550km in the Pyrenees with an 8kg sack and hammock

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boisdevie

Forager
Feb 15, 2007
211
2
60
Not far from Calais in France
Sorry for the delay in replying. This is the bit from my book which explains the kit:
[h=2]Equipment[/h]
Whatever I was taking I would have to carry on my back for 900km or so. With this in mind I did not want to carry a single gramme of excess equipment so I thought long and hard about what I really needed. Not would have liked but actually needed. There can be a big difference between the two. I also consulted the www.backpackinglight.com forum which was a mine of useful ideas. In the end this is the kit I took. Without food and water my pack weighed around 7kg.

Footwear - North Face Ultra Kilowatt.
When you’re walking in the mountainous middle of nowhere your choice of footwear is undoubtedly the most important single choice you will make. Now there are traditionalists out there and they are numerous. They think the only option is a pair of stout boots and talk about ankle support. I think if I were James May I’d refer to this as a ‘pile of cock’ and in my defence I would cite the example of my own walking experience. I’ve done a lot of walking wearing running trainers and never had a twisted ankle. Now back in the mists of time primitive man didn’t have ankle support so I just assume that we don’t need it either. Provided that we are careful and look where we actually put out feet we should be fine.

clip_image002.png

My walking shoes

Now I’ve not really got anything against boots per se and there are occasions when they are perfectly appropriate - winter walking when it’s wet and boggy underfoot, for example. But boots can be heavy. Obviously chunky leather boots are heavier than lighter weight modern fabric styles but remember that you’re moving every single gramme every footstep you make. And a mile could be the equivalent of 2000 footsteps. That’s a lot of times to move that weight up and down.

The other thing worth bearing in mind is that it’s a really bad idea to begin a long walk in brand new shoes. Sometimes it can’t be avoided but in this case I could avoid it by taking footwear that I was already using. When I had done my 450 mile walk to Lancaster I had to replace my worn out trainers in Birmingham. I spent no less than £105 - way more than I could afford - on a pair of North Face Ultra Kilowat shoes. They weighed just 550 grammes for a pair. When you compare this to around 700g for a pair of Goretex boots that’s quite a difference.

I was comfortable in the shoes. I had already walked almost 200 miles wearing them.

Rucksack - Lowe Alpine South Peak Centro 40
I bought this 40 litre rucksack at a brocante in France for 15 euros. A brocante is a little like a car boot sale. Most communities hold them at least once a year and it’s held normally on the main street(s) of the community. As with so many rucksacks it came with a lot of external straps. Most of these I removed. I also removed the massive, padded hip belt and chest strap.

Bum bag.
Bought from Decathlon. I fitted this to the rucksack and it became the replacement for the original heavier hip belt. The accessible front pocket was extremely useful.

Silnyon tarpaulin, cord. Titanium tentpegs from Alpkit for securing the edges of the hammock to the group (www.alpkit.com)
This was made by me from material bought from a company in Germany. The tarp was 3x2m in size and was rigged up above my hammock

Ripstop nylon hammock, cord.
The tarp and hammock weighed about 750g combined.


Trying out my hammock and tarp in the garden to make sure everything works

clip_image003.jpg





clip_image005.png

Making the silnylon tarpaulin. It's such a slippery material - a bugger to sew.
RAB down summer sleeping bag
I have used a synthetic three season bag for years but it would be far too bulky and heavy for my trip. Down bags are far lighter and pack up incredibly small. I couldn’t afford a brand new bag but luckily my friend was selling an old RAB bag for £70. It weighed just 700g with 500g of down. I felt that this bag would be just warm enough if I varied the amount of clothing that I wore during the night. I put my theory into practise during my walk to Lancaster and it worked. Some evenings I had to wear almost all of my clothes but there was not one night when I was too cold. The Pyrenees would be different of course because I would be much further south and I would be there in July and August so it should be quite a bit warmer. However, I would be camping at altitude so it might not necessarily that warm. I had to vary the number of layers I wore in bed but I was never cold. My plan worked.

Karrimor style foam mat
Down sleeping bags are good with two exceptions. Unlike a synthetic bag, when wet they lose almost all of their insulation qualities and when compressed the down performs poorly. So I needed to insulate my sholder and hips as this is where my body compresses the down in the sleeping bag and leads to cold spots. So I bought a Karrimat type foam mat and cut it down so that it was just long enough for my torso. Initially I was concerned that the mat would move around in the night and so I tried various ways to attach it to the base of my sleeping bag. In the end I left it free and found that the position of the mat was easy enough to adjust so that my hips and shoulders were well insulated. It rarely moved around much as I changed position during the night.

