The route’s finally finished. Or rather, pending the vetters approving it, it is (!).
After looking at maps of Scotland, both of the Ordnance Survey variety, as well as satellite imagery and books of trails and advised routes to climb Munros – we are there. I am generally pleased with the route, even if minor changes need to be made, and worryingly I am already considering future Challenges (yup, they say the bug is caught easily) so I can explore areas of Scotland I didn’t get to include.
Every outdoors blog seems to focus on the ‘where’, and I will no doubt detail the route in another post, but first I want to share a little about the process of getting it finished and in to the vetters.
Looking at the whole of the Challenge area and working out where to start and finish was a daunting process, and in retrospect, we were drawn to the castles more as “anchors”, than worrying about what was in between and how they would link together. At the start, it felt more like ‘connect the dots’, almost you are designing a puzzle whilst simultaneously solving it, rather than taking enjoyment in looking at every kilometre of the map and understanding, at a basic level, the route would be largely responsible for my enjoyment of the trip itself.
Make it too high level and challenging early on and we’ll be exhausted for the next few days. Have a daily mileage that is too challenging, and we will feel it is a route-march. Realising that happy medium, knowing our fitness level well, our intention of making it feel like a “true challenge” without burning out, by climbing everything in sight, was something I had to consciously avoid.
I know I’ve gained a lot from the process. I’ve written in other posts that my “walking ethos” tends to be about getting from A to B as fast as possible, and it is something I feel I’ve acknowledged, and want to change to something focused more on enjoyment first. Planning this two-week hike, looking at other trip reports from previous Challengers – the constant mention of the need to pace themselves, take rest days, etc – makes me feel that I’m on that journey from unlinking kilometres walked with enjoyment gained.
Another challenger wrote that the logistics were made significantly easier if you consider it as three, back-to-back, 3 to 4 day hikes, with supply opportunities in between them. Which in retrospect was the perfect explanation, and took a lot of the difficulty out of it. Yet the beauty is we are still able to travel in total isolation without visiting any of the social hubs if we wish.
Without getting in to the route in fine detail, as mentioned in my last post we wanted an iconic start and finish – choosing beautiful castles on each coast of Scotland. That is the probably the one thing which remained constant throughout and we ended up shelving a lot of our ideas. A large question mark was how “high level” to make the route. On one hand, we are both competent moving at a high level in poor weather, and want an iconic route in case we never do it (either, the TGO, or a coast-to-coast across Scotland) again. A huge part of wanting an iconic route, for us, is having the opportunity to enjoy the big views, assuming the weather cooperates.
The other side of the coin is the extra kit this requires due to ice-axe and crampons, items which may not even be used for more than a couple of days (or even at all). Neither of us are local to Scotland, however, so “just do it on another trip” may never come. We resolved to bring them, and plan a route including as much high level as we could to get the use out of the kit.
At this point, we are thinking about tweaking a few kit choices, transport, and of course food. There are many decent backpacking food providers, and we are also looking in to food dehydration. Dehydration seems to give so much more control when it comes to eating what we want, not least making the portion sizes we feel comfortable with – and of course is much more cost effective than buying pre-dehydrated meals. Kit wise, neither of us are what I’d consider “ultralight”, however have good kit, with kit weight of the other Challengers in the 11-14kg range at the low end (including food and footwear). Currently, I’m expecting to be carrying a pack in the 18-19kg range, which includes a mammoth 1.3kg pair of 13.5 leather boots, 350g ice axe, 400g gas canister, and a 2.3kg Bergans expedition backpack. It certainly all adds up, and this will be adjusted as we get closer to our departure.
In the medium term I do see going down the UL route as attractive, and I am not far from being able to do that, with a change of shelter, backpack and footwear cutting 3.5-4 kg minimum. Obviously, the biggest weight we are going to need to move cross country will be ourselves, so there is a conscious effort to work on fitness, keep up the daily cardio and make sure we can manage 10 hours of hiking in a day, then wake up and do it all again for two weeks.
L|ve the Outdoors 