There was an excellent sunrise this morning that I watched through the patio windows of my lodge, which look out over the lake. I posted one of the early sunrise images as my “Photo of the Day”. Below is a later shot as the sky went pink.
I went for two shorter walks today. The first was along the coast near Barrow-in-Furness.
The second was up into the hills near Whicham.
Black Combe
Rather than drive anywhere today I walked out to Warton Crag from the Pine Lake complex.
I traveled light today, carrying some water and a small first aid/emergency kit in my walking vest – the rest of my kit went into my coat pockets. For lunch I took some breakfast biscuits, some cold chicken from last night’s dinner and my small brew kit. I only carried my titanium mug with lid and a couple of solid fuel tablets and made a small fire place out of some stones to heat the water for my tea.
I also carried a small heavy duty plastic sheet to sit on and my hat and gloves.
Walking Today – Warton Crag Read More »
It was raining hard as the sunset this evening and it had some extraordinary light.
Sunset at Pine Lake Read More »
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.
More Weight Saving Read More »
More rain so it was a day for a coffee and walking on the Lancaster city trail.
Lancaster Castle
Roman Baths