Water bottle
A 1.25l throwaway soft drinks bottle. Cost nothing to buy, easily replaced and very very light.
Water purifying tables
Aquamira water filter straw (www.aquamira.com/products/aquamira-frontier-straw-filter)

I wasn’t sure what the availability of water would be like in the Pyrenees since I’d never walked there. So I took a single drinks bottle. My thoughts were that if that didn’t give me enough capacity I could easily pick up another one. I also had no idea what the quality of the water would be like. Having walked in the Lake District, Scotland and Wales I was pretty sure the quality would be good but I didn’t want to take any chances. So I bought some puritabs - after all they weigh almost nothing. As a backup I also took a straw style water filter which would allow me to drink from almost anywhere - a muddy stream or even a puddle.
During the walk I found that water was easily available and I tried to keep my water bottle filled and drink frequently from fast running streams. On a very few occasions I had to drink via the straw from streams used by animals. Here I went upstream to drink. The straw filtered the water extremely well but it takes quite an effort to suck the water through the filter.
If I had needed filtered water regularly I would have used a Sawyer Mini filter (www.sawyer.com/products/sawyer-mini-filter). During my walk I spent time with an Englishman who had just such a setup and I was very impressed.

Alpkit MytiPot 900 Titanium Camp Mug (www.alpkit.com).
A lightweight mug that can be used as a cooking pot. My thoughts were that if I wanted to cook I could light a wood fire and then use the mug to heat something up in. I never used it. Thankfully it only weighs 94g but that’s still 94g of excess weight I carried for miles and miles and miles.

Titanium spork

Craft knife. I have a Swiss Army knife that I use and love - it’s similar to the Rucksack model (www.swissarmy365.co.uk/swiss-army-knives-c44/victorinox-rucksack-swiss-army-knife-p665). The only problem is that it weighs around 100g and that’s a lot and did I really need all those features when I was walking? I think it was unlikely I would be tightening up any screws or getting stones out of horses hooves.

At the very basic level all I needed was a short blade for cutting things with - bread, cord, salami - that kind of thing. I bought a craft knife like this one: (http://www.drapertools.com/product/08694/DIY-Series-Retractable-Segment-Blade-Knife) - the extending blade made it able to cut most things including baguettes and as less than 20 grammes it was massively lighter than my knife. Of course there are small penknives around such as the Victorinox Escort (www.victorinox.com/global/en/Products/Swiss-Army-Knives/Small-Pocket-Knives/Escort/p/0.6123) which weighs only 18g but it is more expensive than a craft knife.

Ibuprofen
Gaffa tape - for repairs to equipment and to use as plasters, particularly on my feet.
Bugnet
Deet insect repellent cream

USB rechargeable light (www.decathlon.fr/clic-v2-id_8333334.html). I bought this as it was light (less than 50g) and could be recharged with its USB cable. This meant that I could recharge it from my solar panel or external battery packs. It’s a lovely piece of kit but I didn’t need it - the daylight hours were extremely long so I should have left it at home. In emergencies I could have used the torch app on my phone.

USB foldable Bluetooth keyboard. (www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00R97CYHO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00)
This would allow me to update my blog during the journey. It was lightweight and worked well but failed towards the end of the walk. I’m not convinced the weight of 82g was worth it.

EasyAcc portable solar charger
clip_image007.png

Solar panel and external battery pack
(www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C3A6KKO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00)
I had already used this on my previous walk in the UK. I had hoped that it would perform much better so much further south, in a sunnier climate. In reality it performed extremely poorly during the walk - as useful as a chocolate teapot. It ended up in the bin. Perhaps there are other solar panels which perform better. If I had the money I would have preferred to buy something by Power Traveller (www.powertraveller.com) as their kit seems much more professional.

Galaxy Trend Lite mobile phone
I felt that I needed a cheap Android phone with a good sized screen which would make it easier for emails, web browsing, updating my blog and listening to music. Although it’s quite a slow phone for the money it performed very well. Had I had more money I would have preferred something with better battery life.
I had an account with Orange (France) and whilst getting a signal in the mountains was not 100% it was pretty good. And the availability of 3g was pretty reasonable. There’s something quite surreal about lying in a hammock halfway up a French mountainside whilst reading the online version of The Guardian.

One pair in-ear headphones

Karrimor trekking poles. I had never used trekking poles before and to be honest was not convinced that they would be necessary. I certainly would not have parted with my own cash to buy some but my mum had a pair of adjustable poles so I thought I’d take them. Whilst walking on level(ish) surfaces they were not necessary at all and they made a very annoying clicking noise. Of course they were also extra weight to carry.

For uphill walking I know many people swear by them arguing that it allows you to use your arms to help propel you up inclines. I’m not convinced because surely the best things to use are our legs - they have evolved over millions of years to do just that kind of thing. My thought is that it might help but your body overall is still expending the same energy to get you uphill but with the extra weight of the poles themselves.

