https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/03/nepal-cracks-down-on-multimillion-dollar-helicopter-rescue-scams

1. The first incident was an avalanche that killed one. According to several reports an avalanche in Creag Meagaidh, in the Scottish highlands, killed one man and badly injured another. Both were rescued after other climbers found equipment on the surface and dug them out. Both then made it onto a rescue helicopter, but one later died and the second is in a serious condition.
2. The second incident involved an elderly walker who was with a group of three men, all elderly, who went missing in Dumfries and Galloway in the west of Scotland. The three were found in the village of Durisdeer (you can find it on Google maps by clicking this link) after getting lost and spending a night out. One of the men suffered from hypothermia and died according to reports.
3. In a third incident two very experienced climbers. The two (pictured below), Rachel Slater and Tim Newton went missing while climbing on Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest peak, over the Valentine’s weekend. Poor weather conditions had halted the search, which could only resume on Wednesday morning (meaning the two had been out on the mountain four at least four days or so). The search for them was also delayed because a helicopter was diverted to deal with the avalanche mentioned above. One contributing factor is that they appear not to have left details of their route. Mountain rescue teams in the area say they haven’t given up hope and that they have found survivors before after four days on Ben Nevis.

Rachel Slater and Tim Newton Photograph: Police Scotland

The incident took place in the Wattental valley, Tirol, and reports indicate that those involved had ignored warnings. The Guardian paper reported that:

The experienced Czech skiers were taking part in a so-called “freeride camp” and had been repeatedly warned about the avalanche danger by locals, according to regional TV station ORF.

I bang on a bit about avalanche safety on this blog, but this is a good reminder of why to listen to warnings and also to have full gear including protective items such as the avalanche airbag or avalung.

Looking north from the campsite at Lac de Gaube in the French Pyrenees.

If you are hiking in the  FrenchPyrenees one of the nicest places to go wild camping is at Lac de Gaube, a beautiful lake a short walk up from Cauterets and a good base for walking the GR10 or crossing over to Spain. The campsite is alongside a gorgeous lake with clear water and good areas for pitching and makes an excellent stop or picnic ground. The walk up to Lac de Gaube from Cauteret is a very pleasant one and just takes a few hours so you can easily do it after lunch if you have flown into the area in the morning (I few into Lourdes and caught the bus to Cauterets and then walked up on the first day).

cauterets to lac de Gaube

The walk is a fairly easy 10km or so, but with a bit of a climb of about 600m or so. But because it follows the rivers and valleys it is cool and beautiful. To start, head down to the edge of Cauterets and just turn left up the valley, initially along the road but you very soon see a path that heads of alongside the road. The path very soon breaks away from the road and heads into beautiful forest cover giving shade and cool breezes almost all the way up to Pont d’Espagne, the entrance to the national park. The beautiful waterfalls and stone bridges are definitely highlights of the walk. Another is that you can easily get a beer from the coffee shop at Pont d’Espagne, which is more than enough to fortify you for the next stretch of the walk.

The beautiful stone bridge and waterfalls of Pont d’Espagne

From Pont d’Espagne carry on up the valley following the markings for the GR10. When you get to the lake, curve around it to the right following signs for the refugue des Oulettes de Gaube. A short walk around the lake to the southern end will get you to a nice flat area that is perfect for pitching tents. The only downside we had was we shared it with some very friendly horses that decided to start eating our gear and tents in the morning.

campsite at lac de gaube

The Lightwave Wildtrek in action.

The official  statistics on the Lightwave Wildtrek 60, the one I got are as follows:

• Capacity : 60 litres
• Load:  9–12 kg (15 kg max)
• Back length: 50 cm or 55 cm
• Weight: 1.48 kg

If you just look at these basic stats then this pack doesn’t look as impressive as some others including the newer Osprey Exos or even some of  Lightwave’s other offerings. The Ultrahike 60, for example, weighs abut 200g less and has very similar listed carrying capacity.

But to look just at these numbers is to miss the bigger picture because this is an incredibly well-made and well thought out pack that is comfortable to carry all day and won’t get ripped apart by the first bush that looks at you.

The first thing to note about the Wildtrek is that it is designed to be rainproof with waterproof fabric, weather resistant zips and taped seams on virtually all parts of the bag. The exception is that seams that connect the back panel that goes up against your back. This doesn’t make the bag a genuine waterproof bag that you can lash to a kayak, but it makes it about as rainproof as you are ever going to get. This allows you to cut some weight by ditching a rain-cover, though I didn’t go so far as to ditch my waterproof inner bags holding my down sleeping bag and dry cloths. There is probably a small weight penalty to using this material but it more than pays off if you hike in perennially rainy places such as Britain. It would also make a great pack for the GR20, where afternoon showers are a regular occurrence.

Note the waterproof zip at the bottom. It is also minimalist without excess weight-adding webbing or pockets.

