Backpacking Gear Narratives

Your Troop goes backpacking doesn't it? Backpacking is a definitive Scouting activity that requires stamina, skill, preparation yielding adventure and a great sense of accomplishment.

What backpackers carry and why is a subject of endless fascination and study. Here's a couple of narratives from two Scouters as to what they choose to carry.

Walter Underwood describes what he packed and why for a recent trip and using a tarp shelter in the Sierra mountains of California. 

 

My more conservative pitch, I call this “the cave”. I learned the pitch from this You Tube video about pitching an 8x10 Etowah tarp. I don’t pitch it exactly like the video — I use a front guy-line and throw a clove hitch around the top of my trekking pole. Still, it is easy for a single person to set up. If you look carefully in the photo, you can see that I’ve used my other trekking pole to pull the center tie-out up and make more room. A lot more room, it turns out. My tarp is an Integral Designs Siltarp 2, an 8x10 tarp. In bad weather, a 10x10 tarp would provide a more coverage. Or you could pitch a poncho over the open end. At Bonnie Lake, I was more worried about dew (34º) and wind (the stiff breeze all night).

My pack is a Starlite from Six Moon Designs. It was completely stuffed at the beginning and not especially comfortable over 35 pounds (its advertised upper limit), but was just fine from the 3rd day on. My good ol’ Lowe Expedition carries weight better, but it weighs 6 pounds and carries almost twice as much (95l instead of 55l in the main bag). Not really worth it.

Scoutmaster Jerry, from Oregon,  discusses the contents of his backpack in this blog post and in two of his podcasts.

Most Backpackers are always tweaking their gear, replacing old stuff with new, looking for lighter, tougher, more useful (multi-use) and of course just plain cool gear.

Recently I upgraded some gear, namely my backpack.

After years of carrying my Kelty External Frame Tioga 5500 I have switched to an internal frame pack.  Now, before anyone says I jumped ship on my philosophy of External frame packs being better for younger bodies or beginning Backpackers.. Stop.  I still believe that.  External frame packs offer a much easier platform for the beginner and the young Scout to load and carry.

I have been looking for about a year now and finally fell in love with a pack I could not live without.

Loading it and walking around with it, doing the homework to see what its capabilities are and what I won’t be able to do with it.  Looking at all my gear and how I use it and what I use it for.

Comments

[Walter Underwood]

Thanks for the link, though I guess I wasn't clear about which photo is which. The photo of the light blue tarp is the "creative" tarp pitch. The "cave" is the photo below that with the single pole in front.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47528366@N00/3836239226

[JimmyTH]

I personally would like to see lighter tents rather than shift to tarp camping. I've spent some wild nights in tents that didn't blow away because I was in them, holding them down. I can't imagine going through that with a tarp tent without getting into problems, unless you do have time to build a crude debris shelter and dig some trenches. The tent I like the best is under three pounds and if the weather's good I throw back the rainfly -- the inner walls are mosquito netting. If I could get that same level of shelter and cut a pound, I'd do it. So far, I haven't seen that sort of thing available.

[Richard Davidian]

Given certain conditions, if tarps are pitched correctly, they can be adequate for a good night's sleep. But, you have to choose your climate, your season and your immediate weather forecast. Saving a few pounds does not compensate for trying to sleep in a bag soaked by a driving rain.

In general lighter is better, but it is not always as simple as trading a tent for a tarp to save a couple of pounds.

[Julie Trevelyan]

Tarp camping is very doable in all seasons--you just need practice. I worked at wilderness therapy programs for at-risk teens for years, and both they and the staff were required to use only tarps for shelter. If everyone did it correctly, no problems! (If you didn't--well, you learned pretty fast how to do it better the next night, lol.)

I have used tarps in winter storms, rain storms, dust storms, you name it, and they've kept both me and my gear dry and warm. Having a ground tarp as well as your shelter tarp is key, of course. Your ground tarp can be used to wrap up your sleeping bag and you "burrito" style if the weather is really inclement, and that method also seems to add a bit more warmth. Also, your "tent" tarp can be low to the ground, almost like crawling into a cave, to keep out sideways-blowing rain or snow. (Not too low, of course; as with a tent, you still don't want the tarp to touch your gear or morning dew/precip will probably get your stuff wet.)

If you stake your tarp's guylines down really well, preferably with large rocks (nice to find a campsite with those), it won't blow away. Your tarp also won't become too loose if you set up the lines tautly enough the first time, and use knots that can easily be re-tightened, such as a trucker's hitch (a knot everyone who hikes should learn).

Nice post, great pic links. Thanks!

[Walter Underwood]

I agree, tarp camping is a high skill style. I am in awe of Colin Ibbotson, who camps with a tarp in the winter in Scotland.

One of the (many) techniques of tarp camping is picking sheltered locations. Also, if you read my original post, summer is the dry season in the Sierras. Except for a rare thunderstorm, you won't see rain for months.

My rainy season tent (thanks to Christmas), is a Mountain Laurel Designs Speedmid. On my first trip with it, my tent buddy and I sat out an hour-long storm with hail in the afternoon, then four hours of heavy rain overnight. It didn't even flap in the wind. I've spent plenty of nights worried about my tent, but this wasn't one of them.

The Speedmid is 1.5 pounds with stakes. The tent pole is a trekking pole. We used my "heavy" groundcloth, 12 oz. of Tyvek. On a long trip, I'd recommend a couple of 2 oz.polycryo sheets from Gossamer Gear.

That's two pounds for a solid two person shelter, and it costs the same as a five and a half pound REI Half Dome -- $170.