A pot to be reckoned with.
This little fellow weighs in at a mere 2.5 oz and holds about 2 cups of water – which is the perfect amount for most freeze dried food bags.
I replaced my old pan set for this earlier this summer and have been thrilled with its performance.
You have to take a little care as its walls are very thin and so it can get bent out of shape easily.
Available from BackpackingLight for $27.
![vanbezooyen_core77_senzumbrellas[1]](https://brettonstuff.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/vanbezooyen-core77-senzumbrellas1.jpg)
I'm not sure this little fellow truly belongs in the Ultralight club at 8.8 oz (For the Mini). But for 3.2 oz more than the Montbell – it comes with some bonus features:
– Windproof up to 40 mph. Or 70 mph for the normal sized one.
– The asymmetric design has a very elongated tail which would cover the the top of a backpack nicely.
I bought one of these on a recent trip to England. I've used it taking the bus to work in Seattle (it rains a lot), but haven't taken it on the trail.
They just recently started distributing these in the US, so you can now buy them online.
In July 2007, Theresa and I did a quick overnight to Rampart Lakes via Rachel Lake. This is a spectacular hike, about an hour drive from Seattle. Rampart Lakes are quite pretty – and somewhat reminiscent of the enchantments. Read on for the full trail description.
Continue reading
Looking to spice up your no-cook trail breakfast?
Instead of boring old dried milk – which is usually non-fat (unless you use Nido), give this is try on your Granola. It vastly improves the flavor of the granola and packs a whopping thirteen extra grams of fat.
I suspect this will be a new staple for me at breakfast time.
Credit for this brilliant idea goes to Freezer Bag Cooking, where I read the tip.
I bought my Coconut Cream Powder from Import Food online.
Google just recently launched their "Terrain" overlay. Microsoft has had one for
a while over at maps.live.com, but I like Googles version better. It's cleaner and more detailed.
I wonder if someone will create a website where hikers can start plotting out trails using a combination of the Google My Maps and Terrain features.
Here's a quick sample one I whipped up for Copper Ridge Loop: Copper Ridge Loop Map.
Something like this for all the hikes in the US, with clickable pushpins showing photos at that view point. How cool would that be?
Heck – I'd even go a step further and allow people to collaborate photos taken from the same view point, combined with Photosynth to give a 360 degree view.
Theresa and I took a quick morning hike yesterday to Snow Lake. I haven't done this hike for a while – and when we do, we like to be on the trail for 5am to have some solitude. It's one of the busiest trails in the Seattle area and is always packed. It's a short 5-6 mile jaunt to the lake and back.
It was raining in Seattle, and we assumed the same in the pass. When we got there, it was snowing hard – with about 2-3" of fresh on the ground.
We had the trail to ourselves and cut fresh tracks most the way to the lake – when we passed a party of backpackers hiking out.
We don't really do much winter backpacking – our gear gets tucked away in favour of Snowboarding season. We've done some day hikes and a few big-climbs in the snow – like St. Helens and Mt. Adams, but not enough to consider myself seasoned in any way.
I was really surprised how well the brolly performed yet again in the snow fall. It got heavy once in a while and needed shaking off, but all-in-all I didn't bother to pull out a waterproof – or the down jacket I had in my pack just-in-case. We did the whole hike pretty much in thermal undies and hat and an Umbrella – neither too hot, nor too cold.
Can umbrellas really be a credible winter-tool also?
In the world of software development The Mythical Man Month proposes the notion of a project triangle. Where the three points of the triangle are Quality, Time to Market and Features. You can pick (at most) any two you want and do them really well, but the other one suffers. Want lots of features, with high-quality – it's going to take a long time. Want something quick with lots of features? It's going to be buggy.
I think a similar triangle exists for backpacking food. The three points are – Lightweight, Tasty and Fast to Prepare.
Freezer Bag Cooking in an excellent site that appears to deliver on at least two of the key points: Fast to prepare and Tasty. However they don't appear to be lighter than store bought de-hydrated cardboard tasting goop.
Still, I really dig the site – the idea of home-made backpacking meals that very easy to prepare in the field and taste really good probably has it's place on shorter trips. I have not tried any of their recipes yet – but I intend to.
If only they would invent a Thai Curry freezer-bag recipe, then I would be in heaven.
These things look crazy. I recently read a post from a guy who claims to have hiked the West Coast Trail in these slippers.
They look really interesting. I wonder what they would feel like on a trail.
Read all about them on the Vibram Five Fingers website.
Retail at $80 and weigh in at 11.2 oz a pair.
I know what I'll be asking Santa for this Christmas… except it doesn't ship until May 2008.
Snow Peaks website lists this stove as weighing in at 3.3 oz – which isn't that great. However, I'm hoping it's a typo. Earlier this year Backpacking Light saw this stove at a trade show and reported it as weighing 2.15 oz.