For downhill walking I can understand that those who have problems with knees or ankles find poles useful as it helps to reduce the repeated impact. In my case the walking I had done before I set off left my joints in good shape. If trekking poles can be of any use it’s as an aid to balance when decending difficult terrain. That I can understand. During my walk I found that I never needed the poles. Even during difficult descents I found it much easier to keep my hands free. I also found that the very light weight of my pack also helped since my natural point of balance was little changed. I saw many people carrying packs of 12-15kg and such people often seemed to be very much out of balance on difficult terrain.

Phillips 1700 millamp external battery pack
Bought at a brocante for 10e. The idea was to give me a bit of extra battery capacity. I was hoping to charge it up from my solar panel as I walked but It was rubbish and actually seemed to drain the battery on my phone when it was connected. It ended up in the bin.
Brunton Metal 4400 millamp external battery pack (www.brunton.com/collections/power-packs/products/metal-4400). I wasn’t completely convinced with the Phillips model and bought this the day before I travelled. It had much better capacity and performed impeccably.

Toothbrush with a cut down handle
I didn’t take toothpaste on account of the weight. Instead I filled a 35mm film canister with sodium bicarbonate (baking powder) which is the active ingredient in toothpaste.
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Cut down toothbrush and sodium bicarbonate for toothpaste. Just 30g weight.


Clothing.
My approach here was to wear clothes which were lightweight, which dried out quickly if wet, which stayed warm when wet and clothes which I could build up in layers to vary the warmth I required. I was extremely happy with the choices I made. I could, perhaps have reduced the underpants and socks to just two pairs each.

3 pairs underpants
3 pairs sports sock
1 pair Decathlon tracksuit bottoms
1 pair running tights
1 pair running shorts
1 long sleeved thermal top
2 T-shirts
1 pair Decathlon overtrousers
1 waterproof breathable jacket
1 zip up lightweight 100 grade fleece jacket
1 wide brimmed Karrimor hat
1 buff
1 micro fibre camping towel. Well actually this was two tiny towels sewn together to make a single towel.

[h=2]Where to sleep?[/h]
If you’re walking the GR10 then there are two choices when it comes to accommodation. If you have the money you can stay in refuges, gites and B&Bs. Now this is fine but it means that you have to plan out your journey based on where the accommodation is. So, for example, if there is a 20 mile gap between one refuge and the next then this is exactly is how far you will have to walk whether you want to or not. You simply have no choice. And unless you’re prepared to take a chance you have to book your accommodation in advance which means last minute changes of plan are extremely difficult if not impossible. In the height of the season (August) places fill up quickly so you might not get a bed for the night. During my walk I came across two refuges which were full.

The other option, for poor people like me, is camping. The great advantage of this in theory is that you can stop when you like, provided you can find a decent flat area to plonk your tent. So if you find a nice place and you want to stop, you stop. And unless you stay in campsites then it’s free. I like things which are free.

However, camping does come with the major disadvantage that you have to carry a lot more stuff. You need to keep the weather off and you need to stay warm and comfortable during the night. For most people the default solution is to use a tent. Now I did have an old two man dome tent but it was bulky and must have weighed at least 3kg. You can get some lovely one man lightweight tents of course. Terra Nova do a lovely looking thing called the Laser Ultra 1 which weighs only 554g. This is great but it costs around £800 - a bit too expensive for me. By about £799.

Now one thing you should know about me is that when I do anything I try to do my research first and this trip was no exception. I searched around for a lightweight solution and found it on the internet of things. In the US of A those clever colonials have a site called www.backpackinglight.com. Here they know about everything lightweight and many of the inmates of said site waxed lyrical about the joy of sleeping in hammocks. This did seem to make good sense, especially for a poor guy like me. A hammock would take up little space, would weigh little and more importantly it would be cheap if I made it myself. Above the hammock I could rig up a tarpaulin to keep the weather off. Again, I could make the tarp myself so it would be cheaper and it would be exactly the dimensions I wanted. I bought some 1.1oz ripstop nylon for the hammock and some ultra-light silicone impregnated nylon (silnylon) for the tarp and then borrowed a friends’ sewing machine. The results were good and I first tried out the hammock in my garden in April.

Now most people who have never slept in a hammock make two assumptions which are both incorrect. They assume that you have to sleep on your back and that in such a position your back ends up curved like a banana. In reality, if a hammock is hung with the correct tension, it’s perfectly possible to sleep across it diagonally. This means that you can sleep on your back or your side. They are surprisingly comfortable once you have got used to them. In my case I tried out the setup by sleeping out in the garden for a few nights. It was little cold as it was April and my three season sleeping bag was at the very limit of comfort. Later, when I was walking from France to Lancaster I took the same setup and slept outdoors for a few nights in perfect comfort.

