Brett on Stuff

Just when I thought I had the lightest stove possible… something comes along to shave ounces!

Roman from Lighthiker’s blog has an excellent review of this new stove.

It’s basically a recycled beer-can as the pot – with a Lance Armstrong style silicone wrist-band on top as a ‘pot’ holder.

The weight of the pot, cone and the stove come in at a staggering 2.7 oz.

However, the full package weighs in at 6.9 oz, which isn’t that great. If you look at the details – the wrist-band adds an ounce, a half-ounce for the lid and cozy and over 3oz for the ‘carry-case’.

I was sold until the 3 oz carry-case came into the picture. While this does double as a 2nd bowl – it’s way to heavy compared to my 0.6 oz disposable tupperware container. 2.4 oz for cone-crush insurance isn’t worth it in my book.

I got to use my new Caldera Cone Stove on a few trips this summer. It has been my first time relying on an alcohol stove in the wild.

Here are my thoughts so far:

Cons:

• It’s somewhat fragile and needs to be well looked after. The cone section is very thin and dents easily. The best option I came up with is to wedge it in my sleeping pad for protection.
• The flame is very hard to see in daylight.
• The stove lights best if you put a few ml of fuel in the outside primer ring and light that first. Feel like it wastes fuel, but maybe I need to get better at using less.

Pros:

• Ultralight – duh.
• Can take only as much fuel as I need, further reducing weight. This helps in my mind compensate for liquid weights vs. compressed gas weights.
• Bomber windproof!
• Easy to conserve fuel by using less to make hot drinks etc – no need to bring the water to boiling point.
• The biggest unexpected pro for me is that, it’s a “set it and forget it” stove. With my canister stove – I used to have to wait for the water to boil and then shut it off. With this, I can measure the exact amount of fuel I need to get a boil. I light it and walk-away, when the water is boiled the fuel burns out and it turns off. I can come back later and simply pour the water into my dehydrated meal and I’m off. Nice way to multi-task at dinner time.

So far – the pros far exceed the cons, and I’m really happy with it.

I was in Pro Mountain Sports this evening with Tim picking up a few things. One thing that caught my eye was some crazy small and light tent pegs.

The Terra Nova Titanium 2G Skewers. 2G as they weigh only 2 grams each. I weighed the pegs that came with my cloudburst. There are four of them, and together they weigh 1.6oz. Four of these guys are only 0.3 oz.

Seems like a possibly interesting trade in the future. Worthy of a field test one weekend perhaps. I suspect the holding power is a lot less, but reinforced with a nearby rock they might be just fine.

Pack of 6 is $20. I’ve only seen them on UK based web sites so far.

Tim also picked up a LiteMax stove, which he’s planning on bringing on our trip. Should be a good field test.

I called the ranger station to check on conditions for the Pasayten Wilderness area we are hiking in this weekend. Among other things I asked if the bugs were a nuisance this time of year. She chuckled and said "Reports are coming in that Mosquitos are being assigned to individual hikers by the cloud full."

That doesn’t sound pleasant. So what defenses am I taking?

1. First line of defense will be clothing repellant. It’s going to be hot and my thin t-shirts are no defense for mozzies. I’m going to treat my shorts and T-shirts with Sawyer Spray on Repellant.
2. My second line of defense is for my exposed skin. I’d rather stay away from DEET unless I really need it. I’m going to need to wear sunscreen on my exposed skin anyway - so why not combine it with a light repellant. Avon Bug Guard is SPF 30 and claims to keep the bugs away. It has rave reviews on epinions, so we shall see how true they are… I’ll take a repackaged 2 oz container.
3. My third line of defense is for when the clouds swarm and the other defenses fail. Out comes the Ultrathon 34% DEET. Again, 2 oz should be plenty.
4. And finally… when when I’m in camp and wanting to cook without being bugged… an ultralight mosquito net at 0.3 oz.

Old wives tales have it that some people are more attractive to Mosquitoes than others. Bill claims to be one of those people, which makes the rest of us happy

Go Bill - taking one for the team.

No, it’s not for bagging bears. It’s for bagging up your food to keep out of reach of bears. Or raccoons, chipmunks, other hungry hikers etc.

I’ve refined this over the years taking feedback from other hikers and what I glean off forums etc. 

The kit comprises of a few key items:

• 50′ of Gossamer Gear Spectra Line
• A small section of chop stick, a twig will do fine  (but you’ll see why I prefer this later)
• A teenie tiny carabineer
• A rock-sack - for stowing and quick stone throwing.

Total weight for everything 1.3 oz.

The gossamer gear spectra line is flat vs round. This makes it safer when hanging heavy food bags in trees as it glides over limbs without ’sawing’ into them

The kit makes it easy to perform the "PCT Method" of hanging food bags. Follow the link for detailed instructions on how to use this method.

Tip: The article shows how you use a twig or stick in the field to tie a clove hitch around. I find with heavy bags it’s hard to undo the hitch in the morning. One option is to break the stick - another is to bring a small section of chopstick. It’s strong enough to hold the load and tapered so that it slides off easily in the morning.

