Gear Shakedown Trip :)

[WapitiTalk1]

Will leave tomorrow morning for two days to hike into a WA wilderness area, set up camp, and see how my new gear works. I picked up a new pack, tent, bag, pad, stove, and filter. I decided after last season's base camp hunt that 2012 and beyond would be more backcountry hunts (sleeping with the elk) so I needed to pick up some new gear. It's all pretty decent stuff but not the uber top of the line gear. A few friends helped me select quality gear on my budget (Slim9300, Dotman, to name a few) . Slim really made some solid recommendations. And, I bought Dotman's slightly used Eberlestock BW Will give a short report in a few days and hopefully, have some wapiti pictures to share RJ

[dotman]

Have a great time and let me know how everything works

[Freebird134]

Will leave tomorrow morning for two days to hike into a WA wilderness area, set up camp, and see how my new gear works. I picked up a new pack, tent, bag, pad, stove, and filter.

Wow! You got a lot of new toys!!!!!

[foxvalley]

Good luck with all your new gear Phantom16.............Guess I'll just sit here in WI and look at my maps again......... You lucky dog!

[Freebird134]

Guess I'll just sit here in WI and look at my maps again

Ha! SOunds like me down here in Madison

[foxvalley]

Hey freebird, I'm just 30 min.west of oshkosh.
Love to be in the mtns. scouting now!

[Jahnke76]

Guess I'll just sit here in WI and look at my maps again

Ha! SOunds like me down here in Madison

Now thats funny Im sitting here in middleton thinking the same thing!

[HurricaneHuge]

Arena, WI over here. I feel like this is our own group therapy session over here.

[WapitiTalk1]

Well, I was denied my Thursday wilderness hike/overnight camp (planned gear shaking out trip). Still too much snow.. Couldn't even get to the trailhead I ended up camping at a lake, trying out the new tent, air mattress, bag, bag liner, pillow, and jetboil zip. I actually did a lap around the lake with Blue Widow on my back (with only 40 pounds or so) but it felt good. Here's a few comments on the gear I was using.

Tent: BA Lynx Pass 2. Can't complain, seems fine although it collected quite a bit of condensation overnight but I think that is to be expected. It has ventilation openings on it (X4) but again, not sure condensation is avoidable when you use the fly. It's easy to set up once you've done it a few times. As I said, I couldn't hike in so I got to play with the gear a bit. I didn't stake it down as there was minimal wind but I feel it'll be pretty rock solid if staked down and will be able to handle quite a bit of wind.

Bag: Marmot Trestles 15 Long. I like it. Started off with the bag liner in (way too warm) so I took it out and used it as a pillow case. I was down to my boxers very soon.. This bag is plenty warm (it only got down in the low 40s though). Very roomy in the long/wide version.

Bag Liner: Cocoon Cool Max Mummy Liner. See above I'm sure this lighweight bag liner will have it place down the road (keep my stinky body from permiating my bag with my week old funk, and, adding a few degrees of warmth).

Pillow: Exped Air Pillow. Works fine as far as head/neck comfort but slides all over the place. Will have to come up with some kind of pillow case. I also like to sleep on my side so I built it up with the bag line and a RO midlayer top. Will have to ponder this one.

Pad: Thermarest Prrolite Plus-Large. Excellent! I laid it on the ground and it pretty much inflated itself over the course of 10 minutes or so. I had to blow it up just a bit to finalize it before I threw it in the tent. Doesn't slide around much at all with the somewhat rubbery bottom. Very comfortable.

Stove: Jetboil Zip. Very good. Boiled the water for evening meal and breakfast meal/coffee in no time.

Took a few pics to share (below). I normally hunt the dark timber you see at the bottom of the snow covered volcano..

I saw two elk down lower, 4 or 5 BTs, a few blue grouse, a coyote, and several Subarus laden with "earthy" 4th of July campers In fact, a male and female pair of them stopped to take a swim (bath??) in the lake I was camping at while I was wetting a line.. They were nice folks and I talked to them for about ten minutes. All in all, it was a nice couple of days. RJ Oh, thought I'd be bored in my tent that night with nothing to do but remembered I had a book in my pack to re-read..

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[foxvalley]

Thanks Phantom, Cool trip, cool gear.

[dotman]

See if you had a shelter that a bear could easily pull you out of without destroying the shelter you would have no condensation problems Sounds like a good trip even though you didn't get as far as you wanted. When you heading out to scout ID?

[Freebird134]

Interesting about the pillow. I've never packed one. I have a stuff sack that is lined with a soft material on the inside--you invert it and put a jacket in it to sleep on. But it's not great. I'll have to look at this one you have. I was also thinking about one of these cheap, light hospital pillows (http://elkprep.blogspot.com/2012/03/pillows.html). I usually sleep with 2 pillows at home--I like my head up. So I'm always trying to find something that will work for backpacking.

[foxvalley]

Condensation always seems to be a problem for me,especially in a small tent. I wonder if a guy had a big bag of that "silica gel" thats always packed in new stuff, ie. electronics etc. if that would suck up the moisture.

[Freebird134]

Condensation always seems to be a problem for me,especially in a small tent. I wonder if a guy had a big bag of that "silica gel" thats always packed in new stuff, ie. electronics etc. if that would suck up the moisture.

I think you'd have to pack an insane amount of silica. And, assuming it worked, now you are packing out the water vapor weight (I have no idea how much that would really be). I've never found condensation to be that big of a problem--big enough to get creative with solutions. The trick is ventilation. Even in small single walled tents, if you have appropriate air flow you will stay dry in my experience.