Before I began the walk I read voraciously - both books and blogs - from people who had walked some or all of the GR10. I wanted to get a flavour of what it was like to do the walk and pick up useful information and tips. One thing that I couldn’t find out was whether anybody had ever camped the GR10 using a hammock and tarpaulin so this was leap into the unknown. Yes, I might be making a big mistake but sometimes you have to just give something a try and see if it works. From my reading it seemed that the GR10 passed through a lot of wooded areas - it wasn’t just an expanse of barren rock - and this suggested I would have plenty of places where I could fasten up my hammock. I was hoping that fortune would favour the brave (me).

I planned to be in the Pyrenees sometime in mid-July. From my research I could expect hot weather with the possibility of some storms in the late afternoon. Now these storms could be real humdingers with thunder, lightning, hailstones and torrential rain. So it made sense to take some decent waterproofs.

I already had waterproofs but they weren’t exactly top of the range. The overtrousers were good enough. Although they were the cheapest that Decathlon could offer they were not too heavy. My jacket was a very comfortable £5 nylon affair from the charity shop which was ideal for day to day use but for this walk it was just too heavy. It was also useless because it wouldn’t keep me dry. Of course it would keep the rain out but sadly I would still end up wet because all my perspiration would be locked up on the inside. So, I needed something breathable and lightweight.

RAB do a jacket called the Spark that would have been perfect for the job. It weighs just 290g for the medium size model and is breathable. Sadly, it costs around £140 which was far beyond my budget. So what was a poor unemployed boy like to do? Well I knew how to use a sewing machine so the thought struck me why not try to make my own jacket? I know that mere mortals are capable of doing this because my mate Simon had made his own jacket and it looked pretty good. Now my excursions into the world of needlecraft have only involved basic stuff such as duvet covers and curtains etc but why not give it a go? Necessity (or poverty) being the mother of invention so to speak.

So one fine day in March I spent the morning ripping apart a cheap waterproof coat. Not out of anger you understand but to get a feel for the shapes of material involved since I wasn’t keen on shelling out money for a proper set of plans. With the outlines of the old jacket I made up some prototype pieces from some old curtains and fastened all the bits together with pins, safety pins and staples. And it seemed fine. To keep it extra simple I decided to dispense with a hood as I hate wearing hoods. Instead I planned on using a hat to keep the rain off.

The next step was to get hold of the some proper material and here I turned to a specialist company that I found in Dresden called Extremtextil (www.extremtextil.de). The English version of their website was easy enough to navigate and I ordered a couple of metres of breathable lightweight nylon. The whole shebang including an eye wateringly expensive rainproof zip came to less than 55 euros. This was also where I ordered the material for my tarp and hammock.

Fast forward a few days. The stuff arrived so I decided to get my sewing skills up to speed on the easy stuff - the hammock and tarp. Then onto the ‘jacket of doom’. Now sewing a hammock is easy because it’s just a big rectangle of nylon but a jacket? Not easy at all, especially when you can’t put in together that easy before you sew it together – pinholes on the wrong side of the seam let water in apparently. But I’m a patient soul and it all came right in the end. Now esoterically it’s not the nicest looking jacket and you won’t see beautiful young people modelling down the catwalk anytime soon. But it cost me sod all and keeps the water out a treat. At a mere 150 grammes it is almost half the weight of the RAB jacket. So I had my waterproofs but hoped that I would never need them.
clip_image011.png


Modelling my home made breathable waterproof jacket

Whilst I was in a sewing mood I also made some drawstring bags out of the leftover waterproof fabric I had around. When I packed my sack I used one bag for clothes, one for accessories, one for food and one for my hammock/tarp. I should have made one for my sleeping bag but managed to scrounge a carrier bag!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Walking-Pyr...d=1455014359&sr=1-1&keywords=pyrenees+hammock
 

boisdevie

Forager
Feb 15, 2007
211
2
60
Not far from Calais in France
Sorry for the delay in replying. This is the bit from my book which explains the kit:
Equipment


Whatever I was taking I would have to carry on my back for 900km or so. With this in mind I did not want to carry a single gramme of excess equipment so I thought long and hard about what I really needed. Not would have liked but actually needed. There can be a big difference between the two. I also consulted the www.backpackinglight.com forum which was a mine of useful ideas. In the end this is the kit I took. Without food and water my pack weighed around 7kg.

