to pitch it in the dark after a few pints. Me and Martyn sat in it and had a beer, there was plenty of room, but there were a bunch of bugs battering around which were a little annoying. We could probably have both squeezed into the serenity net tent, but I had my bivvy. Once I was in the bivvy I had no problem as there’s a net on it. The real surprise was how tight I could get the Trailstar. Tapping the fly produced the sound that the phrase ‘as tight as a drum’ would suggest. I did find that the gaps at the bottom of the tarp allowed a fair bit of wind through- I need to experiment with getting it lower. I would also like to find a pitch which allows for more of a view out of the door when the wind drops. A real success though.

Caldera cone
Worked excellently, same as my old one but a lot more convenient to carry. It is a bit more of a pain to set up because of threading the pegs through. My beer can pot lid was a significant upgrade from a plain piece of foil.

New Balance shoes
I loved these. My only real concern with the actual shoe is that there isn’t a lot of toe bump protection, but that isn’t a problem as long as you don’t kick anything which I didn’t! Wet sock wise, I didn’t ever actually use my Gore-tex socks. If the weather had been worse, I probably would have, but the worst I got was a bit of dampness from boggy ground. They dried very quickly and I was able to wear my socks to bed. They’re fantastically light- I felt like running quite a bit of the time and did a bit of downhill running for kicks. I did need to look where I stepped more than a goretex boot would require of me but this didn’t bother me. They stuck wherever I needed them to- rocks, scree and grass. I didn’t have any problem with stones in my shoes and didn’t wear my Mountain Laurel gaiters. I may well still wear my Hedgehogs for Winter.

Zpacks zero pack
I spent quite a bit of time with the waist belt undone, my pack was really comfortable with the weight I was carrying. The back length is too short for me. I’ve been in discussion with Joe from Zpacks and apparently 18” is the longest you can get with the Zero, which is my actual back measurement- this pack is just the standard Zero length. If you want, Joe can add extra length to the top of the pack to allow a longer back length (At the expense of extra volume and weight). A lot of daysacks have very short backs, the assumption being that you don’t need the support aspect of the belt. I was stretching the capacity of the sack at first. After the first night I removed a bunch of stuff and took a summer kit list with me- no waterproofs or windproof trousers, no pack liner, no microfleece, no gloves, no down trousers. Even though the capacity was tight with the full load on the first day, I would still use this sack into the autumn- it’s a really nice carry. I was very careful how I set it down on rough rocks but otherwise treated it the same as any other pack. A Zero will be my standard weekender pack from now on.

How did my gear list work out?
For this weekend, it was perfect. I stretched the capacity of my gear to keep me warm ever so slightly on the second night- hanging around in the evening: I was cold and would have used my down trousers but instead got into my bivvy and sleeping bag and was toasty. In the night I got a little chilly and would have ideally had a little section of mat for my legs, but overall slept really well. On the Sunday morning my hands were cold and I would have liked some gloves, but it wasn’t desperate. I hiked in my baselayer and windshirt. I prefer to hike myself warm rather than have to remove clothes once I’ve got into the rhythm of walking. We ran into a few people who were camping out, typically carrying 70-80l packs and still strapping stuff to the outside. I’m not an ultralight evangelist but I was certainly glad I wasn’t carrying their packs. (Okay, so I felt a little smug)

The trip:
We managed to arrive at the Wasdale Head Inn just in time for last orders. The staff seemed fairly keen for us to leave so we didn’t hang around. After a quick wander we pitched the tent in a field with a river running through it. We sat in the Trailstar and chatted and had another beer.
In the morning I felt a little hungover. It was a beautiful morning though and I hung around for a while making coffee and looking at the views. There was a fair bit of wind and I lost my meths measuring cup and my new Caldera cone to the river. We managed to set out at about 9am and wandered up to Piers Gill. It’s certainly a great route and not to difficult. After a short while, we reached the summit of Scafell Pike. It was at this point that it occurred to me that I had never been to the Lakes in decent weather. There were hordes of people and I realised when I thought the area had been busy before, it was nothing compared to actual numbers. There were fantastic views from the top and people doing all kinds of interesting things like throwing their walking poles to their friends 50m down the mountain in a high wind. We ate some lunch in a shelter (Homemade ‘sun’ dried tomatoes plus cheese and crackers, very nice) and vacated the area as soon as possible.

It was only 2.30 when we reached Sprinkling Tarn. Martyn mentioned he’s always wanted to camp on the promontory and we wandered over to have a look. It was an ideal camp spot so we pitched and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking, chatting and dozing in the sun.

It’s very rare that I get the weather to do this as all my trips seem to happen in the Winter. It was certainly a busy spot- there were at least 4 other tents dotted about but everyone kept themselves to themselves. We were settled down by 7.30 and were up and walking by 7am.
All in all, a pretty relaxing trip in what was essentially summer weather and a nice opportunity to test the gear that’s been lying idle in my cupboard. Next trip I do want to go somewhere a little wilder though.

Shorts, in the Lakes, in October....

2010-10-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

What fantastic weather! All the gear worked a treat-fuller report and video to follow...

The Trailstar lands

2010-10-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

And I only had to pay £18 in import costs (sigh). I whipped it up in the garden on Saturday during a lucky break in the rain and seam sealed it. No photos, but my Serenity net tent fits in very nicely- the side tie outs to improve head room clip to the bivvy hooks in the Trailstar and at least two of the groundsheet tie outs will attach to existing pegs. I'll probably use the bivvy for winter, but for a summer shelter in an environment such as Scotland, it should be ideal. Also in the package were some new gaiters and some Aqua Mira tablets. I liked using the Aqua Mira drops but the tablets will be much easier and lighter.
I also got the chance to road test the new goretex socks and my New balance shoes. On a 'Barefoot walk'. I'd been wearing them for comfort testing purposes on a day out when I spotted the walk. The course had been reduced to ankle deep water and thick clay and thankfully, both the shoes and socks performed impeccably. The shoes and the Trailstar will both be accompanying me on the weekend. Currently the forecast is for gale force winds. Nice.

New balance 840 first look

2010-09-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of this blog will know about my ongoing struggle with getting into non-waterproof shoes. When I found out that Gore Bike wear socks were back in the UK, It opened up the possibility again.

Innov8 seem to be the market leaders amongst UK hikers. Various bloggers seem to have created a cult following, but while I was getting into ultralight hiking, it was always New Balance shoes that were mentioned by US hikers. Phil Turner seems to like them (An even brighter pair!) and, more importantly, they have a wide forefoot which suits my foot rather than the narrow toe box which Innov8 have a reputation for. They also have a UK factory, although these are made in China. Add to that a nice cheap price at Wiggle and I decided to have a punt.

So why the 840s? Reviews suggested they were shock absorption was good, they drained and dried quickly and grip was excellent, however to say that the look of them didn't have anything to do with it would be a lie! They're supposedly blue, grey and yellow. It's more like purple, silver and yellow- they're bright! I always like the yellow of my Golite shoes, it's about as far away from the brown boot/red sock look as you can go.

There's not much to say about them apart from that. They weigh 331g each in a UK size 11. The New Balance sizing is odd though. The insole is almost exactly the same size and shape as my NF Hedgehogs in a size 10. A tiny bit longer. The New Balance size chart gives excellent guidance for selecting the correct size and it's worth using. The 'N' on the side of the shoe supports tapes that pull the shoe tight around the foot. The laces are bumpy and stay tied- I really like the laces. The yellow studs on the bottom of the shoe are soft and the purple ones are more firm. On the photo, they look a bit flat but they're chunkier than my Hedgehogs. That's it really. More detail when I manage to get them out- potentially in the next couple of weeks. Yup, my hill drought should end reet soon. Excited I am.

The answer to the question posed below..

2010-09-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

is no. Imagine my disappointment when I discover that the package posted to someone with the same first initial and surname as myself contains a stuffed gruffalo. I knew there was a reason why I shouldn't call my son a name that begins with the same letter as my own. Balls.

A package too big for my letterbox..

2010-09-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

has arrived. Is it the Trailstar? I certainly hope so. It's awaiting collection at the post office which suggests I've escaped customs unscathed.......

Katabatic Windom down hood

2010-09-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

Down filled trousers seem to be getting pretty popular and rightly so. Responses to a first wear on a cold wild camp are often couched in phrases akin to Paul chatting to his mates after his stroll along the road to Damascus. While I like my down trousers, the real eye opener for me was my down hood. The warmth compared to any hat I had worn previously was startling. I pinched that hood from a chav’s jacket, took off the poppers, sealed up the holes with seam sealer and Robert was my sister’s brother. Ultimately, however, that hood was a little bit uncomfortable- the Velcro at the front was a bit scratchy and the volume was to big for my head, even with the front cord tightened. I began to look for another.

A few companies make them- Jack’s R better and Feathered friends for example but Katabatic made the lightest. It also appealed because it was a true balaclava with a whole face sized opening. The hood itself weighs 41grams. That includes shock-cord arm loops to stop it twisting around when you’re in your sleeping bag. Construction is top notch and loft is a more puffy than I was expecting. Photos can only ever give you a vague idea- this is the chin area. The hood actually fits my head (which might make it a little small for some people) but it is loose enough to feel comfortable. The opening isn’t tight to my face. It uses a lycra binding rather than a cord, and I was thinking I might need to tighten it a little to stop draughts, but the hood lofts up enough to fill the gap. It’s probably more comfortable loose. The lycra does catch my stubble a little and I may stitch a little pertex over the chin area. The bottom opening is easily wide enough to fit over the collar of a down jacket without compressing it. The shock cords pull it down onto your shoulders to seal out draughts. I was going to take the cords off (they’re removable) as it works well without them and I didn’t like the idea of them cutting up into my armpits but they definitely stop the hood twisting in a sleeping bag. I have taken the cordlocks off as I don’t need to tighten them any more than the maximum length.When I combine it with my down vest, trousers, jacket and socks, plus my minim ultra sleeping bag I’ve got a system that weighs somewhere in the region of 1kg, comparable to many winter sleeping bags. Of course this system gives me a lot more flexibility- most people would take a warm jacket as well as a winter bag anyway. I used a similar system in temperatures down to around -5 and I have a few tricks to help me if the temperature goes lower. Taking these photos, I became unbearably hot- it was about 18 degrees- there’s not much of me that is exposed and able to get rid of the excess heat.

So why are people not singing the praises of down hoods? Look at the photos-it’s impossible to wear one without looking like a complete idiot. Still, when you’re sat on the top of a mountain next to someone freezing in their warmest hat, you understand the difference between looking like an idiot and actually being one…..

MYOG pot lid

2010-09-01T12:47:00.001-07:00

I had a spare five minutes the other day. I've been using a piece of foil for a lid for my Snowpeak mini solo ever since I discovered that the original lid weighed as much as my cuben fibre rain chaps during my weight purges of a year or so ago. If I'm really honest with myself, the foil is a bit of a pain. It was useful when I had to fold it all up to fit in my original caldera, but now that my cone fits inside my pot, I felt like i wanted a bit more functionality. The rain chaps were still in the back of my mind, however. Enter the beer can pot lid.

It's another super easy job- cut apart a beer can, lay it flat, trace round the pot but leave a margin and then fold the edges over. I found it needed a fair bit of re-folding and checking with the pot to get the right shape and roundness and there are still a number of corners on it, but it is a fair fit. Whe I was happy, I placed it on a flat surface and pressed it all down with the base of a pint glass to make it smooth. To create a handle I folded over another piece of can, cut a slit in the lid and made a washer to stop it ripping through. Total weight 4g. To transport it, I simply flip it over so the handle doesn't get damaged.

Trekmates bamboo baselayer

2010-08-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the sour vinegar smell that rises up from inside my waterproofs after a couple of hours in a synthetic baselayer. It’s more rancid than good honest sweat which I can put up with and it was always a pointless exercise to even try to combat it with deodorant. Add to that, the fact that I’m not a fan of chemical scents in the wild and the slightly dubious notion of trying to block up your pores for three days without washing and merino starts to look like a good option. I managed to pick up a smartwool ultralight shirt in TK Maxx for 25 nicker but after only a couple of trips it looked like it had gone a few rounds with a moth heavyweight. Enter bamboo fabric. It claims to limit smell in the same way as merino but be harder wearing. I was definitely interested.

Trekmates is an odd company. They seem to be struggling to decide whether to be a cheap as chips budget company or one of the companies more willing to experiment and they walk a fine line between the two. I’ve always been happy with my gear based on how much I’ve paid for it. I had a windshirt off them- did the job but the finish was a little slapdash, and some gloves which I’ve been very happy with. A lot of people have raved about the stretch Goretex socks they did but which seem to have been discontinued. But they also do a bunch of stuff which seems to be aimed at people who do most of their walking in the park with the dog but fancy themselves as hardened explorers. Odd.

I actually had two of these shirts. The first was from Ultralight Outdoor Gear. The label says to wash them to shrink the shirt by 6%. But the shirt drowned me. I am at the lower limit of the size guide, and really I’m an XS ratger than a S, but this was ridiculous. I rang back UOG where the guy was reasonable but (understandably) didn’t want to take back a shirt that had been washed. I rang Trekmates and they said to try to wash it again. In the meantime, I had seen another of the same shirt in TKMaxx, tried it on and found that it fitted better than the washed UOG shirt. Comparing the two, the new shirt was definitely slimmer in the torso. I’m guessing that a small label had been in a medium shirt. Although the bloke from UOG had said I could send it back, I couldn’t really be arsed. I washed the new shirt and sent the other one to charity.

The feel of the material is nice and soft. It’s stretchy, but not as stretchy as merino. On the Trekmates shirt, it’s pretty thin, but feels quite tough. The colours are a nice muted grey and black. I wore it on the trip with Solomon and the smell resistance was definitely as good as merino. The cut is relaxed. More relaxed than I would like in a baselayer and seemingly aimed at a T-shirt look. Like I said, I’m on the small side of the sizing. I would say that it would be worth getting the next size down if you want it a bit more skin tight- but certainly, I would recommend trying it on before buying. The arms especially were loose and long- good for rolling up, not so good for falling down and protruding under a coat in the rain.

I had two big gripes with this. The first was the neck. I’d got a round neck, so can’t comment on the zipped variety, but the opening was way too big. The edging on the opening was in the same bamboo material so not very stretchy. It gave it a kind of ‘indie’ 80’s retro look. Not so good on the hill, especially as it was so big that the neckflap on my OR sunrunner didn’t cover it.

The second problem was the fact that the shirt as a whole was pretty shapeless. Not only was the neck baggy, it became a strange shape after the washing. One of the arms was noticeably longer than the other. It’s all a bit...wonky.

So, another case of a nice idea, poorly executed. I swapped my Trekmates windshirt for the Rab version. And I’ve swapped my bamboo baselayer for an Icebreaker. Bamboo is certainly worth keeping an eye on, but I’ll wait until someone else does it a bit better.

In transit

2010-08-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

My Katabatic Windom hood is apparently on it's way...

Just another 5 weeks to go...

2010-08-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

Put my order in for the trailstar, and a few other bits and bobs besides. Due to family and work commitments it doesn't look like I'll get out before then by which time it will be gale season I bet....

