For the TJR I switched from using the extremely reliable Ortlieb Aqua Zoom (that I mentioned before) to trialling a simple Exped Fold Dry Bag UL, Small (24g) for the camera and another identical bag for the two lenses that weren’t on the camera. It was no big risk, the bags then live inside the pack liner – they’re just a second layer of waterproofing.

I carried a Canon EOS 550D attached by a little Nitize S-Biner to a length of 10mm webbing fixed to a shoulder strap on the GoLite Pinnacle pack. It very handily fits snugly into one of the side pockets of the pack. I used that technique along the GR20 and the camera survived just fine.

I also took the excellent value Canon EF-S 55-250mm f4-5.6 IS (dubbed “Ibex lens”), the Canon EF 35mm f2.0 (“People lens” – wouldn’t be without this, it’s 56mm equivalent on the 1.6 crop body of the EOS 550D) and the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM (“Landscape lens” of course!) which as usual was on the 550D most of the time.

The bags were tested when new and were completely waterproof.

I was fully expecting to trash the bag I used on the camera; perhaps not during the trip but a trip soon after. These bags aren’t meant to be very strong – I accept that. This was an experiment to see how long it would last.

Trash it I did – there must have been upwards of thirty holes in it, one or two you could see daylight through and several others that wept water so fast I decided it wasn’t worth attempting to repair. I honestly didn’t expect it to fail that badly, that fast.

The bag that I kept the lenses in only got tested a few days later, just to be sure, since I fully expected it to be fine. It had only held the lenses and had mainly lived wrapped up in a fleece or waterproof in the pack. To my astonishment I found it had six weeping leaks. I really am not sure that the amount of use it has seen should result in leaks like that. It’s disappointing since I have a great deal of respect for Exped. I’ve always found their products to be very well made and more than up to the job at hand.

I know others have had bad experiences with Sea to Summit Ultra-Sil Dry Sacks but I’ve had several and each has taken a reasonable thrashing for a couple of years before giving up. In fact the 35Ls we use for compressing and waterproofing down (sleeping bag and/or duvet jacket) at the bottom of the packs are still fine. They have seen a great deal of bashing around in the packs for many weeks since before the Iceland trip, including seven weeks on the GR5. Meaning they’ve seen three years of service for every big trip and many day walks (for down jackets).

So I’ve just taken delivery of a 4L Ultra-Sil (26g) that’s the same size as the Small Exped UL.

It will be getting a fair kicking, wrapped around the nasty pointy bits on the 550 and being shoved into the pocket around behind my back. I’ll take a while to put the two weeks of use on it that the Exped dry bags saw in Switzerland but I have an inkling it will survive better.

I’ll leave an update here when I know more!

I’ve not posted my Alpine walking kit list since we did the Haute Route in August 2007 and it’s changed a little of course. A recent comment has prompted me to run through it and note what’s changed.

But most of what we carry in the Alps in summer can be seen in the videos I posted both on hut-to-hut kit and the extra camping and photographic kit.

But for the written record, here are the changes I’ve made since the Haute Route kit posting:

Spare torch -> Photon Freedom Microlight. Sooo small and light it’s madness not to take one.

Granite Gear Vapor Trail rucksack -> GoLite Pinnacle pack. More comfortable, sheds rain better, side pocket takes a Canon EOS 550D (on a leash – in fact, see the next post!).

Silnylon rucksack rain cover -> Nothing – don’t use it anymore.

Montane Lite Speed wind proof -> Nothing – don’t use it in the Alps (more useful for more changeable weather in the UK).

Silk gloves -> Extremities Power Dry Gloves (not to be confused with the thicker, warmer Power Stretch). They stay warmer when wet and are harder wearing. One of my all time favourite bits of kit.

Emergency shelter -> A Superlite Bothy 2 rather than the standard 4 person version (half the weight).

Silk boxer shorts X3 -> Icebreaker X2. I like the fit better, and two pairs worked very well for the whole of the GR5 (washing one pair almost every night).

Integral Designs Shortie eVENT gaiters -> Only waterproof socks inside the inov8 Flyrocs in the Alps.

Sealskinz socks -> Rocky GoreTex Socks – far superior in both comfort and particularly durability (as long as you read the instructions and pull them off by pinching under the heel – else they can get torn).

