Camping – Page 18 – Clive's Blog

Backpacking Food – “Star Wars” Camping Trip

2 May 2014 / Camping, General, Photography, Travel / backpacking food, coffee, Lake District, Photos 2014, tea

Backpacking Food

I am off to the Lake District with friends tomorrow for an overnight wild camp. The following is the backpacking food I will be taking.

As we are planning to wild camp where this is no water available, it means that all the water I think I will need I will have to carry in. This menu is designed reduce my water needs to drinks only – no dehydrated food. I am planning to carry 2l of water up into the hills.

The plan is to day hike, on Saturday, down to one of the lakes. Then go back to the car, restock with water, pick up our main packs and head off to our camp site later in the afternoon.

Lunch Saturday

Extra to this I am going to buy a Sausage Pie from the village shop when we leave and add a banana. The plastic bag is for the rubbish and the “hint of lemon” is a hand wipe.

Saturday Dinner

The bread is Warburtons Brown Sandwich Thins, which are pre-sliced. I shall probably eat the granola bar with my first mug of tea at the campsite before the tent goes up.

Sunday Breakfast

Extra Food

Just in case I am a bit more hungry than I expect – I am planning to have the chocolate breakfast biscuits with my early morning tea, whilst I am still in my sleeping bag, admiring the view.

Drinks and extras

The small Nalgene bottle contains dry milk powder. The Chrysanthemen Honey Tea, which I get from a local Asian Supermarket, can be dissolved in either hot or cold water.

There are two items not shown:

I have a 60ml Nalgene bottle of fresh ground Costa Coffee and I my Brew Kit.

Why “Star Wars”?

Sunday is May the Fourth.

Edited with BlogPad Pro

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Camping Food

29 March 2014 / Camping, General, Photography, Travel / camping, camping food, coffee, England, Photos 2014, tea

Camping Food

I am going camping next weekend, probably to the Peak District. The plan is to get a cooked breakfast on the way, spend the day walking and taking photographs then onto a campsite for the night. I am not backpacking with this food, it is a car based trip.

As I am away next week on business I am sorting the gear and camping food this weekend. Packed in the bag above is the evening meal, breakfast and the extras! Not shown in the photo is trail food for the Saturday and some apples.

Trail Food

I am going the add a banana or apple to this – and I am planning to get my Alpkit Kraku stove out along the way to make the 2-in-1 coffee. Hygiene is essential when camping and walking, hence the hand wipe and napkin.

Evening meal

Once the tent is up I am having soup and crackers.

Chicken Chow Mein is a microwave meal from the supermarket. I am going to empty the contents of both packs into my Alpkit MiTiMug, heat, stir and eat. Instant custard for dessert.

Extras

There are tea bags and dried milk in the red neoprene pouch.

The two 60ml Nalgene bottles contain fresh ground coffee and dried milk. If fresh milk is available at the campsite I shall buy some.

Some of the mint chocolate is going to be broken up and added to the hot instant custard.

The breakfast biscuits are for having with my early morning tea whilst still in my sleeping bag.

Breakfast

I am going to mix the jam and dried fruit into the porridge – which can be made with either dried or fresh milk. The yogurt flakes I will eat with fresh coffee.

I am heading home after breakfast so no lunch.

Edited with BlogPad Pro

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Sea to Summit Travel Day Pack

1 February 2014 / Camping, Outdoor Gear / lightweight backpacking, lightweight camping, outdoor gear, tea

The Sea to Summit Travel Day Pack has, since last summer, become my walking day pack of choice.

It packs away into a keyring size package making it excellent as an extra bag for backpacking, holidays and travelling. I started using it as my day pack to simply save weight.

In use Scotland August 2013

The 20l capacity provides enough space to carry my:

Waterproofs
Pot, stove and mug
Lunch and water
Extra warm clothes
First Aid Kit
Emergency equipment
Sit mat (back padding)

In use Scotland January 2014

The only time this is not my “go to” day pack is when I need to carry a walking pole. For short walks I can slide my lightweight pole in between the small of my back and the pack, letting it ride on the bottom of the straps. For more technical longer walks with a pole I use another bag.

Comfort

With such a light backpack there are some issues with the comfort – but these are not so great to stop me using it.

