With 2013 looming ahead...

... I'm in the middle of optiminzing my gear for long distance hiking. And that seems to be going on forever since I discover new stuff every day. Just came across another manufacturer of great ultralight backpacks. If you ever need one check out Gossamer Gear. I'll probably get myself the Mariposa if I find a shop in Europe who sells it. With a weight of only 750g you can pack almost 70 litres. Wow!

Right now my backpack incl equipment weighs 8.5 kg without food which I consider pretty good. Still I wanna try to cut it down to < 8kg somehow.

My first long distance trail ever will be the Kerry Way in Ireland next April. Can't wait to start, hehe. Since I'll have 21 days to spend on the island and the Kerry Way only takes about 9 days I have plenty of time to venture through southwest Ireland on my own. So I thought about doing the Beara Way then or spend some time in the McGillycuddy Reeks bagging the Irish munros. Well, I'd say it depends on the weather then.

I will hopefully do two of the group hikes again in Scotland. Glen Affric/Loch Ness and Assynt. My plan is to connect one of these with a solo munro baggin tour at the Cairngorms National Park.

I also plan on doing a cruise on the Nile in early December next year and then spend another week chilling and diving at the Red Sea just to do something completely different, but I'll only be going if it's safe down there.

Anyway, lots of things coming up. Right now I'm just looking forward to a week of cross country skiing in Czech Republic.

Happy New Year everybody!