Back in March of this year (2012) I posted my “My-Gear For 2012!” article about gear that I was really wanting to acquire this year. On that list was the carbon fiber Yana poles sold by Ruta Locura.
I have been a huge supporter of the Gossamer Gear LT4’s since the year I first started hiking so buying another pair of hiking poles was not an easy decision. It really came down to two reasons why I went ahead and bought these Yana Poles: First is that I have become rather frustrated with the locking mechanisms of the LT4’s and second is because they are 99 grams, verses 119 grams for the LT4 poles.
Given the fact that I decided at the start of the 2012 hiking season not to use hiking poles this year to see if they really were helping me or if they were just a “thing” within part of the present day fad within hiking. Given the fact that I slipped and fell (for the first time in over 1,500+ miles) on my last hike, which resulted in a knee injury that basically ended my 2012 hiking season, it has left me wondering if that c/would have been prevented if I had been using hiking poles, and my honest belief is that I still likely would have slipped, but there is a very good chance I would not have actually fallen if I had been using poles.
For my shelters I have been using dedicated custom-made Carbon Fiber tent poles which are 62 grams for the pair of them. It was hard to ignore the fact that 62 grams for holding up my shelter was a lot better than 238 grams (8.39 ounces) when I was almost never using the LT4’s anyway while hiking for most of the previous hiking season.
Back when I got back into hiking a number of years ago the third thing I bought was a pair of Gossamer Gear LT4 Trekking Poles and I still have them to this day. They are the only piece of gear I still have from my first three seasons of hiking put together. I have a few thousand miles of use on them.
There is not a lot to say about the LT4 poles that have not already been said by other hikers for years. They stand as a pedestal in the long distance and ultra light hiking world, much like the ULA Backpacks do on the PCT, where well over 50% of the hikers are using a ULA pack of some sort. The amount of hikers you see these days with the GG LT4s is just amazing. It is a testament to their strength and weight.
They are the second lightest hiking poles I am aware of, second only to the carbon fiber Yana poles sold by Ruta Locura – you can read my review of them.
As a Trail Ambassador of Gossamer Gear I was asked what my favorite piece of gear that Gossamer Gear makes and without any doubt or hesitation at all, the LT4 Trekking Poles are my favorite! I bought the pair of mine years ago, back before I was a long distance hiker, back before I was posting videos on youtube, and back before I was writing articles about hiking gear.
Primer Thoughts:
If you are a hiker who follows my articles you know I am not a fan of putting competing products up against each other, but it would be very difficult to talk about either the LT4s or the Yana Poles without comparing them to each other – they are the defacto lightest hiking poles we can buy. Without a doubt I prefer the Gossamer Gear LT4 poles over the Yana Poles, but it sort of goes without saying that somewhere along the way they need to be compared to each other, so I will do so a few times within this article.
I do want to start off by saying that I have never snapped a single Gossamer Gear LT4 hiking pole. I do not use wrist straps and have taught myself to instantly and automatically let go of my hiking poles if I sense they have gotten stuck in rocks, roots, logs, or whatever. I am pretty sure that this training on my part has saved me from shattering a few of them over the years.
I will also say that I am very much attracted to the “Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork Trekking Poles” the more that I hike. They are significantly heavier (492 grams for a pair – verses 238 grams for the LT4’s – that is 254 grams / 8.95 ounces heavier!) but there are some aspects about them that really appeal to me. That includes: the locking mechanism, the three piece design, and the locking mechanism. yes, i said that twice. Continue reading “LT4 Trekking Poles Poles by Gossamer Gear”→
Klymit Static V sleeping pad – an economically priced air sleeping pad with a unique and comfortable v-chamber design.
Greetings Hikers,
The world of sleeping pads continues to grow and I have been no stranger from talking about sleeping pads from Klymit. Just over a year ago I published my thoughts over at RedwoodOutdoors.Com (my originally site for publishing hiking gear articles) on the Klymit Inertia XL sleeping pad. A month later I took the bold step and resized my Inerta XL (perhaps the first customer in the world to do so??) and I published how I resized it and compared it to my resized Original Therm-a-Rest NeoAir (which I had also resized.) Suffice to say I have really come to like what Klymit is doing. They are a company that is working very hard to get their products out there, do so in a respectable manner, and producing some very solid products.
Now I want to take the time to write up my thoughts on the Klymit Static V, their newest sleeping pad – and their first sleeping pad to not be filled with a bunch of holes (err, sorry: loft pockets).
I am one of the few SUL hikers in world who uses a “full size” sleeping pad. I am a side sleeper. I like to sleep. I like comfort. Enough said.
The way I figure it, given the low weight of my setups, I can get away with adding a few extra ounces of weight in order to make sure that my sleeping gear is of sufficient comfort that I can sleep well. In the summer time I might only go out with a simple CCF pad, but once it hits the shoulder season the full size air pad comes out – and sometimes in the summer, if I just want to be comfortable!