OK.. so we established that my dentist Bob likes a Pillow…

So what are the options for other hikers with a pillow fetish?

Bob mentions the Montbell UL Comfort System Pillow, which at 2.3 oz might be a pretty good nights sleep.

But can Bob (remember this is the same guy that saws off the extra length on the Titanium bolts on his race-car) do better? Sure he can…

The FlexAir Ultralight pillow. Totally waterproof and at 0.56 oz gives Bob a whopping 1.74 oz refund. Not to mention the $20 of so in savings, as these puppies run $6.29 for a 3-pack.

I actually did try the FlexAir on our Rampart Lake hike - it faired pretty well, although needed to be slightly deflated for the most comfort.

These days I’m back to the old stuff-sack of spare clothes approach and pretty happy with it. Give me a few Tylenol PMs and a flimsy torso pad and I’m a happy camper.

Wait! Doesn’t Tylenol cause tooth decay? Oh no - that’s Methadone, never mind…

It looks like Snow Peak officially shipped the new LiteMax stove. It’s a wicked little stove at 1.8 oz. If I hadn’t already converted to an alcohol stove, I would be first in line to snap this guy up.

$55 from REI.

I finally caved and bought a Garmin Forerunner 405 (more on that later). Its form factor is nice and small, but it only carries a day worth of GPS power. On a long trip, I would need a way to recharge it in the field.

Enter the Minty Boost. The Internet is fortunately fully of smart EEE majors who have a fetish for building stuff in Altoids tins. The Minty Boost is one of such creations. It allows a USB device to be charged from a couple of AA batteries.

The DIY kit is available from Adafruit for $19.50.

I might just get one, and whip out the old soldering iron and see what I can assemble in a half hour.

I’ll post my results of how well it charges the Forerunner once I know more

I don’t normally bother with a GPS. It doesn’t quite fit my ultralight principles. The extra few ounces that I could live without - as I would not leave map and compass at home.

However, Backpacker Magazine is looking for volunteers to help gather some mapping data and write-up trail guides/accounts. I agreed to do this for the our Wonderland Trail hike in July. To do so, I need to bring a GPS to track coordinates and record way points.

So what do I buy? Here’s my criteria:

- As light as possible.

- Can log up-to 10 days or 100 miles of data.

- Has enough battery life for 10 days.

- Altimeter

I don’t care about maps and fancy color screens. Lithium Ion rechargeable models are obviously out due to lack of recharge ability.

After a bit of digging around, it looks like the Garmin Geko 301 is coming up trumps.

It weighs just 3.1 oz with batteries - and has a run-time of 12 hrs on two AAA’s. We will be planning a few resupply points - so shipping in some extra batteries should be no worries. Retails for $246.

If anyone has a better idea, I’d love to hear it…

Have a bottle of water, or a full Platypus? Add this little gizmo - and presto - instant tripod.

For a whopping ten bucks from here, it’s a bit like day light robbery - but I’m sure the boys over at BPL have own MYOG version for less.

Weight? I have no idea… I can’t justify the $10 plus shipping to find out, but it looks pretty light and seemed worth a mention.

We’re starting to think about our Wonderland Trip in July. Nigel (Our ultralight newbie) has been looking into footwear. He settled on the Golite Storm Dragons.

The seem to be a beefed up version of the Sun Dragon - with the nice feature of having a built-in gaiter system. Nigel picked these, as we will likely have a lot of snow ridges to cross and the gaiters will make it a little more pleasant.

I paired my Sun Dragons with an add-on set of gaiters which worked very well in sand.

I’ll be curious to see how these work out for Nigel.

If you subscribe to Ray Jardines ultralight philosophy - you don’t really need these. You should just plough ahead and do stream crossings in your hiking/tennis shoes - get them soaked - and let them dry out over the next few hours.

However, If I know the trail will be mostly dry, except for a few stream crossings - I would rather take a little bit of a hit - and get across the water with dry feet. I’ve tried sandals, neoprene socks etc - and while not the most stylish option (be prepared to be laughed at), these nylon mesh shoes are a great balance between some sole-protection and minimal weight penalty.

Ignore the sizes. I wear a men’s 10 and I can JUST fit into the large size - no way I could get into the medium.

Theresa has the small at 1.5 oz.

I have the large at 2.1 oz.

Available here at Sprint Aquatics, for a whopping $4.95.

For better or worse, my DNA is full of engineer genes. This means, I’m constantly coming up with more crazy or fun ideas for new stuff than I could ever execute on. I love the MYOG (Make Your Own Gear) movement, but just don’t have time to spend on it.

Here’s my latest brain-fart:

I’ve been keeping my eye open for a while now for a true Ultralight Tripod. Would it really be possible to have a sub-pound tripod that could accompany a digital SLR in the field without feeling like I’ve regressed to the old way?

So far… nothing. Carbon fibre is the most promising, but they are still 2lb+ tripods. Generally the photo community says that anything lighter weight is too flimsy or unstable.

So what if one added some weight in the field to pull the center of gravity down and anchor the tri-pod in place?

