New website address

This blog can now be found, in all of it's glory, at www.hikewales.co.uk. Please be sure to bookmark this new address!

Thanks
Chris

Welsh Bagging Lists

I have just come a cross an excellent list of all of the Welsh Hewitts (Hills over 2000 feet with at least 30 metres drop on all sides) and Marilyns (Hills of any height with at least 150 metres drop on all sides). The list, compiled by Alan Dawson, can be found at http://bubl.ac.uk/org/tacit/tables/wales/.

For those of you who fancy reading about these hills before you set off, I can recommend Graham Uney's superb 'The High Summits of Wales - A guide to walking the Welsh Hewitts'.

Grahams book is divided into two sections. The first section is a complete guide to the Welsh Hewitts, range by range, hill by hill. The second section is the story of Grahams successful bid to walk them all in one go in the summer of '98. It's a helluva story. You can find a link to the book at Amazon on the right of this page.

New kit!

I have slowly been replacing my 20 year old kit with new lightweight items and over the coming months, as I have a chance to put it through it's paces, I'll review it on this blog. Some of the items I'll be using are...

• Hilleberg Akto
• GoLite Continuum pack
• Ray Jardine RayWay quilt
• Thermarest Prolite Three 3/4
• Berghaus Infinity Light Jacket
• Berghaus Paclite Smock
• Inov8 Terroc shoes
• All sorts of Ti' goodies
• All sorts of bits and bobs from backpackinglight.com in the US and backpackinglight.co.uk

If you are interested in the Terrocs, visit Andy Howell's site and check out his comprehensive long term report. It made me buy mine!

I'll also be looking at some of the books that have helped me with the whole 'lightweight thing' (see a selection of the best in my links section on the right), plus the Brecon Beacons walking guides that I use.

More free routes

Love it or hate it, Trail magazine publishes a decent selection of walking routes every month and their online library, trailroutes.com, has 30 free routes (8 in Wales) plus another 5 free routes for subscribers.

Most of the walks have GPS and Memory Map data (although the couple of GPS routes I have tried have been very poor quality - lots of unedited waypoints, looks like a converted 'track' file to me, poor show guys). They also give you detailed route description, a couple of photos, route card, gradient profile and OS mapping.

They have basically re-purposed all of the routes they have published over the years, so don't go expecting any new routes if you have a 4 foot pile of back issues in the attic.

The bad news is that they charge £2.00 for the routes that are not free, but subscribers get a 50% discount. As I mentioned, I have only tried a couple of the digital mapping files, not very representative, but if the files were tidied up and commented properly, I could stretch to a pound.

Anyway, get over there and snaffle the freebies and don't forget your 5 free credits if you are a subscriber. I would be interested in your comments on the GPS data ;)

Planning a Preseli weekend

Before the weather gets too miserable, I really fancy a weekend in the Preseli Hills - maybe start at one end, wildcamp at the other and then back again. I have never walked in this part of Wales and it's only an hour or so from Swansea. If anyone has suggestions for a route or camp spots, they would be gratefully received!

Backpacking with a 4 year old

A few weeks ago, I took my eldest son, Aaron (4) on his first backpacking trip. We only walked a couple of miles and spent the night on the shores of Llyn y Fan Fawr on the Black Mountain (Western Brecon Beacons).

It was my first backpacking trip for many years and all of the old kit was dusted off, most of it now twenty years old - my Vango Hurricane, Berghaus AB70GT pack and my trusty Trangia, now given a new lease of life with a gas conversion. Aaron carried his own sleeping bag, thermarest, comics and pyjamas and I carried the rest - 55lb's of it!

Aaron had a wonderful time. He has been car camping since he was one year old and is always being dragged up a hill or into the woods for some Ray Mears type adventure. The thing that really impressed him was that he was allowed to dig a hole to poop in. In fact, it impressed him so much we had about 5 false alarms, just so he could dig his cathole.

He helped with filtering the water and cooking his pasta and spent hours paddling in the shallow waters. I feel sorry for kiddies that will never experience the outdoors like this - children love the freedom, the mud, the cooking, the camping and the staying up late looking at the stars.

We had spooky stories and hot chocolate and retired on what was turning into a breezy night but we both slept warm and well.

After a huge breakfast, we packed up and walked back to the road and waited for our lift back to Swansea, whilst watching the mountain rescue teams training their dogs on the sunny mountainside.

I'm not quite sure what his teacher and classmates thought when they asked him what he did on the weekend.

I hope he mentioned the cathole.

Bargain - Ultralight Stuff Sacks

www.planetfear.com have a 2 for 1 offer on Outdoor Designs Ultrastuffsacks. They still have medium to xxlarge sizes left.

Medium: 200mm x 350mm
Large: 220mm x 400mm
XLarge: 240mm x 450mm
XXLarge: 280mm x 500mm

Welsh mega-hike podcast

Outdoor podcasting superstar, Bob Cartwright, the man behind Backpackinglight.co.uk has just recorded an excellent interview with Darren Wooton, an Englishman who hiked from North to South Wales in this summer's glorious heatwave.
His story will make you green with envy - 203 miles of sunshine on some of the best hills in the world. The hike was based, I believe, on John Gillham's 'A Welsh Coast to Coast Walk', from Cicerone.
If you are Welsh or know Wales well, his pronunciations will bring a smile to your face, but Scotland gives me the same problems! Maybe a phonetic pronunciation guide to the hills of Wales (and Scotland) is called for - are there any out there?

You can get the podcast, plus loads of others by Bob from iTunes or directly from his website.

