I thought it might be nice to give you a flavour of some of the things that I’ll be rambling on about over the next week or so. An event like the Challenge always throws up some interesting ideas and some interesting thoughts.
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll have my head down writing up my diary from the crossing. I’ve been quite surprised by the number of times last year’s diary is read each day. Hopefully this year’s diary will be an improvement on last year’s. Bob will, of course, be busy compiling his podcasts from the trip; later today I’ll be posting him my own audio files.
But while all this is being done I won’t be forgetting the blog; there is a lot of content that fits better into this format. And I’ll probably be focussing on the lightweight side of things.
The Rab TGO Challenge is an interesting ‘bell-weather’ for lightweight trends. The Challenge is by no means a lightweight event; you still see a lot of very heavy gear being used. But it does give you an interesting reflection of trends.
I formed the impression, this year, that lightweight backpacking (here in the UK) had moved on significantly from last year. There were more lighter weight packs this year than last. The Golite Pinnacle has already developed a firm following since it was released here a couple of months ago. There was an impressive collection of ULA packs, a number of the older P2s, more than a few Catalysts and the first Circuit that I have seen on the event. The Circuit is a pack made for the Challenge; at 900 grams this has more than enough room – and more than enough load bearing capacity. I came across a couple of Gossamer Gear packs and – from the mainstream – Osprey Atmos packs were well in evidence.
Things are changing on the tent front as well. The Hilleberg Akto is the Challenge solo tent of choice. Last year there were a few Terra Nova Laser Competition tents on show, most prominently those from Steve Perry and Lorraine McCall. This year there were quite a few Competitions on show; it certainly looked as if all of the new one person tents bought for this Challenge were Competitions. The Akto weighs in at 1.6 Kilos (3.5 pounds) while the official Competition weight is 94 grams (2 pounds). The Hilleberg Nallo remains, by far, the most popular two person tent, although the new Solar Superlight 2.2 that we used was so good that I confidently expect to see more of these on next year’s event. I’ll post a separate review of the Solar 2.2 shortly.
On the more exotic side of things there were a handful of people who were going even lighter (and I’ll give more details of these later). Two folks successfully used Henry Shires Tarp Tents as they crossed Scotland – and this year’s event was pretty windy. One Challenge from the US even used a Backpackinglight.com lightweight tarp and gear combination pretty happily.
As for me, I’m already considering gear (and routes) for next year’s event. I don’t think I could have reduced the weight much for this year’s two-person crossing; my base weight (excluding cameras and recording machine) was somewhere around 7 kilograms. Scotland is a cold and wet place and I do think it helps to have a reasonably spacious tent for two. Perhaps a lighter stove would have been an option. In the end I left the Bushbuddy at home as I thought it would be dead weight; I had been considering taking it along as a second stove. But there were two Bushbuddys used all the way across without any problems at all (more details later). Bob Cartwright carried the Whitebox Alcohol stove during his second week and was very happy with both its weight and performance
Next year (as a solo) I’ll certainly be taking the Bushbuddy. My pack will probably be the ULA Conduit (500 grams/1 pound) which arrived here just a week before the Challenge. I did load the Conduit up the night before I left but I really need some time with it before I can take it on a long walk. Which shelter to take is the biggest dilemma. The Laser Competition is an option; this is heavier than a Tarp Tent but warmer. The US tarp set-up used by Rob Hausam is an option but I’ll have to investigate further to see if it is actually lighter.
It’s raining now, perfect weather in which to test my new Mountain Laurel spinnaker tarp that arrived a couple of days before the Challenge; it hasn’t even been out of the stuff-sack yet. I’d love to use this on the Challenge, but I wonder whether I have the guts 
Hey Andy,get out in that tarp,i used my mountain laurel tarp(150g)and mountain laurel bivy(190g) over a very wet weekend near capel curig,if set up properly you stay dry,the tarp/breathable bivy set up works a treat,also tried the caldera cone stove system for the msr kettle(57g) boils 400ml on 15ml of alcohol in a strong wind,awesome,will be out again in a couple of weeks,i am out regular in snowdonia,i might bump in to you,would happily show you the gear,all this is prep for an ultralite tgo next year!!
Sounds a great idea Simon. I had the tarp set up yesterday in driving rain and it was perfectly comfortable underneath. Loads of space; not much weight.
hi,what (real) weight do you have for your solar 2.2 please ta peter
Use light titanium pegs and I reckon it is 2.0 K.