alcohol, tents and bog-trotting

Picture the scene – I’m at Shobdon airfield having just landed the Pitts for the nth time (I’m on the circuits at the moment trying to make my landings more consistent before Paul lets me loose on my own) and have a somewhat mad rush home because we’ve run late due to the rainy weather.

I rush back, to discover that the chap I was supposed to be meeting at my house, was in fact not at my house despite the message he’d sent saying that he thought he was…cue a short search and phonecalls to reveal that he’d made the mistake I’d told him he would, and had ended up at the house the sat nav will have you believe is ours (when in fact it is not).

Five minutes later and a certain Mr Phil Sorrell (aka DaylightGambler) had arrived on my driveway along with his dog, Angel, and a big bag full of alcohol.

This was to be the beginning of a slightly unconventional weekend for me – firstly because a trade deal of cider in exchange for a home baked toffee apple cake meant that on Friday night I ended up insanely drunk on a combination of the aforementioned cider and several different single malt whiskies, secondly because on Saturday I spent the entire day wishing I was dead. The hangover caused by Friday night’s excesses (actually, we were still drinking at 5am Saturday so I really do have no-one to blame but myself) was truly horrific and as a result we did nothing but sit, lay down, sit, grumble, eat bacon sandwiches, drink coke and finally bake the promised cake.

Eventually the pair of us (aided by my long-suffering legend of a husband) gathered ourselves together enough to head out onto the hills on the estate out back with our tents, for a surprisingly lovely ‘wild’ camp. There’s something about walking up into the hills by the brilliance of a near full moon that’s truly special.

Phil admiring the view  (yes, this is indeed where I live, and I most certainly do know how lucky I am)

Upon waking up on Sunday morning after said camp, the view was stunning. The bad weather had cleared for a few minutes and we sat and just drank it all in for a while, braced by a clear wind and with eyes set upon a life-affirming landscape vista.

Our tranquillity was broken a short while after we’d managed to brew the all important cuppa, by the grim greyness that we’d been expecting and so we set upon striking camp with a deal of haste before we got drenched.

After a breakfast omelette back at home we eventually settled on doing a simple walk at Lake Vyrnwy and heading up along the line of the waterfalls on the northern side. At least, it was meant to be simple…

Lots of water!

Personally, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of bog-trotting and marsh wandering, and so the next few hours were not necessarily my idea of heaven – it looked on the map like we were heading for a nice simple circular route up following the stream until we reached an old dwelling with a track leading back down through the forest to the road…The distinct lack of paths on the map were a clue to the nature of what was to come – the Berwyns are an area reasonably famous for their bogs and peat hags.

It may LOOK lovely, but the next part was really rather cack

Ok, so at the time I didn’t really enjoy having my boots fill with stream or my trousers absorbing several gallons of boggy poo water, but it’s always a good laugh afterwards, and this walk was no exception, and the area is undoubtedly a beautiful wild place and somewhere I truly feel at home.

Phil has been excellent company, and I look forward to sharing a few more days in the hills with him (assuming he’s not decided I’m some mad woman he never wants to be involved with ever again), although perhaps will less whisky next time…

swedish summer, part 1

Phil and I have just arrived back home after spending a week in Sweden with my good friend Anders (http://www.ichimusai.org/). Anders is an ex-colleague of mine from back in the ‘bad old days’ of fantastical engineering projects that were mismanaged into a burning hellfire from which a few of us managed to emerge only mildly singed (yes, there are some bad memories, but they were fun to re-visit over a few drinks – once you’re out of the hell you can look back and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all).

Anyway, we’ve stayed in touch, and finally this year I managed to get out and take him up on the offer of a visit and a few days hiking in the wilderness. We were also joined by another old colleague of ours, Torbjorn, meaning that we were four out in the wilds. A good number I think.

The trip was a bit different from any I’ve done before, being that as I was still nursing a sprained ankle, and that the primary focus was not on peak bagging or distance covered, but just on being ‘out there’ and enjoying the wilds and cooking good food! Oh yes, this was not to be a ‘lightweight’ trip – carrying several kilos of meat and baking products was never going to be a lightweight option, and frankly I’m glad! There’s something wonderful about spending hours walking and then stopping to cook something properly whilst having a good old natter, none of this dehydrated mush nonsense.

Today I’m feeling a little odd and can’t quite get myself together enough to write what I want to about the trip, so forgive me but this posting is just going to be one showcasing a few of the photographs I took – I hope they give you a taste of what we saw and where we experienced, I will write more soon I promise.

In Sweden, there are many ‘refuges’ and huts with emergency VHF radio-phones on the trails, always with a water source nearby. This one was where we chose to make camp on the first night.

This is my lovely little tent (still adore the Vango Apex), pitched on a rocky hell platform. So, so uncomfortable – seems that this place wasn’t such a great pitch!