Heel lock,wet feet and the other 63 grams

2010-07-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

I've been wavering on non-waterproof shoes for ages. My mind loves the idea of just wandering fancy free without worrying about river crossings or wet feet. The simple fact is I don't like wet feet. That doesn't stop me thinking: A) I'll get used to it or B) When I tried it and didn't like it it was October and it wasn't a fair test. As a result, I've recently bought two pairs of trainers recently and returned them both. There was nothing wrong with either of them. The first was a pair of New Balance runnig shoes. Americans thinks a a lot of NB shes, and they were very nice. They weighed 250g a shoe compared to the 383 for my hedgehogs, the lacing really reduced heel lift and they were very meshy. Except they were a very snug fit on the toes. Next I bought some NF momentum shoes. Also vey nice. You can feel the airflow through them, which is what you want as opposed to WPB shoes. I took them home, walked around a while, admired my feet in the mirror. I decided to do a bit more research and having read a few other people's experiences, mainly this post on Blogpacking light I do have a strong feeling that I would end up going back to the hedgehogs. And I rarely cross rivers, to be honest. The shoes went back. Goretex gives you damp feet, but my experience is that having no lining gives you soaking feet. I think my main problem is that I haven't bought any new camping gear for a while.....I have got my eye on a Trailstar....In the absence of any retail relief I had a look at some new techniques to try.
Heel lock lacing really works. My hogs feel a lot less like they'll get lost in a bog now.
I have spent some money albeit a modest £3.95. This ricco battery charger weighs 63g with a battery. That brings the weight of my MP3 up to the 100g mark, nearly as much as my shelter and rain gear combined!!!(Using my cuben poncho with no guys or pegs- I know ultralight weight cheating!) Theres an alternative choice over at blogpacking light.

Coffee taste test

2010-07-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

It's a super busy time of year for me. So while I've been drinking coffee by the gallon, I haven't had much time for blogging. I managed to do the taste test last Saturday but no photos- what a bloser.
Up for the test was my usual , a premium instant I guess you'd call it, Carte Noir. I generally think this is one of the better instants so I was interested in how it stood up to the others. There's been a fair bit of interest in Nescafe instant espresso so I had some of that, a cafetiere of Douwe Egberts Italian blend and of course the Via. I made all the coffees up according to their instructions, stuck a label on the bottom of the cup and got my mother in law to mix them up for me so I didn't know which was which. Then I tasted them all a few times, cleansing my mouth with water in between. Not the most scientific test ever but it gave me the results I needed.
What was interesting was how well the instants did compared to the ground. None of them was horrific when compared to the cafetiere cup. The significant difference was in the amount of flavour and aroma. Whether this would have become more obvious with the addition of milk I don't know. I didn't do it so I'll never know.
I did pair together the Via and the ground coffee. The two traditional instants had similar characteristics. The worst was the instant espresso. A nasty bitter aftertaste was the main problem. When you add the water, it fizzes slightly to create a crema-I don't know what they've added to make that happen but I don't trust it! The Carte Noir was suprisingly good. A definite coffee flavour but very little aroma. In my notes, I wrote 'a very light flavour when compared to the others'. Perfectly drinkable though. Next in the order was the Via. It had a taste which bore the greatest similarity to the ground. Again, however, it had a nasty aftertaste. In the end, I preferred the Carte Noir, despite the fact that it had less of a punch. Good news for my wallet! The ground coffee was identifiable and best, but not by as great a margin as I thought it would be. Don't take my word for it though, i'm not a massive coffee buff! In future, I'll continue to take the Carte Noir.

Starbucks Via

2010-06-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

There's been a fair bit of noise about Starbucks Via over on Backpacking Light. People who take their coffee seriously have been very excited by it. I don't take my coffee particularly seriously and generally go camping with instant and powdered coffee whitener, but when I saw that you could get a tester pack for about a quid, I splurged. It is pretty good- it tastes a lot like Starbucks regular coffee. Internet reviews have generally not been super good- Blind taste test to follow...

Lakes video

2010-06-17T00:22:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of spare time and knocked this together. It makes it look warmer than it actually was as evidenced by the big snotter I've got going on in the first section.....

Old Lakes trip

2010-06-16T01:13:00.000-07:00

This report has been hanging around in my documents for ages, half finished. Ironically, it was this trip that prompted me to start my blog but I hadn't got around to getting the writing sorted. The photo at the bottom of the booze article is from this trip and it helped me to get my act together. There's some video which I'll edit and probably post in about 6 months. Here's a reminder of why it's good to make the most of summer...

It’s a fair old slog up to the lakes when you live in the Midlands. It’s worse when you get there to realise that you have to drive another hour round the lakes to get to where you want to get to. Most of my recent trips to this area had focused on the Ennerdale area which does involve that extra hour, so it was that, combined with the fact that we had a total novice with us which led us to look at the High Street area.
Rafa had climbed Ben Nevis once and had done some deer stalking as research for a game he was designing but other than that he had very little to do with the great outdoors. He’s from Brazil and Martyn had suggested he come with us as part of his cultural enrichment. I’m not sure Rafa would describe it as enrichment, but British weather (and we got the full force of it that weekend) certainly is worth experiencing in it’s raw state at least once.
On the journey up we checked through Rafa’s pack. He’d done a pretty good job of not bringing the kitchen sink. I’d supplied a tent (My old Gelert solo), a torch, a spoon and Martyn brought a stove and the waterproofs (vital!). He was a bit embarrassed about his choice of food-Pot Noodles, but bulk aside, the good old Pot Noodle is prime hiking food.
After a stop in Bampton for a pint or two we pulled up at Haweswater. The weather report for the weekend was fairly dire and it was already beginning to spot with rain when we arrived. I’d taken the opportunity presented by Martyn driving the last section of the journey to top up with Guinness and was raring to go by the time we had sorted out the bags. I clipped my photon onto my hat brim and set off at a fair old lick, trying to get to The Rigg before the weather really closed in. I was trying a new pair of shoes- Golite Trail Flys that I’d picked up at TK Maxx pretty cheaply. It was my second try in three years at non waterproof low tops and they were really comfortable. The last time, my ankles had felt really vulnerable, but this time I relished the lack of restriction. Rafa, however was feeling the pressure. By the time we got to The Rigg, he had cramp and was glad of the rest. The weather, had, by now, broken in spectacular fashion and the rain was pouring down. I left Martyn to sort out Rafa’s tent and got on with trying to pitch the Gatewood. The time spent in the pub added to the extra top-up in the car revealed itself to be a pretty poor spot of decision making. What followed had all the elements of a classic comedy sketch with me chasing from one side of the tent to the other as my hiking pole fell down each time I stuck in a peg. When I finally got the inner tent installed I discovered that I had pitched the opening towards the back of the tent. I clambered between the two, into the space at the back of the tent and slipped inside. I had received a fairly lengthy wetting during the process, but again I wasn’t as wet as I had expected.
I slept well, one of the best sleeps I have ever had in a tent and woke fairly early. The rain had pretty much stopped but it was still very windy. I am becoming more confident of the G.C’s ability to shed wind- a lot of the fears I had on my Rhinogs trip were, I think, unfounded. Looking at the three tents, the G.C was flapping around a fair bit less than the other two- it seemed to billow, if that makes sense.
I had a wander round the Rigg, looking at the carnage left by other campers. It’s small wonder that there are prominent signs prohibiting camping- there was everything from cider bottles to used tampons and plenty of fire evidence. I wouldn’t want to camp there in the Summer.
I went back to the tents and roused Martyn and Rafa. Rafa stared incredulous at the floppy mess that had been his shelter for the night. Despite wearing a Sprayway pacamac circa 1992 in the turquoise and purple that characterised that period, he still managed to look stylish in a felt flat cap. It’s funny how people who are not hikers (in fact many hikers too!) still feel the need to look good on a hill- I just stood there in the Gatewood and my cuben fibre rain chaps with a big streamer of snot running down my face…..
It was the first time Martyn had got a good look at the Gatewood in poncho mode. The wind was really kicking up now and there were predictions of 70mph gusts on the tops “Are you sure that’s wind-safe?” he wanted to know. I wasn’t aware that clothing could be judged on whether it was wind-safe! I told him that I was confident it passed EU guidelines and we set off.
The Trail flys were starting to let in a fair bit of water now. Although I was okay with having wet feet and wasn’t bothered about bog hopping to avoid the worst sections, I knew that my feet would be warmer and drier in a pair of lined shoes. Each time there was a new flood of water into the shoe, my feet would feel cold again and the idea that the shoes would dry out quickly because of the breathable nature of the shoe was just not working. October probably wasn’t the best time to try this admittedly but I had decided that unlined trail shoes weren’t for me. Luckily, one of the lace loops had started to pull free (I’d read some dodgy reports on the shoddy construction of Golite shoes previously and they seemed to be true). A trip to TKMaxx customer services was mentally booked, which meant that I had been able to do my trail shoe experiment for free.
It’s a reasonable walk up to Kidsty Howes- steeper than you’d find in the average city and just the thing to warm you up in the morning. Unfortunately we’d got going with no breakfast due to the rain and Rafa was finding it heavy going. We stopped five or six times on the initial slopes where usually me and Martyn may well have got it done in one quick pull. It seemed that the walk we’d planned was going to take a while at this rate. This was no bad thing because it gave us plenty of opportunity to look at the spectacular views up to High street and down to Haweswater. In the end, however, I set off at a quick pace to find water and then stopped to cook up breakfast and wait for the other two. We found a sheltered spot, out of the wind and took advantage of a brief spell of sun to relax.
The final section got even steeper. I prefer to ascend this way, rather than a slow plod. The wind kept getting stronger and stronger. I love this weather-it’s so exhilarating and you can see the showers sweeping down the valley before they hit you. There was a daft grin on my face the whole time despite the fact that the Gatewood cape was, while not ‘wind unsafe’,quite ‘wind annoying’.
There was a conversation at the next rest spot. Martyn was concerned about Rafa and proposed that they returned to the campsite while I continued and met them there. Rafa despite feeling ‘as though he was dying’ decided to stick it out. The gradient eased after that and once he was on a relatively level surface, Rafa felt better.
The Wall across high street was a welcome respite from the wind. I removed the Gatewood and just kept my windshirt on. The showers weren’t bad enough to wet me but it was very cold in the wind. Part of my warmth plan was just to keep moving, but that was hard with all the rests we kept having. If I had been by myself, I would probably have run it, but the camaraderie was good and we were all having a great time.
The rest of the walk went quickly and before we knew it we were at the shelter at Ill Bell. There were still showers on and off and the Gatewood made a good bothy bag. Suddenly the penny dropped for Rafa- ‘hey! You are wearing your tent!’. Seems my big shapeless silnylon bag had just looked like a big shapeless nylon bag after all, when I had been worried it looked like I was wearing a tent!;) We dropped down to Smallwater and as I had got a lead on the others I spent some time sat in the shelters drinking whisky. It was one of those perfect mountain moments, where the level of exertion has been just enough to relax you, the atmosphere is amazing, the taste of the whisky chimes exactly with the smell of the air. Lovely stuff. The last time I had been here, I’d slept in one of the shelters after it had been too windy to pitch the competition. We returned to The Rigg and pitched close to the lake after a quick stop at the car for me to change my shoes. It was so nice to get the Hedgehogs on with some dry socks, but they did feel pretty confining on the ankles after wearing lowtops. A purchase of some lowtop Hedgehogs was decided on.
As night fell, we sat on the beach chatting about gear and trips we planned to one day make. It was a cold but still night- a perfect end to the trip. We all slept a lot better and made it back to the car after following an obviously little used footpath that followed the line of the shore a lot more closely than the main path.
The next day in the shower I was scratching my leg. There was an annoying little scab on my shin. A scab with legs. My first tick. I’d seem one in Sweden crawling up my sock, but that was huge. This one was pretty small and I was not as repulsed as I thought I would be. I was really glad I had a tick-hook though- I’m not sure that it would have been so easy to remove with tweezers. It came out easy enough. I wish I’d taken a picture!

Booze

2010-06-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

Back to more adult matters. You may have picked up on the fact that I like the odd drink. Ideally on the hill I would always have a beer. It's a more relaxing drink and you can sip it and look at the view. The cans bust down to nothing and weigh less, so I'll often take a couple for the first night of a camp. They do weigh a lot when they're full though. I remember taking a trip early in my hiking career where I took 12 cans of beer plus all my water for an overnight. I quickly realised that I needed to reduce weight quickly and by the time I came to camp I was in a bit of a state. The clear winner on the weight front is spirits. Whisky is my drink of choice- the taste chimes nicely with the scents and atmosphere of the hills. I've been through a few methods for carrying. Weight wise, a 250ml coke bottle in plastic would win, but it seems like a bit of an insult to carry something so old in something so trashy-it's the same with wine, you don't want to drink a nice wine out of a disposable plastic cup.

I started off with the usual hip flask. This was given to me for my 21st. It's pretty much useless for camping trips. It only carries 75ml and weighs a backbreaking 144 grams. The opening is really small, you have to wait an aeon to get a decent mouthful. I keep it for weddings where carrying any more volume would be lethal.

The Sigg is my emotional favourite. It holds 300ml and only weighs 77 grams. When I bought it and Steph found out I'd spent ten pounds on something 'only to carry whisky!' she was a bit shocked. In actual fact, the quality of the Sigg means I would pay more. The finish is really nice, the mouth feel is good. I like staring into the redness after a few swigs...When I dug it out to weigh it for this post I felt a real nostalgia for it. I stopped carrying it for a few reasons. First off, there is a tendency for the whisky to gather in the grooves in the stopper. As well as the thread, there are a couple of side grooves. As the whisky dried, it left brown gunk that was hard to clean off. Secondly, I began to get concerned about whisky damaging the lining. No reason for this, just me being paranoid but I don't want bits of Sigg lining floating about in my whisky. Thirdly, I got the nalgene.

The Nalgene weighs 55 grams. 20 grams less than the Sigg. Although it is advertised as carrying 300ml, you can squeeze a fair bit more in if you fill it up right to the rim. The shape of it fits into a pack or a pocket better than the Sigg and while it is not as beautiful as the Sigg, it has a nice taper that makes it aesthetically pleasing-you don't feel like you're drinking out of 'just a plastic bottle'. The opening is just right for a good swig and because it's a clear plastic, you can see how much you have left. There are measurements up the sides so you can regulate your intake.

With the flask you also get a protector and a shot glass. I've never used these- The bottle itself seems plenty tough enough for what I put it through and each of my swigs seems to hold about an ounce, so why bother to measure it? More importantly, these additions take the weight up to 123 grams, the same weight as the next flask I got.

The final booze carrier I got was the GSI lexan flask. I think this is the old version, because the images I see on the internet now have a black outer, so they may have changed it now. I got this because I saw it reduced to £4 in a corner of a caravan shop rather than because I needed a new booze container. I did think that on longer trips I may need to carry more whisky, but having said that, I'd probably just buy another nalgene: two combined should carry an entire bottle. It holds 450ml. Overall, it has a feeling of cheapness about it. Edges are unfinished on the cap and the opening, so it's not particularly nice to drink from. The opening is just a little too wide so that you have to sip from it rather than swig. The cap holds an ounce measure, but as I've said, I'm not bothered about that. The actual lexan material is okay visually, but the label states that they can't guarantee to keep the material from tainting the flavour of your drink-the Nalgene claims to be taint free. Finally, because it's the old lexan, I guess it would be packed to the gills with BPA, probably not a good mix with whisky.

