After getting my Ultimate Direction SJ Ultra Vest 2.0 in May and loving it, I was keen to add something similar but larger for the kind of hill days when I needed a greater capacity. But it seemed that it just didn’t exist, with UD’s own PB Adventure Vest only so much bigger and looking marginal for fit with the M/L size topping out at my required 40″ chest and the Salomon packs not appealing so much to me. But then I got wind of the new UD Fastpack 20 (due out September) with M/L size specified for 32″ to 46″ chest and a configuration that looked just right, would have taken it there and then if I could have got my hands on one, and promptly pre-ordered from Castleberg Outdoors. (more…)
10 November 2014
5 August 2014
Norway 2014
Quick summary of my week in Norway with Marie and Donnie Meldrum… part recce for Marie’s 2015 Norseman Xtreme Triathlon entry and part, well, just regular holiday! Noted in pseudo-diary form (= even fewer sentences than usual!) with photos ruthlessly (?) pruned from the 500+ I took to give a more-or-less representative taste of the whole, so not even necessarily all the ‘best’ shots… (more…)
23 July 2014
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Totted up my Munros after Monday’s not-exactly-Cluanie Horseshoe and came to 243, which means (discounting the Tops and Deletions I won’t finish without) I have 39 full Ms to go. So what an excuse for a silly blog title, and here (after a Facebook dry run) we go… (more…)
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11 August 2013
The ‘near sweep’
Another walking/camping tour masquerading as ‘running’, but it’s my blog, I make the rules and (short of starting yet another unnecessary category) that’s where it goes! (more…)
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21 July 2013
Dry
Two days on from my wet day on Sgurr Mor, pretty well next door (but even ‘wester’) in Knoydart and how hot and dry can it get? (more…)
17 January 2012
No picnic, but not indigestible
While the tale related here still lacks a clear end (or at least the one it was ‘supposed’ to have), it most definitely began some thirty years ago with my first reading (as a mountain-mad teenager) of No Picnic on Mount Kenya, Felice Benuzzi’s thrilling tale of his audacious wartime attempt on that great peak: (more…)
11 December 2011
Kahtoolas on my Trangos
Took a wee walk up Beinn na Caillich this afternoon in search of some snow to test my Kahtoola crampons with my Trangos and just about found what I was looking for (ie probably didn’t need the crampons at all today, but was able give them a good enough go to be happily packing them for Kenya). (more…)
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31 October 2011
October blog post
So it’s nearly two months since my last post, my last chance to add an October 2011 link to the blog archive, and I’m just dashing off a brief report of a pretty momentous weekend involving a trip to Culra bothy for Carn Dearg as Jamie Bankhead’s last Munro… (more…)
19 February 2011
WML Assessment
To get straight to the point, I’m back from Glenmore Lodge (as I posted on Facebook last night) ‘relieved beyond measure to be home with a WML pass when I thought I’d maybe blown it!’ (more…)
6 February 2011
Final WML preparations?
Yesterday I was out with Kenny Grant on breezy, icy Cairngorm ground to go through as much of the WML syllabus as we could. (more…)