Lucky Gears Up for Backpacking

Here we have Lucky The Dog moggling his new Ruffwear panniers so that he can carry his own flippin scoff and other stuff on future backpacking trips.

Today’s contents include two doggy water bowls (one will hold his dinner and the other’s for water) , two bonios and two dentasticks. This is lightweight stuff and will be only a fraction of the full load (about 1kg – ish). He seems to be OK  with it, and even surprised the nice lass in the shop by stepping into the loop – he’s well practised with harnesses by now, though.

At some point soon me and Lucky are planning to walk the English Coast to Coast following ruffly (see what I did there!! (dhuhh)) Alf (Women, know your place) Wainright’s route – partly because this is very handy in case Mrs Pieman feels the need to deliver fresh socks to Swaledale as I’m passing through. Well, she might if I buy her a pub lunch….

We’re almost fully equipped, but there is just the one nagging problem. And this is it:

I’m getting quite twitched about the number of dog thefts. This would not normally be a problem except that when we do the Coast to Coast, I will have to visit one or two supermarket-type shops in such places as Kirkby Stephen and Richmond and Lucky won’t be allowed inside. This means that he’ll have to be fastened up outside and this is where I get paranoid about some thief nicking off with him for whatever nefarious purposes they can think of. What I need is a length of thin steel cable which can be looped through the harness/panniers and locked with a padlock, thus reducing the chance of theft to people who either have time to somehow wriggle him out of his harness or are carrying clippers strong enough to cut the steel, by which time I ought to be back outside armed with a dangerously sharp lettuce to interfere with the criminality and rescue the pup from being fighting dog bait. I may have such a piece of kit currently mounted on an old home-made deadman (actually, it’s really a deadboy, being fairly small). But any other security ideas would be welcome. I suppose what I really need is an engineer with some spare time.

‘Course, if I make the dog hard to nick, they might just run off with my pack instead.

Anyway, we like the panniers. There needs to be a short practise walk and a bit of building up of walkies with increasing weight over the next few weeks, plus an experimental train trip – to see how he copes with all the noise etc. – he has a terrible fear of low frequency noise at the moment. (thunder, bangs, artillery, rumbles…etc)

Happy Wandering in the Cheviot Hills

It was in the Asda car park in Blyth during a brief respite from driving around trying to find Dawn’s new pad when I turned my attention to my nokia wotsit phone thing (apols for the technical talk here…). It was then that I rang Mrs Pieman who’d made a missed call and discovered that the Scottish-based sept of the knipe clan had increased by one little baby girl. So I was chuffed and even gruntled at this news and so was in a happy mood, though slightly distracted when I eventually located Dawn and we drove off through Northumberland to find the Breamish valley.

The target for today was a sub-dewey with just 23 metres of re-ascent called Great Standrop. But first, after wandering along the road for a bit, we turned off over tussocky moors to climb Cunyan Crags. Cunyan Crags is very nice and an ideal spot, we thought, for a summer solstice camp-out, specially since it seems to have an uninterrupted view of the East coast , which is, of course, where the sun usually comes up first thing in the morning.

Then , after passing over the soppy lump that is Dunmoor Hill (not the only soppy lump on this walk, by the way!) We splashed on through the boggy bits and climbed ever-so-slowly up Hedgehope Hill, stopping on the way for refreshments and for Lucky to roll about a bit in the grass. Dawn waited till me and the pooch bagged the actual top and then we pressed on down along an intermittent path for the bagging of Great Standrop.

Now Great Standrop punches well above it’s diminutive actual contours – there being just the two ten metre contours. In fact it sticks out like a huge great lump when seen from above, and, having two summits, has one more than most tops owning a similar number of contours. Finally, for those willing to risk life and limb, well, limb anyway, there’s a bit of scrambling to be had up one side. This is steep, grassy and just a bit desperate. There’s an easier way round the other side. It is, however defended by a necklace of boulders which have holes in between them.

But the top (both tops) are fine places to sit about, or, in the case of Luckythedog, to roll about in the grass again.

The descent was along an ATV track which eventually disappeared and then down to LInhope, a descent during which Lucky came within inches of a disastrous coming together with a large mature adder. Lucky is a good name for Lucky.