Cheers!

Solomon's first trip

2010-06-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

The weather was perfect, the auspices were good and so we decided to give it a shot.The next job was to pick a location. I grew up in Blaenavon, near to Abergavenny. My mum used to push me in my buggy up to Keepers pond and Foxhunter’s grave on the Blorenge so there was a nice symmetry in choosing this as a spot. There was a further reason in that there is a carpark and a pretty flat walk of about twenty minutes to get to the summit of the Blorenge and on the map, there was a large flat area on the other side of the mound that forms the summit. There would be views over to the Sugarloaf and everything would be good. My mum would come along with us carrying a frying pan and some sausages and then head off while we bunked down. The best laid plans of mice and men…
We didn’t get going until really late- Solomon’s tea is at five o’clock and I was still finishing packing the bags at four. It’s a twenty minute drive from Newport to Foxhunter’s but that didn’t take account of the terrible traffic around Pontypool. The weather was very hot and Solomon was getting ratty. By the time we arrived at the carpark it was nearly half five. Steph was slightly concerned that the car would get broken into. It was a reasonable concern- the carpark is close to Blaenavon, not exactly a hub of youth entertainment and a natural spot for night time youth drinking. My mum had a good idea- to check for broken glass around the carpark:
‘There’s only one piece and it’s not window glass’
I went over to check. She was right. There was one piece. It was fused to the ground in the centre of the black outline left by a burnt out car. It was twenty to six. I decided not to mention it.
The next problem occurred when we tried to get Solomon moving. Whether it was because he was hungry or whether he was a bit freaked out by the sheer size of the space we were in, never having been on a mountain before, he decided to refuse to move. He just stood still and repeated the word ‘car’ over and over again. He finally consented to nannie carrying him and I put nannie’s pack on my front. By the time we had taken the wrong path for about ten minutes and had to turn back a phrase of Withnail’s was on repeat in my mind- ‘This is a terrible, terrible mistake’.
There had been extensive burning on the Blorenge the previous year. Everywhere was blackened and the scent of charcoal was heavy on the air. Solomon was walking now but very, very slowly. I decided to run ahead to find a camping spot. As I crested the summit I could see that it was going to be a lot harder than I had anticipated. The burnt area stretched in every direction and I wasn’t willing to pit the Hog’s ultralight groundsheet against the heather stumps. I left my pack at the summit and ran ahead. Finally I found a small area out of sight of the summit and passing walkers which would just about go. I ran back and collected the rest of the family. Solomon had found the summit cairn which is pretty big and provided ample rocks for him to climb. He’s really into climbing at the moment and we only managed to persuade him to move by pointing out the big rocks nearer to our campsite.
Finally, at about seven we managed to settle.It had taken us over an hour to cover what would normally take about 15-20 minutes. I fired up the stove and began frying sausages. Although I never went camping with my parents, we occasionally had ‘cooking picnics’ on the mountains. The skylarks were singing, a real sound of my childhood. Finally, I began to relax. The tent went up really easily, a bonus in poor weather but equally welcome now. Solomon’s Readybed also went up quickly. Using the supplied foot pump it took about five minutes. I’d added an extra thin layer from a Poundland sleepmat to combat convection issues and Solomon’s sleeping bag went on top. One thing which I had forgotten about but I found really annoying was the sheer profusion of stuffsacks. It’s all very well organising things into stuffsacks, but how do you organise them when they have served their purpose? Suddenly it occurred to me that another bonus of ultralight is a reduction in the amount of things you have to keep track of. No sleepsocks, no spare clothes, no towels and so-on. I resorted to my old trick of bunging everything into one stuffsack. It might take a while to find things but at least you know where they are. By this point everything was ready. We had sausages, beans and smash and I popped open a Guinness. There was a fantastic view across the valley to the Sugarloaf, the weather was still really warm and Solomon was having a great time.
I cleared up while Steph got Solomon ready for bed. We’d brought a Hi-Gear folding bowl to wash him in but it was virtually useless. The amount of water needed to fill it was huge, and we ended up just washing him using the bottom half of the Brunton cookset. What was really good was the Trekmates micro towel. It dried well, felt nice against the skin and dried in next to no time. While Steph read him a story I walked my mum back to the car.
When I arrived back at the tent, Steph was just finishing up. Apparently, the only thing that had convinced Solomon into bed was the Thomas the tank engine picture- I was very glad to have carried that weight. We sat in silence outside the tent for a while, waiting for him to settle. It was a pretty big test for him, as he’s never slept in a bed before and this was an unfamiliar situation. After a bit of shifting about, he settled and we could relax. I got out my super ultralight playing cards and Steph got into my Minim ultra sleeping bag to keep warm. She was already wearing her Craghoppers down jacket and some merino long-johns but she runs very cold. The sun set was great, the lights of Abergavenny slowly flicked on and everything was right with the world.
I’d like to say we slept well but we didn’t. The pitch was pretty sloping and after trying to sleep with our feet facing down the slope we had to change. Luckily, we are small enough and the Hog big enough to make this possible. I took the bottom spot but that didn’t prevent Steph getting beaten around the head by Solomon flailing in his sleep. The sides of the Readybed aren’t high enough to prevent him flipping out and although it’s not high enough to hurt him, it would be enough to wake him. Steph swapped around and we settled down again. I never sleep too well on the first night of camping anyway, so I spent a lot of the night listening to podcasts and checking Solomon hadn’t fallen out. Still despite our fears and even though he spent half the night half out of his bag, he didn’t wake up and in fact slept extremely well. Steph was warm enough which was a bonus and said she probably would have slept a lot better on a flatter pitch.
We woke about seven. Solomon drank his milk from my swedish folding cup that he'd taken a liking to and then we all ate porridge from a bag.I took Solomon for a climb on the rocks and then we packed up. It took us an hour to walk back even with Solomon on my shoulders for a while. I took his first trig point photo (another reminder of my childhood!) and then we made it back to the car which was still there and untouched.
So was it worth it? Nothing is ever as perfect as it appears in my mind. As a gear shakedown, it worked extremely well and, more importantly, it showed it was possible. Solomon really enjoyed himself for most of it and with better time management, it would have been easy. It shows that with a child that young it pays to take what you think is possible (and in my mind, what I had planned was conservative!) and do a lot less. The ultralight simplicity is really worth it. Would I go again? Defininitely! It pays to take less, and next time, there is less that I would take next time. The bowl will be the first thing to go. Stuff sacks aren’t worth it either- I’ll use less and bigger sacks. Steph does need to see what is worth taking as well, but that is a product of experience. A lot of over-preparation is due to fear of the unknown and the more we do it, the better our routines will be. The Hog was fantastic-stable easy to pitch and absolutely massive. The only thing that needs attention is the zip, which you have to be a bit careful with to avid it catching on the storm flap. With regards to the rest of the equipment, a few things definitely need to change. The Jam was just about big enough and carried the weight, but next time I’ll take my old Karrimor sack to give me more flexibility. If we go a lot , it would be worth investing in a big but light sack. Steph could certainly do with it. The other thing that was useless was the Colemen F1. I’ve had a problem with the plastic components melting before. This time it locked up completely. I also rediscovered why I got so annoyed with gas stoves after it toppled over three times, losing all the water. I was kind of glad when it broke. I’m thinking of getting a remote canister stove, maybe the Edelrid Opilio. The weight’s pretty good and I can use it in really cold conditions when I need to.

Scuppered

2010-06-01T04:36:00.000-07:00

I had a look around for various bodge trolley options on the high street. Nothing really seemed to fit the bill and I wasn't going to get anything proper sorted within the week although PTC's wheely looks promising. On Friday I got Solomon into the carrier and weighed it. It was 17kg. I still hadn't got any water, food or general toddler detritus in either of our packs. There was no way this was going to happen, especially when there was an ominous muscular pain in my shoulder after putting the pack on my back. It was time for a radical re-think. Seeing as how I would only be able to stagger as far as Solomon could walk anyway, Solomon was going to have to walk. Out with the baby carrier and in with the Golite Jam. And everything fitted. I could take more weight in the final carry and my baseweight was down to 6kg. I'd taken the flysheet and inner of the tent, and spare clothes for Solomon and Steph out of Steph's bag and added them to mine. but I hadn't put in nappies, wipes etc to either of our bags. Steph's baseweight was about 7kg, but her pack alone weighs 3kg and there wasn't going to be any consumables added. I could carry the water and food and be just about within a comfortable weight for the Jam.

We were good to go. Until it came to today and the weather gods served us up sluicing rain and chilly temperatures. The weather is supposed to improve later in the week. We'll postpone.

Family camping

2010-05-28T01:46:00.000-07:00

I'm determined to get out this half term. We're going to visit my parents who live close to the Black mountains and the velleys. It's where I walked as a child and it's nice and accessible. Preperations are slowly moving forward. I rigged the Hog and seam sealed it- poorly of course, but done. I did it in my parents garden which is about twenty times the size of our garden and the aesthetic appeal of the Hog was vastly improved-it needs a bit of space to spread out I think. I've started to pack the bags as well. It's a hard process- Both the packs are already 7kg- Steph's before all the baby gear, food and water, Mine before I put Solomon in. Bugger. There are weight savings to be made, but it's a matter of persuading Steph that possibilities even though they might be unconventional. Case in point is her 1.7kg -2 rated sleeping bag. I've floated the idea of using a 650g down bag combined with down jacket(which she's taking already), down trousers and socks. There is an issue of putting Steph off completely, either through carrying a cripplingly heavy pack or not enjoying the camping. There's the problem of Solomon. I've got him a sleeping bag, which is already 850g (it broke my heart to buy it!) and was planning to put him on a Gelert x lite 3/4 mat. He tends to flail around like a madman in the night however. So I've got him this- it looks like the lightest option but it's still 1.6 kg. So finally, I'm starting to think I need a cart or trailer of some sort. Something like a pulk but with wheels. Having had a quick look, nothing seems available at all.

41 grams

2010-05-19T00:21:00.000-07:00

I've never taken an mp3 with me on the hill. I've found friends who put music on in the tent to be annoying to say the least- it seems to grate against the natural sounds of the hill and most choices I've heard being played definitely suit an urban environment a lot better. I don't take books on overnight's because I don't tend to read them. On longer solo trips I've taken a book, but again, choice is important. My choice of JG Ballard's 'Crash' for the Rhinogs trip was definitely wrong- a fantastic book but it jarred with my surroundings. On top of that, after an afternoon stuck in the tent, I'd read it all, but a thicker book is a heavier book.

A couple of things have changed my mind a little, and made me think about giving an mp3 a shot. First, I never sleep very well when I'm camping- I tend to wake up a few times a night. It's a bit of a faff to read when I do wake up- find the book, find the torch etc. I haven't tried reading in the bivvy yet but I would gues that would be a pain. A bit of music might be just the ticket. Second, on my last trip, I wasted a fair bit of time not enjoying myself. Often, I do like walking in the mist and I do have a thing about experiencing the outdoors rather than shutting it out, but selective use of music may well have helped.

So when my sister asked what I wanted for my birthday I asked for an mp3. I am not a technologically minded person- I own virtually nothing in the way of gadgets and I still like to have a physical object in my hand when I buy music. I owned an mp3 when they first came out and managed to get about three songs on it before I abandoned it, so I wasn't bothered by complexity. But of course technology moves on and so what I got from a basic mp3 pretty much blew me away. It's the Archos 1 vision-and as far as mp3's go I gather it's for the 'casual' user, which I guess is me. It's advertised as 28g but the headphones put it up to 41g on my scales. I could use it without reading the instructions and it's got 4G of memory. Pretty much exactly what I needed. So what have I put on it? First thing on was a bunch of Bob Cartwright's excellent podcasts. I have listened to a few on the free cds he sends out with his products, but there's five years of podcasts for me to catch up on. Perfect tent listening I reckon, inspiring rather than jarring. My next target was some audio books. Librivox has hundreds for free- amazing! While the entire text of 'The decline and fall of the Roman empire' tempted me I decided that it was a bit like one of those ambitious peak bagging routes I plan and then fail to complete. So I now have H Rider Haggard's 'Alan Quartermain' downloaded. Easy listening for post hill exhaustion but exciting stuff nonetheless. And music? Pretty much the first album I got on there was U.F. Orb. A blatant sign of a misspent youth during the 90's, it's got to be my favourite album of all time. O.O.B.E still has the power to send a shiver down my spine and Blue room is just incredible.This will be the one for midnight dozing. In fact I'm getting all of my Orb back catalogue on it. Orbus Terarrum has a much more 'earthy' feel and tracks like 'Oxbow lakes' may well make for a decent black dog dispeller. I'll take it on the next trip and see how it goes.

Fannying about

2010-05-12T02:16:00.000-07:00

I spend a fair about of time fannying about with my gear. It's a replacement for time spent on the hill, in a way. It's also part of the reason for things like my obsession with not using stuff sacks. The main thing I've done is to pack and repack my pack, finding the optimum configuration for ease and comfort. I find it frustrating when people take ages to pack their bag the night before a trip but it's just because I know exactly what's going in and where. What I should have done more of is pitch and re-pitch my tarp, but, having a bit of spare time I spent a bit of time fannying around with that.

I wanted to see if short guys at the back of the tarp would help the space in the half pyramid- turns out it helps with tautness and protection as well. I've always tried to pitch things as close to the ground as possible, but the bivvy should help with wind proofing and I'll look for more sheltered spots anyway. The two sides seem to give more protection at the front and there's more depth for sitting.

The next thing I had a go with was a micro tarp I made a few years back. It was when I had strarted trying to reduce weight and had read Ron Turnbull's Book of the Bivvy. The trouble was, I was going from a full two person tent and it was a jump too far for me at the time. I had an army surplus bivvy that weighed over a kilogram and when I saw the Gelert solo tent in a sale, I swapped immediately- the weight was pretty similar. Steph's cousin is in the (un?) fortunate position of having to replace all his camping gear from scratch. Interestingly he's at about the same point as I was when I started to lighten up- all his old gear was a mixture of budget stuff and gear bought for other purposes (massive skiing down jacket etc). That equals serious weight. He's expressed an interest in a tarp and bivvy combo and I have an Alpkit Hunka I didn't really need any more. The tarp is PU coated nylon with paracord guy loops and line but it still only weighs 160g. Pitching with only four pegs, it gives an overall weight of about 600g which is pretty good. Ironically, now I've said he can have this stuff, I've set it up and it looks pretty inviting. I'm also passing on a Golite Dawn and he's thinking about getting a Rab Photon jacket. I've never preached to him about weight, but he's hefted my bag a few times on different trips. It'll be interesting to see the path he travels as he buys his stuff. I'll do an update on his gear on the next trip we go on.

