Thursday, October 27, 2005
Umbrella's better than Gore-tex Jackets ?

Get Outdoors.com has a good article on using an umbrella to avoid having to spend $400 on a full spec Gore-tex jacket when you don't ever go up mountains or do much to justify it. They comment on another article suggesting that an umbrella combined with a cheap gore-tex style fabric jacket is a better option. I think it's a great idea and we should not forget the humble umbrella as a method of keeping the rain off. After all, most of asia relies on them.
Nick Crane - the Map Man on BBC (and past face of Intermediate Technologies) never goes anywhere without his trusty umbrella.
Of course get out in a strong wind and the umbrella tends to become rather useless, unless you are out in a canoe and heading with the wind, then you've got a ready made sail.
Recently I've seen some outdoors shops stocking a wind-proof umbrella. I think it's a fantastic idea. The canopy of the umbrella has vents cut in it to allow air out and stop it turning inside out in a gale.

Posted by bigcrags @ 10:45 AM 2 comments

Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Scotland's mountain bothies under threat

According to The Scotsman, Scottish mountain bothies are under threat from drunk stoned vandals. The MBA are considering closing or locking certain bothies where access by vehicle has become too easy and people are going to them for a party rather than for the shelter and access to the mountains that bothies are meant to provide.
It's the saddest thing to walk up to one of your favourite bothies and find someone has:

left litter everywhere
grafitti'd the walls/bothy book
left no fuel to dry
torn up the floorboards or cladding to put in the fire
left bags of litter outside for the phantom mountain binmen
burned the entire bothy down (that's happened twice to me)

Locking bothies smacks against the very ethos of bothying, but what else can they do. A locked bothy with a small survival shed attached to the side might be an answer - though no doubt even the survival gear would be trashed or burned when it was needed most.
It's going to be a tough decision to make.

Posted by bigcrags @ 11:01 AM 8 comments

Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Bumbags at OutdoorScotland.co.uk

The bumbags I mentioned last post are now online. Don't get these bumbags comfused with something only big enough to get your keys in, these have room for two water bottles, a sizable main compartment and compression straps. The bumbag belt is pretty substantial, though you can't really see it in the stock photo. I think I like the red one best.
http://www.outdoorscotland.co.uk/shop/ac07-bumbag-midi-multi-active.htm

Posted by bigcrags @ 11:45 AM 0 comments

Monday, October 17, 2005
Bumbags make a return

Possibly the funniest item in outdoors gear, the bumbag is due to make a return. I find it funny cos the American's call them fanny packs and I've got an extremely childish sense of humour. Anyway, we've got a couple in and they are pretty space age compared to the bumbags of the early nineties.I'll get them into the outdoors shop as soon as I can so you can see for yourself.

Posted by bigcrags @ 4:43 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Crieff Drover's Tryst Walking Festival

Posted by bigcrags @ 3:28 PM 0 comments

Crieff & Drover's Tryst Walking Festival

Just a quick note to say that the Crieff Drover's Tryst is in full flow just now. Hope some of you get a chance to visit and attend some walks, and it looks like the rain is clearing so there should be some good dry walking for the end of the week.

Posted by bigcrags @ 3:28 PM 0 comments

Monday, October 10, 2005
The start of Ordnance Survey Maps

Just been watching Nick Crane's Map Man on BBC2 this evening. Excellent series where Crane goes back and recreates the techniques used to map the British Isles in times gone past. Tonight he crossed Dartmoor with a 200 year old map made by the man who founded, or at least started work on the Ordnance Survey, and not surprisingly, only found one error - a river that didn't actually exist. It's commonplace now for mapmakers to add features that don't exist in order to protect their copyright (as the AA found to their cost a few years ago), normally it is a feature that would never jepordise the safety of anyone using the map for navigation. I wonder if the early versions of copyright protection were being built into the first ordnance survey efforts 200 years ago?

Posted by bigcrags @ 8:47 PM 0 comments

Thursday, October 06, 2005
Best winter boots Scarpa Manta and Scarpa SL

I've been so busy that I hadn't picked up last month's Trail Magazine until last night (next month's arrived in the post this morning). I finally got round to reading their winter boots test. Those of you who have read a lot of this blog might recall me going on about how my Meindl Nepal Pro boots didn't cut the mustard, but instead just cut up my heels. I had decided I'm going to have a pair of Scarpa SL's for my winter hillwalking this year as a Christmas present.
So last night I open Trail and find Best 3-4 season boot: Scarpa SL and best 4 season boot: Scarpa Manta. So no surprises there then (it's been the same for about the past 5 years). Looks like I might have made the right choice. Hope Santa's feeling flush.

Posted by bigcrags @ 11:45 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Mallory and Irvine had the best of gear

According to this report on OutdoorsMagic.com those early Himalayan mountaineers were weaaring the best gear possible for climbing the Everest. Gore-tex or wool - I know what I'd choose.

Posted by bigcrags @ 4:53 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, October 04, 2005
New Ring Cyba-lite LED Torches and Headtorches

We've just started getting LED torches and LED headtorches from Ring Cyba-lite. You'll have seen them appearing all over the place in outdoors shops, hardwear stores etc. We're stocking three of their torches. The Ring Cyba-lite Sport is a lightweight 5-LED headtorch with multiple power settings including a flashing mode for attracting attention and comes in at a very reasonable GBP17. The Ring Cyba-lite Firefly is a little curvy keyring torch with an aluminium casing and feels really good in your hand - GBP9.
The last of the three is the Ring Cyba-lite Xtreme which is an awesome LED Headtorch at GBP34. To start with is contains a single LED buld that runs at 1W when on full power. The different power settings allow it to run at 50% and 25% (don't ask me how they get a diode to do that though) so you can save battery easily. It's got some kind of circuitry built in which keeps the battery voltage right up at optimum level until the point where it runs out, rather than just getting duller and duller over time. Because of this you never know when the light will just cut out so they've added a small battery meter to keep you informed. Right now this is my headtorch of choice and with the nights drawing in, it's always handy.

Posted by bigcrags @ 10:52 AM 0 comments

Monday, October 03, 2005
Isotonic Sports Drinks - do we need them?

Are these things all just hype? My favourite isotonic sports drink is simply to mix fresh orange and water - 25% orange, 75% water. It hydrates me and I'm convinced the orange content helps the water get absorbed quicker (though I've got no scientific notion of how this may happen).
The way I see it, isotonic sports drinks suit 2 types of people: elite athletes who need that hydration to happen as quickly as possible when it's crucial to their performance and hungover students for a similar reason.

Having said that I have a sachet of Karrimor Hypotonic drink powder sitting on my desk. Haven't tried it, but it I can see how a lightweight powder drink mix would be a good idea for those on long distance backpacking trips or expeditions when you won't be near a Tesco's to buy their orange juice for a while.

Posted by bigcrags @ 12:03 PM 0 comments

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