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| In the Fannichs |
With people planning long walks for the coming spring and summer I thought it might be useful to post this piece on how the gear performed that I took on my 700 mile Scottish Watershed Walk last year. It first appeared in The Great Outdoors last autumn.
A long walk is always a good way to see how gear performs
and how well it lasts. My Scottish Watershed walk last summer took 55 days and
involved a huge variety of terrain – grassy hills, dense forests, heather
moorland, muddy fields, rocky ridges and masses and masses of bogs. There’s no
path most of the way so the going was often quite arduous. The weather was
varied too. Overnight temperatures ranged from 2º to 15ºC. Only 13 nights were
above 10ºC though. The driest, sunniest weather was near the start and at the
end. Mostly it was cloudy and windy with rain on twenty days. The fine weather
enjoyed by most of Britain
didn’t often reach the Watershed.
I walked 1200 kilometres. Map kilometres that is. Because of
the lack of paths and the very rough nature of the terrain I reckon I probably
actually walked half as much again.
Overall my gear performed well and there’s not much I’d have
changed. The weight of my load varied depending on how many days’ supplies I
was carrying. I set off with a week’s supplies several times and once with ten
days worth. Some items weren’t carried for the whole trip. It mostly weighed
between 12 and 18kg.
Footwear
I’ve liked Inov-8 Terroc trail shoes for many years and I’d worn
them on other long distance walks so they were my choice. Inov-8 changed them
this year though and I was interested to see if the new design would perform as
well as the original one. If they didn’t I’d have had problems so I was
relieved they turned out to be just as good. The latest version has solid
rather than mesh uppers and is a little higher at the rear. The tongue is
slightly wider and a little more padded too. The fit is the same – just wide
enough for me at the forefoot while snug at the heel. The wind can’t blow
through the uppers as it did in the mesh ones so the new style Terrocs are a
bit warmer, which is good in cool weather but means they are hotter in the
heat. They take slightly longer to dry as well. Durability is much better
however. At the end of the walk the uppers were still in good condition – the
mesh ones usually sprang holes after a few hundred miles. The sole has begun to
wear down but there’s still some tread left.
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| Sandals & Shorts in the Southern Uplands |
I hiked around 1000 kilometres in the Terrocs, wearing
Hi-Tec Owaka sandals the rest of the time. These lightweight sandals were well
worn when I began the walk and some of the straps had pulled away from the
soles and the tread was almost flat by the time I finished. They were still
wearable though. As well as on warm days I wore the sandals around camp and on
rest days.
My socks were Teko merino wool Minicrew ones that I wore
most of the time and which had holes in by the end and Light Hiking ones that
were kept for camp wear. The Minicrews could be worn for a week at a time
whilst remaining comfortable even when soaked, as they often were.
Pack
The Lightwave Ultrahike 60 pack was excellent. It always
felt comfortable and I never had sore hips or shoulders. It was also stable,
which was important when I was lurching about in bogs and dense tussocks or
scrambling down steep, greasy slopes. It easily held all my gear. I added a
length of shockcord to the front and used this to hold my thin foam pad. My
water bottle and map went in the mesh side pockets. Everything else went inside
except when my shelter was really wet, in which case I strapped it to the side
of the pack.
The Ultrahike is almost waterproof. However the seams
attaching the back panel aren’t sealed and I did have some leakage here, though
far less than in most packs. I still kept water sensitive gear in waterproof
bags. Rather than a single pack liner I used several Exped Fold Drybags for
sleeping bag and clothing plus Aquapac and Aloksak bags for items like maps,
notebook and smartphone.
Shelter
My shelter had to cope with some very stormy weather and
some awkward bumpy pitches. The Mountain Laurel Designs Trailstar did this very
well. I love the versatile design which means it can be pitched just about
anywhere. I pitched it high with masses of headroom when the wind wasn’t too
strong and low with a ground-hugging profile in big storms. Just once I moved
it during the night when a ferocious wind kept shaking it and I realised I
wouldn’t get much sleep. Moving it just fifty metres downhill made all the
difference. As it was midnight and the rain was hammering down I was glad I
could pitch it very quickly.
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| Sheltered forest camp in the Southern Uplands |
The Trailstar does not come with a groundsheet or inner so I
also took an Oookworks Trailstar Nest, which is a mesh inner tent with sewn-in
groundsheet, to keep off the inevitable midges. The Nest was a little fiddly to
pitch until I realised I could tie the shockcords to the Trailstar and pitch
the two together as a unit. There was enough room for me to sit up in the Nest
and store some gear. The complete weight of the Trailstar and Nest and pegs was
1157 grams. Both items showed little signs of wear at the end of the walk.
I used my Carbon Fibre Pacerpoles as poles for the
Trailstar. These were the same ones I’d used on the Pacific Northwest Trail
when they also acted as tent poles. They are still in good condition.
Sleeping Bag &
Mat
I’m a warm sleeper so I reckoned the 650 gram Rab Infinity
300 sleeping bag, which has a comfort rating of +3ºC, would be more than
adequate. And so it proved with the bag keeping me very warm on the coldest
+2ºC nights. It was also very comfortable. Once the temperature was much above
+10ºC it was a little too warm however and I slept with the half length zip
undone and the bag draped over me.
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| Airing the sleeping bag |
For insulation and comfort I took a NeoAir XLite Small
airbed, which weighs 230 grams and packs up really small. It lasted the whole
trip okay and was quite comfortable as long as I didn’t inflate it too hard. It
was just big enough for me – any narrower and it would have been uncomfortable.
