Applicational Hiking: Cold Weather Sleeping Ditty Bag

~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 2 Comments

Greetings Hikers,

Recently I was working on putting together a new micro-list of items that I knew I would need to make sure is within a small ditty bag that ends up inside of my sleeping bag when I am hiking in sub-freezing conditions. While I have been known for developing some of the most in-depth research on ultralight shelters (solo / 2p) and even though I have some very detailed gear lists, I rarely find the need to build lists beyond those. I have never made it a secrete that I am not a cold weather hiker. While I truly love hiking in the rain, when the rain turns to that white powdery stuff, I tend to call the hiking season to a close and spend the rest of the winter planning my next seasons hikes. For two or three years I have been getting invitations from folks to go on winter hikes. One local hiker goes out hiking every full moon – regardless of whether it is summer or winter – and he sent me an email a couple weeks back asking if I would hike to go with him anytime this winter. I think he remembers from last year that I am a woosie when it comes to winter hiking. That is ok though, I accept the fact that I do not like being cold and have the utmost respect for those who love being out in that white stuff that shall not be named. It seems like almost all the bloggers out there right now are posting trip reports and they are all filled with pictures of sno… err, that stuff that shall not be named. For me, I am sitting at home planning next year trips and staying nice and warm.

Anyway, this is my third “Applicational Hiking” article and today I want to focus on what it is I am planning to put into my sleeping bag ditty bag. By that I mean a small bag that stays inside of my sleeping bag at night in order to make sure that things that should not freeze, do not freeze. Like my other two Applicational Hiking articles my goal is not to convert hikers to my methods, nor promote specific pieces of gear, but rather try to try to put my own thoughts into words and hopefully bring up subjects that I am personally facing, with the hopes that other hikers are willing to come forward and share their own thoughts and insights into the topic being discussed. Not being an experienced winter there is a whole lot to winter hiking that I have not learned yet. Yes, I have spent my time hiking in the snow, I do not want to make it sound as if I have never done so, but compared to many hikers I know, the hours spent in sub freezing conditions is nothing. It is my hope that with this Applicational Hiking article I will be able to share some of my own thoughts and experiences, and even more so, gain a lot of knowledge from other hikers with a lot of experience hiking in sub freezing conditions.

The primary purpose of this, my first winter time hiking related article, is going to be on the contents of my sleeping ditty bag. This is one of those things that is probably a “duh” issue for a lot of sub-freezing hikers. Over the years I have, honestly, given this issue very little thought. Thinking back on the times when I have been out hiking in sub-freeing conditions, I often times ended up forgetting a thing or two to bring into my sleeping bag when me at night. This got me pondering a few days ago that I should probably try to build a micro-list of items that I can burn into my brain in hopes of not having this happen this winter hiking season, should I get the opportunity to go hiking in sub-freezing conditions.

Items I Already Have In My Sleeping Ditty Bag:

Perhaps most important to me is my Sawyer Squeeze water filter. Because it is a hollow fiber membrane filter it absolutely cannot ever freeze. Should the Squeeze filter freeze up inside it will cause the 1.0 Micron Absolute it will become totally worthless as the pores will become larger then 1 Micron due to the water freezing expanding the micron sizing. Read up more on Absolute vs Nominal Microns and you will understand why I am always trying to get hikers to understand that just because a water filter says “1 micron” does not mean it is actually safe – the CDC states it requires a 1.0 Absolute Micron filter in order to properly filter water. So without a doubt making sure that my Squeeze is inside of my sleeping ditty bag goes without thinking.

I also try to make sure that I remember to put the next days socks inside of my sleeping bag. Hopefully they are clean and not all dirty and stinky, eh! Putting on frozen socks, first thing in the morning, is something I have had to do a few times, but it is never fun.

My PossumDown gloves, if I am not wearing them, also make it inside of my sleeping ditty bag. It makes them easy to retrieve should I need to put them on, and they take up very little space.