Buttermere and Blackbeck part two

2010-05-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

After a reasonable rest we proceeded up towards Haystacks. As we went, we pondered the concept of being 'experienced', prompted in part by my thoughts from the night before, but also thanks to a comment made by a chap we met by Blacksail who had described us as 'experts', having talked to us for ten minutes! Although, clearly I'm not an experienced tarp user(!), and despite the fact that we feel like enthusiastic amateurs we decided that we could have grounds to consider ourselves reasonably experienced in the outdoors- we could be put down anywhere in Britain with a few pieces of kit and get ourselves to somewhere else in a good state. To the extent where maybe we're fooling ourselves. There are massive gaps in our knowledge-edible plants, avalanche awareness, contour reading. And to people who are more experienced we'd probably seem pretty naive. We have put in a good few years wild camping now, however, and we do have a few skills to rub together. It's a nice feeling to look back and see how far we've come. It's all been self taught as well. We haven't done guided walks and haven't sat in a classroom.Which also feels right. Of course the internet has been invaluable, but there does seem to be an ethic of getting out there and just experiencing it within the whole community. A nice change from the 'managed risk' which is so prevalent these days. It's a nice walk up to Haystacks from Blacksail. Steep, with some potential hands-on and worthwhile views all the way up. It's an atmospheric summit as well. On the way down to Blackbeck there were plenty of decent pitches although there was a lot of waterlogged ground. It would be well worth anther visit. We saw another set of campers on a precipitous pitch across the way but at Blackbeck Tarn we had the spot to ourselves. We pitched and had enough light for a wander round, a bit of scrambling practice and a relax. We went to bed fairly early as we were both a bit knackered.

This was the first time I'd had a proper chance to test out my theoretical sleep system, using insulated clothing to boost my sleeping bag. As the minim ultra can just about fit in a cargo pocket on a pair of army trousers, this was a bit of a gamble. The day had been fairly warm and sunny however so I didn't think it was too much of a test. I woke up a fair few times during the night. There was a big moon, and as I had only zipped the bug net on my bivvy I was able to look out at the moonlit landscape. This is what bivvying is supposed to be all about and I was very pleased with the Titanium Goat Bivvy. I've felt very claustrophobic and short of breath in other bivvies I've tried-I didn't feel this at all. In the morning I was a little disappointed with the sleep system. Although I had been really toasty for most of the night, I had felt a very slight chill at about six. Because it had been a warm night, I thought there was no way I could use the system at seriously cold temperatures. That disappointment lasted until I realised that there must have been a serious temperature drop during the night. There was a fair frost, Blackbeck tarn had begun to freeze over- the ice had proceeded about a foot from the shore all the way round. Smaller tarns had frozen completely. Of course I hadn't brought a thermometer with me, but various opinions put the temperature at between -5 and -10. Up until -5 will be good enough for me-that's around the temperature range I normally encounter.We packed up quickly and got going. Martyn wanted to catch the football and I anted to see my family. Of course, the weather was the best of the entire weekend. So it goes....

Caldera ULC Fusion first look.

2010-05-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

On Friday, when I got back from a somewhat stressfull day at work there was a very light box with a customs label on it sitting in my hall. My new Caldera cone had finally arrived.
Here's what had happened. When I finally made the switch from a gas cannister stove, the caldera was the obvious choice. I only wanted to boil water and popular opinion was that there wasn't a better meths stove available in terms of quick boil time, stability and efficiency. I got the stove and cone and was instanly convinced. I enjoyed the fact that I could light up, walk away and know I'd come back to a pot that was still upright and not boiled dry. The only drawback was not really a problem for me-that of the size of the cone. I just inserted it into my pot, put a disposable pint glass on the top and filled it with my hot drinks kit. After a time, however, I got a new smaller (lighter) food bag, and I began to find it hard to get all my food in it. This was a stupid reason to get a new stove and so I had to think a bit harder. Despite the fact that I had marked up the pint glass with measurements, I still never used it for anything. I don't like things in my bag I don't use. Plus my old cone was getting bit bashed up. What's more, I had seen a new compact cone that fitted inside the mug. I had a good reason to at least consider a new piece of gear. So I made the fatal mistake of emailing Trail Designs about the Caldera ULC for my Snowpeak mini solo. Rand wrote back saying that they were currently playing around with ideas for a two part Caldera, they were about to make one for the mini solo and might as well make two if I was interested. I was interested.
So what did I get in my box? This: Clockwise from top left-The two halves of the cone, stand and grate for a wood fire, a gram cracker esbit stove, a pepsi can stmeths stove, two titanium tent pegs and a titanium floor to protect the ground. I also got a new fuel bottle, a measuring cup and three esbit tabs.
First up, I don't think I'll ever use the gram cracker. I love the simplicity of the idea, but the esbit stinks and it messes up pots really badly.
The wood stove I am interested in. Here's the grate on the stand inside the lower half of the cone and the picture at the top of the post is the grate on the stand by itself. Build your fire on the grate, fire it up and drop on the top half of the cone. There's a titanium floor to use so that you don't scorch the grass. I'll not use it regularly, but occasionally I fancy the idea. I assume the chimney effect will draw air up through the base of the fire and make it burn faster- The Grate sits above the lower vents. It's a nice simple solution to the woodfire concept.
The main reason I wanted this is so that it fits inside my pot but there are a few other advantages. First, although it only weighs a tiny bit less than my old cone, I don't have to use that pint pot. That saves me a whole ten grams(!) which is 25% of my rain chaps or almost 10% of my Z-pack (hey every little helps!). I can use my smaller food bag which also saves me (another tiny bit of!) weight. I used to have to fold up my foil lid for my pot, but I can keep it whole. Whats more, Titanium is a much nicer metal that aluminium. It looks nicer and it springs open rather than having to be moved into shape. It's got a real quality feel and the set up works perfectly.
The cone is slightly shorter than my old cone (on the left), but the pot sits on two tent pegs so that there is the same distance between the stove and the pot- I assume it will work in exactly the same way. You can put the pegs into holes at the very top of the cone when you're burning wood or you can just use the top half of the cone by itself as a windshield and potstand combined.
There are a few important things to point out. Firstly, this cone is not generally available.More importantly it's only suitable for a limited amount of pots at the moment. This is what Rand says:
"It is a system thats only for a limited amount of pots. The SPMSolo, the MLDesign 850 and the Evernew stacking set are the only ones we've figured out a basic system for" I'm figuring that they're getting the height/diameter/position of the split ratios sorted out.
This is certainly a work in progress. In the last email i got from them, they mentioned lower vents in the upper pot, which mine doesn't have. They did say as well that it was the best thing they've come up with. Based on my first impressions, I'd put a reasonable amount of money on them being right.

Buttermere and Blackbeck

2010-04-30T03:11:00.001-07:00

Apologies for the delay in getting this out. Despite two weeks holiday over Easter, raising a toddler is reasonably time consuming and I’ve also had to sleep....
We set out as usual from Martyn’s place of work. It adds a little time to the journey, but it means he doesn’t have to travel by train to get to me and we do tend to arrive a little earlier than we would do. I always end up driving first, but I think Martyn’s got wise to it now-he’s realised that the second half of the journey involves me sinking a couple of Guinnesses, but there is usually payback meted out when we pitch the tents-more of that later!
I’ve never gone through Honister pass before. I’d had half an idea just to chance the closure in the snows on my last trip, but quickly became clear how much of a deluded idiot I would have been had I gone for it-it was impressively steep. As we drove we kept an eye out for flat spots just off the side of the road. We’d decided not to walk as it was so late and to have a swift pint instead. Unfortunately, hostelries seemed few and far between. We eventually pulled up at the Bridge Hotel. Inside, it was virtually empty. I managed to overhear one of the more repulsive jokes I’ve heard in my life and we settled down for a pint. The first went down nicely and I decided to have another only for the barman to inform me that last orders should have been called-at quarter to eleven? The place was not busy, but surely last orders at quarter to eleven on a Friday night is just cruel! Slightly disgruntled we left and drove to our campsite just up the road. We knew it was a bit cheeky, but had seen several campervans on the way up and figured one tiny tent and a tarp shouldn’t cause too many problems. We were setting up by the light of the headlights when a pickup pulled up beside my car. I had images of locals climbing out clutching pick axe handles and approaching in a manner reminiscent of the scene from Easy Rider. I wondered which one of us was going to be Jack Nicholson! After a couple of moments, however, it just drove away. I think the farmer just wanted to check us out to ensure we weren’t yobs. Clearly not. We sat on the bonnet of the car and supped on the extra ration of whisky I had brought and listening to the stereo (nice and quietly!).
Here’s where karma kicked in. Turns out I had made a few rookie mistakes when pitching my tarp (recommended for experts only on the Mountain Laurel site) Firstly, I had assumed the rain which we did not have when settling down would be the rain we would continue not to have. Secondly, I had chosen a site which looked, but which was not flat. Thirdly, I had taken no account of the wind direction. So my tarp was pitched in a half pyramid, with the opening downhill and into the wind. The rain was approaching and reached us in the early hours of the morning. I woke to the sound of the rain and had a quick feel around outside the bivvy. It soon became clear that the side of the bivvy was getting wet and I had slid out from the cover of the tarp. I scooted myself back under the tarp and tried to ignore it. Unfortunately the angle of the slope ensured I gradually slid back out. When I was at the back of the tarp, I was reasonably sure I would be ok, but because the bivvy is water resistant and not proof I did need to make a decision. I had a few choices:
1. To lower the pole, tighten the guys and hope I kept far enough back to avoid the rain.
2. To re pitch the tarp so the opening was up hill and hope the rain didn’t change direction
3. To move the guys around to different loops so I could re-pitch in a low A-frame that would keep me dry pretty much no matter what.
There was no contest. I got up, picked up the whole bivvy, walked two or three metres and went to sleep in the car, leaving the tarp where it was. Hardcore it was not.
This gave me a moral quandary. The quandary was this: You set yourself up on the internet and call yourself minimalgear-you spout off about how little your pack weighs and how you’ve got some fantastic cuben fibre gear that performs at least as well as the really heavy stuff all the other people are carrying. Then, for the second trip in a row, you spend the night in a car. Of course you control the content of the blog. That means that you can edit out the first night and just put in the good stuff…
The problem is that just having a blog feels like setting myself up as an expert, which I’m not. I’m just someone following a (at times) steep learning curve. I have a reasonable amount of experience but when it comes down to it, I’m just someone who wants to experiment with my hiking and camping gear and record that experience so maybe others can learn something. Because that’s the nature of blogs as far as I can tell-regular people sharing their experiences. I do fall into the trap of seeing bloggers as experts though, and I’m sure others do-it’s the same with people who review gear. I don’t want others to see what I do as the way to do things-it’s just the way I want to do things.
Martyn, of course, had had a very comfortable night in his traditional tent! Although, if I was still pushing the ultralight agenda, I would also have been okay, had I used the Gatewood cape. I felt a lot better after I brewed a coffee with a reasonable shot of whisky in it. I sat and read the papers in the car from about 6.30 until 8 when Martyn woke up. The views down the valley were fantastic and we lingered over breakfast. Martyn was experimenting with an Ant-Gravity gear pepsi can stove I’d given him in my ongoing input to his gear choices. He was pretty happy with the results and decided to leave his gas stove behind which he’d brought as a back-up. Also left behind were the ice-axes and crampons. Despite the fell-top assessors advice, the fells looked fairly naked, and while I was disappointed, it did mean a decent reduction in weight.
It was a quick and easy walk down to Buttermere once we finally got going. There was a fine rain coming down, but the cloud base was not too low and visibility was pretty good. We’d been eyeing up a scramble but it was going to be way too greasy in the wet. We settled for some off road faffing and a spot of water collection. Once we got onto it, the path was well constructed and our pace was good. We reached Dubs Hut in a reasonable time and poked our noses in. There’s a sign on the door saying it’s available to hire but I can’t imagine a less inviting venue. There’s no chimney, no furniture apart from a low stone bench which is too narrow to sleep on and the floor was half covered with dampness from (I presume) a leaky roof. I’d be interested to know how much they charge, although it does look like they’re extending it. I’d been thinking about a snack stop in there but I settled for a Snickers, walking around outside rather than spend any more time in the hut. We pushed on towards Great Gable. The rain had picked up now, and visibility dropped. The walk was across a fairly featureless seeming plateau and the going got a bit tough. Not for any physical reason, just because I wasn’t enjoying it. There was no real reason for this, and I’ve been up in the hills in similar weather and really relished the adversity. I just kept wondering why I was up here when I could be spending time with Solomon and Steph. It could have been tiredness, dehydration or just a parting gift from the previous night’s drinking. The solitude of the hill is good for inner contemplation but it can be a little isolating. Of course the real reason for it was because I wasn’t on the hill at all- mentally I was back home and that’s often not good. The final pull up to Windy Gap was steep and my knee began giving me some hassle, which hasn’t happened for a while. We sat down and I had a drink and something to eat. Then we bagged Green Gable. Me and Martyn aren’t usually peak baggers, but Martyn’s decided that he wants to try to get to know this particular area in some depth, rather than just walking up random mountains, and it’s quite a nice idea. And once we were at the top, all of a sudden my mood lifted and we began riffing on the mountain names, just being stupid and laughing our arses off.

We decided to take the easy route down towards BlackSail and have a bit of lunch there. And as we descended I was whistling and skipping along. Then the Sun came out. Streams were covered in snow, with bridges and pot-holes where it had melted. There was a feeling of spring in the air and by the time we arrived at Blacksail, summer had almost arrived. It was easy to ignore the extensive felling that had taken place all through the area. The sun beat down and it was nice to have a seat with a back-always a luxury when you’re hiking.

New stove...

2010-04-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

I've been looking into replacing my caldera cone and after discussing options with a manufacturer, an exciting prospect has come up. As a result I've got a new prototype stove coming my way, which looks very interesting to say the least....

Taster

2010-03-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

Work is pretty manic at the moment, I can't see myself getting the trip write up or video done anytime soon, so here's a picture of our Blackbeck tarn pitch to be getting on with.

Done it again

2010-03-22T01:05:00.000-07:00

Slept in the car on the first night-how hardcore is that? It was a convergance of slope, silly pitching and proximity of car. Managed a gem of a pitch on night two however. And goosefeet are one of the best things ever!

Complaint from my wife...

2010-03-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

'You always start to leave the week before you actually go!' and it's true. I've been busy-on and off, not constantly!- sorting stuff for the trip. A colleague of mine in school came into possession of 64 venison steaks, so four were bought and have been turned into jerky, although half of that has subesequently been eaten. A big batch of chilli has been dehydrated too. I've also been playing around with the Mountain Laurel poncho tarp trying to find a storm worthy pitch. It's handy being small because there's acres of coverage in a low a-frame- I'd be fine in even a heavy down pour. I'm still finding it hard to get it taut though, except in a half pyramid and I'm not sure about using it in strong winds, which the forecast for the Lakes suggests is likely. It's too expensive to risk! The next decision is whether to go for the Gatewood, which should be ok in winds up to about 35 or the Laser Competition. I don't really want to go for an exposed summit camp in high winds-I've spent too many nights hanging onto the tent, so it may end up being an option with the tarp anyway. The next job is to do a test pack of my bag. I'm hoping to cut about a kilogram off my last trip's weight, and I'll try to make a video of what I'm taking.

