The Student Room Group

DofE Gold Kit Tips

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(edited 8 years ago)

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Reply 1
Well, only take changes of underwear, keep the clothes your wearing on throughout.

Put some mole skin in your first aid kit; if pressure points on your feet frrl sore, use the moleskin to reduce the friction.

Share the weight of food/ the tent youll be using with whomever you are sharing with.

Other than that i have no suggestions; its very similar to the silver hike.
Do not take as much food as I did. Even if seems like youll eat loads as your walking loads, you wont end up eating THAT much and so its just a waste of effort.
econ-hec
Well, only take changes of underwear, keep the clothes your wearing on throughout.


Dogkicker91
Do not take as much food as I did. Even if seems like youll eat loads as your walking loads, you wont end up eating THAT much and so its just a waste of effort.


So your advice so far is: Don't take an extra set of clothes, and don't take much food.

Might I suggest that you leave your map at home?
Reply 4
GodspeedGehenna
So your advice so far is: Don't take an extra set of clothes, and don't take much food.

Might I suggest that you leave your map at home?


:ditto:

I also found that using trainers was a good idea, as they are hugely lighter than a pair of 3 season boots.
Reply 5
For gold,gaiters are a must!

Get some boots with ankle support, i found out the hard way.Luckily,it was on the practice.

Take high energy foods like nuts, don't take chocolate or sugary foods.

A platypus is very useful.

Try to keep the weight of the bag down as you are gonna take a lot of food!I'm going for a week because we have to wait for the silvers to finish.We are spending about £40 on food.Woo,barbecues!!

Have you heard of lookwhatwefound meals?They are really nice.
Reply 6
A decent sleeping mat is probably the best thing you should take, as its horrible getting up day after day, and walking for miles with a sore back from sleeping on a crap mat.
Reply 7
just get sainsbury's boil in the bag meals.
Reply 8
Alex L
A decent sleeping mat is probably the best thing.


This. I got one of the self-inflating ones, it was really good and helped me save space as it was only 3/4. I was able to keep my roll mat on the inside of my bag which turned out to be very useful as it rained all the time.
get a 1 man lightweight tent. it makes a masssive change to the weight of your bag.

also i'd personally recommend magnum elites for your footwear. they are amazingly comfortable.
Baby wipes are pretty awesome for keeping clean if you aren't staying in camp sites with showers
It also really depends where you are going. We went to Dartmoor which is pretty wet, so I decided to get some Sealskin socks which are 100% waterproof, I think they may have been the best purchase of my life.

Then again, I am a woos, who cares about things like wet feet. Some guys in my group only took 1 pair of socks.
if you're prone to blisters get some compeeds - they've been my saviour for 35, 45 and 55 mile ten tors!
also as someone mentioned above, a platypus is very useful.
econ-hec
Well, only take changes of underwear, keep the clothes your wearing on throughout.


No don't.

If your clothes for any reason get wet, maybe because it's been raining all day, you fall in a peat bog, your tent floods, etc you greatly increase your risk of developing hypothermia if you have no dry clothes to change into.

In fact I doubt many (if any) award groups would let you go out without a spare change of dry clothes. You may have been able to pull it off in less extreme surroundings with nice summer weather but you can't risk it in wild country like Snowdonia, the Highlands, etc. In the peak of summer the weather could range from 30 degree heat to force nine storms and the temperature dropping below zero.

To give you a real world example, a girl on another team in the same area as us fell into a peat bog. Her friends put her dry clothes on over the top of her wet ones, it was a very cold and wet day, she developed hypothermia and had to be rescued.

Also you're saving what, 0.5kg if that, there's no point considering the risks involved.

josht111
Any particular items that make things a lot easier? And any kit recommendations?


Have at least one pair of waterproof socks.

When I did my Gold in the summer a force nine storm swept through Snowdonia, camp-sites were washed out and paths became rivers (on the first night of our stay). The only guy in our team who had dry feet was the person who just happened to have a pair of waterproof socks. Needless to say now have a pair of SealSkinz.

Use a gas stove, it's quicker, the gas is lighter than a bottle of meths, it's cleaner, takes less time to cool down and be packed, etc.

Take flip flops for when you roll into site, they're good for airing your feet and protecting them, plus they're lighter than a spare pair of trainers.

josht111
Any kit that help with blisters?


