Cairngorms, Scotland • 16th to 19th June 2022
Kit and Camping
We will be covering up to about 20 miles on this pilgrimage, so please pack carefully.
Our recommended kit list is below.
You will need a comfortable backpack to carry this in, ideally one you have walked with before, with room to carry communal food and kit. Leave behind those heavy extras – you’ll regret carrying what you don’t need more than you’ll miss those little luxuries that you can’t imagine going without.
We ask that you bring your own tent.
This is an ideal list, though ultimately what you bring is up to you.
Essential kit:
- Good rucksack (65 litre of more) – ability to carry all your kit and room for communal food
- Appropriate clothing for all weather (not too many changes of clothes but best to have a spare set just in case)
- Good shoes / walking boots / waterproof shoes / walking sandals
- Waterproofs
- Small light Tent / Bivvy bag
- Sleeping Bag – 3 seasons
- Ground/Carry Mat or Thermarest
- Small towel
- Toiletries
- Sunhat
- Bowl, spoon, fork, knife, mug (a cloth bag for this is recommended)
- Solid but light Tupperware Box – to keep prepared sandwiches/lunch in as we walk
- Head torch with redlight function
- Midge net (just in case!)
- Notebook & pen (for dreams and inspirations)
- Any medication you may need
- Water bottle (2 litre)
Optional extras:
- Pillow & eye mask
- Swimwear
- Personal snacks and energy munchers
- Pilgrimage staff
- Teddy bear
It will be midsummer but in the mountains we still have to be prepared for the cold and the wet. If we’re lucky we may need sunscreen and if we’re less lucky we may need midge nets.
If you need to buy new camping kit we can highly recommend these retailers:
alpkit.com/
lancashiresportsrepairs.co.uk/
phdesigns.co.uk/phd-k-series-1000-down-ultimate-warmth-weight-performance-sleeping-bags
backpackinglight.co.uk/
springfields.co.uk/
Important notes…
Care for nature
Our motivation for this pilgrimage is entwined with our love of nature. We will be walking through a sensitive and protected habitat in the National Park. As we are in a group, our potential impacts are greater and we will be taking extra care to protect our surroundings.
Cooking facilities (stove/fire, pots, etc)
We will cook communally. Cooking equipment will be provided. Whenever possible we aim to cook on an open fire but if the conditions are exceptionally dry or windy and there is a risk of wildfire we will use stoves.
Cleanliness
We will be in remote country with no toilets. It is vital that we all accept the responsibility of finding a discrete spot well away from water to dig a small hole and dispose of our human waste. We will always be beside freshwater which we can use for cleaning and we will have ample opportunity for swimming.
Further background information on Salmon and Freshwater Pearl Mussels
The purity of these rivers depends on the symbiotic relationship of the Salmon and Freshwater Pearl Mussels, farmed and hunted for their pearls. These two creatures co-exist like the red and white blood cells in the veins of the land. The pearl mussels’ survival depends on their larvae attaching to the salmon’s gills to be ‘run’ upstream to populate the rivers. They, in turn, work as the filters of the river, around 50 litres a day, cleaning sediment and pollutants from the water.
Between 1970 and 1998 two rivers a year experienced the complete extinction of their mussel populations. Today some rivers’ only remaining mussel populations are the ancient 100+ year old molluscs as they are failing to breed and pass on their cleansing role. Is this correlated to the disappearance of the old singers and storytellers whose subsistence depended on the land? Here they sang and retold the inherited lore of the land and rivers that protected the environment from over-exploitation, treasuring and passing on these pearls of wisdom.
Could we have been symbiotically entwined with the continuity of these natural lifecycles and has our loss of connection and reverence of these habitats factored in their decline? There is no answer to this question but history tells us that cultures around the world, notably the contiguous salmon cultures in the Pacific Northwest coast First Nations communities, who depended on and worshipped the salmon, witnessed the dramatic loss of this fish when the language and songs around the salmon were lost. But incredibly today we see the reviving of ceremony and celebration of the salmon and its life cycle coincide with their increasing return in many rivers.