What do you mean you don't have an iPod? Apple have just released a micro iPod for around £50, ideal for lightweighters, take a look.

Light idea - strip down a Swiss Card

Airports are seizing Victorinox Swiss Cards and there is now thriving EBay industry of second hand cards. I picked one up for £1.49 + postage, took out the (excellent) scissors, pressurised micro pen, tweezers and toothpick, popped them in my first aid kit and threw the rest of the card away. The scissors and tweezers that come with first aid kits are normally cheap, heavy things, even in expensive kits. Treat the featherweight pen and toothpick as a bonus!

Technology - gear weight calculators

Backpackinglight.com runs a competition to design pack weight calculator spreadsheets and they are available for free download. I had a quick look at these and they were a bit too complicated for me, some even worked out the calorific value of your dried dinners. But if this is your thing, go for it.

I found a much simpler solution in Chris Ibbeson's 'Gear Weight Calculator', a simple free PC app (sorry Mac people) in which you enter your gear and it's weight and then categorise it. Each item has a check box next to it, so you can pick your kit list for each trip and let the software work out your pack weight and print a packing list.

One to watch - Alpkit

For those few people who have not discovered Alpkit, check out their site for a well thought out (if small) range of high quality products at a great price. The wonderful thing about Alpkit is that they design and source all of their own products (well sort of - read the story of their ti mug!), cutting out all sorts of middle men, which translates into great prices. A titanium spork for a fiver, 10 ti tent pegs for a £1.50 each, their own brand of 3/4 length Thermarests for 15 quid, a ti cooking pot for 15 quid... stop reading this and get over there now - they are a great company to deal with and they have free postage. Check out their CoLAB too. I love these guys!

Light idea - non stick cooking

If you are not of the freezer bag school of cookery (more on that soon), you may be lucky enough to own one of the sweet Vargo titanium non-stick cooking pots or some other non-stick pan. A ti spork or spoon will kill the non-stick coating, so try a lolly stick (Magnums have good ones) or a wooden spatula from your local doctor or waxing salon. Weighs nothing, can be binned away when it get manky and can be easily drilled for all you milligram watchers ;)

Howies 'Go Wales'

Had an interesting parcel this morning containing the new autumn 06 catalogue from Welsh uber cool clothing company, Howies. Always a treat to receive, this issue charts their journey around Wales in an old 'Cargo Wales' van with the letters 'Car' peeled off.
David Hieatt's company, based in Cardigan Bay, produce a range of clothing for young actives that contains a few gems for the outdoorsperson, including a good range of merino and some stylish and technical jackets using Scholler and Ventile fabrics. Their organic cotton tee shirts are always entertaining.
You can download the catalogue from here and save a bit of a tree. David would like that.

The ultimate shopping bag

I just had to show you this. The ultimate bag for popping down to the Spar, made by Granite Gear. If anyone spots these on sale in the UK, please, please let me know!
I reckon you could do the Penine Way with a couple of these.

I am amazed Trail magazine haven't featured these in their 'must have' section - anyone remember the 200 quid portaloo in a briefcase a few issues back?

Free walking routes in Wales

Our lovely friends at Visit Wales have teamed up with www.walkingworld.com to give us a selection of free walking routes. Have a quick look at this microsite to download 27 routes from all over Wales in PDF format.

The road to lightweight

For me, it all started with a 20 mile sponsored walk for a breast cancer charity with my younger sister, herself a cancer victim who has just finished her treatment and has come out of the other end almost intact - just a little lighter in the chest area, but fully recovered :)

I had done a lot of 10 to 15 mile days, but had not hit the 20 mile mark since my 20's. I knew we had to train for it and I knew it was a lot of road walking - no way was I wearing my boots. I was visiting my sister and dropped into a running shop in Sheffield and they kitted me out with a pair of wonderfully comfy, lightweight off-road running shoes from New Balance (M781) for around £50.

The first 20 mile day was hard work (leg muscles not used to the distance), but I couldn't believe how well the shoes performed on and off road. After boots, it was like walking on air - my theory was if people can run 26 mile marathons in running shoes, walking should be fine.

The next 20 mile training session was a dream. Then two more (combining on and off road). This was easy! I couldn't believe it!


I did a few shorter walks leading up to the event and when the day came, we both made it in good time and I could actually run across the finish line with my four year old son on my shoulders. I have not used my boots at all this summer and have clocked up around 150 miles in the NB's so far. I have used them all over the western Beacons and in the Peak District with no problems at all (I have not used them in the wet yet due to the fantastic summer!)

They have great grip with a reasonably deep tread pattern, excellent shock absorption, they give perfectly adequate support for light hiking on decent paths, they are supremely comfortable and are only 768g per pair (with Superfeet green's in them).

This walk set me thinking about other ways I could lighten the load on my days (and nights) in the hills and after some research, I found quite a few other items and ideas that have made my life easier. So the journey started!

Welcome to Hiking in Wales

I have been hillwalking for around 22 years and noticed my pack seemed to get heavier and my knees a little more sore with every day in the hill. Lightweight came to the rescue.
I have spent the last few months researching lightweight kit and techniques and with this blog I hope to record my days in the hills and the gear that keeps me up there.
I don't get out there very often - I have a hectic job (creating things like this) and a young family, but when I do, it's normally in the wonderful Brecon Beacons National Park, just 30 minutes from my home.
Lightening up is still a little strange to me - changing my boots for running shoes was scary, but if it can get me out for longer, that's got to be a good thing!