Footwear - North Face Ultra Kilowatt.
When you’re walking in the mountainous middle of nowhere your choice of footwear is undoubtedly the most important single choice you will make. Now there are traditionalists out there and they are numerous. They think the only option is a pair of stout boots and talk about ankle support. I think if I were James May I’d refer to this as a ‘pile of cock’ and in my defence I would cite the example of my own walking experience. I’ve done a lot of walking wearing running trainers and never had a twisted ankle. Now back in the mists of time primitive man didn’t have ankle support so I just assume that we don’t need it either. Provided that we are careful and look where we actually put out feet we should be fine.

clip_image002.png

My walking shoes

Now I’ve not really got anything against boots per se and there are occasions when they are perfectly appropriate - winter walking when it’s wet and boggy underfoot, for example. But boots can be heavy. Obviously chunky leather boots are heavier than lighter weight modern fabric styles but remember that you’re moving every single gramme every footstep you make. And a mile could be the equivalent of 2000 footsteps. That’s a lot of times to move that weight up and down.

The other thing worth bearing in mind is that it’s a really bad idea to begin a long walk in brand new shoes. Sometimes it can’t be avoided but in this case I could avoid it by taking footwear that I was already using. When I had done my 450 mile walk to Lancaster I had to replace my worn out trainers in Birmingham. I spent no less than £105 - way more than I could afford - on a pair of North Face Ultra Kilowat shoes. They weighed just 550 grammes for a pair. When you compare this to around 700g for a pair of Goretex boots that’s quite a difference.

I was comfortable in the shoes. I had already walked almost 200 miles wearing them.

Rucksack - Lowe Alpine South Peak Centro 40
I bought this 40 litre rucksack at a brocante in France for 15 euros. A brocante is a little like a car boot sale. Most communities hold them at least once a year and it’s held normally on the main street(s) of the community. As with so many rucksacks it came with a lot of external straps. Most of these I removed. I also removed the massive, padded hip belt and chest strap.

Bum bag.
Bought from Decathlon. I fitted this to the rucksack and it became the replacement for the original heavier hip belt. The accessible front pocket was extremely useful.

Silnyon tarpaulin, cord. Titanium tentpegs from Alpkit for securing the edges of the hammock to the group (www.alpkit.com)
This was made by me from material bought from a company in Germany. The tarp was 3x2m in size and was rigged up above my hammock

Ripstop nylon hammock, cord.
The tarp and hammock weighed about 750g combined.


Trying out my hammock and tarp in the garden to make sure everything works
clip_image003.jpg



clip_image005.png

Making the silnylon tarpaulin. It's such a slippery material - a bugger to sew.
RAB down summer sleeping bag
I have used a synthetic three season bag for years but it would be far too bulky and heavy for my trip. Down bags are far lighter and pack up incredibly small. I couldn’t afford a brand new bag but luckily my friend was selling an old RAB bag for £70. It weighed just 700g with 500g of down. I felt that this bag would be just warm enough if I varied the amount of clothing that I wore during the night. I put my theory into practise during my walk to Lancaster and it worked. Some evenings I had to wear almost all of my clothes but there was not one night when I was too cold. The Pyrenees would be different of course because I would be much further south and I would be there in July and August so it should be quite a bit warmer. However, I would be camping at altitude so it might not necessarily that warm. I had to vary the number of layers I wore in bed but I was never cold. My plan worked.

Karrimor style foam mat
Down sleeping bags are good with two exceptions. Unlike a synthetic bag, when wet they lose almost all of their insulation qualities and when compressed the down performs poorly. So I needed to insulate my sholder and hips as this is where my body compresses the down in the sleeping bag and leads to cold spots. So I bought a Karrimat type foam mat and cut it down so that it was just long enough for my torso. Initially I was concerned that the mat would move around in the night and so I tried various ways to attach it to the base of my sleeping bag. In the end I left it free and found that the position of the mat was easy enough to adjust so that my hips and shoulders were well insulated. It rarely moved around much as I changed position during the night.

Water bottle
A 1.25l throwaway soft drinks bottle. Cost nothing to buy, easily replaced and very very light.
Water purifying tables
Aquamira water filter straw (www.aquamira.com/products/aquamira-frontier-straw-filter)

I wasn’t sure what the availability of water would be like in the Pyrenees since I’d never walked there. So I took a single drinks bottle. My thoughts were that if that didn’t give me enough capacity I could easily pick up another one. I also had no idea what the quality of the water would be like. Having walked in the Lake District, Scotland and Wales I was pretty sure the quality would be good but I didn’t want to take any chances. So I bought some puritabs - after all they weigh almost nothing. As a backup I also took a straw style water filter which would allow me to drink from almost anywhere - a muddy stream or even a puddle.
During the walk I found that water was easily available and I tried to keep my water bottle filled and drink frequently from fast running streams. On a very few occasions I had to drink via the straw from streams used by animals. Here I went upstream to drink. The straw filtered the water extremely well but it takes quite an effort to suck the water through the filter.
If I had needed filtered water regularly I would have used a Sawyer Mini filter (www.sawyer.com/products/sawyer-mini-filter). During my walk I spent time with an Englishman who had just such a setup and I was very impressed.

