Whee new tent!

My new tent actually arrived several days ago, but I haven't had the time and energy to get it out and set it up until today.  I'm glad I had a long stretch of time, because I spent at least an hour just cutting, singeing, and knotting cords for guylines.  Oy.

Anyway, with that all done, I took it out into the yard to set it up.  The instructions are one page, typed.  No pictures.  I had to read carefully.  First I attached all the different length guylines to the correct spots, and then I worked on actually setting it up correctly.  However, it was fairly straightforward.  The geometry made it set up MUCH more nicely than my fairly similar Six Moon Designs Wild Oasis, since sold off to a lucky bidder on Ebay.

I must say, I'm pleased with the tent.  I weighed it after attaching all the guylines.  In the stuff sack, sans stakes, it weighs 13.5 oz.  Not too shabby!  It is extremely roomy inside.  There is a surprising amount of head room.  I should have guessed, since it wanted my hiking pole extended to 52" (which is pretty tall for an ultralight one man tent.)  While I had the pole extended, I painted a circle on it at the right spot.  My poles are unmarked so finding any specific length requires a measuring tape.  This way I'll always be able to find the right length.  Until the paint wears off.

The included seam sealer wants to be applied when it's over 60 degrees out.  It wasn't that warm today.  It will be later in the week, but I'll be at work.  I might come home from work for an hour just to seam seal, as it will be over 70 one day this week.  On the other hand, it's not supposed to rain this weekend, so I could go with an unseamsealed tent.  That pretty much guarantees rain, though..

I was texting DeLee while setting it up and having a look at it, so without further ado here are the pictures I took for her:

The view from inside looking out

My feet all the way down at one end.  Note the lots of room over them.

It takes TEN guy lines, which is a lot.  The guy lines sort of take the place of tent poles.

I'm sitting in one front corner, which my coat tossed down at the other end.  You can see the six inch gap all the way around the bottom.  That's mesh.  I'm sitting on the ground sheet, which is *inside* the tent.

With the extended beak down, for privacy or protection from driving rain.

Doggie is posed for size comparison.

A view showing how wide the door is.  Extended beak is rolled up.

And this view from the side sort of shows the bathtub floor of the groundsheet,  In theory I need to seam seal the ground sheet, but I can't find the seam!  I'll have to email Joe.

Crabbiness and sleeping nerdery

That was one good crab feast.

DeLee with her mad crab skillz

I don't know what he's talking about but he looks serious

The view from my seat

I may never eat again.  Good gravy.  There's not even that much *in* a crab!  I can't be this full!

Before the carnage, I happened across some interesting links to sleeping pad information.

First, a completely new to me sleeping pad - tapered and ultralight.
The Taperlite pad.  Standard size is 32" long, 18-14" wide (head end widest), 1.75-1.25" thick, and 5.5 oz.  You can customize the size, and you can add insulation.  Base price is $70.  I would definitely customize it a bit wider, and add some fill.  Probably would add a little length, too.

Then, instructions on how to cut down a Klymit Inertia pad to torso length, saving several ounces.  The video is of the XL model - $130, 78" long, 26" wide at the widest.  Thickness depends on where you measure.  The Inertia has lots of wacky cutouts, which saves you weight and lets your sleeping bag loft down into the holes.  Which is good I guess.  (My pad generally protects me from shelter floors so either me or my sleeping bag would get dirty through the holes, or I'd have to carry a ground sheet to use in shelters.)  This pad looks the easiest to modify.  If you cut near existing holes, you only have to seal about 2" worth on each side, and you can do it at home with an iron.  I don't have an Inertia to play with so I don't know if I'll ever get to try this.

And finally, a video on How to cut and reseal a Thermarest NeoAir.  I have one of these now, so I'm interested.  Mine is 6 feet long.  I am 5'4".  There is an overkill factor.  However, I am most interested in cutting down a large size NeoAir.  Mine, the regular, is 72"x20". The large is 77" by 25".   The regular runs to $150, the large is $170. I would love to get a large and chop about a foot off of it. ( I don't need the length but the extra 5" of width is very appealing to a side sleeper. ) It appears to be a little harder to reseal than the Inertia - you have to cut out some internal material, and you have to seal all the way across the pad - but again you can do it at home with little more than scissors and an iron.

It's hard to tell without the models in front of me, but the NeoAir still looks to be the warmest and cushiest of the three.

