The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Friday 12 June 2009

TGOC: What I Carried

A couple of weeks ago I said that I had catalogued and weighed all of the kit that I carried on the TGOC and that I would post it. It’s taken me a while (including battle with Google Documents that didn’t like the formatting in any of my pretty versions) but I think that I got there in the end.

You’ll find the full kit-list here. On top of that little lot, I also carried a reducing amount of gas and varying amounts of food and water.

I’ve not done a similar exercise with listing and weighing Mick’s kit list, but the theory of ‘shared load = shared weight’ doesn’t necessarily apply to us. Unless I’ve overlooked something I would only need to add a toilet trowel (+75g), and the balance of the weight for a whole tent (say +300g for a Laser Competition) to make myself self-sufficient.

The kit isn’t wildly different to what I carried on the Big Walk last year, so it has been tried and tested and it works for me. The usual disclaimers apply that we are all different and what I’m comfortable with (e.g. wearing a single pair of trousers for three months), may be someone else’s nightmare. With that in mind, do feel free to comment.

(Thanks go to Alan-of-the-ear who saw this kit-list prior to publication and spotted that the reason for the half kilo discrepancy between the total pack weight and the sum of the parts was that my sleep mat had dropped off somewhere. It’s now reinstated and the total weights now tally.)

4 comments:

  1. Excellent and very interesting stuff, thanks! I love looking at people's kit lists.

    You did very well on the carried/used ratio. 7.5kg is a very impressive base weight, I reckon. I'll need to take a closer look at mine for next time, I think :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Other people's kit lists are so useful, someone has always thought of the thing I've forgotten.

    Thanks!
    Louise

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  3. What an Ace list - thanks for sharing!

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  4. Hello

    I got your details from the internet while searching for online walking/rambling blogs, so I hope you don't mind me contacting you. Working in the rail industry I don't usually deal with such 'sites'!

    I have just sent out a news release about an unusual walk and I wondered if it would be of any interest to you and your walking colleagues?

    You can read the release at

    http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=4423&NewsAreaID=2&SearchCategoryID=5

    If you need any more information, please do give me a call.

    Regards,

    Keith Lumley
    Media Relations Manager (North West)
    Network Rail
    Square One
    4 Travis Street
    Manchester
    M1 2NY

    t: 0161 880 3142
    f: 0161 880 3994
    m: 07798 858776
    e: keith.lumley@networkrail.co.uk

    ReplyDelete