Alpkit MytiPot 900 Titanium Camp Mug (www.alpkit.com).
A lightweight mug that can be used as a cooking pot. My thoughts were that if I wanted to cook I could light a wood fire and then use the mug to heat something up in. I never used it. Thankfully it only weighs 94g but that’s still 94g of excess weight I carried for miles and miles and miles.

Titanium spork

Craft knife. I have a Swiss Army knife that I use and love - it’s similar to the Rucksack model (www.swissarmy365.co.uk/swiss-army-knives-c44/victorinox-rucksack-swiss-army-knife-p665). The only problem is that it weighs around 100g and that’s a lot and did I really need all those features when I was walking? I think it was unlikely I would be tightening up any screws or getting stones out of horses hooves.

At the very basic level all I needed was a short blade for cutting things with - bread, cord, salami - that kind of thing. I bought a craft knife like this one: (http://www.drapertools.com/product/08694/DIY-Series-Retractable-Segment-Blade-Knife) - the extending blade made it able to cut most things including baguettes and as less than 20 grammes it was massively lighter than my knife. Of course there are small penknives around such as the Victorinox Escort (www.victorinox.com/global/en/Products/Swiss-Army-Knives/Small-Pocket-Knives/Escort/p/0.6123) which weighs only 18g but it is more expensive than a craft knife.

Ibuprofen
Gaffa tape - for repairs to equipment and to use as plasters, particularly on my feet.
Bugnet
Deet insect repellent cream

USB rechargeable light (www.decathlon.fr/clic-v2-id_8333334.html). I bought this as it was light (less than 50g) and could be recharged with its USB cable. This meant that I could recharge it from my solar panel or external battery packs. It’s a lovely piece of kit but I didn’t need it - the daylight hours were extremely long so I should have left it at home. In emergencies I could have used the torch app on my phone.

USB foldable Bluetooth keyboard. (www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00R97CYHO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00)
This would allow me to update my blog during the journey. It was lightweight and worked well but failed towards the end of the walk. I’m not convinced the weight of 82g was worth it.

EasyAcc portable solar charger
clip_image007.png

Solar panel and external battery pack
(www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C3A6KKO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00)
I had already used this on my previous walk in the UK. I had hoped that it would perform much better so much further south, in a sunnier climate. In reality it performed extremely poorly during the walk - as useful as a chocolate teapot. It ended up in the bin. Perhaps there are other solar panels which perform better. If I had the money I would have preferred to buy something by Power Traveller (www.powertraveller.com) as their kit seems much more professional.

Galaxy Trend Lite mobile phone
I felt that I needed a cheap Android phone with a good sized screen which would make it easier for emails, web browsing, updating my blog and listening to music. Although it’s quite a slow phone for the money it performed very well. Had I had more money I would have preferred something with better battery life.
I had an account with Orange (France) and whilst getting a signal in the mountains was not 100% it was pretty good. And the availability of 3g was pretty reasonable. There’s something quite surreal about lying in a hammock halfway up a French mountainside whilst reading the online version of The Guardian.

One pair in-ear headphones

Karrimor trekking poles. I had never used trekking poles before and to be honest was not convinced that they would be necessary. I certainly would not have parted with my own cash to buy some but my mum had a pair of adjustable poles so I thought I’d take them. Whilst walking on level(ish) surfaces they were not necessary at all and they made a very annoying clicking noise. Of course they were also extra weight to carry.

For uphill walking I know many people swear by them arguing that it allows you to use your arms to help propel you up inclines. I’m not convinced because surely the best things to use are our legs - they have evolved over millions of years to do just that kind of thing. My thought is that it might help but your body overall is still expending the same energy to get you uphill but with the extra weight of the poles themselves.

For downhill walking I can understand that those who have problems with knees or ankles find poles useful as it helps to reduce the repeated impact. In my case the walking I had done before I set off left my joints in good shape. If trekking poles can be of any use it’s as an aid to balance when decending difficult terrain. That I can understand. During my walk I found that I never needed the poles. Even during difficult descents I found it much easier to keep my hands free. I also found that the very light weight of my pack also helped since my natural point of balance was little changed. I saw many people carrying packs of 12-15kg and such people often seemed to be very much out of balance on difficult terrain.