We returned along the road, which was quiet.

It was ten and a half miles in mainly warm sunshine, although there was a fierce wind on Hedgehope Hill. Nice day, good trip… 

Back at knipetowers a couple of hours later, I wet the bairn’s heid with Guinness Dublin porter….. or two…

That’s another one for Penyghent then.

Dawn’s version can be read on her blog here

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Two Durham County Walks in Quick Succession – Weardale

Over the past few days I’ve been exercising myself and several other people on guided walks around Weardale.

Really really attentive readers and any living in Roddymoor might remember a recent kerfuffle concerning access to Kitty’s Wood – a landscaped and wooded area covering part of the site of the huge industrial complex that was Roddymoor Colliery. Kitty’s Wood was recently sold by Durham County Council and subsequently fenced off by the new owners. This upset the locals two knickers and , following a relatively brief campaign seven new public rights of way were created in Kitty’s wood and my walk on 1 April was to explore these new paths. As this would have been a very short walk indeed, if the new paths were the only objective, I extended the trundle to include diverted paths alongside the now closed and re-landscaped area of Opencast mining just a bit North of Roddymoor and the very lovely Durham Wildlife Trust nature reserve at Stanley Moss which is bounded by a windfarm.

So that’s what we did.

Compulsory Dave was the steward, assisted by Neville and Eric, plus 21 punters, many of whom were also Durham Voluntary Countryside Service peeps.

It was a cold day and there was a shower at lunchtime which meant that people distributed themselves amongst the trees and gorse of Stanley Moss to get out of the wind and stay almost dry. Stanley Moss woodland is capable, it would seem, of hiding huge numbers of human beings…

Anyway, this was a walk which is new to the walks repertoire – about 7 miles and fairly easy going if you ignore the mud in Kitty’s Wood and the prickly gorse on Stanley Moss. Its nice to do something new and I have another new one later in the year.

Me and Lucky The Dog did a reccy on a perishing cold day a few days earlier.

Next up, on Easter Sunday, was a repeat route from Stanhope which links Stanhope Dene with Shittlehope Dene. 15 people and a small dog came for this one, including the stewards Anne (not compulsory..), Diane and Ralph. I think we’ve done this route three or four times now.

And we managed to not get tangled up with Durham ramblers who started their 7 mile walk at the Grey Bull (maybe we should start and end a walk here!) and were a little ahead of us till they turned off.

We headed up Stanhope Dene in warm sunshine, teetered up the upper part of the glen past the salmon pool and up the long pull up to the CtoC railway line, calling at  the very busy Park Head for “tea”. My “tea” was fizzy and about 4% by volume…

It actually  got quite hot in the sun, unlike the reccy at the end of March which was nithering to say the least and involved some very small patches of snow. Lucky ate some of these. Whereas on Sunday, we had a nice, long and relaxed lunch whilst soaking up the sun before bashing our way up the hill to Park Head.

On the reccy, as  a solo walker, albeit with a canine, I spotted at least four deer in Stanhope Dene, two of who ran on a parallel course to mine and another two were in the bottom of a quarry and were unaware of me or the dog at first. nevertheless, my photo of them has them almost invisible. Play spot the deer with the pic above.

We used the Crawleyside incline and Crawleyside Edge to link up with Shittlehope Dene which had lots of slippery mud and some primroses which have the early makings of a fine display.

This one was 9 miles

That’s 375 man-miles and 9 dog miles altogether – unless you count the two reccies, in which case it’s 392 man miles and 26 doggy miles.

Gear Review – BG Green Cooking Fuel System

I was quite pleased to be asked to provide a review of this innovative new product which claims to provide an extremely cheap and green alternative to propane and propane/butane mix gas and, effectively, using the equipment provided in the BG kit walkers and backpackers generate their own fuel supplies as they progress through the countryside.

