The Edinburgh Spaniels

What’s better than climbing munros? Wild camping on them too! When you’re lugging it up potentially thousands of meters of elevation and over tens of kilometers of distance, what you’ve got on your back really makes a difference! Through trial – and probably error – you learn what works for you, what you can live without and what you absolutely can’t. Below is my summit camp kit list, ordered for the way I pack my bag: First up – the bag itself! I used the Vango Sherpa 65l bag which fit everything in really well. The bag has the self-adjust carry system (SA) which was fab for helping me tailor the shape to be comfortable. The wrong backpack can put a real dampener on your hike so take your time choosing something that fits you well and is adjustable! Sleep stuff  Then I pack my sleeping bag right at the bottom. I use the Vango Ultralite Pro  which packs away pretty small and still gives you a good amount of warmth. When you’re 1000m up on the top of a munro the temperature ca...

. Harnesses, leads, collars, backpacks, coats, snowsuits, booties, canicross gear and more!  I am often asked about the gear we use so I've listed out each item and below is a link to shop! Non-stop dog wear The link above is an affiliate link, which doesn't change your shopping experience, but if you do decide to purchase anything, we earn a 10% commission from your purchase. So we would love it if you did use our link to shop! :)  I'll try and order the items by how often we use them, so first up: Everyday Collars: Nice and hardy with reflective edging, we love the Cruise collar . It has a semi-slip function and an attachment point for collar lights (which you can often see on the boy's collars).  Hugo wears a size XS and Spencer wears a size M. Leads: I have used 2 of the leads from Non-Stop; The touring bungee (a standard hand-held bungee lead - this is what comes with the canicross kit) which I mainly use for canicross, and the Touring adjustable bungee . The adju...

After finishing our long 4-munro hike in the Cairngorms we got back in the car and set off for our home for the next 2 nights - Wigwam holidays Glenlivet. Thankfully (considering my legs were nearly jelly at this point) it was just a short 45 mins from the Cairngorm Mountain centre to the Wigwam site!  [Disclosure - this was a gifted stay by Wigwam. The activities we chose as well as the words below are all ours :) ]   To get to the Wigwam site you drive through one of my favourite parts of Scotland - the Cairngorms. While we were now on the outskirts, the views around are still stunning and driving through the local town Tomintoul , we had an awesome view back to the munros we'd climbed earlier that day.  When we pulled into the Wigwam Holidays Glenlivet site we had a lovely welcome from Val who checked us in and gave us some local walk recommendations, and then we drove over to our cabin.  Outside, the cabin has a large porch area (with table and chairs) and a g...

You know its going to be a good day when the alarms are set for 4am!  The last time we had been in the North Cairngorms, it was incredibly snowy and we had a great hike across Cairngorm & Ben Macdui. The snow was soft and knee-deep through most of the route and summiting Ben Macdui was the coldest temperature we had experienced so far. Thankfully, the conditions were a little easier this trip! Seeing that we were due a day of good weather, we set off to try and re-bag Cairn Gorm and Ben Macdui along with 2 of their neighbours; Beinn Mheadhoin and Derry Cairngorm .  Alarms went off at 4am and we were on the road by 5. The weather looked good for most of the drive but unfortunately as we got closer to Cairngorm mountain, the cloud set in thick. By the time we pulled in to the Coire Cas car park that was our start and finish, visibility was less than just a few meters. We were worried that this would be just another #naeviews murno but decided to brave it anyway.  We...

What an amazing trip!  To celebrate Stephen's birthday this year we wanted to do something a little different and to explore some further-away munros. His birthday is in January and Scotland still had a thick blanket of snow at this point so we thought we'd leave the tent at home and take a van! Thankfully Woody from Now Where Campers was still available so we packed up and set off for a 3-day long weekend to the Cairngorms. A bit about the van While we've both stayed in a motorhome before, this was our first time being in a van conversion and since we are in the process of converting a van ourselves, it was brilliant to see and use a finished one (albeit a different size and shape to our own!). The van is a custom-converted VW and you can tell its been designed with adventures in mind. The more compact size means it handles Scotland's often little and winding roads really well, so very approachable if you've not driven something bigger than a car before!  The tri...