One of the amazing boardwalk sections. Here you can also see one of the ‘red crosses’ marking the trail – I will say more about these in another posting.

The view from the boardwalk, yes, this was one huge bog – there were many of these to cross

At this point I decided I needed to raise my pulse a bit, so I hacked on ahead and waited for the others to join me at a more leisurely pace.

If it weren’t for the trail markers, this would truly have been wilderness (actually it was, even with the marks!)

One of the glorious forest sections. I love this photo.

And finally, the ‘guidebook’ photo – the longest boardwalk I have ever seen, across some kilometer of deep bog. This was utterly hilarious as many of the board sections were underwater and near invisible, oh, and rotten!

More to come, watch this space!

the crux of the matter: reviewing the crux ak47 rucksack

Before I begin I would like to offer my thanks to Justin for his company, patience and fabulous photos, Adam for putting up with my faffing and also to Gareth for an amusing evening in good company – the process of gear testing is certainly an arduous one ;-)

I’ve been rather busy of late, although thankfully many of the things I have been busy doing have allowed me to take my Crux AK47 pack (very kindly sent to me by Webtogs after the success of my previous Silva compass review), out in a variety of states and in a variety of weather conditions in order to form my opinions for this review.

Good grief, kit testing is tough

My trusty old Berghaus Arete has certainly seen better days, and after several days out in the wilds of a very wintery Scotland this season, with heavy loads of ropes, ice axes and other metallic accoutrements, I found myself swearing profusely and vowing to get myself a new pack with less worn out hip and shoulder padding. I should just mention that the dear old Arete has offered itself up to me with no reservation – life and soul it has poured into carrying my loads, shedding rain, snow, hail and the burning sunshine of the Alps. It has resisted the coarse tearing of Chamonix granite chimneys, been dropped down scree slopes, been sat on, stood on, slept on and generally done everything I have ever asked of it with not so much as a whimper or a grumble, and so it is with a degree of sorrow I find myself leaving my heavily self-modified old friend on the shelf, and picking up the shining and spritely Crux in its place.

How does one go about developing an objective opinion on a product? My thoughts on this were pretty simple in this case: I wanted to know a few critical things about it and I wanted to find out through my own experience, hence I took the pack out on the hill, lots!

• So, firstly, is it actually big enough for all my kit?

This is an easy one. Yes, it is (95% of the time).

At a stated 47 litres this pack actually feels a fair bit bigger than my old Arete 45 and I’ve very, very rarely felt the need for anything much bigger (bearing in mind that my primary uses for a rucksack are rock, ice and alpine climbing, along with 2-3 day wild camping/back packing type trips on occasion).

This bag isn’t aimed at long distance trekking or travelling, the simple design and minimalist padding on the hip belt are very keenly pointed toward the ‘Alpine climbing’ market, where the size and lack of features are an optimal combination for most people.

• With the minimalist design in mind, is it comfortable enough to use when carrying a really heavy load? (i.e. a full winter climbing loadout including rack, ropes, axes, crampons etc.)

This was always going to be one of the most critical questions in my mind, especially with the recent memory of one particular trip to Creag Meagaidh this winter, where I found myself brought near to tears by the pain in my bruised shoulders and hips after carrying a very heavy pack, with a very minimal and overused set of strap padding.

Looking at the AK47, and reading the manufacturer’s specification (it weighs a quite amazing 1170g apparently, it certainly feels very light for its size), I was initially left feeling somewhat sceptical that carrying anything heavier than a standard wild-camping load (as per my first test foray) could be anything other than horrifyingly painful – the hip belt is tiny and the ‘padding’ isn’t really what I’d call padding…

With these reservations in mind, I dragged my long-suffering better half out for an ‘evening stroll’ up Moel Sych. I loaded the Crux up with a variety of bits of kit, including several litres of water and a heavy duty 60m single rope, to make up a weight that ever so slightly exceeded that which I’m ever likely to carry in a winter climbing scenario. We then went for a walk up a big hill. For 3 hours (actually, 20 mins of it was 2km of very steep packless running, but I digress…)

 Fiddling with the hip belt – takes some getting used to, but once you’re familiar with the shape it’s surprisingly comfy

One 3 hour stroll with a hefty load is hardly enough to really answer the question, but this combined with several outings carrying a whole range of loads – from a minimal highly compressed daypack type load of just a couple of litres of water and a jacket (see later for more on this), to several days worth of camping and cooking kit, to heavy ropes and climbing loads, to excessively heavy test loads, has left me really rather impressed overall. The shoulder straps are great, padding is good and the cut is comfortable – no issues there (for the record, I’m an averagely sized, slimly built female and am using a size 1 back). The hip belt was always going to be the weak point with it being so minimalist, but surprisingly, despite its lack of padding, I didn’t find it at all uncomfortable once I had gotten used to it. I’ve yet to find myself in pain or even the slightest bit bruised, which is nice. The innovative cut shape of the belt and the way the pack sits on my back means that it is actually far more comfortable to carry than I ever thought it could be.

