Passing Place

Sometimes we just need to pull over.

REMF

Not much been going on this week. Okay, so that is a lie, there has been lots happening, but nothing vaguely related to this blog.

Paramo short gaiters arrived from Foothills. Part of my WHW AAR. Also part of this was the ordering of a pair of Goretex over-socks from Furtech. My feet don’t do well in Sealskinz socks – great for river-crossings, and for around the tent, but not for hiking in. Oversocks had been on my radar since some people, eg Dawn, had mentioned them.

I’ve been reading some more of Jon Vonhof’s “Fixing Your Feet” . There is a great section on solutions for feet problems…lots of solutions. Great – everyone is different, and there is no one solution. Something it takes time to realise.

A very nice woman has mailed me her … sorry … their BushBuddy woodburning stove, and I’ll be having a play with it over Christmas. I’ve given Honey Stove feedback to Bob, so it will be good to see them both side by side. He has certainly piqued my interest. I want to see how it all works – or doesn’t – in a moorland situation.

The StickPic arrived during the week. I had found that they were selling off ‘seconds’, so got a few dollars off. Which was nice. I hadn’t had the chance to try it out yet … well, I have, but you really don’t want to see late-night photos of me in my PJ’s waiting for the cold-drugs to wear off so that I can sleep. In case you don’t know what a StickPic is, here is George and Jason’s videos about it. I’m sure they can send John and Andy a typed transcript instead ;-)

Having had problems with my tv recorder, I finally cleared off all the recorded shows and re-formatted the hard drive. No longer will every activation of the device start up with a clip of Chris Townsend pitching his Akto! Och. But hopefully it means that the recorder will stop ‘forgetting’ to record programs. A very useful device, and has changed my viewing habits.

Cheated and painted the gun crew in a uniform expensive black cloth, and based up the demi-culverin.

And my new washing machine was delivered today. Hopefully the saga ends there. A tale of attempted DIY, poor online shops and poorer real-world shops.

Having caught the “Culture Show” special on Baz Luhrmann last night. Besides being another chance to see some great clips from his work, I was left pondering a quote of his: “we don’t have anything if we don’t have stories”. Even something as humble as a washing machine has a part to play in the epic.

So far, so good, and no leaks.

FMAO Nigg

Missed the crowning, but hope other shots useful.

Location map of this exotic location.

An old gent came across to see what I was seeing, and said he walked here regularly, weather permitting, and was amazed that people think everything was created in a big bang, rather than in something like this...

Afterglow - back to car, warmth, processing (horizon straightening and removal of some sneaky dust particles), rest is as the camera saw the sunrise via the polarising filter.

Taking Discourse

Those who take a discourse rightly, conforming to both the letter and the spirit, they are responsible for the good and the welfare of many, for the good, the welfare and the happiness of gods and men. (source)

Lightweight Tents

When catching up on the TGO Gear pages about the European OutDoor Trade Fare, I also noted Cameron's posting on the lightweight (sub 2kg) and lower-priced tent (approx £120) from Wild Country for 2008. (link)

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The new edition of Trail scrambled through the letter-box this morning included an item about a "reader whose ultra-light tent had collapsed in really wild weather". So some calls were made and a few manufacturers of lightweight tents were asked what speed their tents can cope with.

Golly. I didn't realise that wind speed only affected lightweight tents?

Looking back, to June 2007's Trail, with sub-2kg 2-person tents, wind speed is not rated. However, Trail's Graham Thompson did talk about the stability of the tents in his reviews.

I note that Craigdon Mountain Sports have a tent show advertised this weekend in Duthie park, I wonder if they will have a note of the wind speeds that their tents can stand up to? I think the public should be informed. Oh, they do - they have staff on hand to tell people - how handy is that?

As Mr Thompson rightly says "You need to know what you and your kit are capable of".

Doesn't everyone?

The outdoors can be a dangerous place - get it wrong, and you can die. Much like driving to work.

Be safe, be alert, be turned on to your place in the scheme of things - if you screw up, it's usually you that suffers. The rain doesn't care that you only took a showerproof jacket. The wind doesn't care that your tent can't cope. The sun doesn't care....well, you get the gist.

In a blame-centred society, it is good to have no-one to blame but yourself. Puts things in perspective.

