SWCP – Postscript

Me at Land’s End

Lessons Learned

So, that’s another long distance walk (LDW) under my belt, this one being 20+ miles (33km) and a full day longer than the Pennine Way (PW), with 7,500 feet (2,330m) more ascent. And I took camping gear this time, increasing my average pack weight by 8lbs (3½kg). Bearing in mind that this was a practice for the greater challenge of walking from Land’s End to John o’ Groats (LEJOG) next year, what lessons have I learned from this one, if any?

Physical stresses

The most important lesson, I think, is that I need to take measures to avoid a repeat of the stress fracture. There are a number of things that’ll help in that regard:

• Incorporate rest days. I deliberately planned no rest day this time just to see if I could hack it, on the principle that you get fitter as you go along. Had it worked out, I would have allowed few, if any, rest days for LEJOG, whereas now I’ll add one for every seven days of walking, approximately.
• Carry less weight. For the SWCP I reduced the weight of non-camping gear so that, once tent, sleeping mat and bag, Jetboil and food had been added, I would only be taking 3½kg over the weight of my PW backpack, which was 10kg. Without camping gear, I’d now hope to reduce the pack weight to around 8kg.
• My fitness level for the SWCP was pretty good, thanks to walks to and from work, using the cross-trainer, doing regular press-ups and practice walks, but I’d originally intended to lose another 5-6lbs (2½kg) in weight, down to 12½ stone (80kg). That’ll be my aim for next year.
• I probably didn’t have enough calcium in my diet; I’m eating more cheese and yoghurt now to help fix the stress fracture, and will try to maintain that level of consumption.
• Take it easy. LEJOG will start off with the northern side of the SWCP, including the notorious ascents around Bude and Lynton, but there’ll be no need for me to walk against the clock or to overtake everyone in sight. Take a deep breath and avoid strains and stresses.
• Consult an orthotics bod. And do exercises specifically aimed at strengthening the anterior tibialis. And maybe get a calf support/compression thingy.

Fluid

On hot days, particularly those with many hills to climb, I was tending to run short of fluid. I’ve already bought a 2 litre Camelbak to replace the 1½ litre one I’ve been using, to complement the 600ml bottle on a Quechua shoulder holster I use for isotonic and the reserve 500ml plastic bottle that I only fill on longer/hotter days. That ought to suffice, particularly if I manage to find the opportunity to buy coffee and/or beer most days. Yes, yes, I know coffee’s a diuretic and therefore not good for re-hydration, but I’m an addict.

Boots

Thorny subject. As I’ll be walking in late spring and summer, lightweight footwear would make sense, but I want good ankle support and I would prefer to keep water out on wet days. I have no problem with wearing stout boots in warm weather, so I’ll probably go with my Altberg Tethera. In the highly unlikely case that next summer proves to be as dry as this one, I might be persuaded to wear the lighter but porous Salomons in the south, as long as Liz can bring out the Altberg a) if the weather changes and b) before I venture up into the boggy North.

Waterproofs

This raises the allied question of how to improve overall impermeability. I only had a day and a half of drizzle on the SWCP and no heavy rain at all, yet my kit still failed. The Mountain Equipment Lhotse jacket was fine, but the idea of wearing quick-drying nylon shorts with gaiters only held up for a couple of hours. And the draw-cord on one of the gaiters snapped. I now have new Rab gaiters to wear under a pair of lightweight Berghaus waterproof trousers in rain, or just with shorts when they only have to contend with long, wet grass. Or is it worth considering, in summer, switching to walking sandals and quick-drying materials and just getting wet?

Ticks

I guess I’ve been fortunate not to have experienced a tick through wearing shorts, but I do carry a tick removal tool. I don’t think I can be persuaded to switch to long trousers in summer – except, perhaps, by a tick. Snag is, I don’t have the patience to check my legs routinely at the end of each day. Maybe that’s a lesson I still have to learn.

Elevation measurement

Next lesson – don’t rely on the Viewranger app for measuring ascent on walks. It’s ok when you plot a route on the Viewranger website, using your pc or laptop, because the amount of ascent is calculated on the basis of countours crossed on OS 1:25000 maps, with a small error margin due to the gradients occurring within the contours. I found that the ascent given on the app at the end of a walk was at least 50% greater than measured on the planned route so, for example, Lulworth to Swanage is around 3,800 feet on the map, but nearer 5,800 feet on your phone when you’ve walked it. This gave me palpitations when I started to think that I’d have to increase the Bude section next year to close on 7,000 feet, until I read about the inaccuracy of gps elevation readings. 4,300 feet over a distance of 15 miles is quite enough, but do-able – especially when I’ve just done 4,000 feet of ascent over 21 miles with a stress fracture! So, don’t panic and trust your original estimate.

