dooger.org

Perhaps there is indeed hope for the wine drinking hiker after all.    After Brett’s review of dehydrated wine:

“Clumpy, musty odor, like drinking beetroot juice spiked with cheap vodka that has spoiled at the bottom of the ocean for three hundred  years.”

Alas, surely there must be something better?  Enter the PlatyPreserve from our friends at Cascade Designs (the makers of Platypus):

Platypus employees claim to have kept wine in the PlatyPreserve for up to six months without noticeable taste degradation

Are the claims true?  Does this really do the trick?  Wunderbar! [sic]

Details available from https://www.platypreserve.com

Ever wondered what happened at the end of the Italian Job?  At the conclusion of the film, the getaway van (loaded with gold) is hanging precariously over the edge of a cliff.   Charlie Croker played by Caine says “hold on, I’ve got an idea”.   Then the film ends. What was next?   Now, perhaps we know – read on here [Italian Job conundrum is ‘solved’].

Just heard back from the TGO vetters (Ana and Alvar) that our route is go!    They provided some really helpful advice on some of the trickier portions of the walk.  Very impressive service – I hope to meet up with them in Montrose when we’re all done.

We now have most of the trip sorted including our flights from Seattle to Manchester, getting up to the TGO route start and back again, and have booked our a few “deluxe” overnight stays in a B&B’s as we go across Scotland :-).     Our paper OS maps arrived today by Airmail from MapKiosk who appear to have the best online shipping and prices for OS maps.

I spent time over the holidays musing over the route for our planned crossing across Scotland as part of the RAB TGO Challenge in May.   I’d previously purchased maps for Quo v2.0 which were extremely helpful in the planning process.   Prior TGO trip diaries on the Phil’s Doodlecat TGO site and suggestions from Andy Howell’s post were invaluable.

Sadly, my plan of visiting several Whisky distilleries along the way didn’t pan out… Here’s the planned route (by day):

1. Dornie to Falls of Glomach [Scottish Hill Tracks #266]
   18km, 1300m ascent
2. Falls of Glomach to Coire na Cloiche
   FWA: Falls of Glomach to Athnamulloch Bothy via. Alltbeithe
   20km, 1150m ascent
3. Coire na Cloiche [Wild Camp] to Cougie Lodge B&B
   FWA: Alltbeithe Bothy to Cougie Lodge
   25km, 1300m ascent
4. Cougie Lodge to Ft Augustus
   27km, 700m ascent
5. Ft Augustus to Garva Bridge via. Carrieyairack Pass
   FWA:  Avoid optional side-tour [2] at Corrieyairack Pass
   28km, 400m ascent
6. Garva Bridge to Kinguissie
   30km, 500m ascent
7. Kinguissie to Glenfreshie Lodge
   16km, 500m ascent
8. Glenfreshie Lodge to Forrest at Cairn Geldie
   18km, 810m ascent
9. Forrest at Cairn Geldie to Braemar
   20km, 290m ascent
10. Braemar to Shielin of Mark
    FWA: Braemar to Shielin of Mark via.
    30km, 2100m ascent
11. Shielin of Mark to Tarfside
    18km, 580m ascent
12. Tarfside to North Water Bridge
    25km, 220m ascent
13. North Water Bridge to St Cyrus (then onto Montrose)
    18km, 480m ascent

Total of 293km (183 miles) and 10330m ascent.

FWA == foul weather alternate.

Day 10 is a whopper of a day and passes over some very high terrain.   Fingers crossed for great weather!

I’ve booked all our airline tickets from Seattle so we’re committed now.   The focus over the next three months is going “ultra-light” – my strategy?  Losing my “winter fat”… 🙂