Fully laden and nicely stable, and no, I didn’t fall in!

I don’t doubt that there are plenty of similarly sized bags out there that would be much more comfortable with hefty loads, but for me the Crux is absolutely fine, and of course, being a climbing pack, it is also incredibly stable to carry.

• How well does it compress when nearly empty? (The Arete was pretty rubbish for this unfortunately)

Knowing that the AK47 carries a full load pretty well, my next question was simple: just how well does it squash?

Climbing is a great sport, but climbing with a rucksack on is nowhere near as pleasant or as easy as ‘going bareback’ – packs are cumbersome things that when badly packed, badly positioned, badly worn or just badly designed can turn a simple task into an awkward nightmare. Just imagine if you will, that you’re out in the mountains, having just spent four hours carrying a fully loaded pack of climbing gear into some remote crag in the middle of winter. The weather is less than ideal, with falling snow and a strong wind making life ‘interesting’. Your chosen route follows a deep cleft part way up the crag, with the rest of the route being an exposed icy ridge. You empty your pack at the base of the route, then commence the ritual of putting on your harness, clipping on your gear, uncoiling your ropes and tying in. Once all this is done you are left with an empty shell of a rucksack, now only containing emergency rations, a flask and belay jacket. You put it back on feeling all too aware that the last thing you want is a flappy oversized empty bag on your back, catching on every protrusion of rock in the chimney, then billowing out in the wind with its lid flapping merrily away on overly long straps, acting like a small sail and threatening to overbalance you and throw you down one side of the upper exposed ridge…

 One very nicely compressed AK47 daysack on Striding Edge, Helvellyn

I am very happy to report that the Crux is excellent in this respect. I absolutely love the side compression strap arrangements – one strap on each side zig zags between a slide buckle at the bottom, a couple of plastic loops mid way and into a clip in buckle at the top, meaning that compressing the entire side of the bag is very simple and very easy to do, and you don’t end up with a big bulge in the middle like you do with the more regular system of using two separate straps. The strap is easily long enough to accommodate attaching a roll mat or tent on the outside of the bag should you need to do so, and is also completely removable if you’re wanting to strip the bag even further to save another few grams. The lid also clips down nice and neatly if you’re compressing the bag (as I had in the Striding Edge photo above), doesn’t flap and the bag stays neatly tucked in to your back.

Oh, and the hip belt works ok with a climbing harness on, but I usually clip it out of the way round the back anyway (actually, it would be really nice if the hip belt were removable for just this type of occasion, but I’ll let the Crux guys off seeing as the AK47 is so incredibly lightweight – a removable belt system would add a not inconsiderable amount of weight to the whole system).

  Side compression straps (MRT radio and hydration pouch not included…)

• Alrighty, it’s been good so far but does the AK47 have all the features I want and need, and does it have any features that I don’t want? (i.e. anything I’m going to cut off)

Anyone that knows me knows that I dislike faff. Especially when it comes to kit. I like my equipment to do its job as simply and efficiently as possible and I don’t like extra unnecessary bits of fluff – the ‘bells and whistles’ so many designers seem to think are essential nowadays. I like my rucksacks to be simple and only have bits that I’m actually going to use on them – I don’t like extra zips or pockets or pouches (unless we’re talking about my Mountain Marathon running pack…mountain running is an entirely different ball game…). I don’t like bits that flap around or get caught on things or leave me wondering what on earth they’re for or what type of narcotic the designer was on. Despite my penchant for self-engineering things, on a pack that costs over £100 I’d really rather not have to be cutting bits off and for that matter I shouldn’t actually need to be tying on extra bits of cord to make my own gear loops because the manufacturer has decided in their infinite wisdom not to actually include them on their flagship climbing pack, but rather to just give you some handy little fabric loops onto which you can tie your own…and I’m going to breathe now…

Yep, this is one faff-free rucksack, but honestly, Crux, come on – just put the bloody gear loops on.

      

On the positive side, the AK47 does actually have all the other essential bits –hydration pouch pocket, ice axe loops, a water resistant zipped lid pocket (also an internal mini zipped pocket underneath the lip), rope compression strap and twin ‘bivi’ draw-cords securing the main pack (which, interestingly, are actually made of nice chunky, brightly coloured 4mm rated accessory cord. In theory they could be cannibalised and used as emergency abseil tat…but I can’t really imagine a scenario where this is ever likely to even cross your mind if I’m honest). It also has a chunky bright red haul loop that is nice and easy to clip onto gear at belays and would be equally easy to clip onto a haul line (the pack is also strong enough that you could hang it from the loop onto a piece of gear and actually stand with your full weight inside the bag – impressive and potentially useful to some people believe it or not).

