We've recently bought some new lightweight camping gear, with the aim of doing some long distance walking and wild camping in the future. (I think I've begun to realise, from my conversations with people, that I'm becoming a bit of an outdoor gear geek!) Last weekend, we decided to test it out a little, up on the Clwydian Hills in North-East Wales. I've put a page up in the walks section of this site with lots of pictures and a description of the route, but I thought I'd also just mention what some of the equipment is that we have been using - equipment which so far I'm extremely pleased with - in case anyone else is looking for some pointers at to what might fit their needs.

The tent is a Big Agnes Seedhouse SuperLight 2 Person, which packs down to just over a kilo and easily fits inside a 35 litre rucksack. We got this from REI in the US, where it was considerably cheaper than in the UK.

I'm sleeping in a Mountain Hardware Lamina 35, which whilst not the lightest bag in its temperature range, does pack down very small and will fit sideways at the bottom of my pack. You can pay as much as you like for a sleeping bag these days, and I reckoned that this was a good compromise. Got it from Cotswold Outdoor in Betws-y-Coed.

For cooking, we're becoming awfully fond of our Trangia 27 series. We got the one with the steel coated pans (too many scares about aluminium around), which doesn't add much weight at all. It weighs in at about a kilo, plus fuel (meths).

And my latest purchase is my Rab Drillium jacket, which I got from Joe Brown's in Capel Curig. This is an incredibly light jacket (around 350g) which is made from the eVent stuff, which has done better than GoreTex in many tests. Waterproof, breathable, hood, light, nice and short so also good for cycling. Oh, and brightly coloured so you can be seen by the helicopters should the worst come to the worst.

I like camping. I always have. And luckily, my girlfriend Marla likes camping too. This tends to lead to lots of camping.

We have a plan to try a bit of backpacking camping, whereby everything we need will be carried by us. To this end, we've bought a nice lightweight tent, stove, sleeping bags etc. We've also been experimenting with ways of carrying and preparing food, such that it is light to carry, nutritious to fuel all the walking, tasty, and also requiring minimal cleaning afterwards. (Take a look here for one method.) Basically, we've been trying to consider all the things which we might need.

One of the things about this kind of thing, however, is where to go. There are obviously a number of well-known long distance routes around the UK, such as the Pennine Way, Offa's Dyke and Hadrian's Wall. But, what about off the beaten track?

Well, perfect time to find a small article in the Guardian this weekend, discussing Scotland's variant of the UK-wide "right to roam" legislation. The Mountaineering Council of Scotland produce this helpful little leaflet explaining how wild camping is now, subject to a few sensible rules, by default permitted all across Scotland!

Time to plan a trip I think...

As previously advertised, we went of to Wales again this weekend, to get in some more serious walking.

We camped down at Llyn Gwynant, at the foot of Snowdon, but on Saturday took the long walk from Ogwen Cottage up and over Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach. I have only done that particular walk once before, a good few years ago, and attempting it again certainly made me feel a bit older! Still, we managed it and felt pretty pleased with ourselves (if a little tired) by the end of the 6 and a half hours.

The photos from the weekend are up on Flickr, and I've also added a new section of this site with more details of this and future walks. Click here to take a look.

The weather was also wonderful once more, and that made the camping great fun. I got to try out my new Trangia 27-8 stove, which is a fantastic little meths-burning lightweight piece of equipment. Mmmm... fried egg sandwich anyone?