Montrail Hurricane Ridge approach shoes -> Too heavy – inov8 Terrocs or Flyrocs but most of the time; Vibram Five Fingers!

Swiss Army knife -> Opinel Number 7 – very light, very sharp. Perfect for cheese and saucisson, and carving rough bark of a branch if you need a stick in a hurry… I sadly lost mine on the TJR that I’d had since I was twelve (so that’s twenty nine years, if you’re wondering).

3 packs travel tissues (in 6″X9″ Aloksak) -> Toilet roll, two sheets at a time, stacked in the Aloksak. A vital bit of kit for us westerners in remote huts where they can run out. Replenished, literally only a couple of sheets here and there only from hotels or other non-remote places that we stayed (so few that I’m quite sure they wouldn’t have minded). You can be remarkably economical with it if you try. This saw us through the whole of the GR20 (where there rarely is any in the huts!).

Re-used Indian Tonic Water bottles -> Platypus Hoser 2L. I don’t like the level of plasticisers that I’m probably ingesting, but the dehydration wasn’t good at all, as I discovered on the Haute Route.

Ortlieb Aquazoom waterproof camera case -> Sea To Summit Ultrasil 4L waterproof stuffsack… I think… that’s the next post in fact!

Here’s a little snippet of information that I’ve imparted to many a person on the hill, who have all said “Oh – I’ve always wondered about that…” – which made me decide to share it with the Internet at large.

I wondered for years why going out in the cold gives people the sniffles and then one day I met an Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon and somehow remembered to ask him. This is what I understood of what he told me:

Taking freezing cold air into the delicate tissues of the lungs isn’t a great idea so there are structures in your sinuses which swell with nice warm blood to pre-warm it. They swell to create more surface area to get as much contact with the air as possible.

Which is great for the lungs but not so much fun for the swollen tissues doing the warming. So to protect themselves they exude more mucus. That extra mucus is what gives you the sniffles.

When you finally go in to a warm room and your nose starts to run like mad, that is because those tissues are sensing that their duty is done and they contract, suddenly leaving far less surface area for all the mucus. Imagine blowing up a balloon and painting a thin layer of honey onto it. Then let the balloon deflate; most of the honey would run off as the balloon contracted.

So, more than you ever wanted to know about sniffly noses!

The Tour Of The Jungfrau Region is properly “awesome”.

Not as in; “Whoa that’s some awesome pizza!” but as in; “…”

To get some small idea of what I mean, here are some of the images (click ‘Slideshow’ and then press F11):

TJR Faster Forward

Or for a really cut down set:

TJR Super Fast Forward

The Tour of the Jungfrau Region is simply stunning. The pair of us have bimbled about in the Alps a reasonable amount (considering we live in Brighton) and we consider this to be equal to the finest routes we’ve done. Not just in terms of the “configurability” of the route but also in terms of the breath-taking scenery. Kev Reynolds has our sincere thanks for putting together not just (another!) first rate guide but the whole concept of the TJR itself. We met several others with a copy of the guide book along the way.

The route is circular, (though oddly ours looks like a fat Ibex – see the link to the Spot tracks below) but since it occasionally goes up and down valleys there are often places that can be short-cut should the weather close in or if you decide that you want a shorter day. I could go on and on about how good we thought it was but if you’re someone that likes to walk in the Alps you already have an idea of what it can be like. And if you’re not, then, as I tweeted in reply to Alan Sloman, you should probably consider finding out before: A) the glaciers melt again (as the guide book says, there was far less glaciation there in Roman times), B) absolutely everyone comes, C) world economic melt down (oh – maybe too late by summer 2012 then? ;) ).

Although we broadly followed the guidebook,  the below paragraphs on our itinerary should give anyone that’s considering the route a flavour of what to expect. I’d point out that the days may look small but are more strenuous than you might imagine if you’ve not done any Alpine walking. As I’ve said before, we’ve come across more than one walker who was trying to double-up guidebook stages because they looked too easy – but who were regretting it. Mainly because it was harder than they expected but also partly because it’s such a shame to rush this kind of journey. The main purpose is not reaching the end (more than once on the GR5 helpful souls pointed out buses that could take us to Nice – seriously).

We built-in easy days and one full rest day (two nights at Berghaus Bäregg). Which was perfect as some of the crew took those opportunities to rest and write journals whilst those of us made of duller material could blunder onwards on day walks (day walks; just out-and-back. Really, what was the point of them? Maybe there were buses that we could have caught).

