view from camp
Well, I went home to Sligo around the 16th of December. It was some fun cycling from Sligo town to the village of Riverstown in a headwind and with all my kit, as well as a load of other peoples kit strapped to me and my bike. It took hours.
I organised a practice night for us to go out and test out our gear, and to show Nathan and Seosamh how to use the kit they had. The bivy bags and all that. They arrived out in the early afternoon, and we headed out to a spot about twenty minutes walk away from my mothers house. Far enough away to be free from potential people. I put us in a spot with no natural shelter. The weather was cold but clear, but I wanted to maximise the hit of any potential weather on us, to test the gear, and to give the lads an idea of what they were getting themselves in for. Some of the kit I had ordered had not arrived yet, but I was hoping to have it by the time we went up the mountain.
(It turned out that we didn’t have it by the time we went up the mountain. We ordered two tarps and a new Lowe Alpine pack off the company www.ukkitmonster.com on the 15th of December. Communications must have messed up. We still don’t have our stuff from them, but at least we got some word back from them. It’s all a bit up in the air at the moment. Hopefully it straightens itself out. )
sunset
I went through how to set up your bivy bag so as to not get your sleeping bag etc. wet, and I showed them how I secure my back pack and boots so they stay dry and don’t blow away etc. I also went though all the basic things they needed to know about nutrition, and how they should be preparing there menus. Seosamh had arrived out with no food or water. Thankfully Nathan had excess, so he didn’t go hungry. I had given Nathan my old military Trangia cooker to use, and he and Seosamh did their meals on that. Nathan has a Coleman stove. The type that runs on petrol, but I didn’t want anything that smelly or explosive on the trip. (Turns out I brought two smelly and explosive things on the trip, as you will find out….)
Nathan
The sun was setting as the lads did their instant pasta meals up, while sitting in their bivy bags. The temperature was plummeting. It was at least below zero before the sun went out of the sky, and there was not a single cloud in the sky, so it didn’t stop dropping. I chatted away, and made myself a cup of tea. Then decided to cook dinner.
nathan cooking
As the training trip was no distance, and only one night, I had brought all fresh food, and continued to cook up a lovely meal. I fried half an onion, then chopped up half a pork chop, and chucked that in to fry. When that was half done, I chopped up half a courgette and half an orange pepper, and threw that into the mix. I put penne pasta into a pot of water I had heated up previously, put that on the Trangia, and put the pan on top of that. The pan acted as a lid for the pasta, and also got enough heat to continue cooking. I added some herbs from my herb pouch (I put salt, oregano, pepper and some mixed herbs in a tiny plastic bag for camp cooking) to the fry mix. When the pasta was done, I drained off the water, shook it around over the heat to dry it a bit more, and then dumped the fry mix in on top of it. It was quite nice, and took under 15 minutes. And had the added bonus of making the lads quite green with envy. I ate, then had another cup of tea, did the dishes and settled into my bivy bag.
Nathan and Seosamh resting
We lay for long hours, just relaxing and watching the sky wheel above us. It was a day off the full moon, and the place was so brightly lit up, you needed no torch to see. I have never seen such a bright night. There were shooting stars of course, and much conversation. The usual banter. Girls, college, girls, computer games, girls…. Etc. deeply meaningful stuff.
Nathan drinking tea
Seosamh looking sleepy
The temps kept dropping. We were well wrapped up, and I was very thankful that I had bought a nice polar-Tec balaclava a few days earlier. I went to make a cup of tea, and first thing, my lighter wouldn’t work. “Too cold” I thought, so popped it in under my arm pit for a while to warm it up. A few minutes later, it was working fine, so I try to light the meths in my Trangia. Nothing. I could pour the flame directly into the alcohol and it would not ignite, no matter how long I tried. That’s a first!!! Never before had I a problem getting the burner lit. So I guessed it was too cold. I sealed it in a zip-lock plastic bag, and popped it down between my thighs to warm it up. Ten minutes later, it lit fine, and I was soon sipping a nice cup of tea once more. Once I got it going, it was fine.
bivy slugs
(New thing learned; keep fuel cell and lighter in your inside jacket pocket in cold weather. If let get too cold, it will not ignite)
Now, I had just gotten two brand new down sleeping bags for Seosamh and I. for myself, I got a Marmot “Sawtooth”. It is a light enough bag, with a nice fit. I am quite tall, and I sleep with my legs straight, so I needed to be sure the bag was long enough. In the cold I noticed that the bag had several cold spots about the size of my fist. It was areas that had NO DOWN AT ALL. This was its first trip out, and the few weeks I had it before, it was stored perfectly. Upon further inspection it seems like it’s not a case of the don moving from those areas, rather a case of those areas had not had down in them in the first place. Serious manufacturing flaw. Add to this, the fact that the flap that is meant to keep cold air from coming in through the zip isn’t well designed, and lets in cold air when you wiggle around. Shame shops don’t have refrigerators you can test out kit in. as I was the other side of the country, I couldn’t just return it to the shops, so I am pretty much stuck with it. That’s the last piece of Marmot kit I ever buy. It cost over 230 euro.
Seosamh’s bag is a Mountain Hardware “clouds rest”. It performed perfectly. Kept a total greenhorn snug and warm in his first bivy, on one of the coldest nights I have ever been out.
Nathan has had his Snugpak hollowfiber bag for about 5 years, and is quite happy with it. But then he will pass out anywhere, any time.
One thing Nathan did mess up on though was in bringing along his platypus water bladder. (Or as we call it, his colostomy bag.) The tube froze solid early on in the evening, so he couldn’t drink his water.
(New thing learned; blow the water out of the tube of your platypus in cold weather. Or better yet, leave it at home.)
The wind kicked off about four in the mourning. We were asleep, I ignored it, and all was good. There was a bit of amusement sometime in the night when Nathan got up to go take a leak, and couldn’t find which boots were his, and which were Seosamh’s. They both have lowa patrol boots, in the same size. And they thought it would be a bright idea to put their boots in the same plastic bag to keep them dry during the night. Bright boys.
waking up
The next morning I had a bowl of porridge and another cup of tea. The lads had instant noodles. They had never thought of what to do for breakfast. I explained to them that you can’t skip meals when you are out and about like you can when you are at home, and that when out for a few days, breakfast really IS the most important meal of the day. Of course it went in one ear and out the other, and they enjoyed noodles every morning of the three day trip also. We packed up and went back to my mom’s place.
Practice run over.
Bits of kit I loved;
Prolite thermarest. Very cosy. Awful orange colour though.
Petzl tika-xp head torch. Very nice torch. Alternative coloured diffusers have to be bought extra though. The red one is handy.
Trangia. I always loved them, always will. Just solid kit. Safe too.
Victornox small veg prep knife. Very sharp blade at a good price.
Bits of kit I did not love.
Marmot “sawtooth” sleeping bag. Live and learn.
