Left to right, top to bottom
- Bivi bag, snugpak single season sleeping bag, thermarest
- ziploc bag with a book, my gps charger & some batteries.
- warm clothes bag (containing long sleeve base layer, socks, dry shorts, buff, gloves, small first aid kit),
- mug & plate,
- stove, 100g gas & titanium pan,
- Map & compass
- loo roll & lighter in a drysack,
- toothbrush, toothpaste & contact lens stuff, handcleaner & skinsosoft
- 2litre platypus,
- headtorch & knife
- Waterproof jacket,
- food for saturday evening and sunday morning in a plastic box. This includes mushroom cheesy porridge, semolina porridge with raisins for dessert (just this side of not-very-nice), and porridge with raisins for breakfast. The plastic box will keep rodents out of my food overnight, hopefully.
- GPS watch
things left to go in:
- spare lighter,
- a few extra bits of warm clothes
- Cash,
- mobile phone
- camera
- more food & water.
Here's the pack ready for the off, all that's not in is water. Total weight 6.5kg without water, but including some chocolate, chocolate drink (to make the semolina nicer), 2 large soreen malt loaves, 50g of chia seeds, some teabags. I'm pretty pleased with that as a base weight for 2 days of hard distance covering. It could be reduced significantly, but probably only by spending money.
Comments on individual bits of kit below:
- The thermarest is, by dint of cunning folding, rammed into the space left by taking the duomat out of the pack. It was worth making the effort - the OMM pack is way more comfortable to run with than the Pod.
- The red bag in the side is a dry sack containing gloves and buff. I tend to find that just those 2 things make a huge difference to sensation of warmth, so I keep them on hand even in summer.
- Snugpak single season bag: this is one of those minimal bags for sleeping in hot climates. With clothes on as well it's pretty warm, and it has an integrated insect net.
- Rab Alpine bivi: 600g, just big enough for me in my sleeping bag. It's an eVent bag, very breathable, and I've slept very comfortably with the storm zip almost shut. No room for gear inside - the rucksack has to lie on the grass. This is somewhere where, if I was doing this a lot, I'd try to save some weight and bulk. I reckon the Snugpak paratex sleeping back liner at 50g would make an adequate bivi bag when washed in Nikwax, especially if the seams were taped. I've certainly used one successfully as a water resistant sleeping bag cover in the single skin tent in a horrendous rainstorm. One to try another time I think.
- Skinsosoft dry oil: it really does seem to keep the midgies off, and since the midgies really like me it's a bit of a necessity.
- GPS charger - my Garmin GPS watch has a battery life of approximately 20hrs, all being well. Since the planned distance over the 2 days could take longer, I've included a AA->USB charger and a set of batteries so I keep a record of distance, route, time etc.
- I swapped the gas stove for the whitebox again - while the gas stove will probably give me more boiling time, I just don't know it like I know the whitebox. It's only a 100g gain.
- chia seeds - something of an experiment. They're very calorie dense for a veggie food - 400kcal per 100g. That's almost as much as dried porridge oats, but they don't need to be rehydrated so they can be eaten on the run.
- map:
The 1:40000 are fantastic for relatively unpopulated areas like the highlands of Scotland, but aren't great for micronavigating through settlements in the Dales. The whole route is on paths I know well though, so the map is just in case.
No comments:
Post a Comment