I’ve put up a Google Map using the way-points created by the Spot tracker. You’ll need to scroll down on the left hand side to see the next page containing the remainder of the way-points since Google Maps only show 200 points at a time.  Or else download them as “KML”, from the link under the description, and view them all at once in Google Earth. (Note this is just the main route – the extra day we did out of Interlaken after we’d finished the TJR isn’t shown).

So, the TJR itinerary:

Day 1
Berghotel Schynige Platte
Arrived at Geneva airport and changed trains in Bern. There’s a large Migros supermarket nearby Bern station for stocking up on dried sausage, cheese, nuts and excellent Swiss chocolate. (Out of the station, turn right down the hill to the junction at the bottom, turn left. There’s a deceptively small door with an escalator down to the supermarket in the basement). There’s almost no chance on the route itself to stock-up until Mürren – which is off-route. We arrived in Interlaken and grabbed a bus (far end of the platform) for the two or so kilometres to Wilderswil (We could have walked but needed to ensure we caught the last train. Note there’s another little Migros opposite the train station). Then the cog railway up to the Berghotel Schynige Platte and the start of the TJR. You could do it on foot but you’d need to allow a day. It would also be heck of a tough start to the holiday.

Day 2
Berghaus First
Eye-popping views and a long but relatively easy day passing a lake towards the end (where we had a welcome and very refreshing skinny-dip). First is a large, very plush ski station but friendly and with good food, rather like all the places we stayed!

Day 3
Gleckstein hut
Utterly astonishing views with a very easy (not technical but steep) and quite exposed approach which is effectively up a lower face of the Wetterhorn. We were lucky enough to see Ibex right outside the hut where they were attracted by the guardian placing salt on the wall (they don’t come very often apparently). Also had a hot shower to our astonishment (it was 5CHF each but heck – they have to helicopter the gas in and it had been a broiling hot day).

Day 4
Downtown Hostel
Planned to finish the day at the Berghaus Bäregg but were diverted by a bridge being out (damaged when melt water within the glacier released as a huge torrent) and some poor local advice (there actually is another bridge slightly further down stream) to the comfortable Downtown Hostel in Grindelwald. Supermarket nearby and good catering standard kitchen!

Day 5
Berghaus Bäregg
Another fairly high hut with astonishing views of the glaciers but this time without such an exposed approach. We got to the hut by lunch time and then walked about two thirds of the way to the Schreckhorn hut. We pushed past the end of the easy path some little way but it is exposed (we were all climbers but it was just beginning to push our comfort zones) and requires help from the chains and fixed cables. It really requires a full day for a round-trip to the Schreckhorn hut and back to Berghaus Bäregg.

Day 6
Grindelwaldblick
The Eigergletscher is closed permanently (see the Updates tab). The Alpiglen was closed for the last part of the 2011 season for refurbishment so we pressed on, along the North Face of the Eiger (yes, really, it’s very easy up to the bottom of the climbs) all the way to Kleine Scheidegg and the Grindelwaldblick Hotel. A couple of the party went down to Alpiglen and took the cog railway up to Kleine Scheidegg for a shorter day.

Day 7
Hotel Stechelberg
A big descent day (lightweight footwear helping everyone there) that turned out much longer than expected since the path to the valley had been closed (it was damaged and unsafe). So we traversed further along and descended into Wengen, then down to Lauterbrunnen and then back up the valley into Stechelberg. The hotel is small and very friendly with excellent food (especially the breakfast – boiled eggs from hens in the garden).

Day 8
Berghotel Obersteinberg
As we left Stechelberg we passed cows with decorated with fir tree branches in celebration of the end of the summer grazing in the alpine pasture above. Rain set in late in the day. We did the full route around the back of the valley to the hotel which is spectacular. Again a couple of the party made an easier day of it by going straight to the hotel. Wonderful old hotel without electricity but with its own dairy! Far more like a high level mountain hut than a hotel in many ways. Food was served by candlelight making for a very restful stay.

Day 9
Rotstock hut
It rained for much of our approach to the Rotstock hut but then it turned to snow which was far more pleasant. We had a very warm welcome and ate excellent hot lunches. I spent the afternoon snoozing as the snow built up outside.