There are also ski loops on each side of the pack, attached to the small but mostly adequate wand pockets (fine for walking poles, but not big enough for a water bottle), but not being a skier I couldn’t comment on how usable they would actually be.

No extra pockets, no unnecessary webbing, no big stretchy mesh pockets or superfluous lengths of bungee cord (although I may add some this winter in order to store crampons on the outside…maybe). A simple, no frills, easy to pack and easy to use rucksack – pretty much just what I’m after, even if it doesn’t come with gear loops attached and is lacking a removable hip belt.

• How hard wearing is it likely to be?

No-one wants a bag that will come apart at the seams at the first sign of stress, or abrade through at the slightest scuff. The AK47 is an extremely lightweight pack and yet, somehow, rather than using the thin and flimsy feeling fabrics becoming popular with most pack manufacturers, Crux have managed to make this pack out of a nice hefty feeling kevlar/cordura fabric, and have even reinforced the base with a double layer. The back system is a wonderfully formed section of alloy tubing – not unlike a tent pole actually, that really isn’t going to bend or break unless you really go some and of course provides a fantastically stiff platform.

How hard wearing this pack will be and how long it will put up with my abuse is anyone’s guess, but so far it has been sat on, rained on, dropped out of cars and Land Rovers, dragged through dense woodland, gorse, brambles and partially caught up on barbed wire fences (I took it out with me on a long missing person search with the team a while ago in case you’re wondering). It has been climbed with, camped with and used for storing sharp things but is so far showing nothing more than the odd dusty mark. Time will be the real judge of course, but I have high hopes.

• Does anything about it annoy me?

The irritation factor. No matter how good a product is, if any one element of its design irritates the user so much as to actually detract from the activity in which they are participating, then it will end up being left at home. My relationship with the Crux wasn’t love at first sight I have to admit, something just didn’t click to begin with and I kept thinking that I’d most likely end up returning to my old faithful Arete despite its somewhat battered state. I couldn’t quite work out what it was that left me with doubts, couldn’t quite pin down the niggling feelings I had, but, after a while, the more I started doing and the more I used the pack, the less obtrusive the doubts became.

I think to begin with I’d convinced myself the AK47 was going to be uncomfortable due to that minimalist hip belt, and for a long time, despite not having any pain and not being at all uncomfortable carrying it, my instincts kept telling me that it simply couldn’t be a comfortable carry. Eventually I overcame those doubts, realised that it in fact was not uncomfortable, and the bag started to become more a part of me – as it should be.

Overall, nothing really irritated me I don’t think. Ok, so the fact that I had to tie my own gear loops was annoying, but that was a one off annoyance, easily resolved.

The hip belt doesn’t have any form of retainer for the excess webbing…actually, yes, that is annoying – I hate having to tuck the ends away or tie knots to keep them from flapping all over the place. It’s not exactly a show stopper though, and when everything else about the bag has finally started to really click, I’m going to try to overlook that one little niggle (or maybe put my own loops of elastic on).

The water resistant zips on the lid pocket occasionally irritate me a little bit because they’re so stiff, but really, the advantage of them being mostly waterproof (along with the rest of the bag, as discovered on a very wet Snowdon bivi with Justin) vastly outweighs the piffling triviality of the slightly stiffer action they have over normal zips.

Rain. No test would be complete without it

• So do I like it?

Yes, I do actually really like this bag, despite the fact that at first I just couldn’t quite gel with it (and I still can’t explain why, there is just no tangible reason!). Time spent using it has convinced me that Crux’s design thoughts and efforts are ones that fit with my style of mountain-going, and also fit with my ethic – simple is always good.

Anyone looking for a pack to use for climbing, scrambling or even just general heavy duty mountain use could certainly do worse than look at the Crux AK47, or any of the AK range (the smaller AK37, the extendable lid version AK47-X, or the bigger AK57 and AK70) They are all available in 3 different back sizes (except the single sized AK37). Great packs, simple, well designed and [hopefully] near bombproof…time will tell as I will certainly be putting mine through its paces!

For anyone interested, here is said rucksack from the lovely people at Webtogs: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Crux_AK_47_Rucksack_102245.html

Other climbing style rucksacks (including the AK37, AK57 and AK70) can also be found here: http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Climbing_Packs/

Some more info from Crux on these packs here: http://www.crux.uk.com/en/rucksacks.php?info=64

welsh wild camping

Oh the life of a gear reviewer!

Hehe ok so I’ve only really just started with it all, but I’m enjoying the challenge of taking new bits of kit out into the hills and trying to form objective opinions on them. The latest gear aquisition is a Crux AK47 rucksack that I’m currently in the process of testing for Webtogs, and about which I will write a proper review once I feel I’ve tested it more thoroughly and ironed out my indecision about various aspects of its use…

So, this blog entry isn’t so much about the kit testing, as it is about the process, by which, I basically mean I went walking and wild camping with Justin last week, and it’s about time I wrote something about that little trip.

