For water purification, I use MicroPUR Tablets. They work great, but depending on where I fill my water bottle up from – I sometimes get "floaty bits" in the water. A traditional water filter would of course remove these.
What I need is a way to filter out these bigger particles when filling the bottle.
Read on for instructions on my home-made solution.
The West Coast Trail will be a lot of beach hiking. I have not done much sand hiking before, and I'm wondering how well a pair of trail runners will hold up.
Sand inside my socks between my toes rubbing for tens of miles sounds like a sure way to blister hell.
So I'm thinking some gaiters might be a good idea, atleast to stop the sand entering the tops.
Mountain Hardware makes a 2 oz trail gaiter for $35 from BackcountryGear.
The other option is the eVent Shortie at 2.5 oz and $25.
Or perhaps better yet – the Mont Bell Stretch, at 1.5 oz.
Theresa gets cold at night. The one big drawback of the cloudburst shelter is that to prevent condensation, we often sleep with the door fully open and facing into the wind. That way the airflow keep condensation to a minimum.
The only way I could convince Theresa to keep the Tarptent, was to get her comfy at night. The highlite didn't do it when the wind howls in and the temperatures drop.
So we took on an extra pound of weight, invested a lot of dosh and settled on the WM Versalite.
Theresa has the short (5'6") model, which weighs in at 1lb 14oz (30 oz). This bag is rated down to a whopping 10 °F and does a stellar job at keeping her toasty warm.
Available from Backcountry Gear for $385.
Theresa, Tim, Melissa and I were lucky enough to secure a reservation for the West Coast Trail this year – over labor day weekend.
I'm really excited about it. It has been called the #1 best hike in the world by some, and one of the toughest trails in North America by others.
The WCT is a 47-mile long hike along the coast of Vancouver Island. Here are some of the aspsects that interest me the most:
There are maps available at: WCT Map Part 1 AND WCT Map Part 2.
Our current thinking is to fly from Lake Union to Victoria, stay over night – fueling up at Mountain Equipment Corp (as we can't bring fuel or meat into Ca)., then take the WCT Trail Suttle Bus to the trail head the next day.
Most people take 6-7 days to complete the trail. The fastest it's been done is in 2 days (1 night) by two triathlon runners. I'm thinking 5 days, 4 nights would be a decent goal.
One of the secrets to cooking great Thai food, is the right coconut milk. There are only two brands you should ever get – both available at Uwajimaya.
Mae Ploy is my favourite, it is very rich and creamy.
The other great brand is Chao Koh. This one is easy to remember as you can look for the "A-OK" in the middle of the word.
If a recipe calls for "Coconut Cream" – don't buy a special can of it, just put your Mae Ploy in the fridge overnight and the cream will float to the top.
Likewise, don't be tempted by "Lite Coconut Milk". It's just coconut milk with water added. If you are making a soup – like Tom Kah Gai, then you can use this technique to water down the coconut milk to make it lighter on the palette.
Don't be fooled by other brands, or think you can get by with "Thai Kitchen" brand from QFC.
Ever wanted to make that perfect Thai curry? Read on and I'll give you step-by-step instructions on how to do so.
The Ingredients:
(Recipe from "It Rains Fishes" by Kasma Loha-unchit)
One modification I just made, was to replace our 2nd Titanium Panset with this simple lightweight "Pack Bowl".
Normally we boil water in one pan and use the 2nd to serve food in, or eat breakfast in. It never hits the stove.
This collapsable bowl can be trimmed down to size and holds boiling hot liquids. I trimmed it down to the 1 quart mark and it weighs in at 0.6 oz.
The 2nd panset was 5.0z, so I'm trimming a staggering 4.4oz off my gear list with this addition.
Available from Backpackers Pantry – $6 for a pack of 4.
12/7/2007 Update:
We stopped using this as we found it's large size to be a little annoying. We have since just taken a simple disposable glad tupperware bowl and cut the heavy rim off. This has worked really well, and comes in a little less as 0.5 oz.
A bit of new gear I have my eye on is a replacement for my fleece pullover, which at 7oz is somewhat on the heavy side.
The Bozeman Moutainworks cocoon vest is an interesting candidate. It's synthetic, and so retains it's warmth when wet. At 5.3oz it would save me a precious 2oz and probably be a much warmer layer.
I don't think I care about sleeves – as my thermal underwear and windproof should be enough.
The added bonus, is that it would give me an excellent boost to my sleeping bag, when the temps really dip down.
Starting at a respectible 7.8 oz, this is a very interesting pad.
It's quite thick and was a good candidate for replacing my thermarest. I trimmed the length down to match that of the 3/4 length thermarest I was used to. This dropped the weight to 6.3 oz – less than half the weight of the thermarest.
