OM's Blogrespondent Weird Darren reports from the outdoors
blogging frontline and apparently the walking season is offically
open :-)
Before I announce some newish blogs and get into the round up good
and proper,
Andy Howell has officially declared the walking
season open with
Let
The Walking Season Commence
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'Everywhere there was an abundance: the lower hills were
covered in flowering daffodils; young lambs sprang and ran
in lush, green fields; all around the birdsong was almost
deafening; there were ramblers everywhere; and the Duke of
Edinburgh Award parties were huffing and puffing - and
lugging their habitual heavy loads - up the hills'
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Trail Fitness Academy Some more blogs for you to read at your
leasure, these are from three of Trail's Fitness Academy members. Why
not pop on over say hi, and offer words of support.
Emma - emmaoakman.blogspot.com
Sian - sianchallenge.blogspot.com
Sarah - trailsarah.wordpress.com
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'Read the book on the 3 peaks challenge and I think the
enormity of what we are doing has finally hit me - but has
also made me more determined to do it. Will get lots of
walking and exercise in when we go away in May. Just far too
busy with work at the moment and getting the house
sorted.'
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John Hee throws his hat into the ring on the
Roman
posting last week sking whether lightpacking is going too far, with
Ultralight
Packing - Relevancy to the task in hand
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'Now I'm definitely not an ultralight purist. My gear has
to keep taking the knocks involved with using public
transport travel over long distance. And believe me, having
to keep moving a pack on the British Rail luggage racks is a
tough old test.'
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While
George Griffin also responds with another post on the
subject "
What
is lightweight? part II
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'I've been using light packs for 5 years now; starting
with a GoLite Gust, so I believe that I have a good
understanding of how to use and look after this type of pack
... these packs aren't as fragile as some people make out. A
lot of the high impact areas are made with a strong denier
pack cloth, the main weight saving comes by using good
quality silcone nylon.'
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Aktoman has been experimenting with a home made tarp in a
public place
Tarp
Time pt1, plus
Tarp
Time pt2 and finally
Tarp
Time pt3
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'Twilight found me lurking in Duthie Park with a backpack
of items. 18m of cheap strong string, 2 walking poles and
some tent pegs. Oh, and the car boot liner from
Woolworths.'
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Over on the mainland
Judy Armstrong along with
Roman
has been testing GPS Trackers in
GPS:
Testing the trackers from O'Hara and Sony
© Judy A.
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'One of the most popular entries from a visitor number
point of view so far was my posting about the GPS-Tracker.
To add a bit more info on this topic Judy and I did some
initial testing of the unit and as kind of blogging premiere
we decided that the two of us will write about it in my
blog!'
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In the meantime
Dave Mycroft has kicked off a "trip down
memory lane" moment across some of the blogs with
Revisiting
followed up with
More
of the same.
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'Shining Tor's not a paticularly attactive hill ... and
though the countryside has undoubted beauty it's not the
sort of place most peope would stop to admire anything. For
me though, it's always going to be a place of memories'
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By a strange coincidence Dave's first "trip down memory lane" tied in
with a BBC news article to prompt John Hee to write
Getting
started - How was it for you dear?
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'Like many kids of my generation, the choices for extra
curricular social activities outside school were limited.
Football, Sunday school or scouts. I can't for the life of
me remember any other alternatives in the late 60s/ early
70s for a kid in a working class family.'
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John in turn inspired
Aly and Lay to write
Tryfan
Revisited, a thoughtful look at the Snowdonian mountain.
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'The answer lies in all of these but in essence it is a
mountain I will neither tire of nor master. There is a
certain satisfaction in getting to know one mountain
intimately as an antidote to peak-bagging. I have done the
classic North ridge several times but like most people never
by exactly the same line; the South ridge and routes on the
East Face. '
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While
Sally in Norfolk talks about
Four
Great Walks from a weekend of walking mostly in the Peak
District.
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'After another great meal and good sleep, we woke to
glorious sunshine so after another full English breakfast.
We set off along the river into Castleton, we went up by the
side of the castle and walked along The Limestone
Way...'
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The 1996 Everest Disaster book reviews continue from
Ali and
Lay with
Book
Review: Left for Dead
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'Unlike Gammelgaard, however, Beck never makes it back to
Camp IV that night and slips in to unconsciousness exposed
to the full force of the storm. Many hours pass but
miraculously Beck regains consciousness during the afternoon
of May 11th and is shocked into action by a combination of
his own condition, thoughts or his family and the
realisation that the "cavalry was not coming" '
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Alan Slomans epic
LEJOG
pub crawl continues apace, he's now on day 29 of his Lands
End to John O'Groats marathon walk in aid of Sure Ryder Care and beer
sampling ;-)
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'The pub has been recently taken over by a new husband
& wife team - good music, an excellent fresh salad and
well kept beers does it for me. It is early in the season
for Offa's Dyke walkers, but it is an excellent
walker-friendly place - especially if you like Blues. '
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You can also pop over to
Judy Armstrong's blog on her
Alpine
Challenge and see how final preparations are going
before she sets out on her epic attempt to walk right around the
European Alps with a planned route totally 3,300 miles of walking and
320 miles of climbing and ascent...
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'Two eagles came to look at me, and fortunately decided I
was too big to carry off, though I managed to photograph
them, and saw some beautiful mother of pearl colours in the
clouds.'
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Finally
Bearded Git teases us with some up and coming
photographic treats
Sample
pics and forthcoming attractions - looking good.
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'I'm hoping to get together a review of the Jetboil PCS,
that should be midweekish. Another mini-project is the my
titanium turd-trowel, the design works but I need to make it
easier to manufacture (don't worry - I won't be uploading
pics of half-buried turds!).'
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Happy reading folks and don't forget to visit
Darren's own
blog, yes, he's too modest to mention it, but you can find it over at
whitespider1066
and follow his preparations for the TGO Challenge.
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'Which reminds me I'm still not settled on what I am
going to do for river crossings. Once I am feeling better I
will try out the Sealskinz I have as an option. Then it will
be, do I wear Sealskinz and trail shoes, or just put on the
Sealskinz for the crossing. BUT if my feet are going to be
damp anyway why bother taking the shoes off in the first
place?
These decisions are so complicated when you start to
think about them..'
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Jon Doran