I would love to hear from people who stumble on my site what software they use to manage their gear lists.
For day-day management, I simply have an Excel spreadsheet with stuff in. Then for my blog, I wrote a bunch of custom php code to allow me to easily edit my gear list page without dealing with HTML formatting issues.
What does everyone else do? Any one use Google Docs spreadsheets? Anyone found a gear-list management application that they like? Anyone found a web-based list application that can be used for gear-list management?
I'm noodling on the idea of adapting my php/wordpress code into something that could be used by others.
Anyone out there? Hello? …
GoLite responded to my customer service inquiry about their Sun Dragon shoes.
The general manager responded to my post and pointed out that the first production run used a fabric treatment that left the uppers somewhat brittle. This is very consistent with my first impression of the shoe – the fabric seemed somewhat stiff and thin – and (with hindsight) probably prone to tearing.
I'm going to take them up on the offer and exchange them for a different pair with the new uppers and will report back. I hope they work out – as I really want to keep these shoes!
You can read the full response in the comments section of my previous post.
This is my list of gear that I no longer use. Usually means it's been replaced by something lighter or better IMHO.
| Review | Item Description | Weight (Oz) | Pack |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
1.9 | W | |
 |
0.8 | W | |
 |
0.8 | B | |
 |
0.9 | W | |
 |
3.2 | B | |
 |
8 | B | |
 |
5.7 | B | |
 |
6 | W | |
 |
2.4 | B | |
 |
5.1 | B | |
 |
1 | B | |
 |
1 | W | |
|
2 | B | |
 |
25 | W | |
 |
3.6 | W | |
|
3.6 | B | |
 |
1.2 | B | |
 |
15.5 | W | |
| Total Worn | 3.42 lbs | ||
| Total Pack (Brett) | 2.06 lbs | ||
| Review | Item Description | Weight (Oz) | Pack |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
2 | W | |
|
0.8 | T | |
 |
7.5 | T | |
 |
3.4 | T | |
 |
2.8 | T | |
 |
5 | T | |
 |
6.2 | W | |
 |
3.8 | T | |
|
5.9 | T | |
|
1 | T | |
|
1 | W | |
|
2 | T | |
 |
22 | W | |
 |
7.2 | W | |
|
3.6 | T | |
|
1.2 | T | |
|
15.5 | W | |
 |
2 | T | |
 |
2.1 | T | |
 |
2.5 | T | |
| Total Worn | 3.37 lbs | ||
| Total Pack (Theresa) | 2.73 lbs | ||
| Review | Item Description | Weight (Oz) | Pack |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
19 | T | |
|
19 | B | |
 |
30 | T | |
 |
16.9 | B | |
 |
13.1 | T | |
 |
4.7 | B | |
 |
38 | B | |
| Total Pack (Brett) | 4.91 lbs | ||
| Total Pack (Theresa) | 3.88 lbs | ||
| Review | Item Description | Weight (Oz) | Pack |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
0.5 | T | |
 |
0.4 | T | |
 |
0.6 | T | |
|
0.6 | T | |
 |
7 | B | |
 |
2.5 | T | |
 |
0.6 | T | |
 |
3.7 | B | |
 |
2 | B | |
 |
1.2 | T | |
| Total Pack (Brett) | 0.79 lbs | ||
| Total Pack (Theresa) | 0.4 lbs | ||
| Review | Item Description | Weight (Oz) | Pack |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
0.7 | T | |
 |
5.6 | T | |
|
5.6 | B | |
 |
1.3 | B | |
 |
0.6 | B | |
 |
4.2 | B | |
 |
0.2 | B | |
|
0.2 | T | |
 |
0.3 | B | |
 |
1.1 | B | |
 |
2 | W | |
 |
0.3 | B | |
 |
3.2 | B | |
 |
1.4 | B | |
 |
1.4 | B | |
 |
0.6 | B | |
 |
3.2 | B | |
|
3.3 | T | |
 |
0.3 | B | |
 |
1 | B | |
 |
1 | B | |
 |
0.1 | B | |
 |
0.3 | B | |
 |
0.5 | B | |
 |
0.2 | B | |
 |
1 | B | |
| Total Worn | 0.13 lbs | ||
| Total Pack (Brett) | 1.74 lbs | ||
| Total Pack (Theresa) | 0.61 lbs | ||
| Review | Item Description | Weight (Oz) | Pack |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Brett Base Pack Weight
Base Pack without food or water |
152 | B |
|
Theresa Base Pack Weight
Base Pack without food or water |
122 | T |
| Total Pack (Brett) | 9.5 lbs | ||
| Total Pack (Theresa) | 7.63 lbs | ||
| Review | Item Description | Weight (Oz) | Pack |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Brett Base Pack Weight
Base Pack without food or water |
152 | B |
|
Theresa Base Pack Weight
Base Pack without food or water |
122 | T |
 |
Brett Full Water Weight
Full 60oz Platypus |
60 | B |
|
Theresa Full Water Weight
Full 60oz Platypus |
60 | T |
 |
Brett Food Budget
Assume 4 lbs for 3 days |
64 | B |
|
Theresa Food Budget
Assume 4 lbs for 3 days |
64 | T |
| Total Pack (Brett) | 17.25 lbs | ||
| Total Pack (Theresa) | 15.38 lbs | ||
I bought these GoLite shoes a few months ago, and wrote a very excited and optimistic post about them.