I also carried a thin foam OMM Duomat. This 135 gram mat was used under my feet
when sleeping and as a sitmat during the day and in the Trailstar. It was well
worth the weight.
Kitchen
Stove choice was partly determined by the likelihood of
finding fuel supplies along the way. I was tempted by the simplicity and speed
of a gas stove but thought I might not find cartridges everywhere, as turned
out to be the case. I didn’t find cartridges anywhere in the Central Belt, not
even in Cumbernauld, the only town on the Watershed. I did find meths
everywhere, which justified my choice of the 225 gram Caldera Ti-Tri Inferno.
This stove works really well in windy weather and is quite fuel efficient. I
carried the Inferno insert so I could also burn wood in it but in fact I only
did this twice due to the stormy weather and, in many places, lack of fuel. In
case I couldn’t find meths I also carried the tiny 3 gram Gram Cracker stand
for solid fuel tablets and half a dozen of the latter. I eventually used these
during the last 11 day section of the walk when I ran low on meths. The Ti-Tri
was the same one I’d used on the Pacific Northwest Trail so I knew it worked
well and was durable.
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| Stove & pots (with coffee & muesli) |
My pots were the oldest items I had on the walk. My Evernew
0.9 litre Titanium one is 22 years old and a veteran of many long walks. The
MSR 0.6 litre Titanium pot that nests inside it and doubles as a mug is quite
young by comparison at just 12 years. Both pots are still in excellent
condition.
Other kitchen stuff consisted of a Sea to Summit alloy spoon and an Outdoors Grub Long
Strong Spoon. I like two spoons as they are easily lost, bent or broken. For
water I had 1.5 and 2 litre Platypus bottles and a 700 ml hard-sided GoLite
bottle, which was used to carry water during the day.
Clothing
In the rain, which was more prevalent than I’d have liked, I
wore a 430 gram Rab Myriad Neoshell jacket, which performed really well and was
less clammy and more comfortable than many waterproofs though I did get a
little damp in it at times. But then conditions were sometimes such – heavy
rain, wet cloud, strong winds – that I doubt I could have stayed dry in
anything. I often didn’t bother with overtrousers as my walking trousers were
reasonably warm when wet and dried quickly. When I did need them I wore an old
pair of GoLite Shadow Pants, made from Gore-tex Paclite and weighing 222 grams,
which had zips just long enough that I could pull them on over my shoes. These
overtrousers worked okay and I never had much condensation in them.
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| In full waterproofs in wet mist & drizzle on day one |
Any fully waterproof fabric restricts breathability to some
extent, even Neoshell. In dry windy weather I find a simple windproof top more
comfortable so I took the 170 gram Montane Lite-Speed jacket, which is made
from Pertex Microlight and which has a hood and a mapsize chest pocket. The
Lite-Speed repelled light showers and was comfortable worn under the Myriad
jacket.
For warmth I took my old well-used Jack Wolfskin Gecko
microfleece top, which weighs 215 grams and has been on many walks over the
years. It’s a little thinner than when new but still provides all the warmth I
need most of the time in the summer. I wore it in camp every day but only
occasionally while walking. With a forecast for unseasonal cold weather at the
start of the walk I decided to take another warm garment for at least the first
few weeks. Which one was decided a few days before I set off when a new
ultralight down top arrived for test from PHD. The Wafer Jacket weighs just 189
grams and compresses into a tiny bundle. It was delightful to wear in camp on
chilly evenings and made a reasonable pillow. I ended up carrying it the whole
way, though I didn’t wear it much during the last month.
On my legs I mostly wore Paramo Merapi Active Trousers,
which are soft, comfortable and windproof. They worked well and stood up
surprisingly well to some rough treatment, especially in dense forests. In hot
weather I wore an old pair of GoLite shorts, which had an inner brief and so
doubled as underwear. On my torso I used the same garments that had performed well
on the Pacific Northwest Trail – a Paramo Katmai Light shirt most of the time
and an Icebreaker merino wool T-shirt in the coolest, wettest weather.
I didn’t bother with gloves but I did have a Smartwool
Beanie for cool weather, and was glad of it. For the sun I started out with a
Tilley Hat but accidentally left this behind in Moffat (I got it back
eventually). I replaced it with a cotton cap that cost me £5 in Tesco’s in
Cumbernauld and which proved surprisingly comfortable and hard wearing.
Navigation
For navigating, which was difficult in places as the
Watershed is not always clear, I had 1:50,000 OS maps with the Watershed marked
on them, a Silva Type 3 compass and an HTC Desire S smartphone and Nexus 7
tablet, which both have GPS. I had ViewRanger software and OS maps on both
devices. As on previous trips I found the easiest way to navigate in poor
visibility was to locate my position on the GPS map and then use my compass and
paper map. I didn’t need both phone and tablet for navigating of course
but each had other functions as well. I
carried spare batteries for the phone plus a charger for phone and tablet that
I used at town stops.
In case of emergency and to keep people informed as to my
progress I carried a SPOT GPS Messenger for the first time. I sent back
location messages most days and everyone got through so I am quite happy with
the device.
Accessories
Other items consisted of a Petzl XP headlamp, small first
aid/repair kit, basic wash kit, Kindle e-reader, notebook and pens, dark glasses,
reading glasses, mini binoculars, cotton bandanna, watch, Swiss Army Knife and
a Kestrel 4500 Weather Station.
Photography.
My camera gear consisted of Sony NEX 7 and NEX 6 cameras
with Sony E 16-50 and 10-18mm lenses, carried in Lowe Pro and CCS padded cases,
plus spare batteries and memory cards and a Velbon V-Pod ultralight tripod.
