Fri frakt, bytte og retur* Fjellpulken Mounting Set 15/16, komplett monteringssett for vindskjerm, ryggstøtte og veltebøyler Velg en størrelse for å se lagerbeholdningen i varehus Komplett sett med skruer og tilbehør, for å montere vindskjerm, ryggstøtte og veltebøyler på en klassisk Fjellpulken barnepulk.I’m Alastair, an adventurer and author. I invented the phrase #Microadventure and I’ve been shouting about it for a few years. You can follow the microadventures people are doing on social media here or say hello to me here. This post will teach you everything about bivvy bags ready for your microadventure. If you’re looking for microadventure ideas try the Year of Microadventure Challenge, watch a few videos of my microadventures or -best of all- buy a signed copy of the best-selling Microadventures book! Would you like to receive occasional updates about microadventure news, events and plans? Traditionally, when heading off into the outdoors you would arm yourself with a tent.

For overnight microadventures, however, I encourage people to try using a bivvy bag instead. If it rains you will have a less pleasant night than if you were in a tent / 5 star hotel. (Taking a basha will help a lot though.) Even the best bivvy bags leave some condensation on your sleeping bag. For a single-night trip this is no problem, but for extended use you need to be able to hang your sleeping bag up to dry occasionally. If you are confident that the weather is going to be warm and dry then you don’t need one at all. I’ve slept like this on many, many nights. If you are in the UK there is usually a risk of rain. The cheapest way to stay dry is with one of these orange survival bags. They are a handy thing to own anyway if you are heading into the hills. The chief disadvantage of these is that you will realise in the morning how much vapour your body gives off in a night! Your sleeping bag will be quite damp. But for a single night microadventure they are absolutely fine.

And they only cost about £5. A step-up from the orange bin bag option is this breathable bivvy bag for £17. The British Army’s bivvy bags are good too. They are GoreTex, a discreet green and enormous (a good and bad point). Buy one here for about £40. If you think you will use your bivvy bag regularly, for multiple nights, or if you are going to bivvy in more difficult conditions, here are a couple of really good breathable bivvy bags: The picture below shows an Army bivvy on the left, a Rab one in the middle and a snoring Welshman in an unknown bivvy on the right. I hope this all helps. Contact me if you need any more help (after checking this first, of course!). If the weather is nice I cannot over-state how cool bivvying is… If it’s not nice, then a basha means you’ll still have fun. I really recommend a basha if the weather is a bit dodgy! If you do head off on a microadventure, please let me know. Tag it on Twitter with the hashtag #microadventure or pop something on the new Microadventures Facebook Page.

If you’d like to come on a microadventure with me sign up here. If you have any friends who could benefit from a microadventure, please send them this link. If you’re looking for microadventure ideas try the Year of Microadventure Challenge, watch a few videos of my microadventures or -best of all- buy a signed copy of the best-selling Microadventures book!ccie backpack I’ve been working hard to encourage people to get out and try a microadventure. odst backpack for saleMicroadventures are a refresh button for busy lives.pedaltrain backpack But I’m very aware that the hardest thing is getting out there for the first time. demartini backpack

So I have produced a few infographics which hopefully will serve to give people the prod necessary to take that first step. (Thank you, Andrea, for all your hard work!) Click on the image you prefer to open a PDF file that you can then download and keep (Right Click, Save) or share the link with any friends who need a gentle kick up the backside to get out there and do stuff! backpack p1999A lot of the text on the PDF infographic is clickable, leading you to relevant web entries.backpack 200eg canon Please feel free to use, distribute, print, put on your Facebook page, edit or hack as much as you wish. If you have any friends who could benefit from a microadventure, please send them this link. Currency - All prices are in AUDAfter last week's excellent ski overnighter I wanted the winter to continue and do more skiing.

The weather however turned from great to miserable to worse and in Turku the snow season was definitely over. I still thought that the Kurjenrahka National park 25 km north of Turku would have enough snow and decided to go on a ski overnighter, quite possibly the last one of the winter. Jarkko and JJ joined me. It certainly didn't look like skiing would be possible and it was just when we arrived to Kurjenrahka that there was enough snow. We unloaded our gear from the cars and got ready to start. It turned out that there was enough snow for skiing after all. We started in the prepared ski track, which had been made for the 40 km skiing event the week before. Soon we started to choose our own route, though. The skiing was actually quite good and it seemed the snow had hardened a little, even though the temperature was still just above freezing. At one point we made a slight orienteering mistake, which had us skiing 300 m from our route in the forest instead of the open mire, even though we did arrive at the intended location.

