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Trail Testers September Edition

This Month’s Book Reviews

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Matt Smith joins Trail Testers

We followed the sunshine down to North Cornwall and spent three glorious days walking the South West Coastal Path.

This gave us a chance to evaluate the Alta 11 jacket from Paramo, as some of our coastal adventures included cold downpours with stinging blustery onshore winds. These luckily were interspersed with hot sunny spells so we can’t complain.

This was the first time walking this particular path, which has some very steep ups and downs as it meanders along the cliff tops, which keeps the walk

interesting. For those of you who intend to walk the path with a heavy pack, please take note! In order to fit in as much as possible in our three days we cheated and basing ourselves in Bude, we

Walking the South West Coastal Path

used the car to access different parts of the path and walked a different section each day.

There are a number of interesting sites to see along this walk including Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur and just up the coast Port Isaac, the location for the TV comedy starring Martin Clunes.

Port Isaac is a charming olde world Cornish fishing village with steep hills, narrow streets and a tiny but delightful beach and harbour.

There are a number of restaurants in the town and a brilliant pub right on the beach, which made for a welcome rest and liquid lunch before we walked home to Bude. The harbour is home to a number of working fishing boats and the town still has a thriving fish market which is well worth a look if you are down that way.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Cornwall, where we not only enjoyed the South West Coastal Path, but also the generosity and kindness of the Cornish People.

Read our Latest Gear Reviews

Matt Smith has joined us as a product tester and contributor.

Matt lives and works in Morzine in the French Alps and is a keen snow boarder, back country skier and when the white stuff goes away he picks up his pack and hikes in the mountains.

Over the next few months Matt will be reviewing a range of gear including tents, stoves, sleeping bags, clothing, packs and boots. As he enjoys putting his feet up with a good book we will enjoy reading his book reviews as well!

A Day To Die For by Graham Ratcliffe

Graham Ratcliffe was descending from the summit of Everest for the second time, the only British climber to do so. As he was about to enter his tent on the South Col in May 1996, he noticed a head torch in the distance, but thought nothing of it, something he will always regret, as that light was carried by one of the eight climbers to perish on Everest that night

Mingming and the Art of Minimal Ocean Sailing by Roger Taylor

Roger Taylor takes us to sea again, this time to the frozen seas off Greenland in his tiny 20 foot junk rigged sailing boat Mingming.

This is a brilliant read, whether you are a sailor or not, as Roger copes with storms and huge schools of whales....

Matt Smith

Here we test an oven weighing just 500g that fits on top of any meths, gas, solid or liquid fuel stove!

We have had these superb boots on long term test, click the picture to read our review

Walking the South West Coastal Path gave us a chance to try out this brilliant jacket, click the picture to read our review

Joby Gorillapod Video

To read the reviews click the thumbnails

Gear Reviews in the next issue include

Drytech food from Norway

Brasher Altai GTX

Marmot Tirol 30

Paramo Alta ll jacket

AKU Trekker Lite GTX

Omnia Stove Top Oven