Category: Adventure gear and techniques

I’ve been getting e-mails from my buddy, Pinball, on the Continental Divide Trail.   He’s sitting around on cold frosty mornings darning his socks.  He should have bought Fox River Off Road or Fox River Endeavor socks.

I bought a pair of each in early June of 2008 and they are still going strong.    Besides my neoprene socks, these are the only two pairs of socks I have worn in 16 months.  I have hiked over 3000 miles in them and a lot of those miles were wearing them with sandals.

For the average person, I would guess two pair  would last their entire life.

My new pack, the Osprey Atmos 35.  I have only hiked 480 miles with it but here is what I think of it to date:

The tag says it weighs 2lbs 9oz and that it holds 2100 ci.

It holds all my gear and food beautifully and makes a nice neat little package.   It will also carry my bear canister.

I like the big stretchy pocket on the front.  That is were I stuff my tent.  If it is wet it keeps it away from my other stuff and it makes it accessible without opening my pack.

I like the big hip belt pockets for carrying snacks, headlamp, cellphone, water treatment, etc.

It is a sturdy well made pack.   I’m not easy on gear and it is holding up well.

I like the way my pad straps on to it.  It’s not hitting me in the butt or hitting me in neck.

It’s white inside so it’s easy to see your stuff.

One cool thing about this pack is it has these, “stow and go” trekking poles straps.  So you can stow or get to your trekking poles without removing your pack.   I don’t carry a trekking pole because I like my hands free most of the time,  but with this feature, I’m considering starting to again because I could just bring it out when I need it and put it back when I don’t without stopping.

You can put stuff in the mesh back but you have to  accesses it from inside the pack… I would have liked it better if you could access it from the outside.

The bottom, where the pack holds the frame is showing a little wear, I think they should have reinforced it with rubber or Kevlar.

I like it being a panel loader because it’s easier to access my stuff,  but it could be better if they had made the zipper go further back and over the top and done away with the top zipping pocket.

I put a couple of  shoulder strap pockets on it that I got from simblissity.net One holds a 20 oz bottle of water and the other my GPS.   I would like to see this pack come with shoulder pockets or bungees.

Osprey gives it a life time warranty.  They say they don’t care if you bought your pack in 1974, they will do a quality repair job for free.

So far, I really like this pack.

I’ve been using an odor proof sack to line my food-bag,  since 2003.    They are supposed to be odor proof so the animals can’t smell your food.

I sleep with my food so it is a comfort to me to believe that the bears can’t smell my food bag;  I don’t really believe it but it is a comfort never the less.

Anyway it’s good to know that if anything gooey breaks open in my food bag that it is contained and won’t leak all over my gear.   I buy the 12X20 size.

The closure breaks right away but I just roll the bag under and call it good.   The rest of the bag will last for an entire thur-hike.

I carry drink mixes on the trail.     I think they help, but it might just be my belief that they help that makes them help.  I don’t care.  As long as they keep me drinking fluids and I keep hiking.    These are my favorites:

• Energy Wild Strawberry – Crystal Light On the Go Packed with flavor and performance enhancing  caffeine

and B vitamins   I’ve discovered this in 2007 and have been packing it ever since.    I don’t carry a stove any more so this is what I drink in the morning instead of coffee or tea.    Cheapest place to get it is at Walmart; it’s 2 dollars a box there.

Emergen-C lite with MSM.    I have been packing this since 2001.  Cheapest place to buy it, is at Lucky vitamins.

• Cal-Mag Fizz I read somewhere that taking calcium will reduce your chances of getting a stress fracture,  so I started taking this.   I like the way it tastes and it rejuvenates me like no other drink mix I have tried.

Cheapest place to buy it is at iHerb.com. Buy 4 and the shipping is free. Lemon-lime is the best tasting.

I usually bring half of a washcloth hiking because it’s hard to scrub off dirt without a rough cloth, but I usually lose it along the way.