The initial contacts were through by email and I did suspect quite strongly at first that this was a scam or, at best, a joke, but, having tested the equipment on various camping trips and one backpacking trip to Wales, I’ve come to appreciate not only the money I’ve saved by generating my own BG Fuel (BGF) , but also the convenience of not having to shop for gas canisters or to worry about re-supply on long trips. To give you a clue about this, the first contact was from a Mr Lee of Kunming in the People’s Republic of China although later discussions were held with his UK agents - individuals based here in County Durham, who appear to be close relatives of Mr Lee even down to sharing the same surname.

The entry level gear for lightweight backpackers and campers is the “Sxhizan qua” ( this is as close as I can get to the word, which roughly translates, rather romantically as “The Perfumed Breeze”.) This consists of a tube system, a non-return valve, something in a white plastic case which holds two AA  batteries with some lights which, as a safety warning, glow green on detecting inflammable gasses and what looks at first sight as a  balloon-like bladder.  The idea is that the backpacker generates a certain amount of flammable gas within his gut – as well as non-flammable gasses such as carbon dioxide and this is collected via the tube system, filtered through the white box which removes the carbon dioxide, and stored in the bladder. At the end of a day’s walking, the nozzle of the bladder is connected to a standard lightweight camping stove and ignited for cooking.

The claim is that given an appropriate diet, sufficient flammable gas can be extracted sufficient to boil up to 3 litres of water on a walk of up to fifteen miles. On longer walks, it’s recommended that the trekker releases a safe amount of gas on an hourly basis, partly for comfort and partly for safety reasons.  Further gas can be produced overnight for the breakfast brew, a pint of porridge and even a quick wash with water at a reasonably comfortable temperature.

Some practise is required in inserting the tube into the walker’s bowel and it’s quite a good idea to a) have a handy supply of vaseline or similar and b) a source of appropriately soothing music (Judy Garland is quite comforting) and, perhaps, some candlelight and a close friend.

Gas is produced reasonably painlessly throughout the day and is stored in the bladder which can be clipped into the walker’s base layer or underpants. Towards the end of the day, this does get a bit uncomfortable, it has to be said, and a tip from Mr Lee’s agent at the Lucky Rainflower takeaway in Spennymoor, another Mr Lee, as it happens, was to be very careful not to sit down too suddenly.

Removing the gas into the stove proved tricky at first and , whilst camping at Borrowdale , I did accidentally let go of the bladder which then flew around inside the tent, frightening the dog and also knocking over my tin of McEwan’s Export. However, I soon got the hang of it and was quickly brewing up cups of tea, coffee nd soup (pea and ham as it happens) quite happily. What was worst at the Borrowdale camp is that for some reason, the lads in the tent near to mine seemed to be regularly having some kind of hysterical fit which put me off trying to re-insert the tube quite a bit. 

Another handy feature is the facility in emergencies, to dispense with the collection bladder with and link the  stove directly. I can imagine that this would be very useful should the bladder suddenly fly off over a crag or into a fast-flowing stream or something…    In this scenario you do have to squeeze a bit to get a good flame and this can have it’s own problems, as you might imagine. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re really confident of producing only gas and nothing else.

A long backpacking trip in Wales did result in a certain amount of soreness and explaining how this happened to my GP and, indeed, to the wife was quite difficult and I have only felt a similar level of discomfort after I once drank twelve pints of mild in half an hour.

 

Mr Lee of the Lucky Rainflower says that certain foods can be more efficient than others, especially when taken with beer, preferably of the Real Ale variety although Home Brew had to be used with some significant caution. He produced the chart below – 300 grammes of each foodstuff providing a boiling time of 1 litre of water at 10C after 6 to 8 hours in the digestive system.

Baked Beans    6 minutes

Mushy Peas      4 Minutes

Boiled Cabbage  4.5 minutes

Sprouts              1.6 minutes

Beanfeast           3 minutes

Onion Bhargee    30 seconds

Lucky Rainflower  Special Chicken Curry  25 seconds (caution!!)

Thus, it can be seen that beanfeast, being dehydrated, is probably the most efficient fuelfood for the BG system and this is what I’d recommend as carrying a huge great cabbage around seems to defeat the lightweight objective, really.