The pack is divided into upper and lower compartments, with a divider between them. The divider doesn’t open up (my previous pack had a drawstring that let you go into the bottom of the bag from the top) but that doesn’t seem a downside. The divider itself looks fairly waterproof (or at least water-resistant) so my help keep wet stuff away from dry. It is also floppy enough that it can flatten out at the very bottom of the bag, allowing you to fill the top compartment to the full capacity of the entire bag is you prefer to use it as a single compartment bag.

Waterproof zip into lower compartment. Note the floppy divider that can either keep wet and dry stuff separate, or be flattened into the bottom of the bag allowing 1-compartment use.

The bag doesn’t have many wasteful and heavy extras – not like the ones you see with so much webbing they belong on a ship. But it does have a few essentials such as a sleeve for a hydration system. This is accessed from inside the pack rather than from the outside, which I would have preferred. It has a port for the tube and holders on each shoulder strap to allow you to keep the drinking tube out of the way. It also has a few useful pockets. One on top of the lid that can take a waterproof or map. It also has a tiny pocket on the inside of the lid. There is a mesh pocket with velcro closure on the outside of each hip. This was big enough to carry a small camera on one side and a few snacks and pocket knife on the other. Finally on the inside of the waist-belt are two hidden money compartments for flat valuables such as cash or perhaps a credit card.

Hidden pocket on the inside of of the well-shaped and padded waist-belt.

Note the solid grab handle, waterproof zip on the top lid pocket and port of the drinking tube.

Small pocket on the inside of the lid – useful for matches and a headlamp.

Testing the Terra Nova laser competition tent on a beautiful wild camp on the Pennine Way.

Overview of the Terra Nova Laser Competition 1

The first thing about the Terra Nova laser competition is that it is incredibly light. A few years back it was probably the lightest tent on the market, though it has now been superseded by much more expensive, if somewhat lighter tents. The tent’s listed weight is 910grammes (2 pounds) and you certainly feel it the moment you pick it up. That compares incredibly favourably with the weight of a lot of bivvies on the market, yet provides the space of a real tent with proper gear storage alongside. The Rab Storm Bivvy, for instance, weighs about 2/3 as much (or about 600 grams) and doesn’t give you space to store gear or cook (yes, I know, you have to be really careful cooking in a tent). I’m not saying that Bivvy bags don’t have their place, but unless you need to sleep on a narrow ledge or are carrying one as a survival bag, then you are better off with a tent like this.

If you want to cut the weight even further you can strip down to an even more minimalist shelter. You can pitch it with only the fly sheet and no ground sheet or inner. Or you can use Terra Nova’s fastpack system, where you get a minimalist footprint to go under the tent, leaving you with a lightweight single-skin shelter.

The tent is pretty compact. The manufacturer claims that it can sleep two people in a pinch. Well, they would have to be really good friends, and even so you would have to dispense with the inner tent and just use the outer as a shelter. That said, it would keep you dry and reasonably warm in any sort of 3-season outing.

The way in which the manufacturers have dropped the weight dramatically is by using very light and thin materials. The inner and outer are the lightest and thinnest I’ve seen on a tent (think of a really thin stuff-sack and you will get the idea). It has a single hooped pole to provide stability and two small carbon fibre poles at each end to give a bit more shape. Frankly I couldn’t see the point of them and didn’t bother – perhaps one of you can tell me why I’m making a big mistake not using them. The pegs are very light alloy but worked just fine. Even so I took a few stronger ones along just in case. I’m told the previous version used springy titanium pegs that always pinged off into the distance and were instantly lost. These didn’t give that trouble, dug in easily enough and held firm. There are two guy lines, one at each end. They seems a bit low to me, but what do I know. I also would have appreciated another two on the fat-sides of the tent to stabilise the single hoop in strong winds. People tell me that instead it just bends before the wind (best to pitch it hoop-side to the wind).

Pitching the competition 1

You know that old and wise bit of advice about putting up your tent once at home before heading out. Yep, it is sensible. But I’m not always a sensible chap, so I decided to pitch for the first time on a hill it in the dark and wind in freezing temperatures with fingers numb from having forgotten to pack my gloves. It took me a bit of time, a few choice swear words, several efforts and more choice words before I got it pitched to my reasonable satisfaction. As the picture above shows it didn’t look exactly taught or neat in the warm light of day. Even so it was perfectly adequate and held up well on a windy night.

The Competition 1 in use

In use I found it a wee bit cramped with either my head or feet touching the walls. That may have been because I didn’t use the extra two carbon fibre poles to space it out a bit. I also found that there wasn’t much ventilation. It was a freezing cold night so I didn’t want too much, but I did wake up in the morning with a fair bit of condensation frozen to the inside of the tent walls. I know this always happens in the cold, but the lack of a vent would probably be troubling in slightly warmer weather.

In all other respects this is a really well thought out tent. The inner has a nice big bug screen so in dryer weather you can open up the fly sheet and not be bothered by insects. It has tabs in all the right places to roll away flaps and the like. The guy ropes have great little locking cleats so you just pull them tight and they lock in place. The zips felt high quality and the construction seemed to be to a very good standard. The tent comes with a small set of fabric patches and other spares to do little repairs. That said, I would worry slightly about how it would stand up to extended use in tough conditions because the material is so thin.