Here’s the idea: a tripod with a threaded pipe connector at the base. You whip out your flimsy tripod, whip out a platypus - fill it with 4lbs of water (or sand) and screw it to the bottom. Voila. Now all I need to do is find a light flimsy tripod.

Target weight: 10 oz, available sometime in the future.

Our Wonderland Trail hike will probably involve a reasonable amount of snow travel given how early in the season it is and the current record snow levels.

I’m noodling on options for extra traction control. YakTrax makes a product that at approx 5 oz straps onto the base of a trail shoe for extra traction.

I’m thinking it might not be compatible with the big lug soles of my Golite Sundragons.

I’m also thinking it might be overkill to justify an extra 5 oz and poles and caution will be enough to get by with.

Interesting product though.

I discovered “Mini Tissue” the other day on a fellow backpackers blog and ordered a pack.

These things are kind of cool. We normally take a few wet-ones with us on a trip to augment our TP supply. The moisture in the wet-ones add a weight penalty that means we don’t take too many. One reader suggested drying them out prior to the trip and re-hydrating on the trail. Neat idea – but I’m too lazy.

Enter the “Mini Tissue”, these tiny compressed tissues expand when you add water into a very strong ‘shop-towel’ kind of material.

They weight about 10 tissues for 1.0 oz.

Here’s a video of me re-hydrating one in our kitchen sink.

The West Coast Trail is notorious for it’s wetness. One investment we made prior to the trip last year was a couple of dry bags. These don’t show up on my gear-list as I wouldn’t normally feel that they are necessary, but they sure gave great peace of mind. They delivered bone-dry down night after night – even after a few mud-pit submersions

At 0.9 oz for the Small (4L) – I ended up taking two. One to cram in my down sleeping bag and one to protect my spare clothes. Theresa needed to take the Medium (8L) at 2.3 oz to fit her bulkier bag.

Available from backcountrygear.com starting at $11.95 for the small.

I’ve been considering the plunge into alcohol stoves for a few years now. My brother made me a pepsi can stove a few years back. I haven’t quite struck up the courage to rely on it yet.

Several people have recently mentioned to me how impressed they are with the Caldera Cone ™ System.

OK.. I’ll bite, so what would it take to make me switch?

First lets review my current gear list. My current cooking system comprises of 3 components:

	Snow Peak Giga Power Stove 3.7 oz
	Snow Peak Giga Power Windscreen 2.0 oz
	Snow Peak Giga Power Fuel Canister (110g) 7.0 oz
	12.7 oz Total

The windshield is the biggest offender, and I often tell myself to leave it home, but I rarely do.

As I already have a BPL 550 pot, they make a cone custom to for this pot - which seems like the way to go.

The cone & stove weigh just 1.7 oz. Given that the cone is a natural windshield this saves me a whopping 4 oz! I suspect I could get more mileage on a 7 oz bottle of alcohol than I could in the 7 oz fuel canister.

For just $30, this might be an experiment I’m willing to tinker with.

Oh yes… the gratuitous upgrade I made prior to the West Coast Trail trip last year.

I traded in our Black Diamond LED Headlamps for these little suckers.

Total weight savings? The old headlamps weight an outrageous 1.1 oz, and these are only 0.2 oz. A whopping 0.9oz gain!

OK… I agree I’m getting into diminishing returns on my gear list and would be better served eliminating the Tarptent for a sheet of Tyvek.

So why the upgrade? Aside from just being a gear-head, there were are few other justifications:

1. Not just a simple on|off flash light - this thing is tricked out! It has a brightness control and you can dim it very low to conserve power. It has various ‘blinking’ modes - like an emergency SOS signal. All of this configuration with just a single button.

2. It runs for 120 hrs on a single battery.

3. The spare batteries are lighter.

4. With a little tab of Velcro on the back, it attaches easily to the rim on a hat to make a decent hands-free head-lamp mode.

5. It’s bomb-proof and waterproof.

Finally… if you think about getting this - a word of caution. The light ships in a ’safety’ mode to prevent accidental battery drain. If you turn it on, it auto-shuts off after 5 seconds. To get it out of this mode you have to hold the button down for a whopping 20 seconds. I learned this the hard way on the WCT. Three engineers around a campfire failed to figure this out in four nights on the trail. You wouldn’t think that a single button can have so many permutations! Moral of the story: RTFM.

Available from PhotonLight.com for $19.95.

Certainly not ultralight. Ultra-stylish maybe?

I thought this post on Engadget was quite amusing.

I guess it’s handy for making sure your lipstick doesn’t get smudged on the trail maybe?

If you backpack in groups of 4 or more, it’s sometimes fun to play a game of cards at night in camp. Hearts? Spades? The options are endless…

These cards are tiny and weigh in at 0.53oz.

So go on and splurge on your next trip and treat yourself to that extra half ounce!

You can get a 3-pack from the Backpacking Light Store for $2.99.

Theresa keeps a pack in her purse also. We’ve occasionally pulled them out on the Washington State Ferries to alleviate the boredom on rainy days. �