In the world of air pads I have owned an Exped Downmat 9 (size Large), an original NeoAir (full size, small, medium, and a second full size I cut down in length so I could have a ‘wide-short’), the NeoAir X-Lite (full size), the Klymit Inerta XL (full size, later cut down to a wide-short), and the Klimit Static V (only comes in one size: large).
Why I Bought The Static V:
Recently I have become tired of spending huge amounts of money on hiking gear. It scares me when I think about how much money is tied up in my hiking gear. Granted it is ‘my life’ for a good part of the year, but those who follow my articles know that I tend to buy the top of the line gear, and also have a large amount of my gear custom made – which is just over-the-top expensive. I have never made it any secrete that XUL hiking is not cheap, a hiker going from a heavy setup to a XUL setup can have $10,000+ invested in all of the gear that they have bought from their twenty-five pound setup down to their under three pound setup. You end up buying a whole lot of gear along the way trying to find multiple setups that work for you. I also know that some of my readers are not SUL/XUL hikers – folks who follow my articles to learn a bit (hopefully), and folks who might not want, or who cannot, spend big bucks on gear. So I have been trying to spend some time with some gear that is more reasonably priced yet still not overtly heavy. The Klymit Static V fits into that group perfectly!
Every year over on the pct-l (a mailing list for the pct – and what happens to be, in my opinion, the best resource on the internet for hikers) there are potential pct hikers who start asking questions about gear that does not cost a fortune. Just in the few years I have been apart of the pct-l I have seen dozens of folks asking about how to hike the pct without spending a fortune. I am sure that websites such as whiteblaze also gets a ton of these type of questions every year about the AT.
So I will be honest and say that the main reason I bought the Klymit Static V is because I wanted to see how an air pad that has a MSRP of $59.95 would compare to the almighty NeoAir XLite, which has a MSRP of $179.95. Could it be as comfortable? Could it hold up? Could it handle more than just an overnighter? What exactly are you going to get for a sixty dollar air pad? These are the questions I wanted answers too.
How It Compares:
Those who follow my articles know I really do not like to compare one product to another. Only twice in all of the years that I have been writing articles about hiking have I compared products (and those two times where short paragraphs just to help people have an understanding of something) so I am having to break my rule in order to write this review. Simply put, if I do not spend the time comparing the Klymit Static V within this article, I will probably spend three times as much post-article answering comments asking me to do so. So how this is going to work is that I will be comparing the Klymit Static V (the most recent air pad on the market I think) to the NeoAir XLite, pretty much the de facto best-of-the-best. I will be using the NeoAir XLite “Large” within this review, as it is the closest in size to the Klymit Static V.
Below is a chart based on the specs provided by both Static V and Therm-a-Rest:
Static V
NeoAir XLite
Weight:
514 grams (18.13 ounces)
460 grams (16.22 ounces)
Length:
72 inches (183 cm)
77 inches (196 cm)
Width:
23 inches (59 cm)
25 inches (63 cm)
Height:
2.5 inches (6.35 cm)
2.5 inches (6.5 cm)
R-Value:
1.3
3.2
MSRP:
$59.95
$179.95
Here are the differences work out between the two:
Weight:
The Static V is 54 grams (1.90 ounces) heavier
Length:
The XLite is 5 inches (13 cm) longer
Width:
The XLite is 2 inches (4 cm) wider
Height:
Both are the same height
R-value:
The XLite provides an additional 1.9 of R-value
MSRP:
The XLite is $120 more expensive
Pros:
When it comes to comfort, that is paramount for me. The Static X is very likely the most comfortable sleeping pad I have ever used. As a side sleeper who tosses and turns and rolls and most of the time ends up in a fetal position while sleeping, having a sleeping pad that can keep me on the sleeping pad is a surprising difficult thing to find. The NeoAir Original did a decent job, the NeoAir XLite for the most part totally fails me – I almost always roll off the sides of it. The Exped Downmat 9 did a pretty good job of keeping me on the pad as well.
Durability totally goes to the Static V. As far as I know this is the same crazy tough material that they make all of their other sleeping pads out of, and you can put these things right on the ground and jump all over there. Check out this video to see this!
At $60 bucks, it totally blows away any other “large” size sleeping pad out there – at least the ones I would consider buying. I have seen them on sale at a few different places in the high 40 range. Compare even their MSRP to the NeoAir and, well, “wow”. It really makes you stop and wonder if the extra 1.9 ounces is worth $120 bucks. If you are an active SUL hiker, it might be worth dropping the extra $120 bucks, but if not, it just seems to me like the Static V wins in every regards when it comes to price.
Inflation very much goes to the Static V. I tend to average 12-15 full breaths to fill up the Static V. Compare that to an average of 29-33 for the NeoAir XLite. That is a huge difference.
Cons:
At 23 inches in width the Static V gives a bit more width than most of the other regular or small sized sleeping pads out there. For those that like/need a “wide” sleeping pad, because of the way that the sides are designed on the Static V, it feels as-wide-as, perhaps even a little wider than the XLite. However, on paper it is not as wide as the XLite so I have put this under the ‘cons’. As I said though, based on sleeping on them both, I prefer the Static V.
