Go lightweight camping

Lightening the load

One of the real joys about camping and exploring any wilderness – from the Yorkshire Dales to the Rocky Mountains – is the freedom you get. A common temptation, however, is to load up on enough kit to start a small settlement, which can really limit how much ground you can cover. Here WideWorld presents top tips from experts who know how to travel fast and light.

Leave my airbed behind, why would I want to do that?

“If you have thought and planned carefully then you will have just enough with you to keep you safe and healthy for whatever your adventure is,” advises Lizzy Hawker, ultra-distance runner with adventure brand The Northface.�“There is a certain attraction to having less less to carry, less to worry about when you are stripped of the normal luxuries of our modern lives.

“It allows you to focus entirely on where you are and why you are there.� Simplicity is very often the luxury we forget to allow ourselves.”

Don’t leave without...

Lizzy has only two requirements when comes to hitting the trail: “A good book, and a pair of running shoes”.

Matt Moore, head of sales with adventure equipment specialists Terra Nova, swears by the following:

“I always make sure I stay warm, get a good night’s sleep and eat well enough so a down jacket, good sleeping bag and plenty of (lightweight) food would be my suggestions.

“The list can go on; hat, headtorch, drop of whisky, but the most important element to a great trip is the people you go with, you have to get on well with each other and have a good laugh even if things don’t work out the way you wanted.”

Work it out, talk about it

The real key to lightweight camping is ruthlessly evaluating what you need and what’s dead weight.

“It depends so much on the individual expedition or adventure and what I will be doing, ie. running or climbing or ski mountaineering, or all of them,” says Lizzy,�“but I try to limit my kit to the essentials and exactly what I need to keep me safe and healthy.

“For....

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