Sun Precautions Ultra Athlete Shirt and Pants

August 7, 2013November 1, 2013 ~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 18 Comments

Greetings Bloggers,

Earlier this year I set out to find an alternative way of hiking in the hot sunny weather of Southern California. Something that did not involve me getting sunburned or carrying the heavy 8.11 ounce GoLite Umbrella that I and many other long distance hikers have used for years. Granted I turn a rather nice shade of golden brown when I get a nice bit of sun on me, but living under the Redwood forest canopy of Northern California for the better part of two decades has not allowed me to keep that nice suntan that I always had while growing up in the Mojave desert. Recently I have been hiking different sections of the PCT in SoCal, and spending time in Joshua Tree National Park and Death Valley, trying to find the best route for my Highest to Lowest trail/hike I am planning.

I was able to find a number of different companies claiming that they provided SPF clothing that was in the 15-30 range, but the real stand-out in the sun clothing world was a product line called “Solumbra” from a company called Sun Precaution. This is a company that designs and makes all of their clothing in Seattle Washington USA.

What really makes their clothing stand out from the rest is that their clothing is 100+ SPF.

As most of my longtime readers know, I rarely write reviews on pieces of gear (clothing, shelters, backpacks, whatever) that I have not tested a lot and for a long time. I will typically spend an entire hiking season (or sometimes three or four) before I contemplate writing a review for a piece of gear – this is what makes me stand apart from other authors and gear reviewers in the outdoor community, along with the fact that I traditionally only focus on SUL/XUL hiking. There have only been a few rare exceptions when I have broken that rule of mine, and I think with this clothing from Sun Precaution it is going to be one of those times — the reason being: sometimes a product just proves itself from the very get-go, and this clothing proved itself to me within the first two weeks of me using it. Truthfully, it proved itself within a matter of hours, but I gave it a good three or four days before I allowed myself to whisper to myself “wow, this stuff actually works!”

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RoadID – One of the best SHTF items I carry!

July 28, 2013November 11, 2015 ~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 6 Comments

The RoadID provides hikers a means of giving first responders very quick access to medical and emergency contact information.

Greetings Hikers,

There are very few pieces of gear that I carry as a SUL/XUL hiker that fall into the SHTF pieces of gear. A Personal Locator Beacon (such as the ACR ResQLink 406 PLB), a multi-use compass (such as the Suunto MC-2G Global Compass), an actual real and usable whistle (such as the Storm Whistle), and the RoadID, are the four pieces of gear that I carry for the primary purpose of when/if the worst of the worst might ever happen.

Now I know there will be those out there that are going to go up in fumes over me not including a knife and a form of starting a fire, and other type of “preppers/survivalists” type of gear – and back when I was into the whole prepper/survivalist type of lifestyle I too would have been one of them. I am not going to make excuses, suffice to say that after a few thousand miles of hiking both established trails and in the process of helping to build new trails throughout California, I have come to the point where I have come to the conclusion that a person could carry a whole lot of “survival gear” and yet still never have enough, or have the right, piece of gear, for a worst-case-situation – and as a result I carry only pieces of gear that would be for the worst case, the extremely bad, situations.

When it comes to the RoadID I consider it a piece of gear that really only has a single purpose: If a time ever comes when I either die, or become so incapacitated that I am unable to speak or communicate with first responders, it will provide the first responders information about any medical conditions that I have, or in the case of me being found dead, information about who I am and who to contact. Beyond this, the RoadID is nothing but dead-weight. But oh what valuable dead weight it might someday be!

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Lawson Outdoor Equipment – Red Titianium Hook Tent Stakes

July 23, 2013August 25, 2013 ~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 8 Comments

The Lawson Outdoor Equipment Red Coated Titanium Hook Stake

Greetings Hikers,

I have been using the Lawson Outdoor Equipment Titanium hook stakes for quite some time now and I have grown to be rather fond of it.

Recently he decided to make some with red paint to make them easier to find, so I ordered ten of them for my shelters.

The truly unique aspect of these stakes is that they have a more aggressive/deep bend, which makes them not rotate around like a lot of other shephard stakes are well known to do under tension. In the wet season here in the Redwoods rain forest this can become such a problem that I often use to take flat or y stakes to prevent turning, but so far these Lawon stakes are holding their own.

Individual Weight Results:

When they arrived I pulled out my scale, calibrated it with a 100g weight, and proceeded to take photos of all ten that I received to see how consistent the ten different stakes would be.