Wild camping? He was bloody furious. Boom tish.

78Man

Just found this on YouTube. Thought I'd share it. I like this use of new technology. It shows the human spirit in the raw. 78Man

Oooh, "Lazybones" (how appropriate). Classic. Ahh, there only one song to play after that.

Why go into the wilderness?

I empathise with these words from Mike Clelland's introduction in "Allen & Mike's Really Cool Backpackin' Book" (link)

Why go into the wilderness? The natural world can be hard work, frustrating, and uncomfortable ... but we go nonetheless. What pulls us there, to a place that we sometimes perceive as unwelcoming? For me, and maybe you too, there is a very real tugging at the soul, a deep-rooted desire to find something, to achieve something ... a metaphysical fix of some sort.

The oppressive influences of our modern society keep many of us from being our real selves. We continually react not to Mother Nature, but to Mother Culture, and we take on identities and personalities not our own. But when we step into the wilderness, we temporarily liberate ourselves from those influences. There is a very real value to time spent in the wilderness. Perhaps we can begin to discover a little more about our real selves. Maybe we'll get some reassurance that there is something behind it all, and that it's good.

Quote n Site of the Day

Quote of the Day:
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." Herm Albright

Site of the Day:
rateyourstudents.blogspot.com - very addictive if you work on the chalkface.

Bennachie 22.05.07

40 mins from car to summit of Mither Tap. Including taking some pictures, going up over the rock wall and freethinking about the course on blogging i'll be working on.

I tried reading some Kafka and think i counted 7 different layers of depth in one story. We all project many different personas on to the people we interact with. Whether we know them or not, we all impact on each others' lives. On the street, we enter a stranger's life for a fleeting moment, and then we are gone. The person who reads a blog and never comments. The person who died years ago, but helped build a hillfort. Relatives who dragged timber across the island so that they could rebuild their home after being cleared from their land. People who cut me up on the road and then brake sharply as they come to a speed camera - all within a 30mph zone outside a police station. The society that is descending further into farce, and Nature that cares not, because in 50 years, a lot of us pageviews will be dead, and what we leave to the future will be determined by the personas we project: in Real Life and, increasingly, in various forms of media. Printed, painted, sculpted, photographed, recorded in sound and/or video, and our online presence.

Stay frosty, the future is watching you. What sort of memory will you project? Will there be stories to remember you by? May all be well and happy.

Lack of Honour

Just catching something on BBC2 just now about squaddies being chucked out of Harrods (the cammo might scare customers); and a Gurkha Major who gets no pension because of a doubt over which Allied command he served with in the battle for Burma.

I hate living in a country which has no honour, prats around with clauses and wriggles out of their duty at whatever chance they get.

Government talks about citizenship, but look at the face that it projects.

I need to get out more. Away from the so-called celebrities and spin-doctors, away from people who refuse to accept responsibility for their own in/actions, away from the blame culture, because it is easier to blame others than to admit that you made a mistake or acted on incomplete evidence, away from the media running everything, and a government that can't see why more people can't be bothered voting.

I live in a 2-tier country - those who care and those who don't.

Shame I have to escape to the hills to get away from people who don't give a monkeys about the country they live in. Littering, risking death overtaking on blind corners, smashing bottles on the street. No honour. No sense of duty.

We get the government we deserve.

I'm on the journey I make for myself. Nature intervenes. Other people appear and disappear. the journey is mine, and I accept responsibility for my own decisions. Hike your own hike.

The only epitaph I aim for is: "He done good".

It is all that we can hope for. No excuses, no wriggling out, no clauses to escape from. Just the big blackness. Did you do good today? If not, why not? It isn't difficult. Did you roll over and accept lies and hypocrisy because it is easier than fighting against it? You need the truth. You can handle the truth. The only true crime is stupidity.

Cry For Rain

Outdoors shop, Blacks, is closing stores in the UK. Profit drops warning as sales were quoted as 6% down at the end of 2006 [Source: BBC News] The majority of stores being closed will be those trading as Millets, reports The Scotsman. People are reporting sales in such stores. Maybe that was how I got the 50% discount on the Columbia jacket and trousers two Thursdays ago.

