Offa's Dyke 25-28 March
With the Easter bank holiday coming a couple of months before JOGLE, it looked like a perfect opportunity to test out the kit over 4 days in the hills. The idea was to take exactly what we needed for the 30 days and see what a heavy pack, high mileage and several days of 3000+ feet of ascent does to the pace.
Martin joined us at Sedbury on Friday morning after Nina and I had camped at the start overnight. With rain and high winds forecast for most of the long weekend we were keen to make the most of the good weather and so rose at 5am to make the most of the daylight. The gradual climb up to Devil's Pulpit was relaxed and the pack felt fine. I'd been walking around 10 miles a day with a 9kg pack for the last few weeks to get used to the weight, and this seemed to have worked. We stopped for fish & chips in Monmouth and eventually ended the day at mile 33 in Pandy with a pub meal before scouting out a field by the river to wild camp.
There were some heavy showers overnight and both our tents were blown about a bit, Nina's Six Moons tent collapsing slightly as one pole became detatched, but we made it through on around 4-5 hours of fitful sleep and woke at 5am ready for a 5:30 start. The day's route started with a climb to Black Darren and even though the wind was to the side, it was tough going making progress over the tops. By 2pm we descended into Hay-on-Wye but were exhausted after having had no opportunity to rest for 8 hours and 18 miles. It was at this point we realised that the weather was closing in and camping out again would mean another night of no sleep, so we took the decision to get a B&B and head back to Chepstow rather than brave the hills in storm-force winds.
Day 3 saw us taking the road back via Llantony to Pandy as it was too windy to head to the ridge, with winds of 50 mph and gusts to 60+ in the valleys. Once at Pandy we had a quick lunch and as the weather improved we headed back to Monmouth and another 33 mile day. The final day was a slow 18 miles back to Chepstow as Nina was nursing an achiles injury.
In all we averaged 26 miles per day with full packs. The Sawyer water filters were probably the best bit of kit we had, with the lightweight poles a close second. Thanks to titanium pegs the camp kit held up well and would be fine for 30 days out in the hills. Pack-wise Nina probably had too much kit at 10kg as this represented 20% of her bodyweight, whereas I was at around 8%, so we need to work on refining to the bare minimum and maybe also sharing cook kit and other items between 2-3 people to further cut down on weight.
The trade-off is going to be weight vs comfort. I'm planning another go at Offa's and a trip around Anglesey to get the kit choice absolutely right, to get used to 14-16 hiking hours a day and sleeping properly while wild camping.
My Kit - pack weight with food & water 7.2kg
Terra Nova Laser Photon 1 tent - 800g
Multimat Superlite Air Full length mattress - 300g (I chose comfort over a lighter 100g foam mat - still undecided for JOGLE)
Sea 2 Summit Micro MCIII sleeping bag - 805g
Inov8 Race Pro 22L pack - 665g (foam back removed)
Petzl Tikka headtorch & backup pencil torch - 128g
Motorola MotoG GPS phone with Viewranger - 145g
4xAA USB charger & cable - 160g
Helly Hansen baselayer - 240g
Tshirt & full-length lycra leggings (wearing so not part of the pack weight)
Helly Hansen fleece gloves with waterproof mitts - 90g
Montane Prism jacket - 400g
Montane Featherlite shell - 300g
Gore-tex boot liners - 140g
Berghouse waterproof trousers - 405g
More Mile merino wool socks - 55g
Hoka Challenger ATR shoes (wearing)
Snow Peak Titanium 600ml, folding spork, mini lighter & folding tin-opener - 120g
Alpkit Krakau Burner & 100ml gas canister - 250g
2 packs of Extreme Adventure Food 800 cals - 350g
200g peanuts, 5 pepperami & 2 snickers - 370g
Sawyer water filter - 140g
Fizan walking poles - 320g
Weight of water - 1kg