Because the bag has no structure I have to pack the it carefully so the items stay in place and so nothing sticks into my back.
To help with the above problems I have cut a section from an old sleeping mat so that when it is fitted into the back of the day pack it helps with giving some shape to the bag and pads my back a little.
The shoulder straps are unpadded so from time to time whilst walking I have to flatten them out and reposition them on my shoulders to support the weight.

Mods

I have added a couple of small caribieners to the ends of the very thin shoulder straps. This has stopped the straps being pulled back into the buckles, which happened a lot when walking with the pack with even a moderate load in it. Once the strap was back in the buckle it was then very awkward to adjust the shoulder straps for comfort and there was also a risk of the strap being pulled right out if the buckle.

I have also added a caribiener to the double zip for security.

Inside you can see an 8l dry sack – this is essential as the pack does leak in heavy weather

Wear and tear

The Sea to Summit Travel Day Pack is made from rip stop Siliconized Cordura® and the pack itself is very well made, making it extremely tough and strong. However I use the bag (particularly in the winter) well packed and this has led to some abrasion damage. When well packed the material is tight, with no give in it and when it had dragged against rough rocks it has been damaged. At the moment none of the damage is serious but I expect it to happen regularly and to eventually ruin the bag.

The shoulder straps now have permanent heavy creases in them through use.

A bag for work

A few weeks back I used this pack for an overnight business trip. It easily held the clothes, wash kit, paperwork, iPad, charger, cables, small toolkit and portable hard drive I needed for the job. I added to that a bottle of water and a snack or two for the journey.

With the mat slipped in the back it was comfortable to carry and easy to store on the train as well as being smart enough to turn up with at a client’s office.

Conclusion – Sea to Summit Travel Day Pack

For me the Sea to Summit Travel Day Pack is a great day pack and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a light, strong day pack. But remember it is a simple no fuss design, no extra pockets or straps and if you use a hydration bladder the crinkling tube has to come out through the zipper. Because of it’s packed away size and weight it is especially useful to carry as an extra bag when travelling – if needed I add it to my backpacking equipment to be used as a shopping bag.

The minus points have to be mentioned:

The bag has no structure – if I carry my iPad in it I have to take extra care not to damage it due to bad packing.
if the bag is packed full and tight it is susceptible to abrasion damage.
There are no external fittings for a walking pole.

If (when) I ruin this bag I will buy another.

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More Weight Saving

28 January 2014 / Camping, Outdoor Gear / Alpkit, lightweight backpacking, lightweight stove, outdoor gear

I packed some of my lightweight backpacking kit for this trip – to use whilst walking – and to review with the idea of saving some more weight for this year’s backpacking trips.

Wind shield, chopping board and stove board

My current stove wind shield is a commercial aluminium model that I cut on half. It works well with my meths stove but was useless for my MSR Pocket Rocket as it was too short and not quite tall enough for my new Alpkit Kraku stove.

I decided to replace this wind shield with something taller and ideally something lighter.

I bought two platters, made from heavy duty aluminium foil from a pound shop (2 for a £). Once I had cut off the lip I could flatten one of them out and I cut a 15cm x 30cm panel. To make it a bit more rigid I folded a small lip around the edge. I then folded this into a four panel wind shield.

Weight saved
Old wind shield 81g
New wind shield 26g

I use a small wooden board under my meths stove. When I originally cut the board I also used it under my Crusader stove, which is larger. It was time to cut the board to the right size.

Weight saved
Old board 38g
New board 23g

I was using a cut down plastic wall tile as a cutting board, I swapped this out for a plastic lid from a pot of fruit. It is about 9cm in diameter and the lip is useful to stop bits rolling off when I use it.

Weight saved
Old cutting board 18g
New cutting board 4g

I am no longer going to carry the case that I used to store all three items in – another 9g saved.

Total weight saved 93g – every gram counts.

Alpkit Kraku Backpacking Gas Stove

20 January 2014 / Camping, Outdoor Gear, Travel / Alpkit, Alpkit Kraku, Aviemore, Craigellachie National Nature Reserve, lightweight backpacking, lightweight camping, lightweight stove, MSR titanium mug, outdoor gear, Scotland

First use of the Alpkit Kraku Backpacking Gas Stove

It was my first opportunity today to use the new Alpkit Kraku gas stove. It is very small and I carried a small gas canister to make it a very portable unit. The small size of the burner unit does mean that some care must be taken when fixing it to the gas canister, it can cross thread very easily and if over tightened the shoulder of the valve can jamb on the lip of the gas canister. Once together and the pot supports are set up it does make a very stable stove. I used my MSR titanium mug with lid on it and it sat very well. Once lit, it only took a couple of minutes for the water to come to a rolling boil – I had the stove set up in a very sheltered spot and I was using a wind shield. In the photos you can see the pot support glowing cherry red.