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BBC re-showing "The Trees That Made Britain". Then the excellent "Nation on Film". Channel 4 has a programme called "Greenwash" about the statistics and 'facts' being given out. IMHO: any reasonable project that cuts down our reliance on non-renewables is worth serious consideration.

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Wind's getting up.

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Added http://www.freezerbagcooking.com/myblog.htm to my blog-roll. I think the blog is mainly Sarah Svien's work, as there's no mention of Kirk. I first heard of Sarah's book on a PracticalBackpacking Podcast (episode 3) which I had on my mobile phone at Geldie Lodge in the Cairngorms NP.

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Alan Sloman's made it to Truro.

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Gulp - got a comment from Cameron McNeish! I feel like I should be kowtowing. Wow. Having perused the magazine, I'm back at the stage of reading articles in detail. I'm at the stage of fighting intuition. My intuition just wants to roll back onto the safety of the couch and watch re-runs of Star Trek. My intuition says, rain is cold and wet, the car is warm and dry.

I like the philosophical take, but I don't know enough beyond the pop culture. I have Rousseau's "Social Contract" at work but haven't read it; and Hobbes "Leviathan" is kicking around somewhere.

I still can't get into the 'spiritual' side of things, as Cameron is oft to write about and mentions on his recent podcast. I appreciate the majesty of the surroundings, and the aeons of a geological age, or that our forefathers and fifthmothers lived and worked in these surroundings instead of just surviving. But I fail to achieve the spiritual connection. My loss, perhaps, as I've never smelt lavender in rooms in castles, or had the prickly feeling of a ghostly encounter beyond that of my own lively imagination.

Appreciate: yes. Understand: hopefully. Empathise: ditto. Stare in wonderment at how ancestors achieved such beauty or feats of endurance without power tools or motor transport: heck, yes. But to connect on some esoteric, spiritual level: I'm afraid not. My loss.

Escape to, or, Escape from?

To sacred hills, woods and groves, 
To sacred trees and shrines 
Do people go, gripped by fear.
But they are not safe refuges, 
Not the best refuge. 
Not by going there 
Is one freed from all suffering.

Part of yesterday's vacana that I pondered about last night after a couple of days back in the granite.

Earlier I'd seen a teenage girl, not even breaking her stride, kick out at a telephone box. "Two days back in the city, and I'm already annoyed by the way people behave". The 20mph speed limits in the city centre haven't made any difference, don't seem to be enforced, and just seem to be money wasted on signage. Do I want to escape from this, or escape to somewhere where people have more respect for their surrounds and society?

People have talked about the spiritual nature of the wild places, and tying it in with beliefs of old (actual or re-invented). I usually just have more time to think about things when I'm out walking - it's not the places, it's the lack of distractions. Then I often find that the big hills, river crossings, or walking carefully over scree, helps me get things into perspective, and the worries shrink away.

"No-one took the minutes of the team meeting before Christmas...so what, there's a golden eagle hovering. Oooh."

In the same way that the chav kicking a telephone kiosk doesn't care about me, neither does the landscape. It doesn't provide a stunning valley for me to appreciate because it gets some sense of pride in return, it is just nature, geology, erosion, weather, wildlife - in the raw. Uncaring in the main, or in the case of wildlife, just trying to get on with life (which it'll do once the sodding humans have gone past).

So, in the words of the adage "wherever I go, there I am". There is no escape from feelings, but the wild places allow me to get some 'head space' to put them in to perspective, show how unimportant some things are, and how important other things are to me. The estimated times in trekking books are never enough for me when I'm solo, as I can stand for 10 minutes just watching a herd of red deer retiring into a forest, noting the way that the stags watch the threat (me on the other side of the glen). I'll watch a bird flap from one rock to another and wonder what it's going after as there are no insects around. I used to be able to 'people watch' in the urban environment: now I just get annoyed by the attitude of most people, so I can't do that any more.

I mainly get annoyed by my own attitude.

To me, the urban environment is uncivilised and wild; many of the inhabitants are soulless beasts, hunting goods in the shops that never make them happy.

Humans are spiritual people. We can't help but take our beliefs out into the world. That doesn't make the wild places spiritual places, just places that people go to get in touch with their problems or memories.

I caught a petal fallen from cherry tree in my hand.
Opening the fist
I find nothing there. *