For some reason I let myself be talked into a ‘bivy on Snowdon’ on Wednesday night after I’d been training with NEWSAR. What a crap idea that was…and I knew this to begin with. My biggest mistake however, was in borrowing a bivi bag that was really too small to fit a thermarest inside but still deciding to try to do so…

There are many ways in which I could describe that night, but I’m going to go with this one: a bit like being tied up in a straight jacket, wearing a gag (frigging drawcords…) and being laid in a large shower cubicle with the water supply on cold…oh yes, t’was a wonderful night, only topped by waking up in complete clag and more rain. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I’d at least had a nice view of the stars…but no.

Run awaaaaaay!

A retreat to a cafe for tea and time to dry out left us wondering what had happened to our fabulous weather forecast, before we eventually set out through Beddgelert Forest in search of a nice spot to pitch the tents (oh yes, no more of this stupid bivying lark), eventually settling on a rather magical spot amongst some abandoned mine buildings, with a view of nearly the entire range of the Nantlle ridge.

Morning View…

Playing with the camera and headtorch

In the morning we abandoned all our well-thought-out plans for the day in favour of just chilling, wandering, and enjoying ourselves (aided in part by one of our party managing to twist his ankle in a muddy bit).

This was my first trip out wild camping this year, and I have to admit I’ve missed it a bit. There is something truly magical about being out in the hills away from normal life, simply able to see and enjoy nature and whatever gifts she gives you. Looking out of an open tent door at a wide-angle vista of stars framed by some of the most beautiful geography our country has to offer, is really something special. I breathe easier out there somehow.

 Snowdon, showing off her best side

dartmoor wild camping: snowdon summit

Yes, you read correctly – I wild camped on the summit of Snowdon, Dartmoor. Well I had to didn’t I?

Work is driving me slightly mad, I swear it, why else would I keep doing this to myself? I mean, sure, Dartmoor is lovely in it’s own way, but I can’t help but find it a little dull. I also don’t really like wild camping, let alone solo wild camping, although strangely enough the more I do and the more I work out my systems, the more I’m beginning to enjoy it.

That said, the only reasons I keep heading out like this are: 1) I need an escape from work, and the wilderness is the closest I’ve got down here to the mountains. 2) I need to log more ‘Quality Mountain Days’ and wild camps for my ML logbook (oh yes, I still intend doing it, even though the urgency has lessened somewhat now) and 3) it is all good practice, especially the navigation in the fog or in the dark, and I need to do something to ‘keep my hand in’ for MR, at least psychologically.

So, anyway back to the walk – I parked the car up at Combestone Tor right after work and thus proceeded to walk up to the summit of Ryder’s Hill (the highest point on the southern moor). I then headed over to Snowdon, SX 6684 6840, via what was possibly the boggiest, most unpleasant track I’ve had the misfortune to encounter recently. It looked so innocent…right up until you found your foot engulfed in a horrible gelatinous sludge, or more to the point, when I found my foot engulfed in a brown mucky goo that seems to have violated my boots and left them permanently traumatised…and the bog seemed to go on forever…

Snowdon is actually a chain of cairns on a moorland high point, one of them even has a summit shelter, the point visible in the centre of the picture is actually Puper’s Hill, there is another Snowdon cairn out of view to the right 

Just to prove it, yet another crappy tent photo – cairn and summit shelter are visible behind

So yes, yet again I have put myself through a kind of semi-torture, but oddly, once again I really rather enjoyed it in some ways – the sunset was beautiful, and the sky was once again crystal clear for much of the night. The solitude was less eerie than last time, and more cathartic. I was even treated to a flare display by the MoD over on the Merrivale range.

I do still hate packing up a wet tent in the morning.

dartmoor: yes tor and high willhays wild camping

Yep, another wild camp on Dartmoor. This time though, I wasn’t alone, and the mist didn’t feature.

Phil and I headed up onto the Okehampton Range to do a walk up to Yes Tor (highest tor on Dartmoor) and High Willhays (the highest point on Dartmoor, and indeed the highest point in Devon), which are satisfyingly right next to each other. The depressing part of the enterprise, however, was the fact that this particular section of Dartmoor is far from remote or wild – you are only minutes away from some of the Range tracks and indeed some sections of track that seem to be open to public traffic!!

We parked in the village of Belstone and walked up across the range from there, which meant that our walk up took a fair while and was almost entirely on vehicle tracks (apart from the section of bog I decided to take us through in the name of a ‘shortcut’ – served me right when I ended up knee-deep in the mire…). So the walk was rather dull, the area was busy, and the views were frankly rather boring too (ok so I’m spoiled by the mountains – barren moorland simply doesn’t inspire), BUT, that said, we did have a nice time camping near the top of High Willhays once we’d found a suitable spot.

