Saturday 28 September 2013

Arnison Crag and Hexamid Trial



It's after tea when I get parked up in Patterdale and head up Arnison Crag behind the hotels. Instead of keeping to the wall side I stupidly head for the ridge and pay the price of wading through deep bracken. It's getting dark but I need to keep going to finally find water below  Trough Head in Hag Beck.


Dawne has given me some pre cooked stew to heat up for my tea .  This is not a success as my cooking system is designed for boiling water, pouring it on a dried meal and leaving it in the pot cosy for 20 mins.  Thin titanium pans and thick stew don't work on an uncontrollable meths stove.


The tent performs well as it's quite windy in the night.  It has an open mesh floor which is  draughty.  So maybe if it was raining it would blow through.  The draught did seem to prevent condensation on the single skin Cuben Fibre.  At 500g the tent is very light.  I've used my Leki pole as the support, but had to lengthen it with a home made section from an old Black Diamond pole.



Next morning after 2 bowls of porridge I power up into the mist on the east ridge of St Sunday Crag.





No views off the summit but as I head towards Birks I get a super view of  Nethermost Cove.
A knee jarring descent off the end of Birks sees me quickly back at the car and home in time for dinner and cutting the grass in the afternoon.




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean about titanium. It doesn't spread the heat. Apart from non-stop stirring, the only suggestion I can think of is thinning the stew with water and treating it as a chunky soup.

The Hexamid looks interesting. Did you consider getting the separate nest and tarp?

Greg said...

Wow, that's exactly what I did, added water and stirred like crazy.
No nest needed it has mesh floor and walls as standard with a cuben ground sheet that stops before the walls. Theory being any condensation runs down walls and straight through mesh into ground.

Because They're There said...

All that technical stuff is over my head – which is probably why my pack weighs as much as a dead horse. Great pictures, Greg.
Cheers, Alen