LEJOG 2017

Travel light, freeze at night Distance is proportional to the amount of weight carried over time. The less weight I'm carrying the longer I'll be able to walk therefore the further I can travel. There ought to be a mathematical formula out there to demonstrate this...if you know what that is, please comment with a link.  The ruling principle of kit selection has therefore been: TRAVEL LIGHT. I really like the saying  Travel light, freeze at night . Luckily it's mid summer and I have a down sleeping bag which kept me warm enough in February when it was demonstrably colder, yet the principle of less is more is sound. A simple and effective rule is: "You can reduce the weight of an object 100% by not taking it." That includes spares of ANYTHING. There are many excellent websites and videos about ultra-light thru-hiking made by thru-hikers which are available free online, particularly from the USA* - so I won't labour the point. But I w...

Gear in grams I'm now going to talk about LEJOG gear with the fanaticism of a prepper reviewing shiny new kit. I said I wouldn't do that but that was when LEJOG was a year away  - now there's less than 3 months to go it's time to dispense with the existential bullshit and analyse  operational data . Which means gram counting.   Background: I am a thru-hiker not a "pure" bushcrafter or wild camper. Thru-hiking is a useful term from the US; it means an end-to-end hike (starting and finishing a trail in one season as opposed to hiking it in shorter sections). The UK needs updated terminology, so consider this a push in that direction. Bushcraft is a catch-all term for wilderness survival skills; fire making, shelter building, foraging, natural navigation, hunting, etc. While bushcraft skills can be useful, particularly when hiking light or ultralight with minimal equipment, it is not the primary focus of the thru-hike. Wild camping...