Food

Ever since 1976 I’ve taken too much food on walks. In fact my entire life is organised around food and any plans I make must incorporate meals as a sine qua non. Even on the SWCP I carried evening meals and enough muesli and coffee for every night I planned to spend camping, daily rations  and cereal bars for each day of the week ahead, supplemented by bread, cheese and apples as I deemed necessary. Were I slightly less anal, I could take just one day’s rations and rely on buying daily replacements, further reducing my pack weight. One of the difficulties with doing that is the lack of reliable information on the Web about local shops in villages, due partly, no doubt to their closure rate. I know there are those who would say ‘man up, take a risk, go hungry for a while’, but I’ve tried that and it doesn’t enhance enjoyment of the walk. I’m sure there’s a happy compromise possible, one that would allow me to take less food but enough to sustain energy and concentration levels.

Rucksack

I won’t want to take the Bergans Helium rucksack again, and not just because 55 litres will be too big. Perhaps the single most irritating thing on the SWCP and my practice walks was the squeaking noise made by the fabric stitched around the rucksack’s metal frame as it slid up and down. I tried oil and silicone spray, but it made no difference. I’ll either revert to the 45 litre Highlander, which works quite well for me, or, if that’s too big, check out something like the Osprey Exos 38 or Stratos 36. Or perhaps the Lowe Alpine AirZone Pro 35-45 for its flexibility. I have to take account of the fact that I want to camp on four consecutive nights at the start of the PW, after which I’ll leave camping and cooking gear to be collected; that means I’ll either need a rucksack with compression straps that can expand to accommodate the extra gear, or have straps to enable it to be attached above and below.

Walking Stick

I have a love-hate relationship with sticks. I will NOT use poles under any circumstances, and I always end up losing sticks, which I find pretty annoying anyway. Having said that, they are a help on steep, stepped descents, on boggy ground as a depth gauge and for poking the noses of yappy dogs. I’ll probably take and lose one again. Is it worth buying an expensive Leki stick to encourage me to look after it better?

Hankies

I lost so many hankies on the SWCP that a walking forum correspondent queried how I’d achieve an 8kg pack weight when I’ll need to allow 2kg for hankies! Maybe I’ll just switch pockets and have one protruding from my breast pocket like Poirot, where at least I should be able to keep an eye on it!

Accommodation

The experience at Newton Ferrers, where the farm advertising a campsite on the Web had decided to stop providing space for tourers and campers and was instead erecting chalets, has taught me that, even if I’m not booking ahead, I still need to confirm availability. I’ll start booking b&bs before Christmas for particular pinch-points where there are few, if any, alternatives available.

In conclusion, then, I’m feeling upbeat about my ability to get started on LEJOG and, once I get started, I’ll be pretty determined to complete it.  I just need to fix my leg in the same way I fixed my knees prior to doing the PW. Wish me luck!

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SWCP – Fear and Trepidation

I was 61 when I finally walked the Pennine Way in 2015, two and a half years ago. I spent yesterday on the Viewranger website calculating the length and height gain for each stage of my attempt on the South West Coast Path from Land’s End to Lyme Regis this year and, to my consternation, found that, in terms of distance and ascent, it’s more challenging than the Pennine Way. Admittedly it doesn’t have the altitude and the corresponding cooler temperatures, nor does it have the hill fog, the amount of rainfall nor, thankfully, does it have miles of boggy moorland. It does, potentially at least, have numerous ferry and tidal creek crossings, sea mist, south-westerly gales, precipitous cliffs and slippery rocks to clamber over instead, plus the self-inflicted extra burden of carrying camping gear. Here’s the barebones comparison:

Pennine Way

Length: 268 miles (431 Km)

Ascent: 38,150 feet (11,934 metres)

Duration: 17 days

Daily average: 15.75 miles, 2,300 feet

Pack weight average: 22lbs (10Kg)

South West Coast Path (Land’s End to Lyme Regis)

Length: 289 miles (465 Km)

Ascent: 50,782 feet (15,478 metres)

Duration: 18 days

Daily average: 16 miles, 2,821 feet

Pack weight estimated: 28lbs (12.7Kg)

So, three years older, attempting to walk farther, climb more and carry greater weight – is this wise? Am I not old enough to know better? The next step is to do a trial hike with the sort of weight I envisage carrying in summer and to test-drive the new rucksack, complete with my modifications.

So there you have it – the Bergans Helium 55, plus:

• a Quechua drink holster on one shoulder strap
• a pouch on the other shoulder strap for phone, power bank, mp3 player, charger etc
• a waterproof Quechua bag on the waist strap for spectacles, torch, compass, bank card, peanuts, cereal bar etc
• badly stitched homemade straps for attaching a wet tent on dry days

– all designed to enable me to keep up my walking rhythm without frequent stops; to that end I’ll also be using a 1.5 litre Camelbak bladder. For the Pennine Way I used, instead of bags and pouches, the multiple pockets of a gilet but, firstly, the rucksack straps get in the way of the pockets most irritatingly and, even though it’s made of fairly lightweight cotton, it can still be a layer too many in hot summer weather.

