Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Went on a little camping trip over the weekend with mixed results. It was a nice opportunity to try out some gear. Elevation was around 7200 feet, there was still snow on the ground, it rained the whole time, and at night it got down to around 35 degrees. Not really optimal conditions for a pleasant summer-y campout.
I was interested in taking the least bulky gear possible. For sleeping, I took a military bivvy sack, my Kifaru Woobie and the Wiggys insulated poncho. I figured I’d nest them all together and that would work well enough. In theory, I was right but in practice it left something to be desired. The problem was that while the Woobie had ties to allow you to configure it as a sleeping bag, the Wiggys did not. So, while I was in the Woobie, the Wiggys would slide off or otherwise undo itself from around me inside the bivvy sack. As a result, it got a bit chilly. I think if I were to order the insulated poncho from Wiggys I would ask them to send it with no snaps or closures at all and I’d put them in myself so I could put them where I wanted to facilitate conversion to an impromptu sleeping bag. However, once morning came, wandering around with the insulated poncho over myself was quite warm and comfortable. However, the whole package of bivvy sack, Woobie and Wiggys did compress down to an impressively small bundle. Westerm Mountaineering makes some nice down bags that compress quite nicely, the missus has one. But I’m a bit reluctant to go with a down bag since, as we all know, once it gets wet your pretty much SOL. (And “dont get it wet” isnt an option…life is too unpredictable.) Not to sound like a broken record, but Kifaru makes a couple synthetic bags that are similar to the Woobie and should compress down quite nicely in conjunction with their compression stuff sacks. Anyway, sleeping was uncomfortable and a bit chilly but it didnt kill me, I didnt get hypothermia and I did get some sleep so I suppose in that manner things worked out.
My Svea 123, although a bit heavy, performed nicely as expected. It’s pretty much a bulletproof little stove. As it turns out, it fits perfectly inside my Snow Peak cup…so thats a nice little space saver.
More Kifaru goodness…I brought along a Kifaru Parahootch for shelter. This thing is a slick piece of work. It compresses down to about the size of a softball. Plenty of room on the inside for one person and some gear (or two really chummy people) and kept me dry. An excellent choice for packing ‘just in case’ you might get forced to spend the night out somewhere. Takes up less space but provides more coverage than a poncho shelter. You can improvise the support poles using either hiking poles or sticks you come across…the Parahootch has marks sewn into it to show you how long each stick should be if youre improvising them. I borrowed this one from an LMI buddy to see how I liked it and I think I might have to get one. An interesting alternative is one of the paratipi shelters from these guys. Nice setup but much, much heavier to pack.
Other than it being wet and cold, it was mostly an enjoyable experience. I think we might wait another couple of weeks until its a bit warmer before doing this again.
