marching on your stomach

Various work commitments this week meant that I've spent most days travelling on trains so what better use of time than to read a book. I plucked Derrick Booth's The Backpackers Handbook off the shelf for a delve through. The chapter that caught my eye was one about food and nutrition.

Looking at the sample menu I was shocked by how little food there seemed to be... Or should I be more shocked by how much I pack? This has started me thinking about optimising the food stuff I carry perhaps shedding some grams in the process. His focus was based on the delivery of a required number of calories with a classic ratio of carbohydrates (CHO), fat and protein to do so. My primary focus is on CHO and it's delivery balanced against the insulin dosages I take.

My current diet was put together out of experience and limited testing. In ideal conditions blood tests are easy to do; in the cold or wet they are easy to forego. When the weather has been particularly bad I've plodded on, skipped lunch and the midday injection and kept myself going on trail mix. The long acting insulin I take keeps the blood sugar on a even keel so the little and often approach does seem work in these circumstances. However I'm inclined to think that the good Doctor Anderson (my consultant) would say don't make a habit of it!

Looking at this I realise that it would make a juicy dissertation for someone looking to do a masters in sports nutrition, so perhaps I should head off to UCL with a sandwich board offering up my lunchbox to medical science.

ridgeway recollections

Prompted by Alan and Darren's trip at the weekend and my visit to Avebury the previous one, I thought that I'd post a few lines about the Ridgeway.

The Ridgeway was the first National Trail that I walked. I didn't walk it from end to end in one go like I have other routes, I section hiked it over a number of long weekends. This was good practice for me at the time as I'd not done any backpacking since my early twenties. I had been gathering bits of backpacking kit that I wanted to try out and get used to using on the trail. And doing it in bite sized pieces gave me a gentle re-introduction to the pleasures of self sufficient travel.

One of the first things that I realised when I walked the route was that water was hard to come by. The Harvey's map shows the location of standpipes but that's not a guarantee that they will be working when you find them. Water can be taken from cattle troughs but again use of these depended on whether you could get a feed from the valve on the trough. The other option is to sift, filter and boil the green water that you usually find in them. The route passes through a number of villages, and as Darren and Alan found out refreshment can be found at these. I find the 'I'll have a pot of tea and can you fill my water bag' approach usually works. On one weekend I asked someone in their front garden whether they could fill my platy up. Needless to state that my usual water carrier, a 1.8l platy hoser, would be woefully inadequate if I needed to carry water for a camp as well as for the next day. Additional water carriers are a must if you're planning to wild camp.

On the subject of camping there are not many official campsites along the route, and as you journey north they become fewer and further apart. In fact there isn't one between the one at Chinnor and the one at Ivinghoe at the end of the route. Opportunities for wild camping on this section are scarce too. The backpackers Club directories are a good source of possible wild camps and water locations.

I'll pick out some highlights for other posts.

escape from bear valley

Snow storms and bear scat. 'Wild' West finds bushwhacking is a little more hair raising that just tramping down nettles on the North Downs Way.

Hi All,

Another quickie from the library. Sorry don't have time to send individual emails, you know the score 1/2 hr time limit.

Just escaped the 'Wind river range' via a 40 mile rd walk, due to a cold front. It was a good call as they had snow of 4'' and a lot of rain. Autumn is here I think. Just moving on today trying to get to Colorado ASAP due to snow in the high mountains being a threat as September goes on.

'Escape from bear valley' - quick!
Got a lift from West Yellowstone town, via a friend of the librarian! Cool, as it was about 25 miles He even bought me a drink and cake. The parting words that didn't really inspire me with confidence were,
'your entering some mighty dangerous country boy!!'
Oh my God. First night in I slept within a fortress of young pine, and hung my food a good distance away, I needed my GPS to find it!!
20 miles in, I was in the park and came across two rangers on horses, 'Just picked up a radio collar from a 500 pound male (a grizzly)... he's around here somewhere.'
Ok so I was glad to share camp with a northbound CDT hiker that night.
Through Old Faithful I hadn't seen any scat nor any prints so I started to wonder where all the 'grizzlies' were, Strange. Then 35-45 miles in I got to 'Snake river.' I started to find scat pretty regular, then prints, then scat then - shit! - bear scat every 10 feet - NO LIE! Came to a junction and lost the trail. Guide book said 'bushwhack down the river.' I started and just found masses of bear 'signs', in the first 10 feet. 'If you offered me a thousand pounds I wouldn't walk through those bushes!!'
I was certain there were a shit-load of shitting bears, sleeping off their midnight snacks in the 90 degree heat of the day. I started to get scared; real scared!
I thought ok, one bear yes, I can handle that but it seems as if there were whole teams of the critters somewhere in the bush!
I continued and made it down the Snake river without seeing any, just shit loads of shit!
That night I found grizzly prints close to the camp on the path. Just sniffing about I guess. For sure, I was lucky for sure to escape bear valley!
(there was an attack recently where a grizzly went through this guys tent and gave him 'a chew.' They tried to trap the critter but still 'at large' in Yellowstone. He had a clean tent - no food or smelly's.)

Andy

golite hut2

Not so much a tarp more a tent without an inner.

It pays dividends to spend time practicing pitching tarps and the Hut2 is no exception. I experimented with different pole configurations finally settling on using a 120cm Hampton pole at the front internally, and a trekking pole at the rear externally.

Pitched this way the tarp was quite taunt and gave better use of the narrower, lower tail end. The internal space is roomy and more than enough for two and their kit, with space to cook under shelter if needs be. Tall backpackers can sit up in ease within the tarp as the internal height at the apex is circa 120cm.

The perimeter pitches low to the ground so it's very weathertight and not as drafty as you might think. Using the stuff sack supplied you end up with a pack size roughly the same as a can of beans. On my scales the tarp including stuff sack weighed in at 640g.

One minor quibble with the Hut2 -- it doesn't have a two way zip which would help with ventilation.