This last trip I had the epiphany to use my mosquito head net for this purpose.

It scrubs better then a wash cloth and dries faster.

Another way I used it, was when encountering a shower with no soap, I pumped some soap out of the dispenser at the sink into my Summer Buff(like a bandanna), put it my head net, popped in the shower, and scrubbed away.

My new sleeping bag comes tomorrow! It’s a Marmot Helium same as my old one, only this one has a full zip.

I have used my old one almost every day for the last 5 years.

My old one has about 20 patches on it and they don’t stick very well; I had to sew the duct tape on just to wash the bag. It was time to get another one.

My pad of choice is a
full length Z-Rest. I have been carrying one since 2003.

I carry a full length because a single-walled sil-nylon tent can be a wet place to be and my full length pad is an island to sleep on; too many mornings I woke up with my feet in a puddle of water to go with anything less than full length.

I rarely put up my tent; with a full length pad I just whip it out, pull out my bag and I’m ready for bed. No ground cloth required.

I unfold my pad at every break to lounge on. When the ground is wet it’s nice to have something dry to lay on that won’t absorb water.

The Z-Rest stays comfy for a whole thru-hike; I usually replace my pad every 3000 miles or so.

A Z-Rest can be cut up and used for splinting material.

They are now called Z-lites and the manufacture is saying it weighs 14oz.(396 grams) Mine weighs 15oz.

Other pads I have used:

The Mt. Washington– 8oz for a 60inch pad–went flat fast; it wasn’t full length; the little air holes in it held water

Ultra light ThermaRest 3/4 -16oz–not convenient for breaks; needs to be protected from the ground; wasn’t full length; required carrying a ground sheet for camping without a tent.

I’ve been caring a Western Mountaineering Hot Sac vapor barrier liner, instead of a space blanket, since 2003.

It’s like having an electric blanket in your pack. Just crawl inside and it offers up instant warmth. Stay too long and you will wake up in a pool of sweat but you will be warm.

At first I also used it as a pack liner but that’s hard on the reflective coating.

It weighs 4.5 ounces; worth it to know that no mater how cold and wet my world gets, I’m going to be sleeping warm.

A zipper would be nice so that a person could control the temperature. That would also make it useful as a sun tarp.

Western Mountaineering says it’s a proprietary fabric; too bad because it would be nice to make my own.

I always line my backpack with a plastic bag, even if it doesn’t look like it will rain, because I might slip into the water at a water crossing and a backpack liner can make the difference between my pack floating or it become dead weight in the water.

White or clear are best; a black plastic garbage bag makes it hard to see the contents.

I usually use a pack liner from Gossamer gear. They weigh 1.2 ounces. One will last a whole thru-hike but sometimes I have to add some duct tape patches to it.

I never use a stuff sack for my sleeping bag, I just stuff it into the pack liner. It’s faster, doesn’t compress it so tightly, and I can fill up every inch of the bottom of my backpack.

I put a piece of clear packaging tape over my headlamp lens to protect it from getting scratched.

I also do the same for my GPS screen and the screen on my phone.

Eventually the tape gets scratched up, then I replace it with a new piece of tape.

I bought two new pairs of Fox River socks in Wrightwood about 1900 miles ago and even though I hardly ever wash the dirt out of them and I wear them with sandals, they are showing no wear….. Those are some good socks.  I think one pair is the WICK DRY® OFF ROAD QTR and the other is the WICK DRY® ENDEAVOR QTR.

I would buy these socks again.

This is my newest supplement for the trail— ProLab Caffeine

It seems a little sleazy to take caffeine in pill form instead of getting it from coffee and colas, but I don’t know why it does. I pay extra for energy bars that have caffeine. Often when I buy a coke it’s the caffeine I’m after. I got to thinking why not just buy a bottle of caffeine. It’s cheap —5.00 dollars for 100 pills of performance enhancing goodness.