I’ve also made straps to attach the sleeping mat across the top but, because I don’t believe the rucksack is totally waterproof, I’ve added a nylon cover which won’t fit over such broad external items. In wet weather the tent will be stowed inside, separated from the rest of my kit by the polythene bag in which it was delivered but with the venitlation holes sellotaped. 55 litres provides ample space for everything, including the contents of side pockets and pouch for added protection from the weather if necessary.

The compression ties are drawn across the front rather than the sides to allow me to stash my waterproof jacket there. There’s a convenient strap under the lid through which I can hang the drawcord of my Charter hat when I need to raise my hood against wind and rain.

Trial Hike

All set, then, for a 12-miler up to and over Bincombe Bumps, along the Ridgeway and down to Osmington Mills for refreshment at the Smuggler’s Arms before heading back along the coast, a walk I must have done over a dozen times. But never with 28 lbs (12.7 Kg) on my back before. How will my knees fare? How will my feet shape up? Will the whole experience prove to be so unpleasant that I have to rethink radically my approach both to the SWCP and LEJOG and ditch the camping kit? I’ve been reading accounts of LEJOG by people like John Hillaby and Mark Moxon and am under no illusion about the scale of my project, the viability of which is, right now, in the balance. My usual bullish (bull-headed?) determination is well and truly on hold – I really don’t know whether or not I’m being over-ambitious at my age. This trial, which I’m approaching with trepidation, will go a long way towards making up my mind. No pressure, then.

I’ve already started work on my feet, giving them a daily soak in methylated spirits. Mark Moxon suffered badly from blisters in spite of using white spirit on his feet prior to his 1,111 mile walk, who knows why? Maybe he did his practice walks with insufficient weight on his back so that his feet were a different shape when he set out for real. Perhaps having boots with a Gore-Tex lining and two pairs of socks produces ideal, anaerobic conditions for making the feet sweat, thereby softening the skin. All I know is that, after using meths before doing the Pennine Way I only had one small blister, and that after I really pushed the pace en route to Haworth in a race against the weather. It may be that, had I not used meths, I may have had no problems anyway but, with less than four months to go, I’m not about to experiment by omitting what is, admittedly, at the level of a superstitious ritual.

Well, that’s it, job done, trial walk completed. On a cool, breezy but bright February morning I set off in full hiking regalia. The pack weight made itself felt on the first serious incline, leaving me more out of breath at the top than I’d expect to be. I’d tucked the waterproof cover in between the rucksack and the harness adjustment pad, but this pressed against my back so I moved it to sit under the lid. The waist belt was a little low, but a tweak of the ‘Quick Adjust Pro’ feature put that right. The drink bottle and pouch both hang a little high on the shoulder straps, but not obtrusively so. Having customised a lightweight, 1Kg backpack to suit my way of walking, it now weighs in at not much more than 1.4Kg with all my added bells and whistles and is both comfortable and practical.

I forgot to take my Trekrite walking stick with me because I don’t usually use one, hence my tendency to leave them behind, propped against stiles or suspended from bunkbeds, when on my travels. At Osmington I met a charming lady carrying walking poles who did her best to commend their use to me and recruit me to the Nordic walking fraternity. In pacific, placatory mode I said I was sure they were very good for her knees, agreeing that they were useful for leaping over puddles and fending off dogs or skittish kine, aware that expressing my true views would likely spark a lengthy debate, when what I wanted to do was make progress towards to my intended caffeine break at the Smugglers.

On the homeward stretch I felt a couple of hot spots developing on my feet. They weren’t surface blisters but ones starting to swell beneath existing hard skin. They were still slightly sore the following morning, but that’s precisely the sort of thing that I need to toughen up over the coming months. As for the leg muscles, I was delighted; I’d taken the steep route up to the tumuli above Bincombe and had hauled myself over the mounds in both directions just to increase the amount of ascent and finished the walk still with fuel in the tank. There were twinges of fatigue the next day, not amounting to stiffness nor anything that would have prevented me from walking again. In conclusion, I should be able to manage a pack with camping gear and, if I manage to lose a little weight myself and shave some off my food rations I might even add the lightweight inflatable mattress to my load.

I’ll walk again tomorrow to continue the toughening process, maybe 15 miles this time, but trying to avoid the slight error I made in 2015, in my enthusiasm, by peaking too early for the Pennine Way, after which it became slightly tedious to maintain the level of fitness. Next up – testing the camping gear.

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