New Gear Reviews

As it happens, on this trip I tried out several new (ish) items.  I hadn't thought about just how much of it was new until one of my fellow hikers brought it to my attention at the shelter.  I said "I hope this sleeping bag keeps me warm.  I haven't used it before."  And he said "That's new TOO?"  (His wife won't let him buy any new gear before he gets rid of some of what he has.  I advised he try out Ebay.)


New or previously unused on this trip:


Montbell Super Spiral U.L. Down Hugger sleeping bag #1
Z-packs Exo external frame backpack
a somewhat modified Platypus GravityWorks gravity filter
Evernew .75L Ti Pasta Pot
Enertia Trail Foods Three Cheese Mac
AntiGravityGear Katahdin Stove
Enertia Trail Foods Snack This Chocolate Love
Elemental Horizons Radiator Fleece Hat


That's quite a list, isn't it?


The sleeping bag was awesome.  Amazing.  Happy-making.  It isn't quite as stretchy as my previous Montbell Super Stretch U.L. Down Hugger #3.  They stopped making that model a while back, I hypothesize because it isn't warm once stretched.  The Super Spiral gets the job done.  It was stretchy enough to keep me happy and not let me wake up stiff in the morning.  My feet were still a little chilly, but that's the nature of the beast I suspect.  (The guy next to me put his shoes back on during the middle of the night, and put a handwarmer in each shoe.  It gave me food for thought.)  The neck-collar thingie worked really well.  I wore more clothes to bed than I really needed.  A couple of hours in I took off my down jacket and wrapped it around my feet, which helped a bit.  My torso didn't feel any cooler with the jacket off.  The sleeping bag is rated for fifteen degrees and in theory it got down to twenty nine, so it's no surprise that I was still quite warm and comfy.  Fifteen degrees is just about how much warmer I want to experience with bag compared to what it is supposedly rated for.


The backpack was almost right.  The load lifter straps don't appear to do anything.  If I had my pad in the holsters just right, the external frame didn't poke me in the butt - however, it wasn't just right all the time.  (I suspect that the person designing and testing the frame is guilty of not having a butt.)  I was using an eight section piece of Z-rest.  I don't know how it would work with a smaller pad, or an inflatable pad.  And I think the pack body itself could stand to be a wee bit larger.  With everything in it, (including two liters of water and two days of food) the whole pack weighed 23.8 lb.  I could not have fit in another day's food or any other gear.  It was maxed out.  Of course, that was with my huge fluffy warm bag.  I think it will be good for warmer weather hiking, but maybe not long distance hiking due to the space limitation.  Oh, and I thought the adjustable straps for the shoulder straps needed to be longer.  The shoulder straps themselves were just right.  I loved all the loops on the backpack.  The belt pouches I ordered with it were a great size, and firmly attached.  Despite the occasional butt-poking issue (resolved by fiddling with the sleeping pad) the pack carried quite well.  I expect to keep using it.


I've never carried the filter, but DeLee has carried one much like it on our joint trips.  It weighs a smidge more than my Steripen, hence I normally use the Steripen.  However, the Steripen sucks in cold weather.  The filter is fine as long as you don't let it freeze. (I stuck it in the bottom of my sleeping bag in a ziplock over night.)  Instead of carrying the "dirty" and "clean" bags, I used an old 2 liter Big Zip Platypus for the dirty bag, and an old 2 liter Platypus bag for my clean drinking water.  The standard kit comes with 4 liter bags, which is overkill for me.  I may switch to using a zipless bag for dirty water.  I think I can get away with using my cup to pour water into one, and it would save me a little weight over the zipper bag, which has a 2 oz handle.  However even with the zipper bag, the whole system is lightweight.  And it's faster and easier than using the Steripen (mostly because for the Steripen I need to strain the water for particulates prior to treating it with UV light.)  Definitely a win, even for solo hiking.


I *loved* the pasta pot.  It's just the right size for me.  I can heat enough water to make dinner (in dinner's ziplock bag) then use the rest for a hot drink for me. The pot is large mug sized so I can drink right out of it.  In theory I could also make pasta.


I ordered the Enertia Trail Foods stuff because it claimed to come in single servings.  And, in fact, it was a single serving.  Weird.  That's a first.  The mac and cheese was very good.  The Ham TVP was good.  I was less of a fan of the little onion bits or whatever that were packed in with the pasta, but they weren't dealbreakers.  I'm likely to order this again.  (FYI, I put it in my pasta pot's cozy to keep warm while it rehydrated.  I made mint tea with the extra water in the pasta pot while I waited.  Delightful.)  Given how good it was, I'm looking forward to trying some of their other meals.  I especially liked that it was cook-in-bag.  The bag wasn't so tall that I needed my long handled spoon (as one does for almost all the other manufacturers of cook-in-bag meals) and there were markings on the interior so I could tell when I had put in enough water.  Somebody with camping experience definitely had input.  Or they're just super considerate, yo.  I think it's worth putting up a direct link to their site:  http://trailfoods.com/  Thanks for making great stuff, guys!


The stove, like all alcohol stoves, was cranky about the cold weather.  For dinner I ended up adding alcohol to the starter ring after the stove went out.  After a restart it did its thing and boiled the water.  At breakfast time, I couldn't light the alcohol with a lighter - I had to use a match, and let the match heat the alcohol near it for a little while until it finally caught on fire.  I definitely need a winter alternative.  However, that is not the stove's fault.  It otherwise performed as expected.  And it was a pretty stable surface for the pot.  But at twice the weight of the Tin Man stove I can't think of a reason to use it regularly.  I might keep it on the shelf as a backup stove in case the flimsy Tin Man stove gets crushed.  (Flimsy sounds a little insulting but it's not meant to be.  It's made out of aluminum cans.  It will crush if stomped on.  However, it's a great stove.) 


The Chocolate Love was an "Enh" for me.  I'm not a huge dark chocolate person, but that wasn't the problem.  The various bits of fruit and nuts were just kind of tasteless.  I'd rather have Planter's Trail Mix.


And finally, the fleece hat.  I already had a fleece hat I love (my Rockdancer hat.)  But I wanted one in blaze orange for hunting season.  I actually have other blaze orange warm hats but they're not comfortable.  They're scratchy, or a little too tight so I get a headache.  This one was just right.  It's not *quite* as warm as the Rockdancer hat, which is double layered around the forehead.  But it's pretty nice, and I was fine with it.  I'll definitely be wearing it on future hunting season expeditions.


Sadly, I didn't take pictures of gear on this trip, so if you want to know what things look like you'll have to go to the commercial links.  What was I thinking?!