I will say that I have noticed the missing 5 inches from the overall length of the Static V. I am not really sure why Klymit decided to ditch the industry standard for a “large” and go with one that is 72 inches rather than the 77 that pretty much everybody else uses, but it is something that I have noticed when laying on it. Basically it has taken away the ability to place my pillow directly onto the sleeping pad. At 2.5 inches tall, that makes trying to put a pillow at the head-end rather difficult.. I simply do not have enough stuff left over to stuff into a stuff sack in order to raise my pillow up high enough. And for whatever reason I do not like my feet hanging off of a sleeping pad, so the missing 5 inches limits my ability to use this sleeping pad by putting my head off the top-end.
Being 72 inches in length also limits the ability of the Static V to use it with a “long” sleeping bag – my MBULSS#3 is a long and I end up having a few inches falling off the end of the sleeping pad. Inside of a shelter this is not all that big of a deal, but when cowboy camping, it pretty much mandates that I take along an extra ground cloth to protect the end of my sleeping bag.
At a R-value of 1.3 you are not going to want to be taking the Static V thing out in winter (unless you combine it with some other pads) so the XLite at 3.2 clearly wins in this regards.
The Static V is 54 grams (1.90 ounces) heavier than the XLite, and as a SUL/XUL hiker, that is a lot. However the comfort, the ability to stay on the pad, the knowledge I am supporting a smaller cottage company (Klymit is based out of Ogden, UT), and the price-factor makes those extra two ounces go away – even for a hiker as perfervid as I am about counting grams.
Conclusion:
If you are looking for an air inflated sleeping pad that is sub-100 dollars, provides some decent comfort and does not take up a lot of bulk space, the Klymit Static V should warrant some serious consideration!
ZPacks pushed out an announcement today that they have released a “Hexamid Long” shelter!
If I am reading their Specs right, it is looking like the main difference between this and the Solo-Plus is that they have added some poles to help pull out the back side of the Shelter.
This can be a nice improvement for sitting up inside of the Hexamid, as any fellow-tall hikers can testify too.
It does not actually seem to be ‘longer’ unless the Specs on their websites is incorrect. So, perhaps they have just taken the shell of the Solo-Plus, maybe added a bit more material to its back side, and attached some beefed up tie-outs to it.
It is listed at 142 grams (verses 94 grams from the Solo-Plus) so 1.69 ounces heavier just for the tarp. Not sure how much of that extra weight is for the little pole pockets. Could just be an identical Solo-Plus with the pockets added to it – very good chance those alone weight in at 48 grams, plus the use of the ZPacks hybrid Nylon/CubenFiber patches for all of the stress points (which is nice to see!)
Price on it looks to be $435 with the netting. Solo-Plus is $395 with the netting.
If you factor in the weight of three dedicated carbon fiber poles (two at 22 inches, one at 52 inches) the Total Shelter Weight (TSW) is looking to be 670 grams (23.6 oz).
Going to be interesting to see how the tall hikers out there respond to this new ZPacks shelter! There are very few contenders in the UL/SUL world of “Long” Shelters.
At 20+ ounces TSW it falls outside the ability to include it in my SUL/XUL One-Piece Fully Enclosed Shelter comparison – though a person could probably use a couple of sticks picked up off the ground to maybe help it reach that sub-20 ounce mark, and ditch the ZPacks ground CF sheet with a lighter one, and actually get it below the 20-ounce TSW mark!
There are three updates regarding cottage companies that I thought I would pass along this week.
I am sure that with the OR show taking place the hiking blogosphere is going to be flooded with new gear and such, but as most of my readers know, I like to stay focused on the cottage outdoor gear makers. Continue reading “Cottage Updates: Black Rock Gear, Klymit, ZPacks”→
This article has been inspired by “Jeremy” who contacted me a short while back to let me know how much the HikeLighter website has been a tremendous help to him in his quest to become a lighter weight hiker. He indicated that over the last year my articles had helped him loose over 30 pounds from his TPW. How awesome is that – and huge congrats Jeremy!
One of the topics he mentioned within our correspondence was how I go about being a pocketless hiker.
I responded to him with a quick three or four paragraph initial-though on the matter and promised him I would post an article going into more detail on it. I have also made promises to others that I would stop talking about gear reviews and focus more on what I am going to call “Applicational Hiking”, which will be where I talk about issues that all of us face as hikers… a “where the rubber meets the road” type of articles where I just share from my experience and personal thoughts on issues. They will be very loose in nature and writing style – very little about in-depth details but a whole lot about actual hiking knowledge and experience – at least my style.
What is a pocketless hiker?
For some long distance hikers I suppose it can mean they are a hiker that does have not have any money to make it to the next town so they have to keep stopping at every trail and getting a temp-job in order to get money to make it to the next town. Sounds like a pocketless hiker, eh!
Greetings Hikers,