TGO Challenge 2010

Darren phoned me today at lunch-time and left a message on my voicemail along the lines of 'check your email; they're sending out emails at the moment'.

Its been a long afternoon; as I can't access my email at work.

My application has been successful, so I'm on next year's TGO Challenge. GULP!

A Little Birdie

A little birdie told another little birdie, who told me that I didn't make the cut.

The way things have been the past few weeks; this may not be a bad thing. In the present climate committing myself to an event that is almost eight months away, may not be the best thing to be doing.

509

That's the final total of applicants for next year's TGO Challenge.

The draw for places will take place next weekend.

Seems as though this was a really big total for next year's challenge.

Being Naughty

I'm being naughty; as I'm still looking at routes for the TGO challenge and the latest news is that there are over 420 entries which will mean that there will have to be a draw for places, so I may not get in.

One of the areas I'm looking at are wild camping sites; now while its possible to legally wild camp in most areas of Scotland, it is nice to have a rough idea of where to camp. I have been looking at the maps and this gives a reasonable idea of what the terrain looks like but not what is actually like in really life.

I've just found a site (well not really found; as I had posted photographs to it before but had complete forgotten about it) that helps turn the maps into real life.

The site is The Geograph British Isles project which 'aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain & Ireland' which means a photograph of ever km square on the OS maps.

So if I want to see what a particular area looks like and if there is a chance of a wild pitch there; I can input the Grid Ref and a get a photograph of the area.

NO6484 is in and around the Bridge of Dye and this gives a good picture of what I would find around there (looks a good spot to camp) and of course if I want to see what is around Charr bothy I can.

I'm not to sure how the challenge purists will see this but for me it's an aid as much as the maps are.

2009 TGO challenge

The dates for the 2009 TGO challenge are 8th-22nd May 2009 and because this is the 30th challenge the numbers of entries has been increased to 360 for this year only.

It seems as though they will be adding some new starting points from next year and because of the increase in numbers will be putting a limit of challengers starting at the most popular start points of Oban, Malliag, & Shiel Bridge.

I have though about doing this challenge over the last couple of year especially after listening to Bob's podcasts from 2006 and 2007.

Next year would be a good year for me, as I haven't made any commitments yet to holidays and SWMBO has agreed in principal that I can go if accepted.

I just need to work out a route that would be suitable to me, how much it would cost to do and if I need to replace some of my equipment.

One thing that definitely would need replacing is a sleeping bag, I only have a light Summer bag (+3) and a heavy Winter bag (-10), I think I would need something in between; some where around the -3 mark would probably be good enough for that time of the year.

If I were to do it; I think that I would go for a low-level route although there do seem to be some tricky places crossing Scotland, the route out of Braemar looks to one of these.

I do have a funny feeling that next years event is going to way over-subscribed.