The blog of world-renowned doer of things, Paul Fletcher.
Rael V
Left this open all night #badmummy
(via nevver)
I’ve always wanted to spend a night in a portaledge. Not sure I’ve quite got the climbing skill though or in reality.. big enough balls.
Take a look at Gordon Wiltsie who has a splendid website and some amazing pictures. For the one above he was tripodded out hanging free to get the angle!
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Took this at the weekend. When you go wild camping and can bivvy, falling asleep to the stars is brilliant. One of the main things about it.
It’s usually colder when they’re out, but it’s never cold in your bag.
Black Sail hut in the Lake District. There are moar on FlickR but you’ll have to sign in and friend-me first.
This is pretty much my pornography thesedays. I cannot wait to get out in The Lakes this winter. Definitely some more snowy wild-camping coming up, definitely.
Helvellyn photo taken by Jon Bennet, one of Weatherlines fell-top assessors. The rather squashed looking bivi on the other hand… was where I slept on my only winter wild-camp last year.
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Google Earth is very good for this sort of thing. Pretty fucking amazing in fact. This is a short route we did in Wasdale the other weekend.
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Is this possibly the best camper van idea ever seen? (If you have a spare £55K… I don’t know too many walkers, climbers, skiers with that dough burning a hole in their pockets).
Some musings on camping! If you are a human being you will probably enjoy camping. Especially if you have car you can fill full of luxuries and drive right to your pitch. It’s cheap, cosy and a right fucking relief from inner-city-life.
Camping is good.
Had a fantastic new-year in the Lake District. Camping in Langdale with some friends. Got up there quite late on the 30th after taking the train from London and borrowing a car to drive the rest of the way (more on cars later, I really want another).
On our arrival I dropped Jenno off at the pub to meet our pals and then went to put the tent up in the pissing rain. Proper Cumbrian rain. Wet. I nearly got the car stuck in the mud but all turned out OK and after I’d finished and parked-up somewhere that wasn’t a swamp, I walked to join them for a couple.
Used those titanium ti-pins from Alpkit for the first time and it’s a good job I’d taken them. The stock aluminium ones from Vango were just bending due to the rocky ground. The Ti-Pins are a bit thin and I needed to use two in some places but the ground was very wet and so stony… I digress.
Saturday we set off to walk Crinkle Crags but the rain was so bad we packed it in at Red Tarn and were back in the pub for 3PM.. where we stayed till one in the morning. Oh jesus.
Anyhow, I read a fact today that has cheered me up. When you actually look at it there are quite a lot of days off in the year and I intend this year to make more of them. I dont’ want to be out every weekend, but I’d like to have some in the bank, some nice longer ones planned and a couple of week long getaways.
Check it out:
105 non-working days this year (weekends and 9 public holidays) then of course I can book 25 days a year off too.. When you add all that up then work/life balance is very very nearly a 60/40 split which is alright but I would prefer it if it were skewed in the other direction and I think that for the sake of humanity, it ought to be.
More effort this year I think.
Splendid set of photos sent my way via Dave Darwent I’ve included a couple of them here that make me rather insanely jealous!
This is really very interesting. Ed Stafford is the guy that walked the LENGTH of the Amazon river. If you haven’t heard of him, then what I just wrote is not a typo and I do mean the full length. It took him over two years.
The video is his presentation from The London Night of Adventure an event which is worthy of another post in itself.
You can buy the actual book Walking the Amazon: 860 Days from erm.. Amazon.. that’s nice, or if you’re a really sexy human being get it on your kindle and save yourself a couple of quid.