While it might break the “all things that smell like food go in the food bag” rule, I tend to like to put my toothbrush and toothpaste dots inside of my sleeping ditty bag as well. Unless you feel like boiling water in the morning to unfreeze your toothbrush, having a frozen toothbrush to use when you can finished eating breakfast is no fun.

I also include my potty bag inside of my sleeping ditty bag. Main reason is to help make sure that my liquid based AME hand sanitizer does not freeze. It also makes it easier to find if I do have to go poopoo in the middle of the night for some odd reason.

Also near the top of my list to make sure I always get into my sleeping ditty bag is my Suunto MC-2G Global compass. I really have no idea at what temperature the liquid inside of a compass will freeze at (anybody know) but if for some reason you have to get up in the middle of the next and relocate or hike out, think about how much it would suck to have your compass frozen.

Electronics are also inside of the bag. This includes my ACR ResQLink 406 PLB, and my GPS device if I happen to have one with me, and either my iPhone or my Iridium Extreme depending on how deep into the woods I am going. I also make sure that I include my flashlights/torches so that the batteries to not freeze up.

Speaking of batteries, they also have to make it inside. I have started to buy the Energizer Ultimate Lithium (not to be confused with Lithium-ion, which are the rechargeable ones) which are suppose to handle -40 degrees F temps, but why risk it, and not all of them are Lithium yet.

And lastly, of course, is a bottle of water. I like to use a Hunnersdorf bottle that I bought years ago and just before I go to bed I can fill it up with boiling hot water and then shove it into a sock toss it down at the bottom of my sleeping bag and it helps me stay warm for awhile and gives me some non-frozen water to use first thing in the morning.

Items I Am Considering Adding: Any Feedback?

I have been thinking about putting my small med kit inside of my sleeping ditty bag. For the main reason that it contains a few liquid medications. Hydropel, Hydrocortisone cream, a little Neosporin, and a very small bottle of clear eyes. I am not sure what continual sub freezing temperatures will do to some of these liquids.

I also carry a heavy duty one gallon ziplock with me on my hikes, which has inside of it a micro-bottle filled with bleach. I use this ziplock and bleach to wash my cloths – mostly my socks and briefs. If you are able to find and carry 12% Sodium Hypochlorite then expect it to start freezing at around 5(f) and if you are using regular household bleach (3-8% Sodium Hypochlorite) expect it to freeze somewhere around the 19 or 20 fahrenheit mark. What I am wondering is whether or not bleach becomes in effective once it freezes. This is something I have not been able to determine, so if anybody knows that would be interesting to know myself. If Sodium Hypochlorite can freeze and not become in effective than it could stay in your backpack and who cares of it freezes.

Going Overboard or Just Being Extra Cautious?

This being an Applicational Hiking article it goes without saying that this article is designed to get you to ponder on your own system, to analyze my system, and to share with each other our thoughts. So it also goes without thinking that I have to ask myself (and all of you as I am sharing all of these thoughts with the world) of whether or not I have gone overboard with all of this. Does it really make sense to put all of this stuff into a bag that then goes into my sleeping bag, thereby taking up precious space inside of my sleeping bag, and adding items into my sleeping bag which will likely not help my down insulation do its job, and potentially disrupting me at night because some foreign object is inside of my sleeping bag flopping all around each time I toss and turn all night. Obviously some of these items have to be kept as warm as possible (water filter, compass, phone) but just how much effort should we put into making sure all of these items are stored inside of our sleeping bag when it is time to crawl into it and call it a day.

Short Term Review of the Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork Trekking Poles

~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 8 Comments

Greetings Hikers,

This past weekend myself and a few close friends went on some short hikes. This was my third time out on the trail using the Black Diamond “Alpine Carbon Cork” trekking poles. I have been on the quest for some more durable four season hiking poles, so earlier this year I sent an email out to a few long distance hikers I know, most of them triple crowners, asking what they thought the best four season hiking poles presently on the market are. Much to my surprise all of them that responded said the same thing, these Black Diamond “Alpine Carbon Cork” trekking poles. After doing some further online research about these poles I decided to order myself a pair and see how they would work.