Verdict

Despite my  complaint about the lack of ventilation and the worry about how durable this tent is I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it or use it again. I will certainly take it along in about a two months when I go hiking in the Pyrenees for a week with some friends. Normally I would take my heavier 2-man mountain tent (about 2.5kg) and split the weight with a friend, but this is so light that I will be better off carrying my own tent and not having to share with a snoring, farting, smelly tent-mate. It also really opens up options for met o do a lot more solo wild camping whereas previously I’d either have to carry a very heavy tent or slum it in a bivvy. This tent is not cheap, its list price is £330, but I paid £100 less for it online. This didn’t seem to be a closeout or anything, just a good price so Google around before you buy. At the price I paid it felt like a real bargain compared with the cost of a good breathable bivvy bag or even a much heavier tent. If money is no object then there are some other Terra Nova Tents to consider such as the Laser Ultra 1 tent, which lists for £800 and weighs about 500 grams. It is more or less the same design (as best as I can tell) but uses even lighter fabrics and titanium tent pegs. A cheaper and slightly heavier option from the same manufacturer (but sold under the brand of Wild Country) is the Zephyros 1 tent. This is available on sale for less than £100 and weighs about 1.4kg. It comes in a more expensive and lighter version (1.15 kg) for about an extra £70 depending on where you buy it.

After a good sleep in the cold

This didn’t last long.

My replacement is still by the same company and is their slightly pricier Titanium Spork – It weighs almost nothing, looks nicely made and should hopefully last better than the plastic ones.

At just 20grams the Titanium spork won’t weigh me down.

The second bit of kit that I won’t be buying again is my old and trusted Karrimor KSB boots. The first pair of these that I had lasted for ever and took me on snow to almost 6000 meters in height before I switched to clunky plastic boots. My new pair got me through the GR20 (admittedly tough going, especially over the Cirque de la Solitude) but the waterproof lining has conked out. The boots give me wet socks just walking through grass with a bit of dew. I can’t really complain because these boots cost me only about 50 quid on Amazon, but still. I think from now on I will either go super light-weight with something like an Inov8 approach shoe or get decent leather boots made with few seams. I’m thinking of the Scarpa Terra GTX, which are very light but still have the advantage of being made from a naturally waterproof material so they should do better, even when the waterproof lining has given up.

My only worry about these is that they are not supposed to be very robust.

If you’ve tried these boots or have any other ideas please let me know what you think.

Climbing (or hiking) at altitude is not just difficult. It can be downright dangerous given the risks of altitude sickness. On my expedition to Mt Mera one of the local Nepali porters suddenly started staggering and looking confused at about 5,800m high. These were the first signs of High Altitude Cerebral Oedema (known as HACE), which can kill in hours. We took his pack and turned him round, sending him back down almost 1000 meters as fast as he could run to a treatment centre. He was fine, but had he carried on he might have died. Treat altitude with respect, it can be a killer.

Tents at the High Camp on Mera Peak

The usual tips when acclimatising for altitude are to ascend no more than 300m (1000 feet) between camps each day. You can climb higher during the day, but should not sleep at intervals of greater than that. You should also give yourself an extra day to acclimatise every 1000 m or so. The truth is that the more time you give yourself to acclimatise, and the more time you spend climbing high and then sleeping low, the better you will be able to manage altitude. For instance on  Mera we spent a night at the base camp (4,900m) then hiked up about another 1000m to the top of the glacier, then went back down again for a night’s rest and a day’s rest. Then after that we headed up the glacier to the high camp and spent the night there (5,800m) before heading for the summit. I was quite pleased in that of the group of 13 people that I lead, all 13 of us got to high camp safely and spent the night there (although 2 people then decided not to summit). Apart from one of the porters who turned back, none of the climbing party suffered altitude sickness.

This is a long digression before raising the point that if you don’t have time to acclimatise fully on the mountain, what about doing it at home before you leave. At the recent Telegraph Outdoor Show in London I came across a really interesting company called AcclimatiseMe with the technology to let you acclimatise at home. The logic is simple enough. They provide a system that lets you breath air in which the oxygen level has been depleted. This forces your body to start the adaption process of getting more red blood cells, increasing respiration rate etc that you would normally do on the mountain. They reckon that about 30 minutes a day on the machine is enough to trick your body into adapting, even though the rest of the time you may be at sea-level. There is some mixed science on whether this works including this research paper, but the logic seems pretty sound. If it works it especially makes sense for mountains such as Kilimanjaro where you race up and down in a very short space of time and the biggest issue is that you don’t have time to acclimatise.

I tried it out for a few minutes. There is no discomfort at all and the system monitors your blood oxygen and pulse rate and reduces the amount of oxygen in the air progressively to train you to take higher altitudes. Here’s an interview with one of the guys from AcclimatiseMe on how their system works: