CAMPING KIT

A night under canvas is a wonderful thing – and it’s even more wondeful with the addition of a few clever gadgets and luxury items.

Top Trumps, etc £6-10

We all have days where going outside the tent is less appealing than a game of novelty cards. And thankfully this eventuality is well catered for with a bunch of recent boredom-busters, from pitching Munro against Munro, getting distracted in the contours of a Harvey map of your favourite hill… and then there’s Plop Trumps. Which really has to be seen to be believed.

Light My Fire Swedish Firesteel 2.0 £11

An essential bit of firesteel, complete with striker, which will give your stove the necessary spark long after matches have given up. One of these will sort you out for years.

Lumin AID Packlite 16 £25

Billed as ‘the original solar powered inflatable light’ (ah, remember the days before the market was flooded with those?) this is a charming idea made into a very useful product. Featuring a flat solar panel/lamp, this expands from a flat, credit card sized package to a pillow-sized lantern with a pleasing white glow with a range of settings. It then recharges while you walk.

Goal Zero Lighthouse Mini £60

A small lantern that is also a power bank doesn’t sound that revolutionary. But this solid light is a well-designed and capable little unit. With a built-in charging cable and USB port for charging a phone (or whatever) off, the glove-friendly knob allows you to light either half or all of the lantern at a variety of settings – from 500 hours of dim, one-sided illumination to 4 hours of remarkably bright light. Telescopic legs and a clever magnet enhance the usefulness. And it’s small enough to forget about whilst being decent enough to not want to be without.

Expedition Foods Various (including dessert range) around£6

Freeze-dried dehydrated food might take a bit of imagination to seem appetising compared to the equivalent ‘wet‘ food, but once cooked there is little difference. And the weight saving is enormous, with these 450kcal meals coming in at around 96g.

Over Board dry pouch multipack £15

As essential to some as a tent itself, a drybag is your means of keeping things organised and dry in your pack – and tent. It’s when camping that these roll-top bags come into their own. You can stuff one full of soft clothes and use it as a pillow, keep your damp kit inside so it doesn’t get everything else wet or – to employ the principle of something that is kept out can also be kept in – can be used as a water storage container to save those late-night trips to the stream.

Uneaq All Terrain Tent Pegs £30(pack of 6)

These fearsome-looking pegs were thrash-tested by filmmaker Terry Abraham and were designed to cope with just about any terrain and conditions. Constructed out of powdercoated aluminium, they are tough and light, at 25g each. They are on the chunky side, but you won’t be bothered by that if you end up needing to peg out your tent in a storm.

CafflanoKlassik£80

Something for the seriously committed coffee enthusiast who not only takes ground coffee into the wild but grinds their own beans whilst there. An all-in-one unit which features a drip kettle and hand-mill grinder – as well as a flask – it looks and feels so nicely put together and swish you’ll buy it even if you don’t fancy lugging it up a hill. And you can use ready ground coffee if you don’t fancy the bean grinding…

Smidge Insect repellent £7

A ‘good-to-have’ for most of the year and a ‘need-tomost-definitely-have’ for summer in the Scottish midge season, Smidge is designed to combat the scourge of the highlands, amongst other beasties such as ticks, sandflies, mosquitos and fleas. Smidge also have a ‘midge forecast’ on their website.

TerraNovaLoft£18

Sometimes you just want stuff out the way – whether it’s wet stuff, annoying stuff or just things you’d rather not sling outside. And that’s where a gear loft comes in useful. Hook it up in the rafters of your tent and it’s just an extra bit of magic space in the void above your head. Probably not a good idea in a bivvy bag, mind.

Sea to Summit X-Set 11 £50

The X-range cleverly mixes silicon and anodised aluminium to combine fast boil times with collapsibility and light weight. The kettle is hugely useful for making multiple brews on even the smallest stove. This set comes with a bowl, a cup and a kettle, and nests together beautifully.

Helinox Ground Chair £90

Helinox are tube-product specialists – umbrellas, some rather snazzy walking poles, and a range of extraordinary ultralight chairs. Banish from your mind what you’ve previously considered a camp chair: these will surprise you. Incredibly light, very comfortable and packable in a way you wouldn’t expect, Helinox chairs are less furniture than design triumphs.

Lifeventure Titanium Longspoon £11

Given that many of us eat out of packet meals on the hill, it makes little sense to try to use a tiny regular spoon to get into those fiddly corners and crannies. The longspoon is a very simple and very effective solution to that problem. It’s a long… spoon. And as it’s titanium, you can bend it in two without ill effects.

Exped air pillow £25

Some people simply can’t live without a pillow. In a way, it’s a sign of how at home you feel in the outdoors – in that you wouldn’t do without a pillow at home, so why do without one outdoors? For the least impact in the weight department, this Exped Air Pillow UL is practically unnoticeable and packs down incredibly small. But its scooped shape and thick profile make it nicely slouchable when inflated.

Ghillie Kettle mKettle£52

One for the traditionalists out there, or the Ray Mears wannabes. The Ghillie Kettle is a traditional design made from modern materials – aluminium and neoprene – and makes a remarkably self-sufficient way to boil water using natural fuels such as twigs and moss, or eco-fuel tablets. At 370g this is the lightest of its kind. It is a chambered flask with a central chimney and a fire base beneath. With a well-fed fire, a pint of water is boiled in the chamber in six to 10 minutes.

Goal Zero Nomad 7 Plus Solar Panel £100

Recharging on the go has always been a bind – but with our increasingly gadget-based world, it’s more and more necessary to have a means of boosting your phone, headtorch or GPS. Solar panels have been hit-and-miss over the years, but leading the charge are Goal Zero. The Nomad 7 is a well thought-out bit of kit – rugged, weatherproof, with mini karabiners to secure it to your rucksack to charge it up. You also get an solar intensity indicator and a pocket for wires.