It has been a while since I gave an update on what is going on with my preparations to walk the Cape Wrath way, but with two months left till May, the clock is ticking.
Transportation to and from the trail is sorted now and lead to changing the route plan – I will be hiking from south (Fort Williams) to north (Cape Wrath), not as originally planned from north to south. To make things more exciting, Mika and our daughter will be joining me in Scotland so they can experience the wildness and beauty of the Scottish Highlands.
My fitness level is in a great place and I now know for a fact that I can walk 25 mile days repeatedly without much of an issue. I do get a bit of a nag in my right knee after 21-22 miles, but I think it is due to not enough stretching. I plan on adding stretching breaks to my hikes and keeping a comfortable 2 hours walking 30 minutes break pace.
Navigation is still unknown, but with a fixed compass and a couple of weekends planned in places that I don’t know, I plan to work on that too. My goal is to be able to keep my navigation accurate while covering the distance as this is the current challenge due to my last navigation weekend.
Now, it is time to start deal with lists: food and gear. I’ve been working on those lists and they are not simple to solve. I will write specific updates on each as they by now involve quite a bit new things I’ve learned about menu creating and gear adjustment.
I will say that food might be more of a challenge then I thought, as my diet is more protein and fat based than the usual carb based that most backpackers choose. I might need to order specialty products (such as dehydrated vegetables from Harmony House Foods) to create 11 days worth of food that will still be light enough to carry with me.
In terms of gear, I haven’t finished the list yet but I have decided to ditch the tarp/bivy setup and go for a 1 person ultralight tent. Those tents are expensive so I still need to find a way to buy one. Besides that, the other big items on my list are a new smartphone (with better GPS and camera) and a new eReader (my Kindle is the old one and it has no back light – not great for reading at night in a tent). The rest of the items are small things. In any case, I need to start hurrying to get what I’m missing and as soon as possible so I can test it, make sure it is all working and that I’m happy with it.
A full gear list and explanation will come soon.
Any recommendations on what else I should be getting organized for? Am I missing something?
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