I think it is important, from the very start, for me to say that it is just not fair to compare these hiking poles to the likes of the Gossamer Gear LT4 hiking poles or the Ruta Locura Carbon Fiber Yana Poles  as neither of these poles are considered four season hiking poles. Yes they can, and have been used, within four seasons conditions but they are just not designed as four season hiking poles. In all ways the LT4’s and the Yana’s are night and day different in regards to weight and features. Where those two poles, and others in their weight categories, are all about getting hiking poles to be as light as possible, a pair of four season hiking poles are all about providing high shaft durability, easy to use while wearing gloves, and locking mechanisms that are at the very top end of locking systems. So by no means should this review be compared to my reviews of those other two sets of hiking poles. Continue reading “Short Term Review of the Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork Trekking Poles” →

Cottage Updates: November 2012

~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 12 Comments

Greetings Hikers!

First of November, wow. Thus ends another hiking season for me. A huge thank you to all that have supported me over the 2012 year – with a special thanks to the cottage companies that provided me so many unique, hand man, crazy light weight gear!

It has been awhile since I have done a cottage update and I have seen a few new updates from a few different companies so I figured I should put together another cottage update article! By no means an all-encompassing list, just a few things I have seen and thought I would pass along.

Black Rock Gear – They have put together a very limited run of a “Skittle Green” of their hat that is crazy bright green! BRG has also added a new version to their lineup called the “Nobul” If you are a fan of their Hadron and need something warmer, this could fit the bill.

Bearikade – Wow! A major update to their website has taken place!! Very very nice website. I was just browsing through their website and noticed they linked to a video I did a long time ago.

BushBuddy – It looks like the BushBudy Ultra is back in stock. Seems like every time I went to buy one they were not in stock.

Enlightened Equipment – Word on the street is that EE has started getting a lot of their back orders shipped out. Very good news!!

Klymit – I had somebody send me an email saying that Klymit was perhaps making a down-filled version of their “Static V” sleeping pad. I attempted to confirm this with the guys at Klymit but it appears that their kickstarter product is going so well they are no longer responding to requests about gear. Or, it could just be I have asked a few times to many for a T&E of their vest. Regardless, taking the Static V and throwing some insulation in it could be a rather interesting, albeit heavy, direction for Klymit.

Gossamer Gear – Looks like they have all of their primary backpacks back in stock including their “Murmur” which I reviewed awhile back.

HyperLite Mountain Gear – They have released a crazy amount of backpacks this year. I picked up their “Stuff Pack” a while back to see if I could use it as a summer XUL backpack.

LiteTrail – Just got a message that their updated Ti cooking system is now back in stock. There was a lively discussion over at BPL about their original setup having a non-tray winged esbit stove/stand. So they went and ordered up some with trays. They also custom ordered the stands with a concave to support the pot better – very nice move!! At ~83 grams this is one very sweet esbit setup!

MinibullDesign – Tinny has released a very interesting new lid called the “Gravity Cap” that I very much want to pick up for my new Squirrel Cages.

Mountain Laurel Designs – (post-publication update) MLD on Nov 13, 2012 made the following  announcement on facebook: “About two months ago we invested is a new foam for our pack straps and hipbelts. We spec’ed it and had it made for us… It is over 35% thicker than the previous foam. It is a lot more cush and rebounds faster, basically better at forming to fit your hips and shoulder bones without pressure. it will also last longer than the old foam. We even had to modify sewing machines to handle the increased thickness. It is the very best! … The new foam has been shipping in all packs for about 2 months now. In the whole pack {it adds} maybe + .3oz”

