Right this is the last of my previous holiday videos I’ll bore you with (until I finish editing the last 2 that is). But this is probably my favourite so far, it’s the highlights of our trek across the Alps in 2004.

We had a week in Chamonix getting fit and teaching the others glacier crossing skills and crevasse rescues etc. It was suppose to culminate in the summit of Mt. Blanc, but there was crap loads of snow in early June and our progress was slower than expected. We had to turn back before we got to the top in order the see a crucial England European Championship football game – I think it’s was that one that France beat us in extra time… should of kept on going for the top! Anyhow’s the fun really started when we got on The Haute Route which is a week and a half high level route from Chamonix to Zermatt almost entirely on glaciers. It was early in the season so all the huts were shut and we had them to ourselves (found some weed in one which was nice). Never saw anyone else in the high mountains the whole time, had them all to ourselves. There was no foot prints in the snow to follow, which led to numerous hairy unexpected detours, once down completely the wrong valley!

I love the song I’ve edited it too, it’s Catch As Catch Can by Burt Bacharach. You might remember it from the end chase sequence in Woody Allen’s What’s New Pussycat?

I posted a few days ago my thoughts on what camcorder I should get to video my big walk. Most people didn’t think I’d be able to store the video on an iPod, but I’ve had a number of good alternative suggestions. Most promising of which is the Wolverine ESP 5250, it’s basically a 250GB portable hard disk with a memory card slot already built it. If think this would be plenty of storage and a reasonably minimum effort solution. The camera I like is about 460g with battery, the Wolverine is 290g with battery, so that makes the basic setup 750g. Which is dissapointingly exactly the same as my old camera… I was hoping to reduce weight, but at least only half of will be round my waist which should make walking with it more comfortable.

But I also like the idea of spending the £350 that the Wolverine would cost on eight or so 8GB memory sticks (can get them £45 on amazon), they hold 1 hour of full quality video and don’t weigh anything or take up much space. Not much total storage, but I think I might be able to juggle them about sending full ones to someone who can then copy them to a computer and post them back to a post office pick up point we know we’ll be going through. It sounds a bit more risky, lost or delayed/missed in the post etc, but would be incredibly light weight!

Also of note is the HDR-SR12E, which Sony have just announced. Looks nice, love the big metal knob on the front, plus it records full 1920×1080 video. Only problem is the 120GB hard drive isn’t quite big enough, would still need to juggle video around a bit on memory sticks, which I’m not sure is worth the 100g weight saving (comes in at 650g with battery).

So after all that, the solution I think I might go for is just the Sony HDR-CX6 and a bunch of memory sticks which I’ll have to send back and forth. It might end up being a bit of a headache… but I really don’t want the extra weight, sure it’ll all work out fine in the end. Going to sit on it for a while though before I buy anything, might still change my mind. Thanks everyone for your suggestions and advice :)

No I haven’t just got back from Kenya sadly… This is an old video intro from February 2005, just working my way through past videos and getting them up.

This was quite a varied 3 week trip, my friend Daisy organised it, her parents live out there so we had use of their huge ex-safari Landrover to get about in which was amazing. First we climbed Mt. Kenya, then we spent a few day at daisy’s parents country pile, then we went on safari, then finally we had a week on the coast taking it easy. One of the best holiday’s I’ve ever been on, would thoroughly recommend it!

Incidentely does anyone know what the song I’ve used is? It was just a untitled track xx on my iTunes that seemed perfect, but don’t know who it’s by…

This is a bit of a long shot, but I was wondering whether someone knew what was illustrated above was possible?

Basically I’m looking for the lightest and most minimal effort way of filming my 6 month trek across America. I’ve got a mini DV tape camcorder that’s done me proud on previous treks, but it’s about 10 years old now and could do with an upgrade. HD seems to be the future proof way forward, but the availability & cost of HD tapes in the towns I’ll be passing through is a worry, so I’ve been having a look at the other solutions on the market.

My uncle at Christmas had Sony HDR-SR8E with a 100GB hard disk. Although 100GB is a lot, it’s only 12.5 hours of full quality HD footage, not really enough for a 6 months trek. I came across a discussion about camcorders for backpacking that suggested if you had a camcorder that recorded to SD cards you could then back them up on a big portable hard drive. On the forum they were taking about the Sanyo HD1, but reckoned it’s image quality wasn’t up to scratch, so I was thinking about the Sony HDR-CX6EK instead. It isn’t as light as the Sanyo, but 340g isn’t bad and apparently the image quality is top notch.

Ok so here’s the set up I have in mind: Film on the Sony HDR-CX6 and a couple of 8GB memory sticks. Then transfer the video to a portable hard disk, I’m thinking Me and Paul could both get a 160GB iPod (which would also be quite useful when our conversation dries up). This’ll give us 320GB of storage (8GB is an hour of full quality video) so that’s 40 hours of footage, which I reckon is probably enough (certainly wouldn’t want to edit any more…)

The problem is, would it work? I don’t really see why it shouldn’t, but I’ve been searching the web and haven’t been able to find any confirmation. The thing that worries me is getting the video from the memory stick onto a iPod without a computer. If I had a Memory Stick USB adaptor and iPod photo Camera Connector would it transfer the video to the iPod? Then I suppose is it possible to get everything back on a mac and in iMovie or Final Cut from an iPod?

Well if anyone has any experience of the above please let us know how it went, or if anyone has any better suggestions I’m all ears.

First post of the year! 2008 is quite a special year for me because back in 2000 when I left university, me and my mate Paul made a pact to do something this year… that something was to walk the Continental Divide Trail together. So for 8 years I’ve been looking forward to this time, but now I’m thinking that it’s come a bit soon and that I should of done a tad more preparation!

The Continental Divide Trail is 3000 odd mile walk from Mexico to Canada following the Rocky mountain ridge which forms the east to west watershed of the United States, it’ll take about 6 months to complete. The reason we choose it was purely because it was the longest walk we could find any information on, the reason we picked 2008 was because we had no money and thought by now we’d have all our student debt paid off and money in the bank!

We’re due to set off in about 4 months, got loads of planning to do first… should be an exciting year though :)

I finally got round to finishing my holiday video of our visit to the Jotunheimen in Norway September 2005. A bit late I know… but better late than never!

We spent 2 weeks wandering around, climbing mountains (including Norway’s highest, Galdhøpiggen) and trying to keep warm. Above is the intro, if you’re really interested to see what walking in Jotunheimen is like you can download the whole movie here (130MB!).

The soundtrack is War of Confusion by The Kleptones.