Day 10
Pension Suppenalp
We had hoped to go over the Schilthorn (the highest point on the route, and visible above you from the hut) but there was ankle deep snow at our level and we knew it was far deeper, icy and also very exposed, with fixed cables, on approach to the summit (two walker with axes and crampons had made the descent the day before and said it was getting a little technical). So we chose the bad-weather variant and descended into Mürren where we grabbed a coffee, missed the Coop supermarket (closed for lunch!) and headed up to the excellent Pension Suppenalp for a hot lunch and drinks.

Day 11
Suls-Lobhorn Hut
The sun returned for an easy day through yet another new and gorgeous valley into the Suls-Lobhorn hut. In among a set of welcoming, stunningly located accommodation serving delicious food this place managed to become our favourite. Mainly because of the lovely Lisa the guardian who couldn’t do enough for everyone. Some of us then headed up to the Lobhorn itself for a good afternoon walk in fairly deep snow at the top.

Day 12
Hotel Rugenpark B&B, Interlaken
Sadly the end of the TJR. But still another new valley to ogle at. We descended to Saxeten, had a tasty lunch at the Hotel Alpenrose and bid a sad goodbye to a couple of the party (the same ones!) who caught the post bus to Wilderswil, and on to Interlaken and the train home (arriving home later that night). The three of us that were still standing headed for Wilderswil; the official finish, but veered-off north shortly after leaving the hotel to climb again before descending towards Interlaken West station. The hotel is on the road leading to the station (as we discovered from the excellent Google Map app on the iPhone). Tasty and reasonably priced dinner at the Restaurant Bären where we looked back on a simply excellent route.

Day 13
Hotel Rugenpark B&B, Interlaken (again)
We had originally considered taking the train up to the Jungfraujoch but without any discount card it was around 180CHF. Besides, we wanted to keep walking! Both Lisa at the Lobhorn hut and Ursula, the owner of the Rugenpark (both of whom were incredibly kind and helpful), advised taking the bus from the station to the cable car up to the Niederhorn and walking back around to Habkern. It was a great route and we didn’t much fancy the bus so we walked the extra seven or so kilometres to the hotel. Another tasty, reasonably priced dinner, this time in the Des Alpes where the staff were friendly and funny.

Day 14
Home via trains, planes and an automobile. Next time we’d very much like to visit the old town in Bern on the way back.

More pictures are coming…

Okay so this is many years behind several million other people, and speaking as an IT consultant I hang my head in shame, but; I think I finally ‘get’ Twitter.

Before I explain it I need to take a moment to explain what a blog is. “Hang on!”, you’re probably thinking. “He was talking Twitter and now he’s off onto blogs. What is this? Where’s all the hiking and kit and techniques?” – Bear with me – I’ll come back around to that.

I need to explain blogging since I’ve met more than one otherwise web-savvy person who didn’t know: blog is a contraction of “web log” which is a rather fancy name for a diary that you keep on the Internet. To write a blog, you use “blogging software” which is just a program that runs on a computer on the Internet that makes it easy to create a new web page, known as a “post”, with a title and a date, to which you can then add your ramblings about whatever you have been doing or are thinking of doing. That’s all there is to it.

But like many inventions, the use it’s generally put to isn’t really the original use that was intended. What I mean is; you are reading this posting that I wrote on some blogging software right now. Notice that it has a date at the top. But this site isn’t really much of an online diary. Like many other people I’ve been using blogging software to publish a series of articles on a particular subject (and this post will get back there, however tenuously).

So that’s what a blog is, but Twitter is what is termed a “micro blog”: some blogging software that only lets you “post” very short entries. Forcing you to boil down those little moments in your life to pithy evocative phrases (hence haiku is quite a popular form on Twitter). The little posts are known as “Tweets”.

So I can now read back on my postings from Corsica as we walked the GR20 (bet you can see the link to the main topic of the blog coming…). I love it, a little diary of moments in my life.

But just like ordinary blogging, Twitter has grown way beyond that. People use it to see what their friends are doing since you can see their Twitter pages (their “micro blogs”). But to make things easier, and stop you having to hop about to read all your friends’ pages, you can have their Tweets appear directly on your page. That’s called “following” someone. So you see your own diary mixed in with the diaries of your friends.

There are other aspects that have grown such as using the @ symbol to direct your Tweets at other specific Twitter users (read it as “at” as in “I’m directing this tweet ‘at’ RedYeti”) but such things are way beyond the scope of this posting!

