I headed to the village of Abergwyngregyn on Saturday afternoon to start a loop of the National Trust land there, however it quickly became apparent that the high winds forecast for the next day were already beginning to make their presence felt and the stronger gusts were making the peaks a little tricky.

Due to my late departure, the strengthening winds, and the poor forecast for Sunday, I decided to to turn around and my way back once I’d reached the summit of Drum; the original plan had been to camp at Carnedd Llewelyn, but I didn’t want to risk getting stuck in high winds. I made my way back and found a decent pitch for the night just below Foel Ganol, out of the worst of the wind. With tent pitched just before dark, it was on with the stove for a hot chocolate before bed. As I watched lights begin to appear around Bangor I could feel the wind start to pick up and it looked like I was going to be in for a blustery night.

It’s been a while since I last slept in the Superlite Voyager and I’d forgotten how noisy the Silnylon flysheet is, even in light winds. By 1am gusts of up to 40mph were hitting the tent. I was woken at 4am with the tent pressed flat against my face, despite it being pitched tail into the wind. I stuck my ADC Wind out the door to find a reading of 50-60mph gusts. I hopped out and checked the pegs and guys and headed back to the warmth of the sleeping bag. I stuck some earplugs in and tried to get back to sleep.

I was snug as a bug in my sleeping bag, despite the wind. The PHD Minim Ultra is everything I hoped it would be. Its hardly noticeable when packed in its stuff sack and I could really feel the weight difference in my pack during the day, not to mention the increase in space (which I managed to avoid filling with other unnecessary stuff). It lofted very quickly after being unpacked, and the lack of zip turned out to be a non-issue.The temperature fell steadily through the night, from 15°C at 11pm to 11°C at 4am (temps from ADC Wind), but I was comfortable in the Ultra wearing just my base layer. When I was woken at 4, I did feel that my hip was a bit cold (I’d been laying on my side), but this clearly hadn’t been bad enough to wake me up during the night.

I finally gave up trying to sleep at 5am. I made a hot chocolate and some breakfast, packed up, and fought my way off the hill. The wind was really strong by this point. I had planned to take some photos of the camp for this post, but the lack of sleep had driven it from my mind, and I had quite a job just keeping upright in the stronger gusts. I got back to the car by 8am and headed home. It was a shame as the sun was shining, but I’m glad I decided to turn back, rather than get stuck on the hill in those winds. Here’s to next time!

I usually like to plan my own walks, but I’ve been visiting Geoff and Vivien’s site for a while now and have been looking forward to trying some of their routes. I shall report back when I finally get out there.

Minim Ultra with stuff sacks.	Stuff sacks side by side.
Minim Ultra stuff sack	Ultra in Minimus stuff sack

The pictures give you a rough idea of sizes, but it’s not perfect. In reality the yellow stuff sack is much smaller than the red one.

After weeks of to-ing and fro-ing I’ve caved in and ordered myself a new sleeping bag. The Minim Ultra has had so many good reviews that I’ve bitten the bullet. I’m a fairly cold sleeper so it will be interesting to see how I get on with it and what sort of operating window it will have in the variable British Summer (and I use the term loosely).

Down sleeping bags are not cheap and spending this sort of money without actually seeing the product (and then waiting 30 days to have it made) is always a gamble. The gamble paid off when I purchased a Minim 300 in the PHD sale last year, and I can’t rate that bag highly enough. My plan now is to use the Minim Ultra during the summer, then see about buying a Combi bag if I decide to continue my camping into the winter this year (and I might, as trips might fit in better with work).

More to follow – watch this space.

I’ve tried to give a cheaper and more expensive option for each item, with the more expensive item usually being slightly lighter, although this is not always the case. The sleeping bags are an example of this exception, with the more expensive ones being generally warmer.

If you choose the cheapest options in each of the categories you end up spending around £360, which is still a lot of money for your average DofE participant. However, as I said before, the costs can be kept to a minimum by each group member buying a different piece of equipment. It might also be possible to borrow items like tents from the assessors or from friends and family. I seem to remember taking a 5kg dome tent for my bronze expedition, complete with steel porch poles! This was still manageable as it was split between three of us, although you wouldn’t catch me taking it now!

Prices quoted here are taken from either The Outdoor Shop, The Climber’s Shop, or BackpackingLight.co.uk. These tend to be my go-to places when buying kit, as I find that they are consistently cheaper than places like Cotswold Outdoor. It’s interesting to note that for several items, The Outdoor Shop was cheaper than Cotswold, even after applying the DofE discount to the Cotswold price! That’s a steep markup, so shop around and grab yourself a bargain.

As I’ve passed most of my old gear to friends and family I used some of their instructor’s demo gear, which was more the sort of equipment one might expect a DofE group to be carrying – large tents, Trangias, 2kg sleeping bags, foam mats etc. – to demonstrate that one needs to find a happy medium between low cost and low weight. It also highlighted the fact that light gear is not always the most expensive; several Poundland items (mug/plate/cutlery) were lighter than my titanium equivalents (I chose not to argue the point that if I tried to heat water for a cuppa in a plastic mug it would melt) and a heavier tent split between a group might still be lighter per-person than taking several solo tents.

I got a couple of questions at the end centred around the cost of some of my lightweight items I’d brought along and asked for possible alternatives – I could see that one or two of them were especially taken aback with the cost of my big three (tent, pack, sleeping bag) so hope I haven’t put any of them off. I think the majority understood that lightweight stuff was an option, not a necessity, and that the most expensive kit wasn’t a guarantee of comfort, but I thought it might be useful to put together a list of equipment they might want to investigate further. It’s a list of relatively low cost, reasonably light camping equipment that has received favourable reviews and looks like it’s up to the job. I hope this will demonstrate that you don’t have to spend thousands of pounds on equipment to get decent gear that doesn’t weigh a tonne! I’ve also stressed to them the importance of trying on things like rucksacks before buying them, not just finding the best bargain on eBay.

What advice would you give a group about to undertake their first DofE expedition?

I’m unashamedly hooked on all things gadgety, so I’m sure there will be a bias, at least to start with, on gear and tech. All those gadgets and gizmos certainly increase my enjoyment of camping, however I find that when I’m out walking the technology tends to fade into the background, which is how it should be. Gear and tech are a means to an end; they are tools that enable us to go exploring in the wild places, whilst remaining self-sufficient and, more importantly, safe.

With that said, I’ve included a gear page with a list of items I usually take with me on trips. I aim to start writing a few reviews of the items in it over the next few weeks and hope that the information will prove useful to people looking to invest in similar equipment. I’ll also be posting some trip reports in the coming months, although currently work doesn’t allow much time for getting out in the hills.