The actual flame head is also quite small, especially compared with my previous MSR Pocket Rocket, it worked well under my mug and I am sure it will work under my Alpkit MiTiMug but I expect it will struggle with a larger pot. It probably will not deliver enough heat for group cooking. When I go camping later in the year I will try it out with the small frying pan I use when static camping. However I bought this as a personal backpacking stove where weight is everything and it is considerably lighter than the MSR stove and when camping on my own it should still be sufficient.

Overall (so far) I am very pleased with the Alpkit Kraku stove – it is very small and light. Well made and efficient – boiling a mug of water significantly quicker then if I had used my meths stove. Because it is so light I may be changing my backpacking habits and using a gas stove more than the ultralight Vargo titanium meth stove I currently use.

Here are some more detailed photos of the stove – More is less.

Here is the post about the walk where I used this stove.

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Walking today – Craigellachie National Nature Reserve Aviemore

20 January 2014 / Camping, Outdoor Gear, Photography, Travel, Walking / Alpkit, Alpkit Kraku, Aviemore, backpacking food, Cairngorm Mountains, Cairngorms National Park, coffee, Craigellachie National Nature Reserve, food, hiking food, iPhone photography, IT Support for Lincolnshire, MSR titanium mug, Octagon Technology, outdoor gear, Scotland, tea, walking

With the weather forecast for the day being reasonably good, I decided not to waste any time driving but set off to Craigellachie National Nature Reserve – with a plan to go up onto the ridge and walk along the top.

The weather was great and relatively warm (for January in the Cairngorms), I did not need my gloves, hat or jumper nor did I need to zip my coat up until I got out into the wind on the exposed ridge and summits. One thing I did have on though was the new Helly Hansen Lifa Dry base layer Diana bought me – and it was excellent, it kept me warm, was comfortable to wear and did not absorb any sweat when I was warm so when I did need the insulation on the top, it worked.

Have you ever wondered who puts the rock steps in the footpaths? Well I met two of them today.

Rather than get my stove out to make a coffee, I took hot water in a thermal mug, for the first stop. I had a number Octagon Technology emails and texts to deal with – if there is one problem with the titanium mug I normally use is that on a longer break, like this one, the drink would get cold too quickly. But not when using a thermal mug. I had packed it for this trip having recently read a blog of a backpacker who used one to keep water hot for his late night hot chocolate. He boiled the water when he made his evening meal so it meant he could pack his stove and pots away for the night and still have a hot drink later. I bought my thermal mug a number of years ago but it has had little use but I am going to try it out on this trip and if it works out I may pack it for subsequent trips.

Lunch

Lunch was soup and crackers. I really like the “Squeeze and Stir” tomato soup but I have found it difficult to stir in and dissolve all the paste when I have been making it for lunch when walking and backpacking. I tend to use cup-a-soups which are really easy to make on the trail. But today I had a thermal mug. I put the paste in the mug and half filled it with boiling water. Then making sure the lid was on firmly I vigorously shook it. After about a minute I topped the mug up with more boiling water and I had perfect tomato soup – and once I was finished no messy mug to clean up, I just put the lid back on and packed it away.

click on the above image for a larger version

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More is less

7 January 2014 / Backpacking, Camping, Outdoor Gear, Photography / backpacking, iPhone photography, lightweight backpacking, lightweight stove, outdoor gear, Photos 2014

In my quest to carry a lighter backpack I have changed another piece of my lightweight backpacking kit.

Alpkit Kraku stove

This gas stove from Alpkit weighs just 45g plus a few grams for the bag – my previous MSR Pocket Rocket weighed 108g.

To show how small the stove is, Alpkit has a photo on their website comparing it to a AA cell battery (like above) however when I got the stove I was still surprised how light and small it really is. I will easily be able to pack this stove in the stuff sack that I carry most of my backpacking cooking gear in – the MSR stove was to big to fit.

The next thing to do is get out and test the stove – which I plan to do next Sunday morning.