Next trip

2010-02-22T02:37:00.000-08:00

On the 20th of March, Martyn's wife goes away to Brazil, so we're headed off up to the Lakes. I'm letting Martyn organise the location due to my typically poor choices for first night accomodation! With conditions how they are at the moment, I'm hoping for another chance to use the crampons- let's hope it stays cold! Whatever happens I'm going to be trying out my idea for a lighter sleep system. The concept goes: PHD minim ultra bag- theoretically good down to 7, GG nightlight torso or neo-air on a cold weather ccf full length mummy cut mat inside a Ti goat bivy under a Gatewood cape. Inside I'd be wearing merino baselayer, micro fleece mid, Down hood, PHD minim ultra vest, patagonia down sweater, my hiking trousers, down inner trousers, thin socks and Goosefeet down socks. Using these instead of my two sleeping bag system means I can fit everything inside the Murmur pack- the total weight savings knocks a kilogram off my baseweight. Using the Gatewood instead of the Laser competition is another 600g saving. I'm a warm sleeper so I'm hoping this works out. I never sleep right through anyway so it's worth a shot. I can always stick my other sleeping bag in the car and hike back if I freeze on the first night!

More Hogback stuff

2010-02-08T06:43:00.000-08:00

There were a few bits and bobs on the Hog- clips and buckles and so on that I wasn't sure about-that seemed to have no real purpose. I emailed Tarptent and got a reply. It seems that the Hog is set up for the crossover poles that are available for the Scarp but they won't be making the crossover poles as they don't really support the material and thus have no purpose. There is aslo a grossgrain strap with a mitten hook on the end- you can see it in the photo right in the middle of the fly. This is for another central pole, slightly shorter than the crossover poles that would provide some support for the fly but they're not making these at the moment either. It does offer up the opportunity to run a guy from it over a trekking pole to give some support apparently. I also thought about running a super long guy from the centre of the arch and clipping the fly onto that. Finally, inside the are also some clips which seem to raise the groundsheet up at the head and foot end. I'll post photos when I get the tent up again.

Gear, gear, gear

2010-02-08T03:09:00.000-08:00

I’m really the wrong person to be entrusted with the ownership of a blog- I find it hard to get together the motivation to write, plus I only have internet access at work. I’m still half way through a trip report for a trip to the lakes in October-ho hum.
Here’s a round up of some of the gear I used for the Snowdon trip. I spend a lot of time thinking about gear as you might guess and as usual I had a few odds and sods that were new on this trip:
Berghaus Glacier gaiters.
Last year I had a few problems with snow getting into my mid-cut boots. I wanted a pair of low-cut gaiters that would fit trail-shoes and would preferably be waterproof. The obvious choice would be the Integral designs gaiters but unfortunately they were out of stock at Ultralight Outdoor gear. I found the Berghaus gaiters after a bit of trawling and they seemed to meet my needs exactly. They were advertised as 70g- what they actually are is 84g each. I emailed Berghaus who have said they’ll pass it on to their technical team. Otherwise, they do fit my needs exactly. The seal is really tight and nice and low around a boot or shoe, they breath as well as you’d expect, will stand up when the top elastic is loose and attach to the lace with a Velcro loop rather than a hook, which I always found popped off. This means they stay put even when the front zip is undone- I wandered around the gear shops looking like a backpacking nerd in them unzipped and they stayed put throughout. As I’m only planning to use them in the snow, they’re pretty much perfect.
Trekmates gloves.
I started out with the Primaloft filled gloves. Now I’m not really a fan of gloves- my hands are always cold in them and these, despite the Primaloft, these were no different. When activity was low, my hands were absolutely freezing. Whe I was heading uphill, however, I had to take them off because they were now too hot. When I got the new gloves, I chose simple fleece lined gloves. My hands are still too cold when stationary, but I can now wear them when exerting myself. Both gloves fit nicely, the pre-curved fingers were a treat and the finish is good. They both had a decent gripp palm and fingers and I could do what I needed to do in them. Trekmates do a nice range of gear and are bit bit under-rated methinks.
New guys for the Laser.
I’ve fitted longer guys to the Laser with mini linelocks. The supplied guys were a bit of a joke, and the pitch was much tauter with the new guys. As a side note, the loop to attach one of the front guys is pulling loose. It’s going to cost me £20 to fix it according to a couple of quotes. It’s been going for a while, I’m going to have to get it fixed soon!
Going lighter?I always have a think about going lighter on the next trip. The easiest change would be to just use a five season foam multi-mat without the nightlight torso on top. I did it in the past and the nightlight doesn’t add much comfort. That would save 115g straight off. I’m going to try taking the Minim-ultra sleeping bag combined with some down trousers and my two down tops- My sleep system was too hot at first which was not too good. That would save me the best part of half a kilogram. I wouldn’t mind some down socks to go with that though! I might be able to use my murmur if I can get weight and volume down enough- with the addition of a couple of loops, I could carry the ice axe but I’d have to be careful about scratches or holes- that’s another 400g. Otherwise, I had too much chocolate and not enough whisky!

Hogback lands part 2

2010-02-05T00:44:00.000-08:00

When I got back, Solomon was pointing excitedly at a brown box. The Hog had landed. As soon as I got it open, he was pulling me to the door and pointing outside. Solomon (18 months) has learnt what a tent looks like in it's package and what to do with it when it's posted to you. You set it up straight away and so as not to disapoint him, I obliged. It was almost exactly the reverse of the mental process of setting up the Scarp-'This is big, hang on, this is really big, wait, I'm going to run out of grass soon, I'm going to have to move it, this is vast!'

I think I took this photo from the wrong angle, because it looks like I've shot it from lower down to make it look bigger but it's actually bigger than it looks on the picture. Even the pictures on the tarptent site don't convey how much space there is in there, I'm going to have to do a video. For me, Steph and Solomon I think there is too much space, but Steph was really pleased- there's about a foot of space above our heads in there, the curve of the pole is shallow enough so that the headroom is not really compromised at either end, and the boxy outer edges mean that all the space really is useable. The porches are fairly non-existant, but there's room for us and gear inside plus room for another kid too. For four adults it's definitely do-able although it will obviously get tighter in there.

I will say it's not particularly aesthetically pleasing-I think it's something to do with the steepness of the slope front to back combined with the boxy edges rather than the more streamlined look of a lower single pole tent or the domeyness of a geodesic. There is an awful lot of unsupported material there, but I'm not planning to take my family out if the weather looks awful. The gap round the bottom is also larger than the Scarp and combined with the full mesh inner, it may get a bit draughty in there- but that's what sleeping bags and insulated clothing were made for. It's when you consider the weight that it suddenly becomes a no-brainer- on my scales it's 1837 grams. 1837 grams is just insane for a tent this size-I'd be willing to carry that as a solo tent, and indeed, it's not hard to find solo tents at that weight. Nothing else at this size even comes close to that weight except the Mountain Laurel Supermid.

Or not

2010-02-01T02:36:00.000-08:00

The tent was mighty small as I put it up, I remember thinking about the conversation Steph would have with me about my obsession with weight taking precedence over an enjoyable experience again. I put Solomon in and sat in there too. It was a Scarp one. Perfect size for me and Solomon, less than perfect for a family. Luckily, after a quick email to Tarptent, they have got a Hog flying over on express delivery. Fantastic customer service and hopefully a happy wife!

The hog has landed

2010-01-28T00:05:00.000-08:00

And I can pick it up from the post office tonight now I've paid a fee to release it from captivity. Hopefully photos tommorow (lit by my 1million candle power torch!).

Snowdon video

2010-01-25T07:01:00.000-08:00

Here’s the video from the trip. I’ve been thinking about why it meant so much to me to sleep on top of Snowdon. It’s not the wilderness experience I’ve had on a lot of my trips, there’s a dirty great café and it’s not like I got a decent view. It’s not even that it was the first big mountain I climbed when I got back into backpacking. I think it’s partly to do with the whole horseshoe- it’s the grandeur of the lakes with Snowdon at the head. It’s the shape of Snowdon and the reputation of the approaches like Crib Goch. It’s walking up it on a summer’s day and hearing families discussing previous trips and the possibility of returning when their children are older. It’s the sense of human history there-from the ruins on the Watkins route through to the train filled with lobster skinned tourists who won’t even make it up to the true summit from the station. It’s walking out of the rain and mist and steaming with a Guinness amongst the orange cagoule atmosphere of the old café and it’s the Overlook hotel feel of the new café in the snow. It’s a fine British institution, a cathedral of the natural world, a reminder of my childhood buying leather bookmarks and giant pencils on day trips. The people don’t distract from the sheer scale of this hill as long as I don’t let them and you only have to walk twenty minutes to be free of the hordes. There are plenty of hills to visit to be antisocial and this summer, when I bring my family on their first trip guess where I’ll bring them? Snowdon will blow Steph’s socks off- it’s deeply impressive, but it’s accessible too. It’s no good if the hardship outweighs the pleasure, and there is a lot of pleasure to be had here.

Solo on Snowdon

2010-01-22T00:24:00.000-08:00

My solo trips always seem to follow a pattern. Night one is stupidly ambitious and I end up getting pounded by the wind for a night. Night two is way better and usually turns out to be something special. This trip was no exception except the lows were unusually low and the highs were in the order of things that only happen once or twice in your life.

I still hadn't decided where to go for the weekend by the time I'd finished work. The weather reports for Snowdonia were marginally better, but I wasn't sure how much snow there would be. I took the laser competition and put the tarp in the car in case the weather gods miled on me. There was a distinct feeling of having missed the boat-still, I set out and made good time, arriving at the foot of Tryfan at about 8.15. I always get a little nervous when I have to get everything together, but always manage it sooner rather than later. The weather is never as bad as it sounds when you get out of the car and I could see some extensive snow fields under a clear sky. The plan was to walk up to Llyn Bochlwyd where I would be protected from the winds by the bulk of the Glyders. I know the area, there's plenty of spots and it's an easy walk up. Famous last words. My first mistake was that I started up too far to the East. It was easy to see the footprints on the footpath in the light reflected from the snow so I turned off my photon but left it clipped to my cap just in case. The footpath led me into a boulder field but the light was still good so I kept on climbing. I'd figured out I was on Bochlwyd buttress so I began to drift towards the west, hoping to hit easier ground. Of course the hill didn't want to play ball. There were some hefty drops that I had to negotiate past-some of the hefty drops turned out to be nothing of the sort because of the way my depth perception was affected. This made route finding interesting to say the least. The weather was still good, in fact it was too warm for my new Trekmates Primaloft filled gloves. The actual 'walking' was quite good fun- I prefer scrambling as a way of gaining height rather than walking but I was keen to get onto easier ground. While I hadn't felt in danger to that point, I was concerned that I would end up on the top of a big drop with no way to negotiate round it. I finally hit a grass slope, and this was where the hard work began. I kept encountering deep snow fields. The snow would hold my weight for a few steps, then I would go in up to my waist. I avoided them where possible but sometimes I was forced to cross them. It had taken a lot longer getting to this point than I had anticipated and there was still no sign of the lake. I sat down for a rest, took off my hat and gloves and had a good drink and a Snickers. The weather was still good, it was warm and I had all my gear. It had turned out to be more of an adventure than I had expected but that was all good. It was at this point I raised up my head from where it had been resting on my hat. In an instant the hat was gone, bouncing down the mountain. I slipped off my pack and chased it for a bit but soon gave up- there was no way I was ever getting that hat back. I was furious. I'd got the hat a few years back. It was a standard Lowe Alpine mountain cap but instead of loops for a chin strap it had shock cord running through a seam all the way round the bottom. I'd never found anything like it for sealing around my ears and had dreaded the day when I lost it, but to lose it in such a stupid way... and of couse my Photon was still attached to it despite the fact that I'd thought a few times that I should put it in my pocket. And when I got back to my pack, one of my gloves had also gone. Looking back, this was the moment when my moral got seriously shot. I had gear to use for the night's camping-spare gloves and a down hood and the weather was warm enough so there were no safety issues but I was very pissed off.

Shouldering the sack, I proceeded upwards. I was becoming more aware of the wind the higher up I got. The climb seemed never ending. Finally I crested a ridge and Lyn Bochlwyd was spread out before me. I was East of the lake, and it seemed a good hundred feet below me down a sheer looking drop. The wind was now really strong and seemed to be blowing from sveral directions. I decided to camp on one of the snow patches. I was getting worried about getting the tent up. The slopes underneath the snow were too steep, the snow was too soft for pegs, I was worried about the rain washing the snow away and the tent collapsing, each spot I found seemed to be sheltered then there would be another gust of wind from a different direction. I was beginning to talk myself out of even attempting. I got the tent out a couple of times and began trying to put it up. I descended to different spots. I got angry with myself. I finally got down to the level of the lake. The wind was really gusting now. I knew that there was some shelter on the West side of the Lake and some flat spots. Except the outlet stream was a savage torrent under a thick layer of ice. That was it. I gave up. The plan was now to get back to the car. The decision made, I began to get nervous about the descent. I was on easier ground than the route up, but there was still a lot of snow to negotiate and thick ice under the grass. I descended carefully and holding my ice axe for moral support as much as anything. I think if I had been in a better frame of mind then I would have felt it was a reasonably straightforward descent. As it was I kept encountering slopes that looked too steep to get down and I backtracked several times. I stopped a couple of times to get my head together and to prevent myself from rushing. I got to a point and could finally see the road a good distance below me. I walked forwards a few steps and hit the boundary wall. Once again, the dark had confused my depth perception-I was back on the road. It was a ten minute walk to the car. I could see someone parked behind me with lights on-If someone was trying to break into my car I had my ice axe with me. If they had ice axes too, it was probably the case that they weren't trying to break in as they were walkers as well. And if the worst came to the worst I could always let them take everything except my poncho!

Turned out it was a camper van. I settled in for a deeply uncomfortable night's sleep on the back seat of the car. I was extremely grateful to be there though. I could hear the wind coming howling off the hill and pounding the car, shaking it on it's suspension. I'm not sure that a night like that was in the Laser competition's design remit!

I was driving by eight. I had figured out a plan- I drove to Betws-Y-Coed, picked up a coffee, dashed round the gear shops and then head towards Snowdon. I wanted to climb up via the PYG track- a route I'd never done. I was still slightly chastised by the previous night's events and felt like I wanted something reasonably well populated and easy going. With my wallet substantially lightened I parked up and began walking. I love Snowdonia and the Snowdon area in particular. It was the first real mountains I came to after I got into backpacking and it just blew me away. The evidence of tremendous natural forces are so evident and even driving down the Llanberis pass is just stunning. I walked up the road and then began tracking up the valley wall just below Dinas Mot. The snow got deeper and the rain poured down. There was no-one about and I was having a fantastic time. I popped up onto the path that leads up to Crib Goch and descended down to the PYG. The whole of the Snowdon horseshoe was spread before me. Despite the tourist hordes that descend onto the area, there is something about the combination of mountains and lakes that has a real resonance with me. Now, although there were plenty of footprints, the place was deserted. After a brief breakfast I headed up.

The going was nice and easy. The snow was soft enough to give, but firm enough to hold. The Light-trek 4s proved their worth. I don't tend to use them to propel me forward or even to take weight, but they are more like extensions for my arms, supporting me, probing the terrain ahead, allowing me to descend without putting my hand down. They had a new use too. I'd got hold of a gorrilla pod for the camera and I could now attach my camera to the end of one so that video was not just shot up my nose. I had a few goes and it worked quite well.