Six Moon Designs – Awesome things going on over at SMD. Two nights ago they updated their website with this message, “Thanks to many of you, we’ve had an enormously successful 2012 season. As a result we’ve had to up production significantly. We expect to finish the products currently in the production queue by the end of November. At that time we’ll start up the Cuben Haven’s and Skyscape X’s. I apologize for the delay. However, we are working hard on solutions that should minimize delays between Cuben Fiber product runs in the future.” As a huge fan of the Skyscape X (I have bought two of them, read my review) it is really awesome to hear that word is getting out about these amazing shelters! SMD is ran by one of the best guys in the business. If Ron says he is working hard on solutions, you can absolutely guarantee it that he is! Check out this awesome video of how they are cutting the cuben fiber for their shelters!

ULA – In a move that shocks me, ULA has announced that they are now making backpacks in “Realtree Advantage Max and Realtree WP, also Marpat Woodland“.

QiWiz – Our good buddy over at QiWiz is continueing to evolve his FireFly wood burning stove. If you have a larger pot, this is a nice little wood burner.

Zelph Stoveworks – My favorite bear can pot looks to be back in stock. The “Zelph 2 cup flatbottom pot” is my favorite bear pot/cup/whatever of all times!

ZPacks – It appears that they have pulled their “Exo” from their backpack line-up due to the advancement in design of their “Arc Blast“, which I have finally ordered to see how it might work for a long distance thru-hike. ZPacks has also, recently, started offering their hybrid cuben fiber in a white material, in addition to their original tan. I have seen a whole lot of guys giving a huge thumbs-up for this white material. ZPacks, like a few others, are now also offering water resistant down within their hoodless sleeping bags.

Biggest news:  Simblissity is back!!! I honestly had all but given up hope that he was going to get back into making gear. Whatever changed, this is very awesome news! Those of us who are huge LevaGaiter fans can now rejoice and restock!! The unquestionable best gaiters I have ever used!

Everynew Water Bags: Everybody can just give up trying to find these. I have contacted every company I know that sells these things to see if they have any hiding in a back room and when they will be getting some more in. Everybody said they did not have any and only one person gave me a possible date that they will be back in stock here in the USA, and that is around March of 2013. It appears that myself and the two or three other hikers that discovered they work really well on the Sawyer Squeeze resulted in a massive move by hikers to buy them. I know of three suppliers that sold out all of their bags (including the largest supplier in the USA) within 72 hours after I posted my last article about them.

Speaking of which, Steve the owner of Suluk46 sent me an email that he is on vacation. Opps!! I try really really hard to never write an article when I know a company is going to be closed or when the guy making the custom gear is on vacation. With my recent review of the Suluk46 Ti Stove, it appears I failed to drop Steve an email before I hit the publish button. Sorry folks! The good news is that Steve said there were “a TON of orders”. I have no idea how many that is, he said he would drop me an email when it gets back from vacation with further details, but yet again, all of you out there reading my articles are doing your part to help the cottage hiking companies!!

Totally not new, and totally not SUL, but a product I saw at my favorite  local outdoor store and I just had to try it, and freaking fell in love with it… the “Grand Trunks Micro Stool“. Ten ounces, but wowzer comfortable, even for my big butt.

Anyway folks, this is probably the last cottage update until January when the Winter OR show happens and we get to see some new gear being released!

 

Updates:
November 13, 2012 -- Updated section on MLD after an announcement from the owner of
MLD that they updated their foam padding within their backpacks.

Applicational Hiking: When bulk matters more than weight

~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 7 Comments

Greetings Hikers,

Here recently as I prepare my gear for the 2012 winter season, and starting to plan for the 2013 hiking season, one of the issues that I have been facing is that of the overall bulk of my gear. A few years back when I broke the 10 pound BPW and I sold off my three beloved ULA backpacks because they were all too big for my needs at the time, I took myself down a path that lead to me buying gear that was less bulky. As somebody who has always been an advocate that you buy your backpack based on the bulk (cubic inches) of your gear, this is one of those many decisions I made that helped me down the quest to go lighter and lighter, but also resulted in the (at the time) unforeseeable consequence of some day needing to carry more gear for longer hikes in a myriad of conditions.

