Blethering Blonde

Footwear - where to begin!!!!!!!!! When you have big feet you don't get much choice in womens footwear. In fact, you get none from trail shoe and boot manufacturers if you are bigger than a size 8 UK. The sizing in itself is a minefield that I also have difficulty in understanding as an EU 42 could be a size 9 in womens but size 8 in mens. Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhhh. I now just go into the shops and ask for EU 42 or 43 in mens and hope that they might fit. I've been chatting to ptc* , Sandy and bobinson for a few weeks about what to do on my footwear dilemma. Over the last few winters I have been wearing a mixture of La Sportiva Trango Evo S and Keen Targhee Mids . I managed to trash the La Sportivas playing on scree in Skye and replaced them with the next model up the Trango Evo Alp for proper winter playtime. The Keens are exceptionally comfy but are leaking like sieves and not the best on wet rock. As the Alps are for proper snow and a bit like overkill for our wet cold wint

It's nearly time for the white stuff and I had one or two things that required some tweaking. PTC* had been talking to me about winter wildcamp adventures which had me anxious as I knew my current sleeping set up wasn't good enough for freezing cold snowy nights. I recently got a lovely Thermasrest Neoair  and was very impressed with how comfy and warm I was using it with my Marmot Helium on my wild camp back in September compared to when I had used my Thermarest Prolte 4 (now Prolite Plus ). This new combo still wasn't going to get me through a winter summit camp. Over coffee & cake much discussion was had with PTC*and Bobinson where we came to the conclusion that yes it was a very good idea that I had ordered some toasty phd down booties which would compliment my phd Yukon and that what I need to look at was the purchase of a second sleeping bag to double up with. As discussion continued it progressed to me asking if the boys had been at the new Decathlon whic

We hadn't been to the Lakes for a while and it was time for the annual Autumn get together. The usual suspects were assembled with Cath very kindly offering us shelter in the Fell & Rock Club Hut at Raw Head - this turned out to be a godsend. Steve also  gave the rallying call to the Outdoorsmagic side of things with a reasonable number being very brave and camping at the NT Campsite . Langdale is a great part of he Lakes which I like, but so do a lot of people. I think I'm getting spoiled doing my walking in Scotland where its a lot easier to avoid the honeypot hills. The weather was not being our friend with the forecast being quite hideous and the actual weather even worse. Cabin fever did start kicking in so it was time to stop playing Jelly Baby Theater. Me, Matt and Kate decided to go for a wander round the Langdale valley to see how the various waterfalls were looking. It was going to be a good test for the gear ;-) We were doing a wee circuit, Elterwater, Skelwit