Compeed blister plasters. They're like a synthetic skin that resemble a giant callous. They protect your foot while the skin underneath heals and you can walk with them almost pain free. Don't get the blister stick, while it's oily texture may reduce friction you can still get blisters. The oil then makes it difficult for the plasters to stick and take hold.

You want the large size for your heel and/or sides of your foot and the smaller ones for your toes. Make sure you get plenty, the worst thing that can happen is that they run out.

One of the biggest preventative measures is just to get walking with some load, in the boots that you will be using. The load changes the pressure points on your feet, I got no blisters training with a light load but when I ramped the weight up I did.

josht111
Any tips on keeping kit weight down?


TBH out of your essential kit there isn't really much weight that can be saved. The only real option is getting a super small and lightweight sleeping bag, I saved a couple of kilos there (but they can be expensive).

Also cut back on luxuries, spare shoes, books, toiletries, etc. Take the minimum. You can get extra small travel sized versions of toothpaste, shower gel, etc.

Get dehydrated food where possible. The boil in the bag meals are quick, clean and taste pretty good but a main meal and desert is around 0.5kg at a time whereas a similar weighted bag of pasta should be enough for one person for a couple of days. Take the most calorie dense food you can get, I was eating around several hundred grams of chocolate per day and still lost half a stone in 5 days.

Yhy92
Take high energy foods like nuts, don't take chocolate or sugary foods.


Chocolate is high energy, ~600 calories per 100g. Plus personally I found it much easier to eat and digest chocolate than nuts which are very dry and fibrous.

Yhy92
A platypus is very useful.


They're more convenient but don't be one of those people who lets it dangle onto the floor as you walk along and/or stop, not hygienic.

Fleurvert
This. I got one of the self-inflating ones, it was really good and helped me save space as it was only 3/4. I was able to keep my roll mat on the inside of my bag which turned out to be very useful as it rained all the time.


The self inflating ones are far more expensive, they offer little if any extra comfort compared to a decent roll mat, plus they take up extra room in your bag.

A guy in my tent had one, he wasn't popular for many reasons. One was the fact that his huge self inflating mattress was bigger and bulkier than everyone elses and he ended up hogging the majority of an already small tent. You don't want to be that person.
Pimplebottom
Baby wipes are pretty awesome for keeping clean if you aren't staying in camp sites with showers


We didn't even get real campsites, let alone showers!! haha

I think it's a really good idea to bring a pair of flip flops, they'll make virtually no difference to the weight of your bag and it's so much nicer when you've arrived each night to be able to walk around in them.
Don't go too minimal with your kit, it seems like a good idea at the time but personally I think you'll regret it half way through day 3 when you're feeling utterly crap nd want something to cheer you up, i brought a bit of chocolate for each night and also a little bottle of undiluted squash so I could add it to my water, as river water is sometimes not the tastiest! I would bring at least one other change of clothes, personally I would feel disgusting wearing the same sweaty t-shirt for 4 days! and yeh, gators are always a good idea!
crazylemon
No that is very sensible wet feet SUCK (all my practices were on dartmoor)
Keep them as dry as possible


Dartmoor is an awful, awful place. (Sorry to anyone who lives there!)

Sainsbury's do a range of '2 Minute Meals'. They are amazingly light and though it says 'microwave', you can cut the packet open in the corner and place them in boiling water. They taste a lot better than the usual boil-in-the-bag stuff (IMO), and take up hardly any room. I had the chicken korma and Thai curry and they were really nice.
Iodine tablets are always worth taking with you, especially if you don't have any other water filtration system :yy:
crazylemon
+ neutralising tablets if you hate the taste of iodine in the water.


I quite liked the taste...
crazylemon
+ neutralising tablets if you hate the taste of iodine in the water are a pussy.
Means you have to wait longer to drink it though


Fixed :awesome:
crazylemon
Can't say I have used gas stoves though, don't like the idea of carrying compressed gas around.
Gels might be a sort of halfway house.


Unless you get into the habit of throwing them on bonfires or driving a knife through them while lighting a cigarette you won't have any problems. They are surprisingly tough (they have to be).

I've always used gas and never had any problems nor have I heard any horror stories.

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