Wednesday 16 March 2011

Status Report



You may remember that we started off the year with some loose talk of The Project and some Donalds.
Well January, when it eventually got going, was quite promising. February, however, was a complete write-off due to weather and ill-health.March has looked more promising, but again a combination of weather, minor ailments and other commitments has limited the opportunities to push on to some of the bigger stuff.


My first major fitness goal is a 15 mile day with 2000+ ft ascent.On a "good" day, I could probably just about do that now, but the problem is knowing in advance whether it is going to be a "good" day. That, and recovery time, which now seems to take forever.
I am pretty much resigned to the fact that I will never manage The Project in a oner, and at best I might manage it in 5 or 6 1,2,or 3 day stages. A year ago the thought of overnight backpacking never entered my mind, but now........


So I suppose that means I will need to extract another £1000 from under the mattress.


But wait.


Might I be able to recycle some of the kit from the attic and the garage ?





Well, there's the Jag





3-season if I remember. Requires a hydraulic press to to get it into the stuffsack




Heavy, but beautifully engineered





M.E. Fitzroy. Holofil and Entrant. Dug this out and wore it quite a bit last December !








My old day-sack. Minimalist in the extreme.







Incidentally, I don't see this baby featuring on people's kit lists these days. Has it been made redundant by the mobile phone and reliance on MRT ? Along with the Party 7 , this used to be a survival essential.


Wot, no tent ? Well I can't find the fecker - I hope it has merely been mislaid rather than lost when moving house. It had a double alloy A-frame and ridge pole, green fly/ yellow (cotton ?) inner. Very robust. Might have been a Vango.


So what, I hear you ask, did all this stuff weigh ? No idea. I do seem to remember that 40lbs total pack weight was seen as a kind of yardstick..But the simple test was "Can you pick it up ?"
Looking at today's kit lists, I notice that we saved on the weight of all the electronic gadgets, spare batteries and chargers etc but compensated with half a stone of Kerr's Pinks. Also I don't remember carrying all these personal hygiene and grooming products. You always got a compartment to yourself on the train home.










3 comments:

  1. I'm afraid my camping experiences were always carried out within 10m of the safety vehicle so my knowledge in this field is very limited. But...maybe you've forgotten about the squad of native bearers you used to use to carry that lot.

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  2. Ahh - An original Karrimat! I still have some of my first 3/4 length one from when I was a nipper (the rest has been cut into sit-mats for the softer middle aged arse...) Still have my Blacks of Greenock Tromso Sleeping bag too (that was dead sexy gear when that came out!)

    And! I still have my original 1 pint Primus stove in its original red & gold tin box... They don't make 'em like that any more (thank the Lord!) It still works, mind.

    My old Arctic Guinea with snow valences and 'A' poles only bit the dust a few years back - it had fallen into huge holes... I seem to remember that if you split it up between us three brothers it was only about 7 lbs each! Now then - where did my red woolly balaclava get to?

    Nice version by Mr Harrison, that.

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  3. So, that's agreed then. I nedd to invest in some newer. lighter stuff.
    That Emperor gear seems to get good write-ups.

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