We skied the last kilometer over open mire without using our head lights and saw just enough to arrive at the Vajosuo shelter after 8.5 km and a little under three hours, where we immediately started a fire. The evening went eating, talking and drinking a little beer. It was almost two o'clock before we went to sleep. I had a new air mattress, the NeoAir XTherm Regular, and was really warm and cozy, despite only having my 600 g summer sleeping bag. The temperature was just above freezing. Jarkko got up at seven in the morning and started a fire. I got up at 7:30. The breakfast was excellent with coffee and toasted sandwhiches. Beats porridge any day. Sometime before nine in the morning we got ready and started skiing. The snow was now a little softer than in the evening and the open mire had less snow than it had seemed in the darkness. I still used my pulk, even though a backpack would be enough for a small overnighter. A pulk is so much more comfortable to have, though.

All three of us had forest skis, mine were 270 cm long. I think this was a good choice now that the snow was soft and there was now and then slush and water on the bottom. Jarkko has a green sack with his sleeping bag on the backpack. Otherwise the colors on the mire were somewhat less cheerful. Yours truly, Photo by Jarkko. An elevated ski track. A really good idea, maybe the shoes will stay dry. Jarkko's backpack lacks a color. Another picture of me by Jarkko. We checked out the small island on the Vajosuo mire. There was water under the snow. Following the snow mobile made ski track to see the new route from the mire, On the Kurjenrahka mire. Soon Jarkko noticed that his backpack was missing something. The snow was now clearly softer and it was rather wet at some places. The final stretch before arriving at lake Savojärvi. We arrived at the parking place after a little under three hours and 8.5 km again. We now needed to retrieve Jarkko's sleeping bag, which we based on the photos in my camera had located to be somewhere in the middle of the Vajosuo mire.

I let Jarkko off close to the norther side of the mire, while I continued to the southern side and parked the car 1.5 km from the mire. I skied a little faster and found the missing sleeping bag in the middle of the mire. The green color had a slightly different hue than the other green stuff on the mire. We then skied to the car. This gave an additional 5 km of skiing.A nice overnighter and in all likelihood the last one on skis this winter, at least the way it looks now. The winter has been miserable again, but I think I got the most out of it with four weekends and four outings with at least one night out. From a fatbike point of view the winter has been totally useless, though, with only a few really good days. I guess the kayaking season starts soon... In the middle of February the schools have their spring break, which in Finland is timed to the statistically probably best winter week. I took a few days off from work and went with my family to visit the kids' grandparents in Ostrobothnia.

The weather forecast was also wintry enough that I brought some skiing gear with me. A short skiing overnighter to Levaneva, which I've previously visited once by bike, was planned. I tried to get some fellow Vigu students with me, but still ended up going alone. I started skiing around sunset at five in the afternoon on Saturday and immediately started skiing on the open mire. The light was quite dramatic with very dark clouds in the west. I had a tent and the rest of my gear in my pulk, which I much prefer compared to carrying a backpack. In the other direction the sky had a different color. There wasn't much snow on this part of the mire, but it was packed very hard and the skis stayed on top of it.The orienteering was becoming difficult, since I hadn't remembered my compass. About two hours after the sunset it was dark enough to make using the map without a compass difficult, and I had to check my smartphone GPS now and then. I first checked out a possible tent spot just outside the nature reserve, but discarded it since it was not scenic enough and instead continued to a laavu shelter.

(As a sidenote, there is a really good free offline topographical map over Finland, which works very well with the Android OruxMaps app). The mire and the occasional small waterbodies were mostly frozen and safe. On one occasion I actually came upon an open one, but detected it two meters before getting wet. The final approach to the shelter also crossed some ditches and I almost got wet once. My surprise was big when I arrived at the shelter after 10 km and three hours and found no laavu there. Instead there was this small shed there, which was open for occasional overnighters. I generally prefer to sleep in a more open shelter like a laavu, or in a tent or just a bivy bag, but this one looked quite cozy and I decided to stay there. There was a small stove in there... ... and a table with chairs. I made pancakes, the most noble of outdoor food. The stove was nice, but didn't actually make the shed any warmer, since it was not very tight and the warmth soon disappeared.

I slept on the loft and was happy for my winter sleeping bag. The next morning all the water in the shed had frozed solid and it was surprisingly cold, about -10C inside. According to the closest weather station it had been -19C during the night. It was a splendid morning... ... especially after the morning coffee. The shed and the sunrise. Excellent and crisp weather. It was excellent skiing and the skis stayed on top of the snow. Remnants of the summer, a cloudberry leaf. The next mire is visible behind the trees. Finally some other tracks. I was quite surprised that the area seemed to be so little frequented. My waxless Fischer E-77 skis from the end of the nineties still work very well. Some people say waxless skis only give a good grip for a few years, but I disagree. I still have excellent grip with these skis, and they certainly have seen action, having been my skis for if necessary almost snowless conditions for many years now.