Other versions available are:

Den Xhoiping (Fragrant Gale) For small countryside sports events – grouse shoots, pheasant drives, small village shows etc.  (insert into horse) will power a medium-sized cooking range for 3 hours or a scooter for up to 106 miles

Xhaisois  Huchiong (Aromatic Typhoon) For use in rural industries and on-the-farm – will power a generator long enough for milking 24 cows or will drive a small caror an agricultural tractor for up to 26 miles. You need a fairly relaxed sort of bovine for this as the tube is quite large. Maybe a Belted Galloway or a Highland…

After a while, I managed to get over the initial difficulties, soreness etc I’ve come to the realisation that the first parts of the process can be quite good fun providing a sense of rhythm is maintained. But following a few embarrassing incidents involving firemen actually, my advice is that candlelight’s probably not such a good idea although I’d stick with Judy Garland…. or Dusty Springfield.  Or Abba.

A BG kit is available for 35 Euros from Lucky Rainflower Takeaway and Home Deliveries, Bobbie Shafto Street, Spennymoor. Ask for Mr Lee. I’ll certainly be using mine on a regular basis on future backpacking and camping trips and on a daily basis in the home….  [koff]

Click for Instant Karma repair…

 

Talkin About Geltsdale

When I let Lucky out of the drawbridge around the back of Pietowers, he took a peek at the snowflakes and the grey sky, shivered in the nithering breeze for a second, then turned tail and went back to bed. As for me, I took consolation in another few coffees, some toast and a visit to will it rain today? to see if the snow had stopped snowing in the West. And it had..

Eventually, the sky brightened slightly so I wrestled Lucky into his harness thingy and we set off for Hallbankgate at the very very top end of the Pennine Chain. Here, we parked very prettily in the Geltsdale Nature reserve car park and went off to bag the diminutive Tump, Tortie Hill 296 metres of tussocky tussocks but with a nice view of Tindale Tarn.  We returned to the knipemobile to get out of the wind and to scoff the pasty (we’d set off late to allow the Weardale snow to melt off the roads).

After this, a long tramp past Forest head brought us to Whinny Hill – a steep little beggar and a bit higher at 336 metres and with a nice view of the Solway Firth. As this is bigger than Tindale Tarn, it’s much better, see?  This involved climbing a wall twice. Happily it didn’t fall down.

A short road walk found a gate and a well-worn path through old coal workings (there was coal in the mine spoil!) and up steeply to the very fine summit of Talkin Fell.  This one’s distinctiveness took me by surprise in that not only did it have a much better view of the Solway than Whinny -  and some snow-covered Scottish hills in the far distance as a bonus, but it also had a huge collection of well-built cairns. Nine Standards? Pah! There’s about seventeen standards up here, plus, plus, mind, a fine selection of holes and lumps so handy for sheltering in the sunshine from the brutal gale coming off the Solway, the better to eat a curd tart with some degree of dignity – that is to say, without shivering violently. Being out of the wind, and much warmer, Lucky soaked up a bit of sun. Lucky likes sun. I could spend a day snoozing on Talkin Fell, I think, but on a better day.

The final bag appeared to be a rough and heathery lump across a boggy pass and defended by a four foot wall. Lucky scrambled over the wall with ease and I bumbled my way over it, balancing precariously on a bit of fencing for a while till I’d managed to find a toehold for a toe…. Climbing over walls without causing it to collapse and crush yer vitals or without a disastrous bone-cracking tumble from the top gets more difficult when you have your senior citizen’s bus pass y’know. Just at the point where your life is drifting into it’s final few winters, you suddenly get more cautious when logic would seem to say that there’s not much point in caution when there’s less lifetime to be lost by a lack of bravery than, say, when you’re twenty. Maybe I should just drink more.

The bog wasn’t too bad, though and wasn’t too deep or wide and was without any crocodiles or similar and we found  an easy  path which went up at first then skirted a line of small outcrops along the edge, revealing various hidey-holes and shelters and stuff…

The summit cairn was hidden in rough heather. Simmerson Fell was the fourth and final bag of the day.

We returned via an old railway line leading to Howgill after just seven miles and 1100 feet of up. A nice little walk. Smug mode, in fact.

Here’s a link to the RSPB reserve at Geltsdale – quite wonderful and well-worth spending time here

Map below.