Sleep-wise, I have only spent one night on it so far, and it was comfortable enough. I have seen other people recommend taking "Tylenol PM" at night to help get more rest – I might even try pairing those up too.
The biggest downside so far, is that it's bulkier in my pack than the thermarest. To the point where, I'm not sure if I can get 5-6 days of food in my pack anymore with this thing in it.
Order from Gossamer Gear, for about $30.
12/14/07 Update:
I ended up replacing this single pad for the a combination of the torso only pad version and cut down section of insulation pad. This was mostly due to the bulk issue. The two pad total less, coming in at 3.5 oz and 1.2 oz respectivley for a total of 4.7 oz.
Ahh… the quintessential ingredient in Thai cooking. Fish sauce is known as "Thai salt" – it's added to everything to beef up the salty qualities of the dish.
Finding the right bottle of fish sauce is a make-or-break deal with cooking Thaifood. The brand of choice here is "Golden Boy" – made in Thailand – which features a red label showing a baby sitting on a globe with a bottle of fish sauce in his arms.
Finding the right bottle of fish sauce is a make-or-break deal with cooking Thaifood. The brand of choice here is "Golden Boy" – made in Thailand – which features a red label showing a baby sitting on a globe with a bottle of fish sauce in his arms. Uwajimaya from time to time has stocked Golden Boy, but these days it's rare to find.
On a recent business trip to Atimi Software in Vancouver, I discovered T & T supermaket that sells Golden Boy. You'll get weird looks carting 3 cases of the stuff back across the border, but it's worth its price in embarassment.
Tra Chang is a good backup and can be bought online from a local distributor in Issaquah, WA.
Uwajimaya in Seattle, has Squid Band to get you rolling – it has a green label and green cap.
Check out Michaels in-depth write up on fish sauce.
Uwajimaya is the godfather of Seattle's Asian grocery stores. The new location is International district is huge and well stocked.
You can count on getting almost all of your Thai needs at Uwajimaya.
I liked the old location better, as it was less flashy and felt like you were in a different country. The new location is a little too much like Whole Foods for my tastes. If you want the feel of the old Uwajimaya, then make a stop at Viet Wah. They will have most of what you need.
Location:
600 5th Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98104
Phone: (206) 624-6248
Google Map
Hours: 9AM-10PM (9PM on Sundays)
Nothing really. They are like oil & water – I have yet to find amazingly delicious & ultralight Thaifood that you can take on your backpacking trip.
However, when I'm off the mountain – one of my other great passions in life is cooking Thai.
A few years ago, Theresa and I spent a month in Thailand travelling with Kasma and her husband Michael on one of their tours. Quite possibly two of the nicest people I have ever met. Kasma is a Thai native and teaches cooking out of her school in Oakland.
After tasting the amazing flavours on our trip – Theresa and I took one of her week long intensive cooking classes where we learned the basics of cooking Thai.
We cook Thai a lot! Especially at dinner parties, and often friends ask me "how do I make a curry like that!" – so I'm going to dedicate some posts to the topic of Thaifood.
I'll cover the ingredients you need and where you can find them in Seattle, and will also post a few step-step recipes. The recipes are those I learned from Kasma – so I hope she forgives me for ripping them off – I claim no ownership to their creation! While you can do your best to follow along, there really is no substitite to learning first-hand in her class how to 'taste' and 'balance' the flavours for that perfect curry! So if you like what you see, and even make a recipe or two – then make sure you find your way down to Oakland to take one of her classes – or atleast purchase one of her books.
Happy eating!
Here is a link to the noaa weather service. It's a good source of weather information for the North Cascades and elsewhere.
In an endless quest to get lighter and lighter in my gear selections, (and prompted by a recent post on backpacking.net) I finally turned my attention to alcohol stoves.
Read on to learn about my pepsi can stove that weighs less than half an ounce.
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I've dug all over the Internet for sample backpacking menus that provide enough calories but don't cost a lot of weight. I have had little success finding good suggestions, so if you have any post-away.
Here's what we typically take on a 3-day trip to feed two of us. We love food, so splurge on a few luxury items on day 1 like apples that are heavy but consumed quickly.
Here are some of my favourite stores to buy backpacking gear online. I would love to hear comments from other readers on where they shop and recommendations they have.
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Versatile and light at 2oz.
They have interchangeable lenses just like the Rudy Project shades I use.
These work well for Theresa.
Available from Smith Sports
On long down hills Theresa knees give her grief. When she puts these one, the grief goes away as these things absorb the stress.
To quote the literature: "Provides compression on the patellar tendon, helping spread pressure uniformly, reducing discomfort and irritation. Compression may also help stabilize your patella, improving its tracking."
So there you have it.
Available from REI for $16.95.
Theresa uses the womens version and is quite happy with them.
See my review on the mens pair for more details.
Tomorrow night I'm hiking up Mt. Si. with