TGO

I've just renewed my TGO subscription for another twelve months. No regrets, it's a good mag especially now they're really plugging lightweight hiking. However, I've gone for the digital only version and will see how I get on with it. Having every issue of Trail from issue 1 and TGO for the last couple of years, it was getting out of hand. As a long term project, I've been scanning the magazines - not every page but just what I think may be useful - routes, etc., but it's quite time consuming and I haven't done any for a while.

Bivy bag - a success!

Well, last weekend was the first outing for the bivy bag from Alpkit , the Hunka, a cheerful red colour which they call Chilli - it largely matches the colour of my sleeping bag; the alternative was black. The location was the Bedfordshire/Northamptonshire border. The weather was still, dry and, at night, cold, both nights dropped to -3C. I was under a tarp. I slept pretty well both nights. In the morning, there was not a hint of damp between the (down) sleeping bag and the bivy. Basically, it was doing the job it was intended for and seems to be a brilliant piece of kit. No-one else on site was using a tarp. There were five Aktos and, without exception, they had all suffered badly from overnight condensation. There was none under the tarp, which was frozen both inside and out. The photo here doesn't really show this.

Generally, I become more impressed with the tarp with each outing. I know I had problems back in December - see http://litehiker.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/backpackers-club-christmas-weekend/ but there are so many advantages with a tarp. I really must do an in-depth posting about this when time permits. I've researched various tents (the front runner so far is the MSR Hubba HP good price, good weight, but I'm in no hurry, particular with spring coming on. At the moment, the tarp is the favourite for LEJOG next year.

A plan for the spring is using the bivy bag without the tarp.