The walk back down was a bit better. Neither of us could face the tedium of returning down the same old Range tracks, and so we headed off down to Dinger Tor and across the moor (on mostly good tracks) up to Oke Tor from where we followed a rather lovely ridge path. Higher Tor and Belstone Tor were also taken in before we headed back down through Nine Stones to the village…and on to a cream tea!

High Willhays, seen from Yes Tor

Our camp site, the cairn on High Willhays visible in the background

  The view from the Range marker just as you leave Belstone village – the ridge of Tors just visible

Phil will hopefully now feel a little happier out on the hill with his mates (or even, lord forbid, on his own!) as we spent a good portion of the walk back doing some basic navigation drills, some of which he’d not done before, and all of which were good practice for me. It did all make the dull bits a little more fun too!

dartmoor wild camp

Walking up under crystal skies, I watched the sun’s embers slowly burn out over the horizon, moisture rising from the moors. Gradually enveloped by a thick blanket of mist, the world was soon bathed in a simple diffused moonlight, warm, delicate and calming to the soul.

I will admit to finding it all a little unnerving at first, sat within my little orange cocoon, staring out at nothing but a gentle off-white world, but the moon appeared occasionally through the mist. It felt like he was watching over me, relaxing my mind, encouraging me to see the beauty of the world from a less cluttered perspective. After a while I wasn’t scared anymore.

The sunset just as I crested the rise near Puper’s Hill

Moorland through the mist and my guardian moon

The campsite by the old China clay tramway during a brief, blissful clearing of the mist on the tops

  

Heading home

Whilst I’d come to accept the moorland mist in the night, in the morning I was delighted to see it lift and gift me back my vision for a while, enabling a wonderful clear view of the hilltop, and the cotton wool still filling the valleys. Unfortunately (or fortunately from a navigational test perspective), this break in the white mask only lasted as long as breakfast, and no sooner than I’d finished drinking my tea, I was once again back in the damp, relying on my compass to guide me home.

chamonix 2010, le bivouac et Mont Blanc du Tacul

The weather this year really hasn’t been kind to us – persistent high pressure conditions have meant that the temperature has been consistently higher than normal. Today for instance, the thermometer on the electronic sign opposite out apartment, is currently reading 38 degrees C (at 12:20pm, so due to get hotter still). Basically, the predominantly snow and ice routes we had been wanting to climb are not in a good state, and descents after the sun has gotten onto the snow are far riskier than normal. What with Alpine climbing already being an activity full of objective dangers, we basically made the decision that the increased risk levels - high temperatures leading to unstable snow, unstable seracs, crevasse snow bridges collapsing more readily etc, were not really acceptable, and so our objectives changed.

Not willing to head for the routes we had originally had in mind, our last major effort was to head up the normal route on Mont Blanc du Tacul, an easy and straight forward ‘plod’ up a 4000er. But we wanted to start really early in the morning – hence we decided to bivi up on the Vallee Blanche.

I must now admit that this was in actual fact my first real ‘bivouac’. Sure, I’ve wild-camped before, but I haven’t ever simply settled down for the night in a bivi bag, and certainly not on snow, so it was an interesting experience, and not one without its ‘moments’.

 

Sleep doesn’t come easily to me at the best of times, so why I should have thought that I would actually reach the land of nod after eating a packet of rehydrated mush and a lion bar and then listening to the faint thuds of a distant electrical storm that provided the backing track for the unrelenting audible intrusions of my beloved partner, I do not know.

Anyway, we survived the night, ate our somewhat squashed ‘jam-o-laits’ (pain-o-lait with jam in), failed to get any water to boil properly for tea, packed up all our slightly soggy kit and began to scrunch our way across the snow toward a 3 hour uphill slog.

To be fair, there were a couple of interesting bits to negotiate – a few crevasses and the bergschrund provided some brief respite from the monotony of just plodding ever upwards, and the final rock step up to the actual summit contained a couple of slightly hairy moves in a short iced up chimney. The views were utterly spectacular.

 

 

 

The descent was pretty uneventful and we were back down on the flat glacier in just over an hour. Unfortunately by this point we had basically run out of water (idiots), and I had all but run out of everything. A night with no sleep, a long slog at altitude and the baking heat of the sun served to mean that the hack back across the Vallee Blanche and up the ice arete (or smushy snow arete) to the Midi station, was utter torture. Patrick compared it to one of the levels of Dante’s vision of hell (along with Ikea Birmingham on a busy weekend, and Snowdon on a bank holiday). The slope just seemed to go on forever, and my legs didn’t want to work anymore.

