Posts by Graham
Two ground anchors The ones which look like large corkscrews, frequently used for securing dogs. If you screw two in next to each other and then attach a padlock between them, neither can be turne...
The main thing is just to do a practise run with their existing kit in the back yard, same way you'd do as someone starting from scratch. Ideally leave the tent up until it rains too, so you can c...
I have an Oomph coffee press. It works very well, and produces very good coffee if you only want one cup at a time. Allegedly it can also be used for drinking out of like a travel mug, but person...
In addition to the good answer from @whatsisname, don't forget about the possibility of gear and/or placement failure. If you're leading, you have precisely one piece of gear catching your fall. ...
I'm only a beginner, but... I found in my very first pool dive that losing my peripheral vision with a black silicone skirt on the mask gave me immediate and profound claustrophobia. I spent the ...
If you gets gusts and choppy water, that's what we call "sailing". It happens. :) If the gusts get severe, you reef the sails, or drop the sails altogether. Note that this is still within the no...
I have similar problems with an inflatable mat. With a foam mat, even if it gives slightly under pressure locations, you're still insulated. With an inflatable mat, any pressure location has a go...
You might also consider a Z-Rest, which greatly improves on the warmth of a foam mat. It also solves the problem of condensation under your mat, which afflicts both air and foam mats, by the "egg-...
Personally I don't do that, because having something clanging against my pack (or my back) all day is guaranteed to drive me insane. Eating equipment goes inside my pack, along with stoves. If I ...
I haven't climbed for a long time - not since uni. Our climbing club was famous for its training though, so people from other clubs often joined us for the workout, and a fair number continued to ...
Comments from Aaron and StrongBad suggest this may be a country-specific thing, in particular due to being further from civilisation, and perhaps with greater public access to guns. In the UK, eve...
I find it funny that no answers so far have covered the biggest difference in the female torso. Namely, breasts. Rucksack shoulder straps designed for the male body are always either straight or h...
Strip off. Your skin is waterproof. Assuming it's warm (because if it wasn't, you'd have proper gear, right?) then you're not going to freeze, especially if you're walking. So take off everything ...
Months not days. Walking is a sport. Like any sport, you need to train your sport-specific muscles over months before you start getting really serious. If not, instead of getting progressively str...
Don't underestimate condensation. Other answers have mentioned sleeping mats. The problem is that if you're camped on cold ground, you've got a cold groundsheet, and that's going to get condensati...
Not at all. It only takes a few hours for water to work its way from your gut into your system, after which any extra simply goes through your kidneys and out the other end. However you can defin...
Aren't there now amazingly reliable devices that have capabilities far exceeding anything you can do with a paper map? Nope. Amazing, yes. Reliable - well, that depends on batteries and impa...
As far as precautions go, look at everything and ask the question "what happens if it breaks?" It's much better to have several pounds of gear that you don't use, because the one time you do need ...