What is also very handy is that you can post your tweets by text message from your phone, instead of logging in to Twitter in a web browser on your computer. Which is almost certainly cheaper than using the data connection when abroad. (Side note; all UK providers have some cheap option for data roaming if you just ask them!).

Which means that if you have close friends and relatives that want to hear what you are doing on a trip, you can simply send them all a link to your Twitter page and tell them all with one text. Better still, if they sign up for a Twitter account (they don’t have to post any Tweets!) they can “follow” you, and then they can tell Twitter to send your tweets directly to their own phone. So you can effectively use Twitter as a way to send one text message to many people (and get a mini diary into the bargain).

So, to finally blunder back on topic; I’ll be tweeting my way around the Tour of the Jungfrau Region if you fancy seeing what we’re up to!

http://twitter.com/#!/RedYetiDave

We’ll also be using the (new, lighter) Spot tracker so you can see where we are, pretty much real time:

Red Yeti’s Spot Tracker

What? Moths? Isn’t that something out of comic books?

Not at all. “Clothes Moths” are a real hazard for woollen fabrics – merino is no exception.

A good friend of mine showed me a 200 weight Icebreaker top that had some nasty holes in it. I wouldn’t expect a thick top like that to show such holes after only a year or so.

So I wondered if it might be moths, and sure enough, there are people who have had kit destroyed by the daft, candle-suiciding critters. And there are methods of preventing it.

By far the most simple, cheapest and probably most effective method is to put the garments into a breathable clothing cover (like a suit cover). Edit 10 August 2011: Maybe not, see Bill’s post on dry bags below!

I nosed about online and found that an eBay shop had cheap and effective ones when I searched for “clothes cover”.

I just bought one and have hung all my t-shirts inside it, and stuffed a couple of tissues around the top to attempt to seal it and prevent the moths crawling down inside.

Well worth doing considering how expensive all that merino kit is.

This is probably the simplest blog posting, about the simplest bit of maintenance I’ll ever do…

But first a bit of explanation regarding why washing your pack might be something you want to do, and also how not to do it.

A few years ago, I was wandering around somewhere in the mountains near Chamonix when I noticed an odd whiff. It wasn’t the goats, it wasn’t my feet and it wasn’t a piece of cheese I’d snaffled into my pocket from a breakfast buffet and then forgotten all about (the very idea…). But it took me a while to track it down; it was the shoulder straps on my pack. They smelled kinda stale and like they’d been a bit too close to a sweating hiker for a few years too many.

I don’t sweat as much as some and I don’t wear a pack without a shirt of some kind, but the dirt and sweat had built up regardless. And since I was out there on the trail, it was rather inconvenient having to wash the pack.

So when I got home, I fed the pack into the washing machine (yes, I’m that lazy) and added some delicate detergent that I use on merino wool. Big mistake.

Why? Well the pack was essentially fine, but the buckle on the hip belt would no longer stay where I adjusted it. For the next several trips I ended up with sore shoulders since the belt had loosened repeatedly. I finally remembered to simply take some sandpaper to the bars that the belts ran through to roughen them up again and all was well.

So, now I have an even more lazy way of cleaning packs: Fill a bath with water. Add a little (just a little) soap. Soak the pack all day. Use some soap to scrub the inside of the shoulder straps with a small scrubbing brush. Finally just hang to dry.

Nice, non-pongy shoulder straps. Easy.

I’d been wondering all winter about getting a new gas stove for cold conditions and before I knew it, it was April and my excuse evaporated along with everything else in the stunningly good weather (the above picture was taken in the Lake District during five days of amazing weather at Easter – trust me – that never happens).

But a comment on an Iceland posting got me thinking, and I remembered a BPL article from the Winter ISPO show (sorry members only link) mentioning a very impressive sounding petrol stove: The Muka OD-1NP.

What’s so great about it?

Well there’s no need for “priming”, with all the fun of occasional, spectacular fireballs that we know and love or the worry about liquid fuel sloshing about the place.

You can simmer, rather than boil things down to a crisp (I know, you can simmer an MSR Whisperlite if you try very hard. I’ve done it, but it really does take some patience!)

It burns really cleanly even running standard unleaded petrol (gasoline), as seen in this video.