The relief on actually getting up into the Midi station was immense. The hell was over and we could finally relax – so we did. Lying on one of the wooden terraces, bodies in the sun and heads in the shade, with a stunningly refreshing drink of diet Coke, truly was one of life’s pleasures. Bliss. Or at least it was bliss until we got talked into filling out an electronic questionnaire that had obviously been written by someone aspiring to be a caretaker down in Dante’s labyrinth of interminably long winded and stupid questions…

super duper uber light

Disclaimer: I mean no offense to anyone whose primary hobby is lightweight backpacking or camping, in fact I have a great deal of respect for the ideals and practices of those for whom the way of the scales is a way of life, however, this way of life is not mine, and as such I may just take the pee a little. Sorry.

Going lightweight.

‘Oh my god’, you’re probably all thinking, ‘please don’t turn into one of those thousands of lightweight backpacking blogs’ – you know, the ones written by people seemingly obsessed with cutting every last gram of weight from what they’re carrying, quite literally.

Now, I’m not one to slag off what are often very well thought out, entertainingly written and occasionally inspirational articles and posts, but come on people – cutting off the handle of your toothbrush to save weight? Is this not a tad excessive? Besides, why are you even carrying a toothbrush on a single night’s wild camping on Dartmoor?
So what’s my point? Well I guess my point is that the ‘going lightweight’ concept does very much have a place in modern day hill sport, be that walking, climbing, or in the most critical and extreme cases, Alpinism. However, it often seems to me that the increasingly popular gram counting, lightweight backpacking obsession is just a futile exercise designed to encourage people to buy more and more expensive gear.

That said, some of the lightweight backpacking forums are actually full of homemade kit ideas, where people have decided that commercially available products either aren’t light enough or simply don’t do what they envision wanting. Sometimes all this yields is a vast number of slightly different designs for gravity defying alcohol stoves, which, whilst looking like great fun to make, would likely be woefully inadequate when battling your way up a 3 day route on a large Alpine North face. Sometimes though, these homemade options really do make a difference.

Now, I’m not interested in carrying a pack that weighs less than one of my bras when I go wild camping, far from it – for me, the heavier the bag (within reason), the better the training effect*.
I am however, hugely interested in ways of reducing the load needed for an Alpine bivvy, and also ways of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the equipment I do carry. And this is where the lightweight backpacking concept steps in to provide ideas and inspiration.

Often the best way of reducing the weight of what you’re carrying, is simply not to carry it. Leave the things you don’t absolutely need behind. To this end, my latest project has involved cooking equipment, or more specifically, my cooking pot.
I own several pieces of ‘camping cookware’ from kettles and large pans, to mugs you can cook in. By far the most useful and versatile item I own though, is a simple 1l ‘solo’ pot made by Primus (I think it’s called a Trek Kettle or something like that). Now, it may not be the lightest option out there, but it’s a good size, it’s sturdy and well made, and most importantly, I like it. The only negative side it has is the fact that the ‘lid’ is actually a mini frying pan.
Why is the frying pan lid a negative? Surely it just makes the thing more versatile? Well, yes and no. Yes it does make it more versatile in principle, but I’ve never used the damn thing and can’t ever envisage doing so. It is also quite heavy, so leaving it behind is no loss, except of course, it is a loss because all of a sudden the pan has no lid and loses a great deal of cooking efficiency, meaning you use more fuel.

So what to do…
I decided to make a new lid. A lovely, simple, homemade, cheap (aka free), lightweight lid:



Ta da. Yep, it’s a CD.

I was stunned and delighted to discover that a normal CD was actually the perfect fit, and upon testing it proved to be really rather efficient as the inside layer is of course reflective. The only question then was of what to make a handle out of when a blinding flash of inspiration hit me – Phil was drinking wine…So I simply carved the cork to wedge in the hole in the centre of the disk.

I don’t know how long this lid will actually last, but seeing as it was essentially free to make from waste products and only took about 2 minutes to work and assemble, it won’t exactly be a problem to replace it every once in a while.

On a slightly different note, anyone with some time to kill could do worse than to entertain themselves by browsing some of the ‘lightweight’ forums, especially the American ones…there really are some fantastical and bizzarre ideas out there…


*For anyone who hasn’t been following this blog for long I shall just summarise – I’m primarily a rock climber, but am also broadening my horizons into the world of Alpine Climbing and Mountaineering, so for me, days spent hacking round the Welsh hills with a hefty rucksack, provide good ‘hill training’ in preparation for carrying big loads of climbing equipment on top of basic bivvy gear, at altitude. The fitter I get, the better I will do when I head out to the proper mountains. So whilst carrying a rucksack that weighs less than a packet of crisps is undoubtedly more pleasant than carrying a full load of ropes and hardware etc, it simply won’t provide as great a training effect.

sunny wild camping in the Rhinogs

Phil and I took advantage of some of the good weather we’ve been having to head out into the wilderness for a nice walk and wild camp. Now, I should say that this is the first time I’ve done a ‘serious’ walk like this with Phil, and as such it was a great experience – not really my style of walking as I normally view hill walking simply as a means to gain fitness, not an end in itself, so to simply walk to enjoy the experience and the surroundings was a refreshing change.

