Find below our complete guide to outdoor skills, well almost complete! We’re in the process of organising the content into more coherent sections.
YES! Despite our innate nature, Mud and Routes are becoming more organised!
As a starter for 10, here’s our Complete Introduction to Map Reading and Navigation Online Course.
Main meals are easy enough to organise. You can choose to shell out for some Mountain House of Fuizion dehydrated meals or bargain hunt at the supermarket. Lunches on multiday trips can be problematic, so here are a few ideas that have kept our bellies from rumbling on those long trips. They’re inexpensive and have […]
Five Things – Wild Camping Lunches Read More »
Thanks to Tryf – Tryf’s Blog – for this idea. Finding himself needing to carry a spanking new pair of crampons on a walk, he realised that he had no way of carrying them without them damaging his kit inside the pack. He improvised by using a stud bag as a crampon bag, and does
The Beast’s Tip of the Week – Improvised Crampon Bag Read More »
Camping in winter takes a certain amount of challenge compared to summer. Nothing is particularly straightforward, even your water bottle and boots will freeze solid over night and trying to cook on your regular gas stove can be nigh on impossible. However, one essential piece of kit for winter camping has to be the sleeping
Snugpak Softie Chrysalis Winter Sleeping Bag Review Read More »
I had my game plan in place, but did it work? Weeks 1 – 5 I maintained a daily deficit for the first four weeks, but the final week became more of a struggle! I realised that I wasn’t actually eating enough for the activity I was undertaking. Week 5 was totally off plan, but I decided to
Getting Fit for the Hills – Losing Weight Part 2 Read More »
I decided this year that I’d be fitter than ever, especially when I realised how much ascent the Wales Trail Marathon entails. There’s just no way I was going to complete that without getting down to a healthy weight. So I set myself a goal of losing 10 Kg in the first 2 months followed
Getting Fit for the Hills – Losing Weight Part 1 Read More »
This is a really quick tip to keep your hands warm by creating instant thumbloops when you’ve forgotten your gloves, or just plain can’t be bothered to get them out of the pack. You will need : One jacket with velcro adjusted cuff – basically almost any regular jacket that’s neither cheap or ultralight. All you need
The Beast’s Tip of The Week – Keep Your Hands Warm With Instant Thumbloops Read More »
You’ve got your shiny new turbo trainer set up, or you want to get cracking on the exercise bike, but five minutes in and you’re bored. Here are a few ideas that might make it all a bit more tolerable and make motivating yourself a bit easier. 1 – Get a Heart Rate Monitor – as
Turbo Training not Torture Read More »
On a multi day trip, lunches are always the most difficult meals to sort out. Bread isn’t a viable option for more than a day or two, and even then you’ll need some filling to go with it and possibly butter making oatcakes a much easier proposition. When I saw that you could get long
Bridgford Long Life Sandwiches Read More »
It’s staggering how many people you see setting off from the usual trailheads dressed from head to toe in waterproof Gore-Tex, eVent or even Paramo. That’s fine during the typical wet weather that we get, but utterly inexplicable at most other times. They’ll usually plod onwards, trying to work out why they’re overheating and getting sweaty. Next
Why Windproofs are Essential for Hill Walking Read More »
You may be fed up of paying petrol prices, or motivated by more altruistic reasons to try walking without the car. Doing so can be cheaper and opens up linear routes that those planning their trip by car alone will miss out on. You can always drive to one end of the walk and use
Ditch The Car – Walking With Public Transport Read More »
If you do a lot of wild camping, then while specialist dehydrated meals might be convenient and light, it can work out extremely expensive. I tend to buy them for my main backpacking trips when I may need to carry five days’ food, but look our for some cheaper alternatives when I’m only out for
Five Things – No Nonsense Wild Camping Food Read More »
Instant custard makes an interesting if rather bland pudding, so finding these for 19p at my local not-so-supermarket was a bargain I couldn’t refuse. Available in mint and chocolate flavours, they pack 150 calories for 25g in pack weight. I decided to initially test these out in the warmth of the Mud and Routes kitchen
Aero Chocolate Dessert Read More »
What are the essential bits of grub that you ought to have in your cupboard, handy to grab for the next overnighter? The main meals are easy in comparison. 1 – Dried milk – hardly fashionable anymore, but useful anywhere that you usually need milk – obviously. 2 – Noodles – quality egg noodles are
Five Things – The Essential Wild Camping Larder Read More »
So you want a simple camping breakfast, but really can’t be bothered to cook or pay extortionate prices for dehydrated camping food. Here’s a selection of five tried and tested breakfasts that have served us well over the years. 1 – Oat So Simple (187 Calories) Just add hot water. It can be a bit gloopy
Five Things – No Nonsense Camping Breakfasts Read More »
All waterproof kit eventually loses its water repellancy after enough use, usually failing on you during a wet and cold winter walk. Fortunately, they can usually be re-proofed if you know how. My Sealskinz All Season gloves, which are half leather and half fabric, didn’t perform particularly well on a wet January walk and so I
How to Proof Sealskinz Fabric and Leather Waterproof Walking Gloves Read More »
With the lower quality rags warning of a Siberian Winter, as they invariably do every winter, year in and year out, you’ll need to get properly kitted out for some winter running. Not because of their usually incorrect forecasting, but due to the solid science that the months of January and February are usually quite
Cold Weather Running Read More »
While there are many sleeping bags that claim to be the lightest, the PHD Minimus is one with a decent claim to that crown. At least as the lightest practical summer bag in UK conditions. How light can a sleeping bag go? Well, it’s got to be a balance between weight and insulation. In theory, you could
PHD Minimus Sleeping Bag Review Read More »
Here’s a few of the best Starting Out and Skills and Tips tutorial articles we’ve published over the last year or so. 1 – Wild Camping It may not have been a good year to start wild camping, but if anyone was inclined to do so then our Wild Camping tutorials would certainly have put them in the right direction.
Five Things – Starting Out Read More »
As we’ve now added a Skills and Tips section to the site, here are a selection of our best Gear Care articles from the 50 or so articles published so far. We’ve even managed to stick to the five things as mentioned in the title, sorry! 1 – Check your boots – There are a
Five Things – Gear Care Skills and Tips Read More »
Some items just scream out overpriced gimmick from the off, and you feel like the entire review process is just a precursor to the obvious slating you’re going to inevitably give the product at the end. That was how I initially felt about the Hotcan, and whether or not it got the inevitable panning, you’ll
The Hotcan Self Heating Meal Review Read More »
Ok, our points in this article about whether to share a tent or not is rather negative, so to redress the balance we’ve put together even more points of why it’s good to share! 1a – Are you a couple? In which case, the over-riding answer will be a yes. Though if you intend on getting up
5 Things – Why It’s Good To Share Your Tent Read More »
While we’ve touched on the philosophy of wild camping, to give it a grand term, and just about everything wild camping in previous posts. There’s still the overriding question for the majority of wild campers of whether to share or not to share. Here are a few thoughts from the Mud and Routes crew: 1 – Smell.
5 Things – To Share or Not to Share Your Tent Read More »
If you’ve recently read the article on how to give your boots an overhaul, or the previous on waterproofing leather boots and own fabric boots, then you’ll need to proof them slightly differently. This should take about 10 mins, plus drying time and is well worth the effort if you want your boots to keep
How To Proof Goretex Fabric Boots Read More »
Normally we’d be saying that it’s that time of year when you’re going to have to think about getting the wet weather kit out, but ours haven’t been put away this season. Nevertheless, it’s as good a time as any to make sure those boots are in good order. If you’ve got to ask yourself
How To Give Your Boots an Overhaul Read More »
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