In this article I want to do yet another article on “Application Hiking”, with my first being my article on “Pocketless hiking” – which was an article to get people to think about their backpacks and the importance of the gear that they carry – and by no means an article to try to convert hikers to going pocketless. It has been my desire to write more about the day to day life of a long distance hiker, rather than just writing gear reviews. In this second article on application hiking I want to address the issue of when I have personally made decisions to carry larger and heavier gear, over lighter weight and smaller gear. This might not make sense to those who know me as a sul/xul hiker, but as much as I enjoy helping others learn about what there is to learn as a sul/xul hiker, I enjoy just as much talking about heavier weight gear when it serves a greater purpose. There has been a lot of discussion on the internet as of late about weight classifications and I have stay quite about it. Reason being, the vast majority of it I fully agree with. As I hopefully make clear (or try to at least) on my “how I define base pack weight” article, the focus and goal needs to be about self-education and experience, not about grams and ounces. The quest to have a lighter backpack is always a good thing – doing so without the necessary levels of experience and education is something I absolutely do not believe in. That is, and will hopefully continue to be, why I write about application hiking and why I will continue to stress that experience on the trail leads to education, and education is what will hopefully keep you from getting yourself into a situation that no hiker should have to face. This self-education includes learning when carrying something that is so small, and so light, that it potentially puts you at risk when you need that piece of gear to actually perform.

I want to use the following three pieces of gear as an example:

The compass
The cup
The whistle

Continue reading “Applicational Hiking: When bulk matters more than weight” →

Suluk46 Collapsible Titanium Stove

~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 6 Comments

Greetings Hikers,

Wood stoves – there are wood stoves, and than there are wood stoves. Today I want to talk about a wood stove unlike any other that I have encountered, called the “Suluk46 Collapsible Titanium Stove“.

This is not just any wood stove. It is not a fancy double wall stove. This is not a stove where gasification plays a part. It is not a big wood stove. Just the opposite. It is a very small wood stove, with lots and lots of ventilation. It is a pot stand and stove. It is made of titanium. It is made in Canada. It is awesome.

Suluk46 describes this stove rather well:

The Collapsible Titanium (CT) Stove is a 4 piece titanium stove that easily assembles and disassembles to make a nice small package that fits inside your pot or slips into your pack. 3 of the 4 pieces are used as the walls and pot supports. These pieces fit together with 2 small tabs on each side that interlock with the neighboring piece. In order to maximize space and limit parts and weight, each piece is bent in the center to enlarge the firebox, creating a hexagon shaped stove.

Here are some photographs:

As you can see from the photographs above this is a very small wood stove. The cup used in the photographs is the MSR Titan Cup, one of my favorite cups, and probably my most used cup over the last few years.

At 32 grams the CT Stove it is the lightest wood burning stove I have held in my hands.

It is designed to engineering perfection.

Adding together with a 45 gram cup and you can easily have yourself a three ounce cook-kit.

Not a fan of wood or hiking in a location where there is a wood burning ban? Just pull out an esbit cube or a candle alcohol stove and place them inside of the stove and use the stove as a stand.

The first time I used it I grabbed my camera and went out into my backyard. This was awhile back and I have become a bit more proficient using this stove. I will admit I am still a fan of esbit, but sometimes it is just nice to sit down in camp after a day of hiking and fire up a little wood to heat up some water for a cup of tea – without having to waste an esbit tablet.

Two-person Sub 900 gram Fully Enclosed Shelters

~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 19 Comments

Greetings Hiker,

A number of months back I wrote an article and corresponding spreadsheet which went into detail many of the lightest fully enclosed solo shelters on the market. It quickly and to my surprise, became a sort of de facto reference guy for hikers around the world. Since it was published I have received countless requests to put together a similar article that focused on two person shelters. So a number of months ago I started working on compiling the mass amount of data that is required to put together an article and spreadsheet of this kind. It has taken me much longer than I expected it would, but I am now ready to release this.