We parked up at the farm on the Dolgellau side of the Rhinogau and proceeded to make our way through the forest and out into Bwlch Drws-Ardudwy, one of the two major mountain passes (the other being the ‘Roman Steps’.

Here we enjoyed a leisurely lunch, trying out a cheap couscous ‘bivi meal recipe’ I’d concocted, which was ok but not good enough to write about or even do again – still, all experimentation is good.

Next we headed up the side of Rhinog Fach towards our intended camp site at the side of Llyn Hywell. The weather up until this point had been simply stunning – sunny and warm, not a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately, upon reaching the upper Llyn, a bitterly cold wind coming across the lower ridge took hold, seeming to suck away all the sun’s warmth.

We wandered round a bit before settling on the most sheltered spot, which as per normal universal laws, was of course the first one we’d looked at. Abandoning our sacks here we proceeded to head up to the summit of Rhinog Fach, admiring the South Ridge from the path up. The South Ridge looked like a mighty fine, if not hugely long, scramble, but upon returning home and consulting the guidebooks turns out to actually yield a route graded Severe! I shall have to go back.

Phil with the mighty Rhinog Fawr in the background

The South Ridge of Rhinog Fach, a gritstone mountain Severe!

Y Llethr, the highest point in the Rhinogs, from the summit of Rhinog Fach 

Upon descending from the summit and making our way back across the pathless boulder-field at the side of the Llyn, we re-found our bags and proceeded to pitch the tent in winds which had by now gotten quite strong. This is my excuse for why I proceeded to ‘enjoy’ one of the worst night’s sleep I’ve ever had in the tent – I’d managed to position the tent with my head in a hollow, and Phil’s on a tussock. Swapping sides just meant I went from feeling light-headed to having the tent flap in my face on the wrong side* as I tried to avoid the lumpy tussock I now had possession of.

I re-learned another valuable lesson that night – leaving behind my ipod and/or a book of some kind was a mistake. I had hoped to sit out and watch the sunset and then stare at the stars in the crystal clear sky for a while before going to sleep, but the bitterly parasitic wind put paid to that idea and the lack of conversational topics we hadn’t already covered a million times before made for a rather stale time. Needless to say I did not sleep well either.

Enough of the whinging though, the morning was truly beautiful, still windy but the sun did its best to fight off the worst of the cold as we aired our sleeping bags in the breeze and had a very leisurely session striking camp.

We gave up on the idea of heading up Rhinog Fawr as well after I managed to get a bit of grit lodged in my eye so I spent the first 3 or 4 hours of the day in agony. Note to self: buy a tiny little mirror to pack in the first aid kit.

So day 2 was spent meandering back down the Bwlch and around towards the Roman Steps, then back through the forest to the truck where our first thought was of brewing a nice cuppa using the MSR petrol stove Phil keeps in the back of his bright red pickup. This was, on the surface, a perfectly simple and good idea. Unfortunately I decided to try to be helpful and get the stove going…

To cut a long story short, I had forgotten about the priming procedure you have to go through with the MSR, and so proceeded to light the stove with the fuel supply on, which then led the thing to start dripping petrol from the base of the stove burner, and onto the tailgate of the truck (should have put the damned thing on the floor, but we always do it like this and have never had this issue before). It took me a few seconds to realise what was dripping from the stove, by which time, fairly predictably, the whole lot had caught fire. Yes, I set fire to the truck. Thankfully Phil wandered over at this point, just as I had registered what was happening, turned off the fuel supply and started to flail and cry out “it’s burning, it’s burning, it’s all on fire!” in the most useful way possible. Before I’d had time to pull myself together and deal with it, Phil grabbed the fuel bottle and dropped the stove to the ground where it burnt itself out without doing any more damage. Fortunately I hadn’t actually set fire to the truck, just a small patch of the tailgate, oh and the stove’s stuff bag, and so casualties were minimal. We did then proceed to light the thing properly with it on the ground, and brew our cuppa. It was just a shame Phil elected to try using some ancient milk powder rather than digging the UHT sachets out of my rucksack, and the tea ended up tasting like rancid, rotten bin water.

Wild camping is always an interesting experience, and each time I do it I come back with lots of thoughts and ideas about how I could do things better, and this trip was no exception. I may well put a blog entry together with some of the better little tips I’ve picked up over time, and some of my thoughts on some of the more pointless things we seem to end up doing.

*Yes, there is a right and a wrong side – I am a particularly awkward sleeper at the best of times, and I need to be on my side of the bed/tent otherwise things just don’t feel right.