Looking At Kit (3)

Blaithwaite has been exceptionally busy over the last 10 days or so, our biggest group of the year left on Saturday after a week of wall to wall sunshine (it was such a good week on so many levels) & following a busy change over day we have three buildings in use again this week with the camp field due to fill up as the week goes on.

I've not had any time to get out recently but with Kay away to New Wine today I've done some geeking about with kit again. The headline is that without too much loss of functionality I've got my standard group day weight down from 6950g to 5590g (20%). I've also contrived to lose 5kg in body weight recently which I don't think is a bad result. There is a bit of an explanation, at least about the kit below.

First thing is I bought a new rucsac, after years of good service from an OMM Adventure Light 20 which I used on extended fell runs ( eg. Old Crown Round); as a small day pack & when travelling on hols. I didn't experience any hint whatsoever of the sometimes mentioned  lack of durability -so I opted for the OMM Classic 32.
I reckon that it will:
- get everything in thats needed for a day for myself & a group (could easily fit a rope on top of everything else)
- definitely save me at least 190g in weight depending on how I use it
- possibly double as an overnight lightweight camping bag subject to me makng a few alterations to how I presently camp (the bag is clearly the choice of a lot of mountain marathon runners)

Item			weight
			31/07/11
First aid (group)			420
Spare Food			60
Emergency Shelter (group)			650
Survival Bag			440
Crab & Sling			300
GPS			240
Spare Compass			0
Spare torch			120
Spare group clothes			230
Whistle			0
Rucsac			700
Poles			640
Silva 4 Compass			60
Map			260
Head Torch			210
North Face Apex Wind Shirt			0
Knife			120
Montane Litespeed H20 Jkt			220
Montane Atomic Overtrousers			260
Camera + bag + batteries			660
			5590

The other main weight saving changes are:

- no whistle (one built in to the chest strap)

- no spare compass (the regular Silva 4 and a GPS sufficient?)

- no Apex wind shirt (just bought a new Montane Sabretooth soft shell so will test for a while the combination of this / thin fleece under it / Montane Litespeed H20 as a clothing combination)

So total kit now looks like this:

From top left: gloves; first aid kit & spare food (red bag); camera / batteries (Fuji Finepix S2000 HD in green bag); buff; Head torch & spare; Montane Litespeed H2O; Montane Atomic Overtrousers; penknife; wooly hat; GPS; long sling + crab

Survival bag; group shelter & spare group clothing (light weight waterproof / windproof; mittens; fleece hat).

Not shown in photos are my trekking poles & a map