As I got higher, the snow got icier. Despite the fact that it was probably okay, I put on my crampons. I encountered a few people descending with ice axes and it wasn't long before I had my axe out too. What was quite worrying was the amount of people coming down from the top who seemed fairly ill prepared. I don't have any problems with 'budget' gear-I was wearing Peter Storm waterproof trousers, but it can be an indicator of your experience. There were quite a few people descending sharing a pair of 'hill-king' walking poles and wearing Crag-hoppers jackets. They were slipping and sliding all over the place and finding it hilarious- there was hundreds of feet of sheer slopes covered in snow and big pointy boulders below them. The bottom of the track was totally free of snow and this may have led them to believe that things were okay further up. It was proper winter conditions up there though. Interestingly, I was one of only two or three people I saw with crampons. The snow was soft enough to give some grip but there were icy stretches particularly up top. Plenty of people had ice axes though and it was probably soft enough to ensure that you wouldn't slide far. As far as I'm aware one without the other isn't particularly safe either way- the best thing to do is to prevent a slip so you don't need to self arrest.

There was the nice feeling of cameraderie up at the top that you get when you've all spent a few hours geeting to the top of something. I took the opportunity to sit and brew up a hot chocolate with a shot of whisky in it. It was at this point that I began to think of spending the night at the top of Snowdon. There was a sheltering wall to pitch behind, and the snow was frozen enough to accept my pegs. A bloke asked me if I was spending the night and that made up my mind. I cleared a bit of snow as the last walkers left and pitched the tent. I douple pegged the main guys for security and sat back to melt some snow. I was running short on meths as I had never expected to be camping away from a water source but I managed to brew up a litre of water which was enough to last me. I had my down sweater, minim ultra vest, my new down hood and was really toasty. I did fancy some of the PHD down trousers but that was merely a luxury that I didn't have. I sat outside the tent, read 'Trainspotting' and finished the Jura while my meal rehydrated.

I settled down fairly early as I was tired from the night before. The condensation was pretty severe in the tent. The wind had kicked up and I opened the top of the inner tent but nothing helped. I was comfortable though, in fact I was so warm I had to take the down sweater off. I had a fairly broken sleep, but not unreasonable. When I finally woke up, the wind had died down again. I made a cup of coffee with the last of my meths and packed up. There was amazing frost on the guys, stretching out a good centimetre. The snow outside was nice and crisp too. Despite my worriees, it was easy to extract all of the pegs and I was moving by 8. There was a lot of fog, and conditions going down were a little more dicey than going up. I was extremely glad I'd brought the crampons as I teetered along tiny ledges above precipitous drops. I was trying to get down pretty quickly as I wanted to get home to see Solomon and Steph but I still made sure to take it all in. Getting back to the car took a couple of hours and from there it was an easy drive home.

Back safe and sound

2010-01-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

I've been back since Sunday actually. It was an interesting trip, resulting in one night slightly chastised in the car, the most expensive rest stop ever and one night on the summit of Snowdon.Trip report, photos and videos to follow.

apologies

2010-01-13T04:40:00.000-08:00

I can't seem to get my own comments to cooperate. I'll answer y'all when I get it figured out.

Extra weight

2010-01-11T23:54:00.000-08:00

I made the mistake of trying out the pack with the Mountain Laurel tarp and Titanium Goat Bivi in it instead of the Laser competition. Noticeable weight difference, which means I am inching towards taking those instead. There is always the possibility of creating a windbreak type shelter using snow and tarp combined- there certainly seems to be enough snow in the Lakes. And here is where another doubt creeps in. My walking buddy Martyn has a bad neck- it's debatable whether he'll be good to go for the weekend. I am up for a solo mission but conditions in the Lakes are looking edgy and more than that, very hard going. If the cold continues, there will still be a lot of loose unbonded snow, which is snowshoe weather really. There's also the risk of avalanches and my avalanche awareness is not as good as I'd like it to be. So I need to decide whether to see the Lakes in conditions not seen for many a year or to go the first weekend of February when conditions should have stabilised.

If you have a better offer..

2010-01-11T02:15:00.001-08:00

On Friday, the bloke organising the Rab mini mountain marathon uttered those glorious words. They had enough teachers to cover the students who had signed up, so the game is on!
I did a test packing over the weekend. The Jam was the only pack big enough to carry the volume of gear but the real shocker was the weight- it's been a year since I carried a winter pack and during that time I've savaged the weight I'm carrying. Including food, fuel and water the pack weighed 8kg-Ouch! Since last year I've added a neoair which is about 200g more than the GG nightlight and a down hood which weighs 60g. I do want to carry those though. If I don't take the Laser competition I can lose 500g even taking into account my trekking poles which I would probably carry a lot of the time. The choice comes down to the Gatewood cape with polycro groundsheet and no inner or the cuben tarp.

My nan never said...

2010-01-08T02:54:00.000-08:00

'look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves' but if she had, and if she had been an ultralight hiker she may have said 'look after the grams and the kilograms will look after themselves' . Which is a roundabout way of saying I have some new stuff but it's not big or exciting.

My medical kit is very basic and it's up to you what you put in yours-I'm in no way advising here just saying what I've got. In my opinion, the complex medical kits you can buy often have nothing very useful in them and realistically, in this country you are never very far away from help. If anything really major happens you're going to need mountain rescue and if it's serious but not life threatening, a bodge should see you through. So I have plasters, alcohol wipes, some ibruprofen and some duct tape. Since I was in the cubs I've assumed that you can improvise things like triangular bandages and a serious bleed is not going to be stopped by anything you can get in a normal medical kit but could be patched using a fleece hat and some duct tape for example. Over christmas, however, I cut my chin seriously enough to need five stitches. The first aider who was on the scene put on a few butterfly stitches and advised me to go to hospital. As it was Christmas and I had no wish to wait in casualty for ten hours I ignored him until the cut bled all over my pillow and I went to get it stitched. He mentioned that Americans without insurance often use super glue. I was aware of American hikers who use super glue to patch blisters but it turns out super glue has been used in medicine for a long time. When I saw these single use super glue tubes in B&Q I snapped them up. They weigh only 2g each and should be enough to patch a decent sized cut or blister if I get one (Which I usually don't). Heres a disclaimer: THIS IS NOT MEDICAL SUPER GLUE! It's got additives which may irritate skin or damage flesh if the wound is deep. I'd only use it in emergencies where I'm a significant walk away from help. It's a little bit of safety though.

If I'm adding in a bit of weight, it's nice to reduce some somewhere. The Bic mini lighter is only 11g as opposed 15g upwards for a regular, but better than that, it's much smaller. It helps if you remove the child safety strip, which is really easy to do. I use it for burning my toilet paper and as a secondary fire source.

My new primary fire source is the mini firesteel (9g). Eddie Meechan did a good write up on this inTGO, but instead of using a bit of hacksaw for a striker, I'm using my Swiss Army knife(22g). Iv'e struggled mentally with carrying the SAK for a while now-I did try using a razor blade instead of a knife for a while as I virtually never use a knife but I felt like the scissors may come in useful. It also carries tweezers and a toothpick (Useful for beef Jerky!). It really is a 'just in case' item which is rarely used. The use of it for a striker justifies it's existence in my pack a little more!

Winter hiking

2010-01-06T07:23:00.000-08:00

I've arranged a weekend to head up to the lakes to have some fun in the snow. Only problem is I'd already agreed to partner up with some of the students at my school for the RAB mini marathon in the peak district on the same weekend. The idea is that because you have to 18 to take part we partner teachers with student teams and they act as a chaperone. One of the other teachers is a keen fell runner and I'd expressed an interest. Before Christmas, however, no-one had signed up. When the snow came I contacted Martyn about going to the Lakes-he's free-job's a goodun. Except now three students have signed up and three are possibles. The event takes teams of two-if the three sign up by the end of the week they'll need me-if not, I'm free and while the mini-marathon will be fun, compared to wandering round with an ice axe and a flask of Jura it seems a poor exchange. My son Solomon is teething and it's unfair to leave my wife with him two weekends in a row. I'll just have to pray that this generation really is as apathetic as they say!
Anyhow down to gear choices for the weekend, which is what this blog is really all about. Pack choice is easy-It'll have to be my Golite Jam as it's the only bag with the capacity I want. I could use the murmur with my crampons strapped on, but that would be a pain-also, I would be pushing the carrying capacity of the murmur I suspect. It's strange to think that when I got my Jam I was going from a Karrimor Panther. At 600g, the Jam was about 1/4 of the 2.2kg weight of the Panther. My Z pack is less than 1/4 of the weight of the Jam! The only other alternative is my Golite Dawn at 400g- it might be a little snug though.
Last year I used Hedgehog Mids with my Kahtoolas. I've got some low-tops now and I might use them just for kicks and because I can! I've bought some Berghaus Glacier Gaiters which are a fantastic fit round the shoe and should keep out the snow.
The real quandry for me is shelter. Reason says I should take the laser competition. Martyn carries a Microzoid which is not big enough for two to play cards and drink in and the laser can cope with most of the weather that is thrown at it. I still haven't had a chance to use my cuben poncho and bivvy combination though. If the weather is anything except windy or heavy rain, I could easily be tempted. My winter bag combination (My minim Ultra inserted in a Vango Venom) fits inside it and if we get a clear night, it should be an amazing experience. I'll see how the weather goes.....

A sense of scale

2010-01-04T06:33:00.000-08:00

Here's a confession- the one item that no dedicated ultralight hiker should be without has not featured in my gear closet. What is it? A set of digital scales. For anyone who is interested in cutting weight in terms of single figure grams, this is a "serious" omission. I owned a set of traditional scales but these only measure in 25 gram increments. To be pefectly honest, I saw no real need for the extra accuracy- I could use the published weights, gamble on my small size (published weights are often for a medium), get a ball park figure using the scales and when I weighed the whole pack it came in pretty much at where I expected it to be. Realistically, if you only buy the lightest possible items and get rid of anything that you don't need then your weight will be cut drastically wheteher published wheights are accurate or not. Unfortunately my calm acceptance of the status quo was thrown into disarray when my brother in law bought me a set of scales for christmas- cue a great deal of christmas period drunken weighing and lamenting over my spread sheets. It was similar to the angst caused by my realising that my equipment weights also needed to include stuff sacks. Hmmm. Actually it was quite good fun weighing my boxer shorts and getting an accurate reading.
So who are the winners and losers? Losers: Rab windshirt-published weight 70g, actual 80g, PHD minim ultra sleeping bag, published 345, actual 389- winners:PHD minim ultra vest, published 150g, actual 138g and that's pretty much it. Why? because the vast majority of my gear actually comes in at the published weight. My theory for this is that the cottage industries where I get most of my gear from make their name based on their sales to a group of weight obsessed fanatics who are very much in contact via the internet and therefore they have to make sure that the gear matches the weight. This may well be the reason that Thermarest, despite having a reputation for innaccurate weights came up with the goods for the neoair (mine is spot on the published weight) Overall winner, however has to be Joe from Zpacks. As far as I am aware (and I am available for correction) mine is one of the a very few packs of this size with these features isn't a standard option and yet it came up exactly on the weights published for the options on the site (125g if you're interested).

hogmanay

2009-12-30T08:41:00.000-08:00

Just put down my order for a tarptent hogback. Happy new year!

zpacks gear

2009-12-27T11:58:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting to order this stuff ever since Joe went hiking. I actually emailed him with an order while he was on the trail which was extremely cheeky but I never realised his work email was his personal email too. Nice chap that he is, he emailed me back from the trail almost immediately. This meant I was pretty much his first order when he got back heheheh. The problem is that my murmur is just too big. I always pack my sleeping bag first and the weight of my gear compresses it. The pack actually carries quite well like that but it's really hard to cinch the top closed. Most of my trips are single nighters and it's overkill for that. What I wanted was a pack about half the size and the smallest zpack zero pack fitted the bill exactly. It's 16l with no added pockets, hence the name 'zero'. I agonised for a long time over whether to go for that or a bigger pack. I packed my gear into a whole bunch of different packs and what I discovered was that no two 16 litres are the same. The next size was 20l against the murmur's 28l in the main pack body. Stil I reckoned it would just about go. I added two bottle pockets and a front pocket, and thought that would definitely go, then I added a few other bits and pieces that I needed or just fancied. The pack arrived christmas eve, about a week and a half after I ordered it.

The pack is beautifully made, everything is designed to shed weight. Instead of webbing connected to the shoulder straps, it has cord with those cord lock thingys on them. The sternum strap is connected by a couple of cord loops, the compression straps are also the elastication for the front pocket. It swallowed my kit easily, I didn't even have to touch the front pocket which is huge and runs from top to bottom. I reckon I could easily take a three day kit and still not use the front pocket- whether that is a comment on the size of my kit or Joe's definition of 16l I don't know. I got it with a waist strap, so I can take the extra weight The only niggle is the colour- my brother called it 'the jellyshoes of backpacking'- I think I can get used to it though!

Joe has a whole bunch of accessories- I needed a really small stuff sack, a camera pouch and I decided to get a stake (or peg) pouch just for kicks, because my silnylon pouch is way too heavy! heheh. Actually, the stake pouch is about half the size of my current pouch, which probably accounts for the vast majority of the weight loss...

The small stuff sack is exactly the right size- I'd carried my odds and sods in a trekmates windshirt stuffsack. No need for a new one really but I wanted it. It has an extremely small cordlock and really thin cord. It's sewn rather than bonded like the team IO sack but other than that it's pretty similar.I carry my camera in a lowe alpine camera bag on my shoulder. It's a bit bulky and it doesn't need all that padding because it's not getting bashed around. Joe has a really nice looking shoulder pouch at only 8g so I got it. It's too big for my camera so I may put some laminate flooring underlay in there as some minimal padding, but the nice thing is it also fits my GPS and my whistle so they are both more accessible. It attaches by two elastic straps and a safety pin. I'm not convinced by the safety pin so I may rig up some velcro- on the other hand, it obviously works for Joe and he's done some fairly extensive testing!

Unfortunately it's probably going to be the spring before I can test the pack-bah!

mail...

2009-12-24T07:25:00.001-08:00

heheh my parcel from joe at z packs has arrived.....

Beef Jerky

2009-12-15T00:33:00.001-08:00

I love beef jerky, it's incredibly addictive. I remember trying supermarket jerky and being so disappointed, but homemade jerky is just in a league of it's own. It's really easy to make too-enjoy!

The Gatewood cape

2009-12-07T03:11:00.000-08:00

I love my Gatewood cape. I'm growing in confidence with it every trip I take out. I chose it at a time when I wanted to drop a lot of weight from my pack, but wasn't ready to go for a tarp. It's very similar to Six Moon's Wild Oasis but I figured that if I didn't like the cape option, I'd still have a tent but I would'nt have the hood option if I went for the Oasis.
It's not a tarp, it's a tarp-tent, a catch-all term that covers a lot of ground, but generally refers to a tarp, with more coverage that cannot be pitched in multiple ways. Tarp-tents often have no built in groundsheet and will take a little bit more care to pitch. Note- I'm not referring to the branded Henry Shires Tarp-tents here. I also apologise for referring to tent pegs as 'stakes'- too much time on American backpacking sites!

