v-g Backpacking in Britain BlogThe Wast Water fells 3-day backpack was the first field trial of the mesh panels modification that I had made to my Hilleberg Akto by Scottish Mountain Gear.
These mesh panels replaced the solid nylon vertical walls at either end of the inner and were designed to solve the bad ventilation problems I experienced on […]
Very occasionally we receive an excellence of service that really deserves a special accolade, and here one must definitely go to Scottish Mountain Gear (SMG). I sent off my Akto inner by courier on Tuesday and paid the extra tariff for next-day delivery, but it still didn’t arrive until Thursday lunchtime according to the courier’s […]
Another night in the Akto, this time on Round Hill in the North Pennines, and more thoughts on the ventilation of the inner - or lack of it. Once again there was a good breeze blowing outside but it was impossible to get air movement without the door completely open, and then it tended to […]
Following on from my review of the Golite Quest 72l pack for our joint trips, I have bought a lighter and smaller solo summer pack - the 49l Golite LiteSpeed.
The first field trial was on the North Pennines trip and it was a great success as expected, but it confirmed an important factor I had […]
Finally some first impressions of the Akto that I used on my first solo 2-day backpack in the Dolwyddelan Hills. I’ll expand this entry into a full review on the main website once I get some photos and experiment some more, in the meantime there are a couple of points I need to sort out […]
The PHD Minim 300 sleeping bag with full length left-hand zip arrived yesterday and it feels really luxurious yet light, but as usual the first thing was to weigh it. I packed it in the supplied stuffsack and put it on the postal weighing scales - and the answer was quite surprising.
The zipless bag was […]
After much deliberation a Hilleberg Akto has arrived with incredible speed, ordered one day and delivered at 10-o-clock the next morning. I am assured that this gives me reliable year-round capability: I hesitate to use the common ‘4-season‘ tag because it sounds silly to me, the only season-related aspect of a tent is how it […]
Not the tent itself of course, but the online order for what seemed to be the only Lightwave T0 Ultra solo tunnel tent actually available in Britain, despite appearing on several retailer websites. The accounting system of the shop showed one in stock and I duly ordered it, but there was something wrong: diligent searching […]
The time may be approaching when I try a few solo backpacks between our usual joint trips. This is actually an agonizing prospect that is screwing with my mind from different directions, mainly because it really goes against our grain: our walk log has clocked up over 11,000 miles and we have walked every one […]
After years and many miles with my indestructible but heavy Lowe Alpine Frontier backpack, I finally found a lightweight candidate for replacement - the Golite Quest.
At a quoted 72l this is bigger than most ultralight solo backpackers need, but I carry around 75% to 80% of the weight for two people so this volume is […]
