The right stuff

All,

There is a continuum from sleeping on the ground under the stars in warm dry summer nights with fresh water nearby - can you say ultralight? to high altitude extreme weather, glaciers and cold - can you say "bombproof gear" and weight doesn't matter? And everything in between.

In my own humble opinion, unless you have the experience of phat or Food, ultralight is only applicable in weather where failure IS an option. I think too many people shun camping in rain and storms just because their gear isn't up to it and they know it - can you say "fear"?

Windshirts are just not adequate as "storm jackets", likewise tarps are just not adequate protection in bad windy weather. Many people have to be rescued after storms because they are smart enough to know that they can't move with their inadequate gear, or because of hypothermia again from inadequate gear.

My plan has always been to "Be Prepared" yep boyscout - FOR THE WORST not the best.

1) carry shelter that can keep you dry and protect your gear, even if that means an 8 pound tent - shared its only 4 pounds each and a bomber dome that doesn't flap can actually be quiet and let you sleep well which will make you perform better and make sounder decisions.

2) have a sleeping system that can keep you warm if you do have to dig in. How many epic rescue stories start with - "we had no gloves and all but one sleeping bag was soaked and we had no rain gear and couldn't light a fire"? too many?

3) wear quality medium or heavy weight wicking long underwear next to your body - no silk. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT

4) have a layer of 200 or 300 weight fleece or equivalent over the long underwear, but it too must not absorb water. The idea being that your body heat can keep you warm if the layers next to your skin are dry.

5) Have real rain gear. Pants with side zips can be unzipped a ways to let out the steam, same with your jackets AND pitzips actually do vent without letting more water in. Unzip your jacket a bit when you can to let the steam out, that said, you may need to keep some of the steam in to stay warm. I won't go into breathable fabrics but I love packlite, however my packlite breathes so well that a layer of it does not make me any warmer, my goretex does.

6) footgear - if your gonna hike out in wet snow or - you must have real high topped insulated footgear AND warm socks AND gaiters.

7) bibs - I love bibs, they're comfortable warm and they ad an extra layer over your back.

8) gloves. Its hard to explain how awful wet hands are when you are trying to bail out in bad weather. There's really only one combination that works well - warm thick gloves or mitts worn under full on rain mitts, not overgloves. I got rid of my $125 BD ice climbing gloves because my thumbs got cold in them.

9) a method of finding your way. I prefer a GPS with two spare sets of batteries. Ever try to orient a map in a wind and rain and then triangulate on a landmark? If you are not sure where you need to go, all the warm dry gear in the world won't help.

10) attitude, training, preparation, extra noncook food so if your stove won't light - far more common than people may think - you can still be fed, and water.

11) finally - there very sad stories of people who did have the right gear but didn't deploy it in time. DONOT wait until its too late, you're too cold, its too dark. BE AHEAD OF THE CURVE. DIG IN WHEN YOU HAVE TO, THEN MOVE WHEN YOU CAN.

12) SECOND FINALLY - YOU MAY IN FACT BE PINNED DOWN BY REAL OBJECTIVE DANGER, IF SO DO NOT TRY TO TRAVEL - SIT IT OUT.

Good post, Jim. I'd agree with you on everything - I especially like the succinct definition of ultralight: for most of us, it's only an appropriate choice when failure is an option.

Lucky for me, I live in that part of the eastern US where failure is almost always an option. I'm in a temperate forest, where high wind and elevation are not issues. Due to urban sprawl and intensive agricultural activity, our backcountry tends to be in smaller pockets - it's almost impossible to hike out more than 5 or 10 miles from the trailhead or some other contact point. Accordingly, I use ultralight gear, after a fashion: MSR's ultralight offerings. For my area and my use, they fit right into a sweet spot between ultralight and bombproof. I'll never take less than 15 pounds out, even in the summer, but I'll never take more than 25 even in what passes for winter here (think Phat in about September or October.)

I'm lucky, and know it. But I fully agree with everything you said, and my gear kit would be a lot heavier if I lived and hiked in mountains.

Another excellent post, thank you for sharing.

This point really stood out for me.



It always amazes me how many people don't stop where they are and wait for help but keep moving even in the worst of conditions.

5 or 6 months back a bushwalking friend of mine got himself lost in the Royal National Park (RNP) just south of Sydney after a minor navigational error. Being winter time the sun goes down early (of course) and he decided around 3pm that he was lost and would have to spend the night. He found a couple of nice boulders to sit between up the hill out of the cold valley, rationed his food (as he had taken extra food with him) and water, put on every bit of clothing he had, called his family to let them know he was lost and waited it out. Unfortunately his phone battery was low and he turned it off so emergency services couldn't reach him so at the family's suggestion the police rang me at 10:30pm to see if I could shed some light on where he may be.
As soon as he heard large jets flying overhead he knew it was around 6am (Sydney airport curfew finishes at 6am) so he got himself organised. He walked straight down the hill found the track right in front of him and was back at his car before 8am only to be met by 2 police cars, 2 ambulances and 2 national parks 4wds.
The point I wanted to make from this is he realised he was in trouble and took action. As a result he was able to get out without any ill effects.

I agree with you "BE AHEAD OF THE CURVE." I have also applied this principle to walks I have led for my bushwalking club and pulled out of situations early that had the potential to turn bad quickly.

Cheers,
Michael.

With regards to extra no cook food. This is one of the most important things we learned on our last trek.

After a long cool day in the rain the only thing we wanted to do was get the tent set up and crawl into our sleeping bags. Cooking wasn't even on the list before hitting the warmth of down. We ate some of our daily snacks on the two nights this happened but it left us short for the upcoming days.

Several no cook meals will now be included in our menu.

+1 I've got that t-shirt.

I've got the T-shirt, too. Complete with food stains.

I've always made no-cook lunches SOP for just that reason (and the fact that it's more convenient.) After all, it's not just weather that can screw up the meal plans. I've occasionally reached the planned campsite at 2pm, decided it was too soon to stop for the day, and ended up at a dry camp when I did stop. Usually, I'll carry water from the last source I come to during the day - but sometimes I don't realize that it was the last source until later.

I've also ended up, during a drought, arriving at a planned campsite near dark only to find that the "perennial" stream had dried up.

Net effect: I didn't have enough water with me to cook supper. So, the next day's no-cook lunch became supper, and the next day I arranged to stop (or carry extra water) and cook lunch.

re no cook
I talked my secretary into going snow camping with my buddy and I when a mountain storm was coming into the Sierras. She had been a guide at a Wyoming dude ranch so she was no novice, but had never snow camped. So I told her to rent tele skis and I'd bring everything but she might bring some no cook food.

Well we get there and just get our tents up in the beginning of the blizzard and then the real storm hit. So the three of us are sitting in my TNF mountain24 tent and she says "how do we cook dinner" to which my buddy and I sort of roll our eyes and say "no way, we simply can't cook in this, we only have white gas stoves with us and we can't light them in one of the tents." So Kristin reaches into her day pack and pulls out a huge chicken breast sandwich with all the fixings and we passed it around as we heaped praises on her. About then she pulls out a bottle of burgundy and the party began. We told her she could camp with us anytime.

next morning the North Face tent was completely dry and had a little breeze going through it as the vent very well and a 3 foot snow drift over the top, yet NO CONDENSATION and the dome shape of the tent transferred the snow load around the tent so it wasn't even pressing down on us.

On another trip the winds were so bad that a different rented tent actually would touch me as it collapsed and sprang back up in the winds.
Jim