Absolute Gems

2009-12-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

PTC is a lucky man. It's not pure luck, because he makes a lot of his own luck, and here's a good example of him doing just that. A great piece of writing and some incredible photos. There's also the new 24 from Ryan Jordan. The best one yet I would say, it really captures that winter feeling-I want to go camping!

And more..

2009-11-24T00:05:00.000-08:00

I never thought my video would generate this much interest! I'm going to continue to publish comments that deal with safety because it's important for people to look at these issues and make their own mind up. So, Martin Rye said:
Couple things and more. On a multi day route you would miss those spare clothes. Wet days on end would push the safety boundary in my view. You would be safer with spare warm clothing to get into in an emergency. Wet clothing wicks body heat away five times faster.

It seems that every time I've taken this kit out, it's been wet days on end so I've got a fair understanding of how it works. The cape/chaps combo does a good job of keeping me dry except for the ends of the arms-I've been just as wet in traditional waterproofs and I would always save my dry clothes for when I got to camp. But when I'm in camp, if I'm really soaking, I can take my wet clothes off and get into my sleeping bag and put on the down vest which will keep me warmer than a fleece or long johns and not getting into the sleeping bag. What I actually found myself doing was just wearing the clothes until they dried when I got to camp. I wear montane terra trousers and a smartwool microweight baselayer which I have found dry extremely quickly. on my feet I wore coolmax liner socks which also dry very quickly. I do run pretty warm though. I dried at night and got wet again during the day, which was similar to what I used to do which was wearing dry clothes at night and putting wet clothes on again the next day.

I like Caldera stoves but they can flare up and set fire to the ground. If your shelter burnt down what would be plan to keep the elements of you without a waterproof? Good luck to you but would it work on a five day no resupply wet Scottish route in May?
I haven't had any problem with my caldera setting fire to the ground, but if it's dry, I put it outside the tent. If it's wet, then there shouldn't be so much of a problem with the ground catching fire but should the worst come to the worst, then silnylon burns slowly. The worst should be a hole in my waterproofs. There's enough material in the cape to be able to bunch it and tie it off or even just wear it with a hole in it- I'd be generally covered. 5 days no resupply in a scottish May? I don't get the chance to get up to Scotland much unfortunately but my understanding is that I may well be encountering snow etc. I would be more likely to pack a kit that reflected the more wintery conditions and lower temperatures, but if it's cold enough to wear a micro fleece, that would be on my back and not in the pack. Wind is the real killer with the cape as a waterproof but only if you're going up high. The main change I'd make for a 5 dayer is spare socks- my socks reek after 3 days!
Also does that pack keep all the kit dry without stuff sacks? Yes!

Clarification

2009-11-23T00:29:00.000-08:00

This post is a response to podcast Bob who made some reasonable comments on my visual gearlist:
So no spare dry clothes, gloves, weather hat, camera, entertainment, book, poles and wicking insulation layer? Fine for average summer conditions and I agree with the content, however I would be interested in your choice of additional items to cover the cooler and wetter months to stay safe if you had to bed down at any time?
I thought it might be useful to add these extra comments. The list is what I carry in my pack- the basics- I'm planning to do another video with my other gear that I carry, but briefly- I carry GG lightrek 4 poles, I've got a widebrimmed hat which is weather resistant and I usually take a camera too. I don't take gloves for the summer, I found that my clothes dry quickly enough that I don't need spare clothes (I took some longjohns on my Rhinogs trip and didn't use them and that trip was plenty wet enough!)and I am fine using my windshirt and vest so that I don't need a wicking insulation layer. As the weather gets colder, I usually wear a microfleece which I don't take off and take some liner gloves and I may swap my vest for a Patagonia down sweater. For longer trips, I will take a book, but really, I don't need it, especially if I'm walking with someone else- I'd finished my book by 7pm on my second day in the Rhinogs and didn't miss it. I will adapt my kit depending on the weather reports but after using this basic kitlist for a year now, I'm pretty happy with it.

Second place is the first loser....

2009-11-18T04:41:00.000-08:00

I've just discovered that Red Yeti has done something very similar to my kit video. Except filmed it better. In a better location. In much more detail...... Ho Hum.

A visual gearlist

2009-11-18T00:40:00.000-08:00

This may be incredibly dull or you might be quite interested- I suspect it may be something to do with how much of a gear head you are. I am as guilty as the next man of sticking my gearlists up but whenever I look at other lists it all starts to fade into a list of products and numbers. When I saw this post on Backpacking light I thought it was a pretty good way of seeing exactly what people are packing which gave me the idea for this video. It could also function as a bit of a guide to packing a frameless pack I suppose. Have a look and see what you think! I missed out a bit of information- the windshirt folds into it's own pocket and the chaps fit into that too. The hat goes in the vest pocket and the camp shoes/plastic bags just get rolled with the sleeping bag. I also carry a tibetan long handled spoon which fits inside the cone.

The Lakes in February

2009-11-04T03:06:00.000-08:00

I'd already published this trip report from last February on the TGO forum but I've got some video that i wasn't able to post. I thought it might be interesting for people who hadn't read it as it was one of the first times I began making conscious gear choices based on the expected conditions rather than just reducing weight or taking a lot of equipment 'just in case'.

I had been looking for the opportunity to test out all my new toys for a while and the heavy snowfalls gave me interesting conditions to test the gear. I played around with different packing configurations during the week before deciding on my kit list. I took both my sleeping bags to layer up, a five season multi-mat and a torso length section of GG eggbox foam. I had tried including a Thermarest 3/4 instead, but the weight difference made me decide on the GG despite the fact that it would have to be carried on the outside of the pack. In the event, it didn't bother me as much as I had thought it might. For warm wear I took my down sweater, some merino long johns and at the last moment threw in my minim ultra vest. Having looked at the weather I decided against taking any waterproofs and instead took pertex trousers and top-my down sweater can shrug off snow and if anything unexpected came up I could wear the Gatewood cape. The pertex was an excellent choice- I put them on, supplemented by a microfleece and they stayed on until I got back to the car the next day. On uphills the long front zip on the Rab tob vented well and every time we stopped and the cold hit, they blocked the wind fantastically. This meant a lot less removing and replacing of layers. On downhills, I added the minim vest. Shelter was the Gatewood cape and evrything was carried in my jam sack. After packing I weighed everything on my (not terribly accurate) and it came out at 6.5 kg including food, fuel, water, ice axe, crampons and 300ml of whisky (winter essential!). We set out at an ungodly hour and arrived at Wasdale at 10.30, just in time to nab the last parking space. After a bit of faffing and taking of team photos we headed towards Lord's Rake. The plan was fairly fluid but we wanted to have a crack at a bit of steep snow and the Rake had been recommended as a good introduction. We were all up to speed with our winter skills and wanted to take them a bit further. My pack felt good on, especially once I strapped on the crampons and began carrying the ice axe. The Rake was in excellent condition, and fairly untouched except for a few snowed over footsteps. There was plenty of exposure but nothing technical and we all agreed it was one of the highlights of the weekend. The original plan had been to head over to Sprinkling tarn to camp, but we had already spent longer than we thought climbing the Rake and now I made the classic mistake of looking at the objective rather than the map. I descended through the wrong gully and ended up on a short slope with a nasty looking cliff at the bottom. I was heading down to check out the possibilities and thought to myself that I'd better hold my axe in the self arrest position when I slipped and began sliding. I picked up speed remarkably quickly but managed to stop myself after a few feet. There was an anxious moment where I thought the axe wouldn't bite and was a bit shaken when I got up. Lesson learnt, we descended down the right gully and headed towards Great Moss.
It was clear that we weren't going to make it to sprinkling tarn now so we began to look for a dry spot. There was plenty of bogs and tufts but we finally found a spot on a small knoll. The wind had picked up and I was a little worried about the Gatewood cape. My brother in Law had a KWay 2 man wedge that I could have squeezed into but I wanted to test my capabilities. I rigged an extra guy at the back using my ice axe which had the benefit of giving me a bit of extra headroom and I settled down to cook my supper. I was very impressed with the cladera cone. It was the first time I had used it but despite the wind and the icy water it still boiled enough for a coffee and my meal in a very short amount of time. The wind was making the lightweight aluminium pole on the cape flex quite alarmingly. I closed the door and it improved matters but I would have been much happier with a trekking pole there instead. I still felt safe enough to leave the tent to go and hunch up in the bottom of Martyn's tent to drink whisky and munch on my homemede jerky. I don't think the other's were convinced. Ben commented that no meat should crunch!We decided to settle down at about nine, but exiting the tent we saw that the whole valley was bathed in the most incredible moonlight. I spent a few freezing minutes trying to capture the scene before getting into the bag. The wind had dropped and the thermometer in my tent registered -5.
I was warm during the night. I wore all of my day clothes and my minim vest. i used my down jacket as a pillow. Occasionally my backside got cold when i curled up so I placed my sit mat between it and the sleeping bag which worked well. I was pressed up against the side of the tent and because I was pitched on a slope I kept slding down so my feet were pressed on the bottom.You really need to sleep dead centre in the cape to avoid touching the sides. When I woke up there was some ice on the fly but not a lot, which was good because I hadn't vented the tent at all. I had kept my mouth inside the sleeping bag which may have reduced condensation. There was some ice on the foot of my bag but luckily, the night had been so dry I could just brush it off and my bag remained dry.We set off up the tongue after a relaxed breakfast. We were making time because we wanted to get driving before the predicted snow arrived. After avoiding snow patches as much as possible we finally gave in and strapped on our crampons. We saw a lot of people on the Sunday, conditions were just about perfect. After a a quick spin past Sprinkling tarn we descended back through Wasdale and returned to the car just in time to catch the first of the snow showers as we drove back.Overall on this trip I was really pleased with the weight of my kit and the way it worked. Last winter my pack weighed closer to 10kg without axe, crampons or 2 sleeping bags. I felt that each element worked together and different elements could be combined to reduce weight. I didn't use my long johns or spare socks but I was glad I had them as there was still the possibility of putting my foot through a bog and getting wet as happened to Martyn. Realistically I could have got away without the vest but it did give me a bit more flexibility. The caldera cone was great. I took 250ml of meths and only used about 1/4 of it for 2 hot meals and a few cuppas. The Gatewood cape worked really well. I would have felt safer with a trekking pole but I think that I was being a little paranoid and at 400g for a shelter it's hard to beat. Finally I was really happy with the kahtoolas combined with my hedgehog mids. I kicked a fair amount of steps in the shoes and my toes were fine. I could have done with a little pair of debris gaiters to keep the snow out.

Odds and sods

2009-11-03T00:15:00.001-08:00

My postie has been having a pretty busy time recently. Latest delivery to drop through the door was this package from Team IO. Team IO are worth a mention because as far as I'm aware they're the only American style cottage manufacturers in Britain (Let me know if I'm wrong!). I've been using their zero g guylines on my laser comp and as a lifter guy on the Gatewood- it's called zero g because apparently it doesn't register on digital scales! The mini linelocs which go with it are super good also. More interestingly I've been using one of their cuben fibre stuff sacks as a food/stove bag. I had a real purge of my stuff sacks a while back and now I only use three-one for my food, one for my torch and medical kit and one for my tent pegs. It makes sense to me that they weigh as little as possible and at 6g, the medium stuff sack seemed just the job. Compare that to my previous food bag- a trekmates silnylon at 25g. The only problem was that when I received it it resembled little more than a crystalised fart- beautifully made with bonded seams, a light static drawcord and a tiny cordlock but way to0 fragile for my purposes. Except it wasn't. I carried +3kg of food for the Rhinogs plus my stove and pot and didn't baby it and it's still looking as good as new. I've hung it by the cord, stuffed it in my pack and sat it on the ground and I'm very pleased with it. So I've decided to replace it. Why? For the crime of being too big and heavy! You get a lot of sack for your 6g-I can fit my head in it (remember my head isn't the biggest!) and with one night's food in it it's too big. The small stuff is 4g and for an overnighter it's all the sack I need. The only problem is it might be ever so slightly too small. The final item in the pack is a set of Vargo hi vis pegs. I love my Terra Nova carbon fibre pegs but they're beginning to break with monotonous regularity. I am taking a hit on the weight though- I foolishly assumed they were the same as the superlight stakes with a bit of paint on them. Still you live and learn.
Here is the picture of the Mountain Laurel poncho as a poncho- I seem to have assumed a Meechanesque thousand yard stare but really what expression do you use to model a huge tesco carrier bag? You can see just how see through it is in this picture.

Finally apologies to all those who have made comments which I failed to reply to- I hadn't realised I needed to moderate them-doh!

Mountain Laurel cuben tarp-first impressions

2009-10-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

I was packing the car to go to my parents in Wales and was slightly stressed when the postie walked up to me and placed an extraordinarily light packge in my hand. It's always a bit of a suprise when you get something from mountain laurel. They have a waiting list of 4-7 weeks and although they have a customer area where you can check your status it only ever says 'pending' until you actually get it.As a bonus, this one had managed to miss customs- it may be something to do with the battered old envelopes Ron sends his stuff in- I'm not complaining anyhow!
A bit of information on tarps and me. I've had a go with a basha and army bivvy bag in grim January weather before I got a lightweight tent and then it seemed a bit pointless- the bivvy weighed as much as my laser comp. I wasn't entirely struck on the open air aspect of it either. Fast forward a couple of years and I have the Gatewood cape. This was about as lightweight as I thought I could get. The lack of a need for a rain jacket meant that total weight was ighter than any bivvy and tarp combo with rain jacket. That is until I spotted the ML cuben poncho tarp. Combining it with the Ptarmigan bivvy I could save a sizeable 200g off my baseweight and since I was already up to speed with the poncho aspect it looked like a good option. The only problem was that I'm no sure I actually like tarps! Any hiker aiming for low weights needs to push themselves a little. On my last trip I had tried low top shoes for the second time. The first time, I had felt extremely vulnerable, not only to twists but to bashing my ankle on rocks. This time, I was totally converted. It's been a few years since I last tried a tarp- my knowledge base has developed considerably, and the total weight- around 350g for the whole set-up including rain protection will certainly ease the transition!
So- first impressions. The main thing is it's tiny! The width of it scared me at first, something I brooded on throughout the journey to Wales. When I actually set it up though, it's perfectly adequate for my needs. I'm planning to trial it in settled weather at first, only taking it on more dubious trips when I feel confident about it's use. I set it up with Team IO zero-G guys and mini lineloks. It's definitely well made with reinforcement at all the important points. No photos of me wearing it yet- the hood is too big for my head, but I expected that and it's easily sorted. Down the sides there are four lightweight snaps and at the hood there is a small diameter bungee with a tiny cordlock. That's about it for features apart from the neck tensioner when the poncho is in tarp form. Its a loop of bungee that attaches at the neck with four mitten hooks at tightens everything up. Have a look at mountain laurel for more photos.

