If you have a better offer..

On Friday, the bloke organising the Rab mini mountain marathon uttered those glorious words. They had enough teachers to cover the students who had signed up, so the game is on!
I did a test packing over the weekend. The Jam was the only pack big enough to carry the volume of gear but the real shocker was the weight- it's been a year since I carried a winter pack and during that time I've savaged the weight I'm carrying. Including food, fuel and water the pack weighed 8kg-Ouch! Since last year I've added a neoair which is about 200g more than the GG nightlight and a down hood which weighs 60g. I do want to carry those though. If I don't take the Laser competition I can lose 500g even taking into account my trekking poles which I would probably carry a lot of the time. The choice comes down to the Gatewood cape with polycro groundsheet and no inner or the cuben tarp.

zpacks gear

I've been waiting to order this stuff ever since Joe went hiking. I actually emailed him with an order while he was on the trail which was extremely cheeky but I never realised his work email was his personal email too. Nice chap that he is, he emailed me back from the trail almost immediately. This meant I was pretty much his first order when he got back heheheh. The problem is that my murmur is just too big. I always pack my sleeping bag first and the weight of my gear compresses it. The pack actually carries quite well like that but it's really hard to cinch the top closed. Most of my trips are single nighters and it's overkill for that. What I wanted was a pack about half the size and the smallest zpack zero pack fitted the bill exactly. It's 16l with no added pockets, hence the name 'zero'. I agonised for a long time over whether to go for that or a bigger pack. I packed my gear into a whole bunch of different packs and what I discovered was that no two 16 litres are the same. The next size was 20l against the murmur's 28l in the main pack body. Stil I reckoned it would just about go. I added two bottle pockets and a front pocket, and thought that would definitely go, then I added a few other bits and pieces that I needed or just fancied. The pack arrived christmas eve, about a week and a half after I ordered it.

The pack is beautifully made, everything is designed to shed weight. Instead of webbing connected to the shoulder straps, it has cord with those cord lock thingys on them. The sternum strap is connected by a couple of cord loops, the compression straps are also the elastication for the front pocket. It swallowed my kit easily, I didn't even have to touch the front pocket which is huge and runs from top to bottom. I reckon I could easily take a three day kit and still not use the front pocket- whether that is a comment on the size of my kit or Joe's definition of 16l I don't know. I got it with a waist strap, so I can take the extra weight The only niggle is the colour- my brother called it 'the jellyshoes of backpacking'- I think I can get used to it though!

Joe has a whole bunch of accessories- I needed a really small stuff sack, a camera pouch and I decided to get a stake (or peg) pouch just for kicks, because my silnylon pouch is way too heavy! heheh. Actually, the stake pouch is about half the size of my current pouch, which probably accounts for the vast majority of the weight loss...

The small stuff sack is exactly the right size- I'd carried my odds and sods in a trekmates windshirt stuffsack. No need for a new one really but I wanted it. It has an extremely small cordlock and really thin cord. It's sewn rather than bonded like the team IO sack but other than that it's pretty similar.I carry my camera in a lowe alpine camera bag on my shoulder. It's a bit bulky and it doesn't need all that padding because it's not getting bashed around. Joe has a really nice looking shoulder pouch at only 8g so I got it. It's too big for my camera so I may put some laminate flooring underlay in there as some minimal padding, but the nice thing is it also fits my GPS and my whistle so they are both more accessible. It attaches by two elastic straps and a safety pin. I'm not convinced by the safety pin so I may rig up some velcro- on the other hand, it obviously works for Joe and he's done some fairly extensive testing!

Unfortunately it's probably going to be the spring before I can test the pack-bah!