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Sawyer Mini Water Filtration System (SP128)

July 21, 2013May 24, 2014 ~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 28 Comments

Sawyer Squeeze & Sawyer Mini - photo credit Brian Green. — **Sawyer Squeeze & Sawyer Mini**
photo credit @Brian Green *(thanks!)*

Sawyer Mini Water Filtration System (SP128)

Sawyer, the company behind the Squeeze water filter (see my initial review, second review, third review of the Squeeze) have announced they will be releasing a new version of their 0.1 Absolute Micron filter sometime in the 2013 Fall season (Sunday, September 22 through Friday, December 20). Note: It was officially released the fourth week of September 2013.

It will be called the “Sawyer MINI Filter”

It will be within the 2 ounce range. They are not providing much further detail on the weight and what that stated weight includes (caps, label, etc). As it is, the existing Sawyer Squeeze Filter is 63.25 grams (2.231 ounces) without the cap or label, so what exact weight they have reached by doing away with the heavy plastic around the entire unit is totally unknown at this point. We would really have to hope that they have not made it heavier by adding all of the little new stuff to it. It appears they have molded what is presently the “adapter kit” right onto the ends of the filter. IF Sawyer has actually made the MINI heavier by doing this, that is just going to be… well, disappointing. Hopefully they will be at the Outdoor Retailer (summer) next week and somebody there can squeeze out some more information about this (ok, that was a really bad pun, sorry).

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Small Cups/Pots for the SUL/XUL Hiker

July 20, 2013August 25, 2013 ~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 28 Comments

The Evernew 400ml Cup & Trail Designs Sidewinder. Quite Possible The Best SUL/XUL Setup!

Greetings Hikers,

Over the last couple of years I have done a number of comparison spreadsheets which have become fairly popular on solo shelters and two person shelters.

I just got back from a trip hiking a couple sections of the PCT in Southern California, a section of the PCT in the Sierras, and doing further research on the Lowest to Highest trail – and somewhere amongst all those miles I thought to myself it was about time that I put together a spreadsheet on small cups/pots that we in the SUL/XUL world of hiking use.

Somewhere along the way I become frustrated with the large 550ml pot that I was carrying around, simply because it was more capacity than what I needed for the entire time I was on the trail. I did not take my MSR Titan Cup which my sister gave me for Christmas a few years ago, and that I really love, so I was stuck with a pot that had a capacity of almost twice what I needed. I told myself when I got back home I was going to put together a spreadsheet so I could see if my beloved titan cup was still a viable cup or if it was time to switch things up.

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Montbell Tachyon Wind Jacket, 2013 Edition

July 1, 2013November 6, 2013 ~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 37 Comments

Greetings Hikers,

Montbell has had a major hit on their hands with their Montbell Tachyon Wind Jacket and the Montbell Tachyon Anorak since they were introduced to the ultralight hiking and running communities. For 2013 they decided to one-up themselves, and boy did they ever!

Three months ago when I was informed I had been selected as a Montbell America sponsored hiker I received one of the brand new 2013 editions of the Montbell Tachyon Wind Jacket, to replace my aging Montbell Tachyon Anorak that I had a few years of hiking use with.

The 2013 edition of the Tachyon was revealed to us here in America at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2012 – and what really made a lot of us go “wow!” was the fact that Montbell was indicating a weight of 45.36 grams (1.6 ounces) for a size medium!

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Making Dehydrated Bacon For The Trail

June 23, 2013May 5, 2014 ~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 37 Comments

Making Dehydrated Bacon For The Trail:

In my ongoing quest to continue to find methods of having low-weight/high-calorie food for the trail I recently decided to try dehydrating bacon – which is really not as easy as it sounds and really is as tedious as others have written about it being. I thought I would share my own little adventure giving this a try.

My local store had a buy-one-get-one-free special so I bought two packets of bacon, each one pound. I got home and started cooking them up. Temptation got the best of me and I ate one piece. The rest spend about 20 minutes drying out on paper towels to help rid them of as much grease as possible, and to give my dehydrator time to build up some heat.

After cooking them all and trying to get as much grease off of them as possible I put the two pounds of bacon into the dehydrator, which took up three trays.

I set the timer on my Excalibur dehydrator at 16 hours. Every two or three hours I would pull out a tray and grab some paper towels and try to dry them off as much as possible. This is the “tedious” part of dehydrating bacon. I went to bed after about 12 hours into the cycle and when I woke up the next morning, I took out a tray and they were coated with yet another layer of grease, so I dried them all off again and threw them back into the dehydrator for another 12 hours, again drying them off every few hours.

When the timer finally went off and the dehydrator shut off I let them sit for another hour or two. I just got a chance to pull them out and a few of the pieces had another coating of grease, but for the most part the bacon had finally dried out. Twenty eight (28) hours is the longest I have ever had anything in my dehydrator. I suspect the pieces with a bit of grease on them would probably need another 6-8 hours, and at this point I just decided to call it good and see what happens. Continue reading “Making Dehydrated Bacon For The Trail” →