Top Tip #2: Wrap Gaffa Tape around your water bottle and pen

This is a simple top tip, originally given to me by Ray Goodwin on a level 3 kayak coach training course, that has proved invaluable to me countless times.

Gaffa tape is well established as one of the most useful substances on the planet. Its sticky, strong, water resistant and durable. Roadies use it as the glue that holds together the biggest of stage shows, El Cap climbers will cover EVERYTHING in it to prevent wear on the haul up the wall and this means everything from the haulbags, hands and knees, there is the story of the doctor on a mountain leader assessment who produced a roll as his first aid kit saying that he could solve everything with it as well, if not largely better, than any of the first aid kits the other candidates produced. In the outdoors I’ve personally used it to hold together a split for a lower limb injury, repairs the split arse of waterproof over trousers and stopped the blood running down a cut arm while out mountain biking.

But the most useful substance on the planet is no good tyo you if you haven’t got any to hand. So wrap a couple of meters around the kind of day to day objects that you always carry with you, the things that just live in your bag. It works best if they are round, but they dont have to be, and put some thought into where to wrap it so it doesn’t affect the way the ‘carrier’ item works. By just wrapping a couple of meters around a few things you’ll have enough to get you ‘out of jail’. Examples of places I carry a bit of emergency tape are waterbottles, pens, trekking poles and flasks.

I’m sure you’ll be a lot more imaginative

Hope you’ve found the second in this new Top Tip series handy. More will get added over time so keep popping back to check for new posts and click on the Top Tips category in the side bar on the right. Alternatively sign up for email alerts of new posts or add the RSS feed to your Outlook or other feed reader. Information can again be found in the RH sidebar.