Odds and sods

My postie has been having a pretty busy time recently. Latest delivery to drop through the door was this package from Team IO. Team IO are worth a mention because as far as I'm aware they're the only American style cottage manufacturers in Britain (Let me know if I'm wrong!). I've been using their zero g guylines on my laser comp and as a lifter guy on the Gatewood- it's called zero g because apparently it doesn't register on digital scales! The mini linelocs which go with it are super good also. More interestingly I've been using one of their cuben fibre stuff sacks as a food/stove bag. I had a real purge of my stuff sacks a while back and now I only use three-one for my food, one for my torch and medical kit and one for my tent pegs. It makes sense to me that they weigh as little as possible and at 6g, the medium stuff sack seemed just the job. Compare that to my previous food bag- a trekmates silnylon at 25g. The only problem was that when I received it it resembled little more than a crystalised fart- beautifully made with bonded seams, a light static drawcord and a tiny cordlock but way to0 fragile for my purposes. Except it wasn't. I carried +3kg of food for the Rhinogs plus my stove and pot and didn't baby it and it's still looking as good as new. I've hung it by the cord, stuffed it in my pack and sat it on the ground and I'm very pleased with it. So I've decided to replace it. Why? For the crime of being too big and heavy! You get a lot of sack for your 6g-I can fit my head in it (remember my head isn't the biggest!) and with one night's food in it it's too big. The small stuff is 4g and for an overnighter it's all the sack I need. The only problem is it might be ever so slightly too small. The final item in the pack is a set of Vargo hi vis pegs. I love my Terra Nova carbon fibre pegs but they're beginning to break with monotonous regularity. I am taking a hit on the weight though- I foolishly assumed they were the same as the superlight stakes with a bit of paint on them. Still you live and learn.
Here is the picture of the Mountain Laurel poncho as a poncho- I seem to have assumed a Meechanesque thousand yard stare but really what expression do you use to model a huge tesco carrier bag? You can see just how see through it is in this picture.

Finally apologies to all those who have made comments which I failed to reply to- I hadn't realised I needed to moderate them-doh!

Mountain Laurel cuben tarp-first impressions

I was packing the car to go to my parents in Wales and was slightly stressed when the postie walked up to me and placed an extraordinarily light packge in my hand. It's always a bit of a suprise when you get something from mountain laurel. They have a waiting list of 4-7 weeks and although they have a customer area where you can check your status it only ever says 'pending' until you actually get it.As a bonus, this one had managed to miss customs- it may be something to do with the battered old envelopes Ron sends his stuff in- I'm not complaining anyhow!
A bit of information on tarps and me. I've had a go with a basha and army bivvy bag in grim January weather before I got a lightweight tent and then it seemed a bit pointless- the bivvy weighed as much as my laser comp. I wasn't entirely struck on the open air aspect of it either. Fast forward a couple of years and I have the Gatewood cape. This was about as lightweight as I thought I could get. The lack of a need for a rain jacket meant that total weight was ighter than any bivvy and tarp combo with rain jacket. That is until I spotted the ML cuben poncho tarp. Combining it with the Ptarmigan bivvy I could save a sizeable 200g off my baseweight and since I was already up to speed with the poncho aspect it looked like a good option. The only problem was that I'm no sure I actually like tarps! Any hiker aiming for low weights needs to push themselves a little. On my last trip I had tried low top shoes for the second time. The first time, I had felt extremely vulnerable, not only to twists but to bashing my ankle on rocks. This time, I was totally converted. It's been a few years since I last tried a tarp- my knowledge base has developed considerably, and the total weight- around 350g for the whole set-up including rain protection will certainly ease the transition!
So- first impressions. The main thing is it's tiny! The width of it scared me at first, something I brooded on throughout the journey to Wales. When I actually set it up though, it's perfectly adequate for my needs. I'm planning to trial it in settled weather at first, only taking it on more dubious trips when I feel confident about it's use. I set it up with Team IO zero-G guys and mini lineloks. It's definitely well made with reinforcement at all the important points. No photos of me wearing it yet- the hood is too big for my head, but I expected that and it's easily sorted. Down the sides there are four lightweight snaps and at the hood there is a small diameter bungee with a tiny cordlock. That's about it for features apart from the neck tensioner when the poncho is in tarp form. Its a loop of bungee that attaches at the neck with four mitten hooks at tightens everything up. Have a look at mountain laurel for more photos.