Longer posts that include tutorials and such like and so forth…
Where do you lie on the ‘hardiness’ scale below? I’ll admit i need at least a 6 if i’m going to get a good night’s sleep – though have been known to get away with a 2 on occasion (plenty of single malt helps). 1 – Rock. Where there’s no other option but to pitch on […]
Five Things you may find yourself sleeping on while wild camping…. Read More »
Maybe you’ve been inspired by Sunday’s London Marathon, but something’s got that little seed planted in your head that you want to get into running. You may have been talked into, against your will, into doing a charity 5k, or decided that you’ve squeezed into those size 38 trews (male or female!!) for the last time.
Laughs longest… na, that can’t be it.. Anyway, there’s probably plenty of endings to this one, some I can’t publish here. Instead, here’s a few good reasons why going in the hills alone can be pretty cool. 1. You can go where you want. You can add another hill on, or take one off depending on
5 Things – He who walks alone… Read More »
Anyone’s who’s familiar with walking in the great outdoors will have heard of the great Alfred Wainwright and more than likely of his wonderful pictoral guides to the Lake District Fells and further afield. When Snowdonia is mentioned however, then guidebook writers such as Poucher and Showell Styles spring to mind, but certainly not Wainwright.
Wainwright’s Welsh Mountain Drawings Recreated in Photographs. Read More »
How far do we want to go with cutting our pack weights? I’m sure that the companies and the media surrounding them would wish this was at each new technological advance. I’ve thought about this more and more, with my tent now looking particularly obese compared to similar offerings. Weighing in at 1.3 kilos, the
Lightweight Obsession Read More »
With the London Marathon coming up, which is of course the only marathon organised in the UK, the BBC have put together an interesting infographic showing how the men’s world record for the marathon has fallen over the last century from 3 hours to 2:03:59 and go on to predict either that an Ethiopian will break the
The sub 2 hour marathon Read More »
Fed up shelling out for those magazines and can’t be arsed to go to the library? Here’s a few free magazines and books available online that should keep you busy for most of the year! Backpacker Magazine. There’s a backlog to the early 70s, and the ancient adverts fascinate me. There’s more content to these
No such thing as a free lunch, unless you cook it yourself… Read More »
You may already have seen our unscientific review of the Magicshine lights and how they’ve seriously revolutionised our night runs and hill walks. Despite the bulk, it was a step forward, like those early pioneers who carried mobile phones the size of briefcases and shouted loudly into them that their business deals were going nicely
Led Lenser H7 Review Read More »
It’s definatley summer now. No, not due to the daylight savings on Saturday but the fact that the average runner can now complete a 12k run and sustain themselves, much in the manner of plankton filtering whales, on the content of the air. Gnats and suchlike are high in protein, and even if you need
Spring and the Gnat Diet… Read More »
Finally, after the long, cold winter, it seems that the evenings will soon be ours again. Next week onwards, daylight till nearly 8pm means that all the local hills are midweek options once more. You’ll hear people moaning that they lose an hour in bed, but you gain an entire summer in walking, biking or
Evenings are finally a getting lighter! Read More »
This is the second part of our article on wild camping in winter snow. Rest of the stuff. I carried all the gear in the OMM Villain pack. This isn’t really big enough for this sort of trip. The sleeping bag is a bit on the bulky side, and the down mat takes up the
Winter Wild Camping 2 Read More »
Some have emailed asking what gear you can use for a winter wildcamp. Here’s my selection of gear. I’ve split it into two posts – one for the ‘big 3’ of shelter, sleep and cooking and the other for the rest of the stuff. Freezing conditions were expected and the gear below kept me comfortable
Winter Wild Camping 1 Read More »
Of course, it should go without saying that you’ll need to know how to use the gear properly! Walking in crampons and making proper use of the ice axe are both essential skills. Get a mate to show you, join a club or pay for a course. If you’re going to pay for it, I’d
Hill Walking Winter Skills 2 – The Equipment You’ll Need Read More »
Well, I’d like to think it was. I’ve been looking at the freezing levels since the end of August when there was a forecast for Yr Wyddfa to almost freeze. Since then, I’ve managed to wild camp 600m below the only snowline we’ve had this winter, the 3rd of October. Rain during the night soon cleared any
Hill Walking Winter Skills 1 – Clothing for Hill Walking in Snow Read More »
Fed up of it getting dark by seven and being stuck indoors in the evening? Well there’s a way around it. Get a good head torch and get out in the dark. Here’s our five tips to do so safely. 1.Pick a walk you know well (in the daylight!) Keep it within your capabilities. Make
While some of you may already be aware of the Walk Eryri website, that has been about the more sedate activity of walking up to now. Part of the reason, I suppose, that the site has been so quiet over the last year is that I’ve been struggling with this running malarkey. I think, during
From a bimbler to a runner Read More »
I was thinking about this on a run the other night. I’d decided to take a slight detour to take in, possibly 400m of forest trail. Decent trails like this are an absolute rarity around Caernarfon, where you’ve either got roads/tarmac cycletracks or the usual farmland ROWs that are either impassible, muddy or require a
Ever wondered what happened to all those people who would complain that we all got pissed on the 31st December 1999 because it wasn’t the Millennium for another year? Well they’re at it again, this time measuring mountains… The idea is that a bunch of guys (and maybe gals) want to re-survey Tryfan so as
I’m fed up of dried meals in a pouch! I want to take some real food with me next time, but I don”t want to take loads of pans with me. The solution? A rice cooker – or basically a cosy for ziploc bags. It” light too, at 30g. Plus i reckon it”s far too
Freezer bag cooker Read More »
The final section of the course was an expedition with night nav. We did a bit of rough walking and navigation to get up to our campsite in Cwm Edno. It was almost ghyll scrambling up past the Afon Edno, much more interesting than the faint footpath. As it was due to be windy, we
Day 3. This was a bit of a shock to my system. Ropework. However, i only needed to use one knot, the overhand (or is it underhand?), and that was easy enough. A mentally challenging day to anyone unfamiliar with ropes, but at least there wasn”t much walking involved. I”d have found concentrating on the
Had a great weekend with Phil George and the rest of the group. Small group, but means that contact time was maximised. Day 1. Met at Pete”s Eats. Didn”t know there was a flexibility to the 9am meeting time, so missed out on breakfast (will do me good). Met up with a couple who looked
After I’d moaned about my phone not being waterproof in a previous post (might as well complain that it always bloody rains on my walking days for all the good it does), i bought this straight off ebay. Well, i had some cash in Paypal so it seemed the sensible thing to do – almost
This was a bit of an expedition, having to book the sleeper weeks in advance. And as for Bargain Berths, forget it. I think only the psychic manage to get hold of them. I then spent weeks looking over the maps of Lochaber, deciding on a route. The Grey Corries and a bothy trip was
Midnight Train to Corrour Read More »
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