A bright frozen day today – the plan is to walk some of the Speyside Way.
The first part of the walk is straight out of Scandinavian Village and onto the Aviemore Village Orbital Path, so no road walking.
I am trying out the new boots today – Berghaus Trek Extreme GTX – below is a photo of them new and mud free.
I had planned to return by following the coast path, however when I got there the path was flooded and too soft to walk on, so I decided to follow the canal path back towards Pine Lakes. Here is bridge 129a, carrying the motorway.
Not as quaint as the other bridges.
Unfortunately the path I wanted to follow did not exist.
As the light was starting go I decided it would be better to take the road way back – there is a very good path along the main road from Carnforth to Pine Lakes. You need to be careful crossing the roads at the roundabout at the resort, and when getting around the tree which has recently fallen over blocking the path!
The walk today was on paths where it was not suitable to get my stove out to cook my lunch, so I took my flask for a hot drinks and had crackers and tinned mackrel. I had something new to drink today – Diana got me some Chai Latte sachets – just add hot water.
I like Indian tea and make it when possible with sweetened condensed milk. I keep at least one Indian tea bag in my hiking brew kit but use extra dried milk and brown sugar when I make it when walking. The sachets were very convenient and tasted excellent so I will be getting more of these for future trips.
More ice photos
The path climbs up through an old disused slate quarry.
Lunch stop
Coniston – Old Man pt 2 Read More »
The Lancashire Coastal Way passes very close to Pine Lakes so as the day was sunny but cold – and to avoid the hill walkers in the Lakes – I chose to walk out to the coast.
There was a suitable path right outside the resort gates so I did not need to use the car.
Warton Crag
Lunch Stop
I found a great place for lunch – hot chicken noodles, maple syrup granola bar and fresh coffee – with a view.
I used my Source 1l roll up water bottle, that Jeremy got me for Christmas, for the first time today. It fitted well into one of the grab pockets on my pack, but it was a bit “squeezy” when I came pour water from it. The result was some spillage over the stove, my trousers etc – it will need a bit more care when in use compared to my Platypus roll up bottle.
Lancashire Coastal Way pt 2 Read More »
Whilst Christmas shopping in Aldi, I picked up a few things for my walking trip to Aviemore in mid-January.
The microwave rice (just heat it in a pot with a couple of spoons of water – you do not need a microwave) looked more interesting than the last varieties I bought and the same for the flavours of the instant noodles.
The Racer bar is like a Snickers bar but with more peanuts and a better size for snacking on when walking.
I also bought some coffee creamer powder and made up a creamer/freeze-dried coffee mix in a small nalgene bottle (2 spoons of creamer to 1 spoon of coffee) as the only pre-mixed sachets I could find in the shop were the sweetened variety.
Since writing this article I now follow the same process but keep the files in my Microsoft OneDrive.
Read more about Backpacking Geek – click here.
One big difference between the versions of Memory-Map on my old Windows 6.5 phone and my current iPhone is the way they handle imported routes from the PC version of the software. The Windows version simply connected to the complete route library in the PC application, then on the phone you could choose which routes from that list to show, turning them on and off as required. On the iPhone you have to load the routes individually and once you have finished with that route unload it and then load another (keeping too many routes loaded at one time impacts the performance of the app). The “Save as” gpx file in Memory-Map PC version solves the problem.
But the issue is getting the routes into the app from Memory-Map on the PC. The first thing you have to do is save the individual routes as gpx files on your PC. In my Memory-Map I have a category for Lincolnshire – which has over sixty entries, both routes and location markers – if I save the whole of this category as a gpx file when I open it on the iPhone it is too confusing on the screen to be useful – another reason to limit the open routes/markers on the iPhone.
In the knowledge base on the Memory-Map website it describes how to email gpx files to your iPhone for use in the Memory-Map app. However I use my Dropbox account to transfer (and store) my gpx routes and markers.
It is easy to save gpx files on my PC with descriptive names, into a Dropbox folder, these then synchronise to my Dropbox online. Using the Dropbox app on my iPhone I can access the files.
gpx files in a Dropbox folders
These files are opened in Dropbox, by tapping on them – they open as text files. By then tapping on the “open in” icon I can choose to open the file in Memory-Map.
showing the “open in” option
The gpx file is loded into the Marks and Routes section of the Memory-Map app.
the gpx file available for use in Memory Map
From there it can be opened and used on a map.
I have a number of gpx files available for free download here – more are always being added.
This article is sponsored by Octagon Technology.
Loading gpx Files into Memory Map on the iPhone Read More »