It’s not quite arrived in the UK as of the time of writing but apparently Ultralight Outdoor Gear will be stocking it. Sadly the importers price means that the UKP price is about the same as the USD price. Meaning, with the current exchange rate at least, that since REI stock it and ship internationally (for a not too unreasonable price) that might be a cheaper option, even with the import duty. I’ll be thinking about that some more…

Edit 31st July 2011: I managed to get a look at one of these in the excellent Get Out a couple of weeks ago; Great little stove. Very well made by the feel of it. I am very seriously considering buying one now. I resisted at the time since the cost in Krona was far worse than the cost in UKP (something to do with there being quite a few more UKPs available now, and yet the same amount of stuff… I’m sure that’ll work out just fine though).

As I partly said in reply to the comment above; fuel and stove choice is hard.

The easiest thing to cook with, and generally the lightest for the power overall, is gas. However gas can be the hardest to find on long trips (depending where you are – some places it’s easy! The International Fuel FAQ can help with a decision there).

Meths looks light because of the stove weight (the Whitebox is an excellent example) but it gets heavy for anything more than a couple of days of hiking because of the low calorific density of alcohol compared with other fuels. And again it can be tricky to find in some places.

Petrol (or ideally, white gas) is very efficient weight-wise if doing a multi day trip, even with the weight of the stove, and has the distinct advantage that it’s pretty widely available. It also runs fine in the cold, meaning it could take the place of the gas stove I was considering getting for winter trips.

A final point for me, is that for trips involving a flight, I’ve always found the MSR to be the most practical stove since I can fill up from any garage. And if I’m not driving I just offer a random motorist a quid or two for a quarter litre of fuel and everyone’s happy! No hunting around for kit shops when you want to be making the most of your short time away somewhere. It’s something that’s been on my mind recently.

As a caveat; it’s fine on flights assuming that you thoroughly wash, with detergent, and then dry your stove and bottle! So it’s worth taking into consideration what access you will have to washing facilities as you return from a trip. I washed and dried one without using detergent once – and it was sniffed out and confiscated despite presenting no actual danger to anything. I’d also try using a Loksak OP Sack on the off-chance that would help keep it out of sniff detection range…

At some point, I will be writing a couple more postings on the GR20 (and maybe even finishing off the GR5… sigh…) but, as I’ve mentioned before , my time is rather pressed by a couple of other things – things that aren’t as much fun as writing this unfortunately!

Although I’ve already posted a set of instructions for this, tacked on to the GR5 Pictures posting, here’s a clearer and easier to follow set.

AutoPano Tour allows you to create Flash based “interactive” versions of your panoramas.

I used it to create the GR5 Panoramas that I’ve mentioned before and I’ll slowly add more to my public gallery.

The instructions for using it are rather… well, pants.

So I wrote out my own set and thought they might be handy for someone else:

First of all, make sure it’s still Registered (you might need to do this every time, seems to be a bug in the current version). A “Register” menu, top-right is visible if not: Browse to the license file and simply open it.

Drag each panorama into the main window area and optionally arrange in whatever pattern is going to be useful if you want to hotspot links directly between them (I don’t generally, since I find the hotspots too visually distracting).

For each panorama:

On the Panorama tab:

• Set the JPEG quality to 9
• If you want better quality output, up the Partial Panorama Width – 5000 seems good
• Pressing the “Calculate Optimal Size” button makes it the best resolution possible (at the expense of size of course)

Adjust the initial Field Of View for each panorama with the 3D Editor (bottom right):

• Get the FOV how you want it by dragging it around with the mouse
• Right-click -> set as start position

Optionally, create hotspots in each panorama:

In the Hotspot Editor:

• Select the image
• Full screen
• Use the right and left arrow icon (far left) to move the editable area
• Drag each hotspot to the image to link to
• Ctrl+A to select all to see the links at once

Finally, Export to create the Flash panorama(s):

In the Project Properties tab:

• Don’t embed all files (makes a single, monolithic file to download)
• Select Embed XML
• Select simpleWithFullScreen.html
• Select the starting panorama
• Set the rest of the settings as you like
• Export (the Blue “cog” icon at the top)

But for the snazzy dialog box that appears when you follow my link to the GR5 Panoramas, you’ll need a reasonable knowledge of JavaScript and specifically the jQuery library. Feel free to take my code directly from the site. I’ve no time to support it or answer questions on the implementation I’m afraid – but the code is commented so you shouldn’t have too much bother.