May 2012
25 posts
The Lost World of Everest! →
As a kid, my favourite ripping yarn was this book, still available at a ludicrously cheap price. It’s the politically incorrect tale of three plucky British climbers on Everest, swept by an avalanche into a heated volcanic basin. From there, they find their way into a series of luminescent catacombs, encountering the lost descendants of British survivors of the 1857 Great Mutiny. They arrive...
Plausible deniability
I’d intended something interesting in China this Spring: an unsupported, continuous East-West traverse of the Tian Shan, from Urumqi to the Kazakh border at Korgas. Travelling light on foot at or about the 3000-4000m watershed, carrying food for a couple of weeks at a time, dropping out to small villages for the occasional resupply; no maps available, no communications, no realistic chance...
The spirit of adventure? →
Back in October I mused briefly on the nature of modern ‘adventure.’ This cracking piece by Andy Kirkpatrick has spurred me to get off my arse and follow that up. We live in times of globalisation, cultural homogenisation, rapid transport and communications, ubiquitous internet access, dispiriting mass package tourism and universal ATM machines. That’s meant a real improvement in...
TGOzzzzz
The most challenging aspect of the TGOC is wading through the mindfuckingly tedious blog posts it seems to generate.
And what is it with the more anal participants posting all their own food ahead? I know the Scottish diet is a bit lacking, but this breathless advocacy favours an approach that contributes nothing to local economies except a fortnight’s worth of faeces (derived from calories...
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Zip it! →
The SL3’s on its way back to the UK for a date with Scottish Mountain Gear. The zip was getting temperamental enough that I could no longer be sure it’d last a trip. It’s not the zip as such but rather the slider, a common failure due to wear and tear. Cheap and easy to replace (as I found out just a bit too often with Terra Nova tents I’ve had in the past). The SL3 zip...
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Rogue Male →
No, not me - the 1939 book by Geoffrey Household. I saw the Peter O’Toole TV adaptation as a kid in the 1970s and it left a strong impression on me (I remember being rather upset by the cat incident). It’s now available on the Kindle, and I just finished it in more-or-less one sitting. It’s very much a book of its time, but that doesn’t mean it’s a simplistic...
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New miracle weight loss programme
It started with a rumbling stomach and a couple of dodgy toilet stops, but by evening I was dashing out of the tent every half an hour, shitting water through the eye of a needle. It was the worst case of the squits I’ve ever had (that didn’t involve simultaneous projectile vomiting in an Indian/Nepalese stylee, at least). By dawn I was a withered husk of a man with a glowing...
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Tian Shan: water logistics
There’s enough animal activity in the Tian Shan that I take water purification seriously, even when the water in question is almost undoubtedly safe (meltwater run-off). I’ve had giardia, and I don’t fancy something even nastier like echinococcosis. Potential vectors include domestic sheep and cattle, marmots, foxes, wild pigs and wolves. You need to bring appropriate kit out...
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驴友
This is the fashionable Chinese term for what we’d broadly call a ‘trekker’, i.e. someone walking while carrying their own gear. It’s pronounced lǘ yǒu (lu2you3), and translates literally as ‘donkey friend’. The word lǘ is also a homonym for ‘travel’ (same pronunciation, different character). It’s a phrase that was originally applied to touring...
April 2012
39 posts
Layer up
After playing around with various options over the last couple of years, this is the combination of clothing I’ve hit on that covers most bases. It’s a truism that heavier clothing will last longer and give you better protection from the elements, and that’s the direction I’m going as stuff wears out and needs replacing. With a couple of exceptions, I’m steering clear...
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Listen
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Burn, baby, burn
At the end of January I spent an evening in a bothy with a pair of fellow hill hobos who, it transpired, were the couple that burned down Gleann Dubh-Lighe. Once I’d checked my escape route was clear, we settled in for a chat. It turned out the GDL fire was the result of a gas stove failure rather than the Buckfast-fuelled binge I’d imagined. Rising before dawn to cook breakfast by...
Munrofilm →
Vimeo, like Youtube, is behind the Firewall, but I’ll be checking this one out when I return to the UK.
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Keith titanium cookware →
Yeah, it’s not a great name, but I spotted this new (?) brand of titanium pans in an Urumqi shop this morning. They’re clearly aimed at the market niche occupied by Evernew, and have some interesting features. Poking around on the Chinese equivalent of Ebay yields offers like this (320Y is about £32). I’d be tempted if I didn’t already have a perfectly serviceable Evernew...
The twisted claw →
I may be the perfect weight and have a resting heart rate of 57, but I’m experiencing increasing discomfort in my left wrist. The time honoured method of ignoring it until it goes away hasn’t worked, so I went to see an orthopaedic specialist here in Urumqi this morning. I thought it might be arthritis or, possibly, complications associated with last summer’s scaphoid injury. It...
Earplugs →
Earplugs are pretty much essential kit, whether it’s down to flappy flysheets or barely house-trained tossers on campsites. It’s a long time since I paid the Fantasy Island prices asked by outdoor gear shops or pharmacies. These Laser Lites are what you get on oil rigs when you’re working below decks. Two hundred sets for less than twenty quid, you work it out.
BMI Calculator Plus →
Cheers, John.
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Luxe Mini Peak II →
While we’re on the subject of Luxe inner tents, I see Podcast Bob is now selling the Mini Peak II. I’ll be in mine for a couple of weeks when I return to Scotland (see initial impressions back in Sept 2011). It seems a solid little tent, but the mesh inner isn’t no-see’um (or at least the one I bought in China wasn’t). For Scottish summer purposes, fabric that lets in...
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The man who quit money →
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Kathmandu kit →
Kathmandu UK are having a sale. The prices (including free postage) are actually the same or cheaper than those people are paying on the internet in China itself (I was after a new silk bag liner, and just had a look at the UK pricing out of curiosity). There’s at least one tent there that’s got to be worth thinking about.