Gear shopping

I spent a quiet day at home today.  Last night I felt pretty tired so I went to sleep at 9.  The alarm woke me at 7 and I wasn't ready to get up.  To me this indicates a malfunction.

I was already scheduled to wait for the plumber/videographer to come look at the pipes, so I settled in with a mug of coffee.  No change.  After a while a thought gradually drifted into my brain.  Let's see.. multiple tick bites Saturday.  Rash showed up four days later.  Fever a week after that.  1+1+1= I should go talk to my doc about Lyme disease again.  And so I have an appointment for tomorrow.  I hope to be the proud new owner of a prophylactic dose of antibiotics by the afternoon.

In less irksome news, today started Shopping for Camping Gear season.  I put a multitool on my Xmas wishlist.  I'm pondering putting a tarp/bivy combo on my wishlist too, following this blog article:

http://www.briangreen.net/2011/07/tarp-bivy-combo-your-sub-1lb-shelter.html 

Brian's whole website is pretty cool.  I got a couple of ideas from it.  I've subscribed to the RSS feed to see what else he might write.

I'm also hankering for an alcohol stove that can simmer.  So far I don't know of any lightweight ones.  This heavy one can do it, though:

http://www.greatoutdoorsdepot.com/trangia-westwind-stove.html

Somebody has to have made one of these NOT out of brass, right?  Right?

My new emergency radio showed up today.  It's one of these:

American Red Cross Radio

I neglected to notice before purchasing that you can't charge it from the wall.  Your options are solar or crank.  That's fine, though.  90 seconds of cranking buys you 30 minutes of radio time.  Assuming the rechargeable batteries don't bite it.

Oh, and the pipes?  Looked like I was watching somebody's colonoscopy.  Understandable I suppose.  Drain pipes are not that dissimilar to a colon.  Although they aren't self-repairing, unfortunately.

Eastern vs Western Ultralight

I just watched Glen Van Peski's video on "What's in my pack?"

Glen is the founder of Gossamer Gear.  He knows his stuff.  He regularly goes on backpacking trips using the gear he made, and it clearly works for him.  He carries some stuff specific to his own needs (prevention or treatment of fever blisters due to sun exposure, padding to put around scar tissue on his feet) but even with that his base weight is 4.7 lb.  That includes his backpack, shelter, and sleeping bag.  It's impressive.

The thing is, as I watch the video it's obvious to me that his setup just would not work for me.  He keeps his sleep socks in his shoulder strap - I tried that and mine got soaked.  He has no dry clothing to change into. His shelter has no bug screening whatsoever, it's a small tarp.  He had no bug dope.  Basically, his gear would need to be supplemented to work in a wet, buggy environment.  Like, oh, say, the whole east coast.

It occurs to me that most of the serious ultralighters are westerners. And I think in part it's because they *don't* have to continuously protect every item from the elements, and they aren't besieged by mosquitoes and biting gnats at every turn.

I'm not saying that these guys aren't experts.  They definitely are.  I'm just saying I don't think their methods are as appropriate to my environment as I would like.  Which means that I'm never going to be super ultralight unless I start hiking elsewhere.

If you're super healthy and resilient, you can take a fair amount of abuse and be fine.  I'm neither super healthy nor particularly resilient, so I need things like dry clothes to wear in camp.  Glen carries a lightweight rain jacket, sleep socks, gloves, and a hat.  No backup shirt. No backup pants. He says that he normally doesn't even carry a down vest - he gets in his sleeping bag.  He carried a vest for the demonstration, mentioning that he would bring it if he were camping with people who liked to hang out at night.

Also I noticed that he didn't have every little thing in ziplocks.  I've learned the hard way to put all my stuff in ziplocks.  One big ziplock to put all your food in may keep the odor in, but it won't protect the individual food items once a little moisture gets in that bag.  He had no pack cover.  A pack cover, or pack liner (or both!) is essential to me.  I've been through rain storms with a pack cover, with my gear inside the backpack in drysacks, where my gear STILL got wet.  I've had whole weeks go by that way!  Combining days of soaking wet with no dry clothing to get into, and a minimalist sleeping setup (no insulation on the bottom, and only a torso pad for cushioning) is a recipe for hypothermia and misery for me.

So I think that Ultralight might be divided up into two categories.  One for wet camping, and one for dry.  With the possible exception of drought years, the Appalachian Trail will almost always fall into the wet category.  I'm pondering coming up with my own Wet Ultralight list.