Today I have a different story to report. 🙁
I hiked a grand total of 3 hikes in them: a quick overnight to Kendall Katwalk, a day hike to Annapurna in the Enchantments, and the West Coast Trail.
Comfort and trail-use wise they performed really well. As I said in my first post – they are amazingly comfy and had excellent traction on a lot of terrain. However, durability wise, they were appalling. I'm amazed how badly they appear to be falling apart after a total of 7 days on trails.
Read on for more pictures of the damage.
On our recent WCT trip, Theresa and I had base pack weights of 9.10 lbs and 9.96 lbs respectively. Fully loaded with 6 days of food and water, we came to a max-weight of 17.5lb and 22.2 lbs respectively.
Our ultralight gear list changes from time-time and we try and keep it mostly up-to-date, so here for prosperity is a record of the exact gear we took on the WCT.
This was the first 6+ day trip I have done Ultralight and it involved a bunch of gear tweaks and adjustments to hit our target weight.
Read our full trip report here.
A Quick Stroll Around Green Lake.
B: "Wake up – Wake up! It's sunny! It's sunny!"
T: "Ugh… it's 5:45am – go back to sleep."
15 minutes later, and Theresa caved in. We were up and about camp for an early start, and the skies were indeed blue.
We ate a good breakfast, some nice hot coffee, packed up our bags for the last time and were on the trail by 7:30am. Last last 12 km – "a quick walk around green lake", right?
Swept to sea
It was 2:13 am and the tide rolled in fast and hard. The first set of long crashing waves breeched the lower walls of our tarp tent and rushed in – soaking our sleeping bags with the sea. We woke suddenly, but knew just what to do. We had rehearsed the emergency plan in our minds. We both quickly evacuate the tent, leaving our gear inside. We are lower on the beach than Bill & Tim – so must alert them too. Theresa's job is to roll the rocks off the pegs and free the lines, while I drag the entire tent and its contents to higher ground. There we will collect our wet gear and take the emergency scramble up the steep cliff to the bluff. We will assess the situation in the dark and decide if its safe to go back and retrieve the food.
Forecast: Rain
It started raining sometime during the night, and we woke up to a light but steady drizzle on the tents. So far, we had successfully avoided getting wet from above, but it looked like our luck was about to change for the worse.
Tim was quick to break out the umbrella and tried some advanced “tuck the handle down the back of the jacket” maneuvers. They didn’t work out so well.
A Lazy Morning
5am came fast, and we were
woken by the sound of footsteps trudging on the pebble beach. We watched from the safety of our cozy sleeping bags as many groups started to eat breakfast and break camp to get an early start on the trail ahead. The group of four that were ahead of us were shooting to be done in 4 days – and so were off to an early start. We didn't pass anyone else on the Day 1 and were first to get on the trail and last to arrive at Camper – we figured that all of the other groups must be heading South to Gordon river. Getting an early start to ensure they make the ferry crossing before dark.
We chose the lazy morning option – this was a vacation after all. We were the last to arrive at camp and close to the last to leave. Were we setting a trend for the remainder of the trip? Certainly we lived up the the last to arrive part, as you will discover…
Trip Date: September 1st, 2007
Our trip started early. We awoke at 5:45 am, took a quick shower and headed down to the bus depot at 700 Douglas St. to catch the 6:30am trail bus.
It seemed like a nice clear morning. We arrived at the bus and waited for others to load their packs to the driver at the back. Two girls were there discussing a “fuel issue” – they had forgot to bring fuel for their camp stove and were wondering if there were options on the way to the trail head. Fortunately, they had a stove that could run on gasoline so we were able to make a pit stop and get some on the way. They were hiking the shorter Juan de Fuca trail instead of the West Coast Trail. When we mentioned we were hiking the WCT they looked at us with great confusion – “then, how come our packs are so much bigger than yours?” … and so began a trend for the rest of the trip.
Q: What food do you pack for 6 days on the west coast trail?
A: Good food.
Read on for my full menu.