Golite Jam - First outing.

My trip to the Cairngorms gave me the opportunity to try out my Golite Jam, and I have to say I’m rather pleased with it. It was comfortable to wear although slightly long in the back for me. It’s very roomy for a 50 litre sack, (I seem to remember Chris Townsend commenting that Golite litres tend to be larger than most others) and easily swallowed up my camping gear and three days of food.

I found the front pocket very useful as were the two stretch side pockets, and the two hip belt zip pockets. The lack of a lid pocket will take some getting used to, as I normally keep my fragile things here, like compass, camera, GPS. Why not transfer them to the front pocket? Well it not that straight forward, because for years I’ve used my rucksack as a seat when I stop, I place it on the ground straps up to keep the back clean and dry. If I do the same with the Golite Jam, these items will soon get broken. I also use my rucksack as a pillow or footrest when camping, with a lid pocket I can just flip the lid and my fragile items are safe, with a front pocket the items have to be removed, so a bit of reorganisation will be required before I completely happy.

Off to the hills at last!

With a few days of good weather forecast for the Caingorms, on Thursday I headed north towards Braemar. I was hoping to spend a few nights in the hills,which would give me the oppertunity to try out my recently purchased Golite Jam and Thermarest NeoAir. I’ll post an account of my trip in the next couple of days, but meanwhile here’s a photograph of my first nights camp.

The wettest May for years.

The last two weeks have been really frustrating, I’d planned a visit to Bridge of Orchy and Rannoch Moor for a few days wild camping and Munro bagging, but the weather has been absolutely dreadful. Constant high winds and rain across Scotland, meanwhile my NeoAir and Golite Jam remain unused. In desperation I’ve even had the maps out for Wales and the Lakes in the hope of grabbing a quick overnight, but the weather has been just as bad there.

So I’ve been spending my spare time following some of the TGO mobile bloggers, see here, here and here. They seem to have been experiencing the weather I’ve been trying to avoid; even Ron Bloomquist in the USA has had to call a halt to his 70^th Adventure until the weather improves.

343 Update.

Following my recent flurry of activity, I’ve managed to reduce the weight of my big three by 757g.

My shelter weight is unchanged at                                  1240g

My pack including liner has reduced by 562g to                 867g

My sleeping system has reduced by 188g to                   1377g

Big Three Total                                                               3484g

I’ve spent £148.49 on the purchase of my Golite Jam and Thermarest NeoAir to achieve this weight reduction, or to put it another way 19.7 pence per gram, . Was it worth it? I’m not sure, I‘ll be more able to tell after my next wild camping trip, which is likely to be mid May.

Golite Jam

As predicted my Golite Jam arrived from the The Climers Shop the next day. The changes to the hip belt; shoulder straps and back panel are quite extensive, increasing the advertised weight to 840g which from memory is around 100g heavier than the previous version. However, I was delighted to find that my Jam weighed in at 822g giving me a saving of 562g over my Lowe Alpin Snowpeak 50. Not in the league of Colin Ibbotson’s Tramplite Packs but a big step towards hitting that elusive 3 kilo’s.

343 Conclusions

After taking a close look at the items that make up my big three, (see previous posts), I’ve decided to focus my weight saving energies, on my rucksack and sleeping mat.

At 1384g without its polythene liner, my Lowe Alpin Snowpeak 50, gives the best opportunity for a big weight saving. Searching for an alternative was initially quite difficult, as there are a bewildering number of 50 litre rucksacks available on the internet; fortunately I was able to dis-guard most of them, as either too heavy or not available in the UK. I’m really not keen to buy products that I can’t try on, so the sack must be available to view in the UK.

I then checked back issues of TGO Magazine and read various online reviews, all which pointed me towards the Golite Jam.

It’s a simple design, the quality is excellent, and it gets rave reviews from most testers. Improvements to the 2011 Jam have increased the weight to 840g, but this will save me over half a kilogramme!

The best deal I could find was £85.00 plus £3.50 postage and packing at the Climbers Shop in Ambleside, who I know from experience usually manage to deliver your goods the following working day. So I’ve placed my order, and now its time to think about sleeping mats.