I think it is important to note a few things from the very start.

First is the fact that I had initially set some minimum and maximum weight limits for the chart and have had to change it along the way. I asked the public for feedback and asked many cottage owners for feedback regarding this as well. It was wonderful. I have, however, made slight modifications to the maximum weight limit that will be focused on within the chart. Details of why are explained below. What I would like to mention is that I have received an amazing amount of feedback from almost all of the cottage owners. It has been an honor and pleasure.

Next aspect to note is the fact that this is not an all-encompassing list of the lightest two person shelters in the world.

There are a number of reasons for this, but the two primary reasons are:

(1) I initially set some criteria for what the spreadsheet would be based on in regards to Total Shelter Weight. Along the way the maximum weight changed a few times, all as a result of the list of shelters becoming much too long to detail them all; it would have taken countless hours of work. As it is this article has consumed a little over 65 hours of work and over two hundred emails.  There simply had to come a point where I was forced to reduce the maximum weight limit in order to reduce the amount of work, the complicated, and length of the spreadsheet. When I started this article there were a number of shelters that I wanted to include but they ended up being well over 1300 grams Total Shelter Weight – and if I were to include them than people would make the case that I should have included others in the same weight category, and a list which is already long enough would have become three to four times longer. I very much respect these cottage companies out there producing amazing two person shelters that are in the 1000-1200 gram range, make no mistake about it.

(2) There are a number of companies out there that fail(ed) to provide the true weights of their shelters. Most of them simply do not list accurate Total Shelter Weights on their website. There were around a half-dozen companies that I emailed asking for accurate numbers on their shelters and they never responded. I would be doing a dis service to my readers to pull numbers out of nowhere and use them just for the sake of including a specific shelter. Companies that do not publish exact weights of their shelters are doing nothing but losing business. I can say that for a fact, as last year I was looking at one specific shelter that I really wanted, but the company fails to list accurate weights of their shelters. Rather than dealing with the back-and-forth emails to try to get it out of them, I simply moved on and purchased a shelter from another cottage manufacture.  So again, there are a few shelters on the market that I highly suspect might be less than 900 grams, and even more under 1300 grams, but because they fail to provide technical details about their shelters on their websites, and in many cases never responded to my emails, their shelters are not within the chart. I make no excuse for this. I simply will not make up numbers on my own because a company is unwilling to provide information that their customers should have.

Continue reading “Two-person Sub 900 gram Fully Enclosed Shelters” →

Evernew “Water Carry” Bags

~ John B. Abela (HikeLighter.Com) ~ 17 Comments

Greetings Hikers,

How to carry water while hiking… this is one of those issues that very much falls into the HYOH factor, and I have never been a huge advocate for one specific method over another.

When I first started hiking I used the Everyday CamelBak bottles. Those got replaced with the CamelBak 70oz Antidote Reservoir which got replaced with the Platypus Big Zip 3 liter, which got replaced with a Hydrapak 70-Ounce Reservoir and so on and so forth. I even bought myself a Camelbak HydroBak 50 oz Hydration Pack somewhere along the way. One of the few bags I never did buy was the MSR Dromedary Bag.

When I got close to reaching the SUL weight I knew that none of those were going to be able to keep being used so I made the switch over to using water bottles such as Gatorade, than to the Smart Water bottles which were a bit lighter and proved to be durable enough. This meant that not only did I get to reduce the weight of using a reservoir but I also no longer needed to weight of the reservoir sleeves within backpacks. (extra perk: no longer needing a backpack with a hole in it to push your tube through, thereby making it just a weebit more water resistant)

Through a set of events I never saw coming and I did not realize until after it had all happened, I am now back to using bags to carry my water in… Continue reading “Evernew “Water Carry” Bags” →