Phillips 1700 millamp external battery pack
Bought at a brocante for 10e. The idea was to give me a bit of extra battery capacity. I was hoping to charge it up from my solar panel as I walked but It was rubbish and actually seemed to drain the battery on my phone when it was connected. It ended up in the bin.
Brunton Metal 4400 millamp external battery pack (www.brunton.com/collections/power-packs/products/metal-4400). I wasn’t completely convinced with the Phillips model and bought this the day before I travelled. It had much better capacity and performed impeccably.

Toothbrush with a cut down handle
I didn’t take toothpaste on account of the weight. Instead I filled a 35mm film canister with sodium bicarbonate (baking powder) which is the active ingredient in toothpaste.
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Cut down toothbrush and sodium bicarbonate for toothpaste. Just 30g weight.


Clothing.
My approach here was to wear clothes which were lightweight, which dried out quickly if wet, which stayed warm when wet and clothes which I could build up in layers to vary the warmth I required. I was extremely happy with the choices I made. I could, perhaps have reduced the underpants and socks to just two pairs each.

3 pairs underpants
3 pairs sports sock
1 pair Decathlon tracksuit bottoms
1 pair running tights
1 pair running shorts
1 long sleeved thermal top
2 T-shirts
1 pair Decathlon overtrousers
1 waterproof breathable jacket
1 zip up lightweight 100 grade fleece jacket
1 wide brimmed Karrimor hat
1 buff
1 micro fibre camping towel. Well actually this was two tiny towels sewn together to make a single towel.

Where to sleep?


If you’re walking the GR10 then there are two choices when it comes to accommodation. If you have the money you can stay in refuges, gites and B&Bs. Now this is fine but it means that you have to plan out your journey based on where the accommodation is. So, for example, if there is a 20 mile gap between one refuge and the next then this is exactly is how far you will have to walk whether you want to or not. You simply have no choice. And unless you’re prepared to take a chance you have to book your accommodation in advance which means last minute changes of plan are extremely difficult if not impossible. In the height of the season (August) places fill up quickly so you might not get a bed for the night. During my walk I came across two refuges which were full.

The other option, for poor people like me, is camping. The great advantage of this in theory is that you can stop when you like, provided you can find a decent flat area to plonk your tent. So if you find a nice place and you want to stop, you stop. And unless you stay in campsites then it’s free. I like things which are free.

However, camping does come with the major disadvantage that you have to carry a lot more stuff. You need to keep the weather off and you need to stay warm and comfortable during the night. For most people the default solution is to use a tent. Now I did have an old two man dome tent but it was bulky and must have weighed at least 3kg. You can get some lovely one man lightweight tents of course. Terra Nova do a lovely looking thing called the Laser Ultra 1 which weighs only 554g. This is great but it costs around £800 - a bit too expensive for me. By about £799.

Now one thing you should know about me is that when I do anything I try to do my research first and this trip was no exception. I searched around for a lightweight solution and found it on the internet of things. In the US of A those clever colonials have a site called www.backpackinglight.com. Here they know about everything lightweight and many of the inmates of said site waxed lyrical about the joy of sleeping in hammocks. This did seem to make good sense, especially for a poor guy like me. A hammock would take up little space, would weigh little and more importantly it would be cheap if I made it myself. Above the hammock I could rig up a tarpaulin to keep the weather off. Again, I could make the tarp myself so it would be cheaper and it would be exactly the dimensions I wanted. I bought some 1.1oz ripstop nylon for the hammock and some ultra-light silicone impregnated nylon (silnylon) for the tarp and then borrowed a friends’ sewing machine. The results were good and I first tried out the hammock in my garden in April.

Now most people who have never slept in a hammock make two assumptions which are both incorrect. They assume that you have to sleep on your back and that in such a position your back ends up curved like a banana. In reality, if a hammock is hung with the correct tension, it’s perfectly possible to sleep across it diagonally. This means that you can sleep on your back or your side. They are surprisingly comfortable once you have got used to them. In my case I tried out the setup by sleeping out in the garden for a few nights. It was little cold as it was April and my three season sleeping bag was at the very limit of comfort. Later, when I was walking from France to Lancaster I took the same setup and slept outdoors for a few nights in perfect comfort.

Before I began the walk I read voraciously - both books and blogs - from people who had walked some or all of the GR10. I wanted to get a flavour of what it was like to do the walk and pick up useful information and tips. One thing that I couldn’t find out was whether anybody had ever camped the GR10 using a hammock and tarpaulin so this was leap into the unknown. Yes, I might be making a big mistake but sometimes you have to just give something a try and see if it works. From my reading it seemed that the GR10 passed through a lot of wooded areas - it wasn’t just an expanse of barren rock - and this suggested I would have plenty of places where I could fasten up my hammock. I was hoping that fortune would favour the brave (me).