MYOG: windscreen

2009-10-21T03:13:00.000-07:00

I'm really not a fan of MYOG (make your own gear). Not because I don't think it has it's merits but because my attempts always turn out amateurish. I made a tiny tarp for the head end of a bivvy- it was floppy, saggy and badly sewn. I've made stuff sacks and they look poor. I've recently given my brother in law a pop can stove as part of my ongoing mission to lighten his pack. He doesn't get much time to fanny about with gear so when I had a spare moment I decided to make him a windscreen. Of course, I didn't actually photograph the process, I am so lame.... Any how: I got 2 baking trays for a pound from pounland, cut off the edges and rolled it all flat with a sigg. Next I cut it in half lengthways, got 2 of the short edges and folded them together to make one long strip. That got rolled as well. Then I made a thin strip, folded it a few time to give it strength and added it to one end, kind of like a belt loop so the diameter of the pot could be reduced. The other end of the windscreen was fed through the' belt strap' to make a circle and air holes were punched in it. Easier to do than describe and it actually looked pretty good!

Inside showing 'belt strap'

Set up around the pot

Everything inside the pot, inside the pot cosy I made too!

Ryan Jordan shoots all kinds of things

2009-10-16T04:56:00.000-07:00

Look here for a good example of how to shoot a camping trip video rather than my mediocre efforts. His 24 video really captured the feeling of being out there. It's a lot easier when you live in Bozeman I suppose. Scroll down for his story about trail running and hunting with an ultralight rifle. I feel deeply uncomfortable when I know people enjoy killing things. As I get older I feel this more and more strongly, which I suppose makes me a hypocrite as I am a meat eater and shooting is generally understood to be a more humane way of killing animals. I guess it's the enjoyment factor: 'I enjoy running and icecream and killing things'. I killed a rat the other day, hit it with a spade, twice. Once which just maimed it and once to finish it off. The fact that it was running at my baby son didn't make it any easier for me. It was the first furry animal I've killed (I've been fishing) and it affected me quite strongly. Things just aren't black and white though, I'm still figuring this one out.

Rhinogs part 2

2009-10-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

There's not a lot of photos for the second day due to the rain! As usual, once I was moving I felt a lot better. It seems like while I don’t have a definite plan, things get on top of me a little. It wasn’t so much the rain because I don’t mind rain and it wasn’t a lack of views because the visibility was such that I could still get a fair impression of the hills. Maybe it was a feeling of being trapped by circumstance. Anyhow, I decided to take my foul weather option. The cloud base was at about 650m so there was going to be no point in hitting any summits and the Rhinogs rock seemed to be absolutely lethal in the wet. I hoped it would clear later and set off down past Lyn Cwmhosen. This actually seemed like it would have been a much better spot to camp. The ground was drier and the area was more sheltered. There was no point worrying about it, however. I ambled on, down into Bwlch Drws and had some breakfast. The Rhinogs are much more overgrown than other mountain areas I’ve been to. The valley was covered in lush grass and there was a thick growth of heather up the valley walls. It felt isolated in the mist. I could hear the sound of ravens calling and the drip of the rain. I was beginning to really enjoy myself though. The rain had abated slightly and I ate and drank well. I had planned to ascend Rhinog Fawr via a scramble but instead I headed north out of the valley and into a wooded area. It was nice to walk on the smooth paths and I made good time. I walked right around the base of Rhinog Fawr aiming to use the path to its summit if the weather cleared. I stopped again for lunch and tried to dry out some of my gear. I wasn’t trying to make big miles, the experience of being out in a wild place was enough and I took my time eating and resting.
As I headed towards the Roman steps, the weather closed in again. There was no point in trying for the summit, the wind was gusting quite strongly and the cloud base was low. I struck out west, aiming for Lyn Du. At this point, I began to encounter the legendary Rhinogs path network made up of a series of well trodden paths that vanish into nowhere. I could see Lyn Du below me, but despite the path markings on the map, I was wading through thigh deep heather and sliding down if not life threateningly, certainly limb threateningly steep slopes. The ground was full of holes and then just as I thought I was totally lost, I noticed that the heather had been stripped away and pushed all in one direction as if someone else had semi fallen down the slope many times before. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the path reappeared, marked with a distinctive footprint. I followed this path for a short distance, then became totally lost again. The map and the GPS disagreed violently with each other, there were no paths and I had to resort to wandering in vaguely the right direction until I discovered that what was vaguely the right direction suddenly became exactly the right direction and I was following a well trodden path marked by the man with the distinctive print. This pattern repeated itself the entire afternoon through thick bogs, lethal overgrown boulder fields, down semi cliffs and over ancient barbed wire fences. The membrane in my boots had given up hours ago and I could see the man with the distinctive print going through everything hours (days?) before me. I knew I wanted to camp up by Llyn Twr-glas but the lakes were stubbornly refusing to appear. I checked my position against the farm over the valley and had no idea why I couldn’t see them. Finally, checking my GPS, I realised that I was a good 100m below where I wanted to be. With the tops concealed in the mist, I had little idea of where I needed to be- my map reading skills obviously need a little more polishing!
Up I went. It was hard work and I had no visual idea of where I was aiming for- I just watched the little numbers climb steadily upwards. In the back of my mind I had a feeling that this wasn’t the best idea I had ever had but stuck to my plan. I had been expecting to see the lakes all afternoon and wanted to satisfy myself that they really existed! I reached the top just as the worst rain of the entire trip blew in. The storm battered away at me- I could barely see two feet in front of me and the lakes were reduced to a narrow band of water at my feet. I had a notion that there was a slightly more sheltered area at one end of Llyn Twr-glas but at that moment I realised I had lost my map. I hadn’t checked it since I had started climbing and began to get the distinct feeling that the Gods were laughing at me. Luckily I was able to retrace my steps and found it fairly close by. The storm was in no way abating and I was beginning to feel pretty sorry for myself. I didn’t want a repeat of the other night, didn’t fancy erecting the tent in the rain and was fairly exhausted. I made my way towards Llyn Pryfed hoping to find some shelter where the rocks pinched in towards each other but it just wasn’t happening. I gave up and began to use a wall as a handrail back down towards the valley. Even this became another dance with lady fracture as the wall led me over a huge boulder field with steep drops and concealed thigh deep holes. Again, I obviously wasn’t the only idiot to have chosen this route as there were definite signs of previous idiots.
Typically, the valley was bathed in sunshine. I was encountering another problem now- I was getting ever closer to civilisation and there weren’t many obvious camping spots. The valley was also pretty exposed if the wind kicked up again and I wasn’t keen on holding the tent down all night. I found a clump of trees on one side of a field but there really wasn’t enough room between the braches to pitch the tent. On top of that, it was too sheltered and quickly became a bit midgy. I wandered further, slightly worried and feeling a bit beaten up after the hard work of the day’s walking. Finally after a lot of backwards and forwards along the route of a river I found a fairly lump free spot. Here the ability of the Gatewood cape to be fairly easy about misshapen pitches came into it’s own. I used a section of my compass lanyard and a mitten hook to repair the broken hook on the cape and settled down to empty the water from my boots and the whisky from my hip flask.
It was actually a very good pitch. The weather held and in fact, the next day was glorious sun. I wandered down into Trawsfynyedd enjoying the easy walking and feeling a bit disoriented by having to actually talk to people. It was only on the bus back to Barmouth that I realised how bad I smelt. It was my boots- they had a distinct aroma of tramp to them. I bought some flip flops in a tacky seaside shop, paddled in the sea and scrubbed my feet with sand. There’s not that much to do in Barmouth so I decided to catch an earlier train back. I picked up a couple of bottles of beer (Including a welsh lager?) bought myself a new book from a charity shop and settled down for the long journey back. The Rhinogs certainly lived up to their reputation for being hard work but it had been a good trip. The ability of my gear to work in British conditions had been proved to my satisfaction- the failure of the hook on the cape was easily repaired and all my down gear had remained effective despite the wet weather. The use of quick drying clothes meant that I was comfortable and warm and I certainly felt the benefit of carrying such a light load.

Ti goat ptarmigan first impressions

2009-10-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

These Titanium Goat bivvies seem to be very popular- they're cheap (compared to similar bivvies from other manufacturers) light and well featured. I ordered mine with the bug window despite the extra weight as I don't fancy Ron Turnbull's method of only leaving a tiny hole to breath through and blow the midges away! It was sent promptly and then I had a wait of about three weeks for it to clear customs. All the time, the USPS tracker was telling me that they had been 'notified to expect my parcel' and I could get no further information on it. Now, while I have no real issues with paying VAT on my parcel, I do get a bit fed up with the post office charging me an equal amount so I can get my parcel from their office. Both the charges added another 20 quid to my costs-bah!

Firts impressions were of something very well made, simple and with that almost flimsy feel of very lightweight equipment. The bivvy itself is black, possibly the blackest thing I have ever seen in my life and it's big too.

I checked I could get my neo-air short into it by email to Ti Goat (very prompt reply) but I can also side sleep and even curl up in it. As you can see from this comparison with the Alpkit Hunka, it's a good 6 inches larger in diameter. It packs up to pretty much the same size too. Of course it's not waterproof, but I've had it with using only a bivvy bag and no tarp. The hood can be raised from the face and attached to a tarp, which I'm pleased about, because I tent to get quite claustrophobic in a traditional bivvy. When you zip the bug window closed, there is a substantial amount of space there. My only niggle is with the tab used to pull the hood off the face- it's sewn directly to the hood with no reinforcing material behind it. With material this thin, I get the feeling it's going to pull free fairly quickly. Bonus news is that the weight comes up at around 160g on my (admittedly poor quality) scales rather than the advertised 198g.

Rhinogs trip part one

2009-10-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

The summer holiday means a hiking trip. This one had been in the planning stages for a while-My last trip had been in February and I'd been fiddling with kitlists since then. There was a fair bit of untested kit in there, but by the end it had all been comprehensively tested! Part way through the trip I started videoing stuff. The camera work is a bit ropey becuse I could only use it on the end of my arm!
pack-murmur 220
Shoulder pouch-lowe alpine camera 50
tent-Gatewood cape 311
inner-6 Moons serenity 198
stakes and pouch-TN carbon 30
sleeping bag-PHD minim ultra 350
Sit mat/ food cosy-section of CCF 20
sleeping pad-Neo air 270
food bag-Team IO cuben (med) 6
cooking pot-Snowpeak solo 105
cup-disposable 500ml 5
stove-Caldera cone 60
Firelighter-disposable lighter x2 40
utensils-Tibetan long handle spoon 17
Cloth-1/4 bandanna 7
medical kit-Homemade 20
head torch-Photon 10
knife-SAK 22
Stuff sack-trekmates 4
hat fleece-25
insulation-phd ultra vest 150
windshirt-Rab neutrino 70
over-trousers-Mountain laurel cuben chaps 39
campshoes-plastic bags 25
water bottle-mineral water 25
bladder platy-1l 25
hip flask-nalgene 53
water treatment-aqua mira 30
poo- trowel-MSR blizzard stake 22
gps-Geko 80
Compass-Silva mini 8
safety-whistle 5
Total 2301
With camera 2476
add paperback 2676

My rhinogs trip started out with glorious sun. It was a long trip to Barmouth and it was very difficult not to drink all the guinness I had brought with me- in fact it was impossible and so I started my walk with somewhat of a fuzzy head. I bought a packet of chips to soak up the booze and donated the last of my change to the lifeboats so that I wouldn’t have to carry it. I do enjoy drinking and walking, although the somewhat steep pull up out of Barmouth did dent my enthusiasm slightly. Luckily I only had to walk for about ten minutes before I found a flat shelf overlooking the sea. I brushed aside the sheep turds and threw up the tent. I was carrying a gatewood cape which allows fly only pitching and so I inflated the neoair and put it straight on the ground. While my tea rehydrated, I sat on a rock and read my book- JG Ballard’s Crash. The opening is incredibly intense and it’s a great book but it jarred really badly with my surroundings, obsessed as it is with urban decay and mechanised transport. In the end I sat back and looked at the view, breaking my promise to leave the Tobermoray I had brought for the rest of the trip unopened.
Unsurprisingly, I slept well. I was walking by 7 o’clock. The day’s walk was something I had looked forward to for a long time- a long ridgewalk into the heart of the Rhinogs. I had planned a short day with an early camp so that I could have a wander about and maybe a swim in one of the lakes. The weather was overcast, however, and as I approached Yr Lethr, a large bank of mist and rain rolled in. At first it was only spitting, but I put on my waterproofs anyway as I wanted to test them. I was using a tent/poncho combination and had teamed it up with some cuben fibre rain chaps from mountain laurel. I had actually hoped for a bit of rain, but I wasn’t expecting the blasting I got a few minutes later. In the mist, I missed the path and ended up stood on the edge of a cliff, trying to hang onto the wildly flapping map. After retracing my steps I picked my way down a rocky and steep path. I met the only people I was to see the entire trip, who gave me an odd look, as I greeted them dressed in two white bin bags and a big silnylon sack! As I descended to Lyn Hywel, I lost the path again and ended up clambering over scree slopes and through thick heather. I supplemented my diet with the bilberries that grew in great numbers as I went. I had planned to camp next to the lake, but the ground was absolutely saturated with standing water in places. I wandered around for a bit but nothing sprung out at me as a better site and so I tried to pitch. Here there was an issue- pitching a tent I was wearing. It is possible to do it from the inside, but that did necessitate crawling around in puddles. Eventually I gave up and got out. I can pitch the cape pretty quick and the rain had dropped so I received only a minimal wetting before I nipped back inside. It was only 3.30, and I was hoping that the rain would stop so I put on a brew and got into my sleeping bag. My top dried very quickly, as the arms were only a bit wet and I dozed for a while. The rain didn’t let up. In fact, it got worse. By 7.00 I had finished my book and eaten my tea. I tried to go to sleep and managed for a while until at about 10, I was woken by the tent fly pressing into my face. One of the pegs, a TN carbon had lost it’s top and the hook that attaches the beak of the cape to the guy had come free. I rummaged around, using my sit mat to

keep my arm out of the puddles in the porch and put the peg in at a steeper angle. All was well until an hour later when I was woken by the tent fly pressing on my face again! The weather was even worse, and the wind had changed direction so it was blowing directly onto the porch of the tent. There is a greater area of material here, and the force of the wind had caused the hook on the beak to fail. It had flown off, I knew not where, plus the topless peg had allowed the fly to come free again. I crawled around, with my torch between my teeth, praying that the entire tent wouldn’t launch into the night. Eventually I pegged the beak directly to the floor. The fly came free a third time an hour later at which point I got up, moved the topless peg to a different spot and spent the rest of the night worrying about it needlessly. In the morning I assessed the situation. In fact the tent had stood up the battering well. One component had failed, (six moons have replaced it without question) but it was an exposed spot- the actual tent was fine, and moved about a lot less than my Laser comp. All this in a shelter which weighs less than 550 grams. The weather was still poor but I pulled my motivation together and moved off.

Starting out

2009-10-08T04:42:00.001-07:00

I've accumulated a fair bit of gear over the years, I've not walked as far as I would have like, but I've got a fair bit under my belt. From the beginning I've been a walker and a wild camper and my gear reflects this. More recently I've been slightly obsessed with reducing the weight of my gear. I'm not big, I'm not strong and I've had way too much time sat at a computer. Clearly the British weather has influenced my choices, but I've picked up a reasonable amount of American gear, that doesn't really seem to get talked about in Britain much. I've also been heavily influenced by other blogs and websites and maybe now it's time to 'give a little bit back'. I'll concentrate on reviewing the kit I've got, my own path towards the light and trips I've taken.