I planned to be in the Pyrenees sometime in mid-July. From my research I could expect hot weather with the possibility of some storms in the late afternoon. Now these storms could be real humdingers with thunder, lightning, hailstones and torrential rain. So it made sense to take some decent waterproofs.

I already had waterproofs but they weren’t exactly top of the range. The overtrousers were good enough. Although they were the cheapest that Decathlon could offer they were not too heavy. My jacket was a very comfortable £5 nylon affair from the charity shop which was ideal for day to day use but for this walk it was just too heavy. It was also useless because it wouldn’t keep me dry. Of course it would keep the rain out but sadly I would still end up wet because all my perspiration would be locked up on the inside. So, I needed something breathable and lightweight.

RAB do a jacket called the Spark that would have been perfect for the job. It weighs just 290g for the medium size model and is breathable. Sadly, it costs around £140 which was far beyond my budget. So what was a poor unemployed boy like to do? Well I knew how to use a sewing machine so the thought struck me why not try to make my own jacket? I know that mere mortals are capable of doing this because my mate Simon had made his own jacket and it looked pretty good. Now my excursions into the world of needlecraft have only involved basic stuff such as duvet covers and curtains etc but why not give it a go? Necessity (or poverty) being the mother of invention so to speak.

So one fine day in March I spent the morning ripping apart a cheap waterproof coat. Not out of anger you understand but to get a feel for the shapes of material involved since I wasn’t keen on shelling out money for a proper set of plans. With the outlines of the old jacket I made up some prototype pieces from some old curtains and fastened all the bits together with pins, safety pins and staples. And it seemed fine. To keep it extra simple I decided to dispense with a hood as I hate wearing hoods. Instead I planned on using a hat to keep the rain off.

The next step was to get hold of the some proper material and here I turned to a specialist company that I found in Dresden called Extremtextil (www.extremtextil.de). The English version of their website was easy enough to navigate and I ordered a couple of metres of breathable lightweight nylon. The whole shebang including an eye wateringly expensive rainproof zip came to less than 55 euros. This was also where I ordered the material for my tarp and hammock.

Fast forward a few days. The stuff arrived so I decided to get my sewing skills up to speed on the easy stuff - the hammock and tarp. Then onto the ‘jacket of doom’. Now sewing a hammock is easy because it’s just a big rectangle of nylon but a jacket? Not easy at all, especially when you can’t put in together that easy before you sew it together – pinholes on the wrong side of the seam let water in apparently. But I’m a patient soul and it all came right in the end. Now esoterically it’s not the nicest looking jacket and you won’t see beautiful young people modelling down the catwalk anytime soon. But it cost me sod all and keeps the water out a treat. At a mere 150 grammes it is almost half the weight of the RAB jacket. So I had my waterproofs but hoped that I would never need them.
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Modelling my home made breathable waterproof jacket

Whilst I was in a sewing mood I also made some drawstring bags out of the leftover waterproof fabric I had around. When I packed my sack I used one bag for clothes, one for accessories, one for food and one for my hammock/tarp. I should have made one for my sleeping bag but managed to scrounge a carrier bag!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Walking-Pyr...d=1455014359&sr=1-1&keywords=pyrenees+hammock
 

MilkTheFrog

Tenderfoot
Nov 10, 2015
55
1
United Kingdom
Interesting read! Will definitely be checking out your book. Some interesting choices, good to know that others have come to the same conclusion as me regarding shoes.

For reference, probably the best way to post images on a forum is to upload them to an image hosting site (eg. imgur) and copying the BB code link it gives you on the right.
 

MilkTheFrog

Tenderfoot
Nov 10, 2015
55
1
United Kingdom
I'd agree to a point, but i certainly wouldn't have made some of the same decisions as you :p The knife, for starters. It's a versitile tool, and I've had enough stanley knife blades snap on me to know that I wouldn't be able to rely on it if I need to. Seems like the added energy expenditure you'd get from the extra 30g or so for a decent straight blade knife would be an absolutely minuscule proportion of your overall calorie usage.

Incidentally, what did you do for food?
 

boisdevie

Forager
Feb 15, 2007
211
2
60
Not far from Calais in France
For food. On the route you're passing through a town roughly every two days so you can eat what you like there. On the hill I ate my fresh food first - bananas, bread, ham, cheese then switch to stuff that would keep and not suffer in the heat - dry sausage, cereal bars, dark chocolate, sweets. Also lots of wild blueberries.Thing about the knife - easy to replace and the Pyrenees are hardly outer Mongolia - on the GR10 you'd probably see others quite regularly.
 

sunndog

Full Member
May 23, 2014
3,561
477
derbyshire
interesting read that thanks


7kg base weight and sub 8kg total?.....even with no stove, food and water must have been pretty tight
How much were you carrying per day?
 

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