Notes on Backpacking Equipment
Pack: Kelty Alpine
I bought this at Costco several years back for something like $70. It is an internal frame pack. It came with a camelback that secures to the back of the pack, and the top pocket of the pack can be used as a fanny pack. The hose for the camelback is about a foot too short when the pack is fully loaded. The pack has a built in pack cover that comes out of a zippered pocket in the bottom of the pack and is permanently attached. This rain cover was very useful during our many hours of heavy rain on the trek and it kept the pack and the contents dry.
The main compartment is roomy, and there are 2 side zippers which allow you to get inside without taking off the top pouch that covers it. There is a fairly good sized bottom compartment where I kept my sleeping bag, air mattress, pillow and down vest. One wish for this backpack would be more external pockets! It has 2 mesh pockets for Nalgene bottles on each side and they work OK, but sometimes the heavy water bottles would fall out.
I did make a couple of adjustments to the pack on the trail. The shoulder straps have multiple settings for varying torso lengths. I had it set to the longest setting and that still wasn't comfortable. I had to move it up another notch, even though the velcro holding it was halfway off. That extra inch helped. The sternum strap was also way too high and was hitting my neck. I ripped out some of the stitching on the shoulder pads to allow the strap to ride lower and after that I was pretty comfortable. The real trick was getting the hip belt super tight in order to carry the load on my hips instead of my shoulders. The amount of room in this pack was sufficient for about 5 days worth of food. If I had to carry more food, I would have had to leave behind more clothing. As it turns out, I hit the trail with about 53 pounds (5 days of food and a gallon of water). When I returned it was down to 38 pounds (no more food, empty of water).
Stoves: MSR Whisperlite
The troop has a bunch of these durable and lightweight stoves. We ended up taking 3 of them on the trek, plus an MSR Dragonfly stove. They work reliably, but you have to know what you are doing or they can be dangerous. We had a couple of minor incidents with the stoves on the trek. Both were simply a matter of setting up and lighting the stoves correctly. You screw the pump assembly into the fuel bottle, pump it up to pressurize the fuel, and then connect the stove to the pump. One of our incidents occurred when the hose from the stove was not all the way in and secured with the clip. This allowed fuel to leak (which caught fire). The lighting process starts with filling the small metal cup at the base of the stove with liquid fuel. You have to turn on the fuel, then turn it completely off when the fuel starts coming out. This fuel is then lit and it heats up the burner so that the fuel begins vaporizing inside a small loop of tubing next to the burner. The trick is to turn on the fuel again once the burner starts getting a blue flame. We had an incident where the fuel in the cup had gone out, then the fuel was turned back on too late. This put a lot of fuel on the ground (which caught fire). The stoves are workhorses and can bring water to a boil quickly. The scouts just needed more experience with setting them up and lighting them. It also helps to have your pot of water ready before you fire up the stove to save fuel. We took four 22oz. fuel bottles and used about 75% of that fuel in our 10 days on the trail. We bought some extra fuel along the way, but didn't use it.
Sleeping Bag: Kelty Down 25C
Only disadvantage with a down sleeping bag is just don't get it wet. My bag got a little bit wet after our first really bad thundershower, but it didn't seem to affect the performance. Fortunately, it dried out quickly once the sun was up. I love how small the bag compresses. I was able to put the bag in its stuff sack, and then store it in the bottom compartment of my backpack along with a small camp pillow, down vest and air mattress. When we were camped at higher altitude (above 10,000 feet) the nights were decidedly more cold. I wore my fleece pants and jacket inside the bag and was nice and comfortable. At the warmer, lower elevations no fleece was needed.
Tent: MSR Ventana
I've used this tent on many hikes in the past 5 years, but this is the first time it has really been tested in downpours of epic proportions. The tent body is mesh on the top with a rain fly over the tent. The rain fly generally gives you good coverage over the tent. I never had any problem with water coming in from underneath. The top of the rain fly over most of the tent lays fairly flat. This allowed water to really saturate the top of the fly. Once the nylon got wet it started to seep into the mesh and from there it was basically raining inside the tent. The first rainy night we had was a real bummer. I had to take my rain jacket and pants and use those inside the tent as a cover to keep my sleeping bag dry. The next time we had a big rain storm, the same thing happened. The rain fly was too saturated to keep the rain from sheeting off the fly. I ended up putting a garbage bag under the fly and over the mesh to keep the inside of the tent dry. I need to spray some more water repellent on the fly next time I use the tent in rainy conditions, in addition to using the plastic garbage bag. Once the tent got wet it was a lot harder to set up and take down. The sleeves for the poles tended to grab the poles. I was also using a 2 man tent by myself so I didn't have a buddy to help me put up and take down the tent. The tent also weighs a bit more when wet!
Sleeping Pad: Big Agnes REM
I recently bought this air mattress to alleviate a couple of problems. First, I need more than just a half inch of cushion to be comfortable. This air mattress gives about 2.5 inches of cushion. I never had my hips or shoulders hit the ground with this mattress - very comfortable. It is also 78 inches long. Now my feet and head can stay off the cold ground at the same time! The only disadvantage is having to blow it up. It takes about 25 breathes to fill it. I usually had to add some air to the mattress before bed, just because the temperature of the air inside the mattress had cooled off. I didn't have any leak issues. The nylon covering of the mattress is very slippery and on several occasions my tent was pitched on a slope. I would find myself sliding down the mattress in the night. The big advantage other than comfort is how small this thing packs and how lightweight it is.
Clothing:
I probably should have taken less clothing for the 10 days on the trail. Best advice here is NO COTTON! I had nylon underwear, wool socks, and various other synthetic material shirts, pants, hats, etc. The 2 cotton T-shirts I took never seemed to dry out after they were washed. Some of the kids took cotton socks for in camp use, and not surprisingly they had some blister issues.
I took 3 pairs of wool socks, 2 pairs of nylon underwear, a lightweight fleece jacket, fleece pants, fleece cap, wool hat with brim, 2 long sleeve shirts, 3 t-shirts, a down vest, river shorts, convertible pants with zip off legs, rain jacket and rain pants.
The fleece layer is essential. The down vest was great as an insulating layer under the rain jacket. It got really cold during those afternoon thundershowers. I probably should have left the 2 cotton t-shirts home, but they are the Troop t-shirts, and everybody had to have at least one for appearance sake. I also took some camp shoes, that I only wore twice. My hiking boots are pretty comfortable, so I didn't feel like I needed to take them off after a long hike. Other hikers in our crew were quick to change to camp shoes after hiking. I had no issues with blisters and only used wool socks (without liners). My boots were definitly not waterproof. For hiking in Southern California you need ventilation and rain is rare. My boots got regularly soaked on this trek, but they usually dried quickly, especially sitting by a nice hot campfire.
Miscellaneous:
I took a bunch of extra batteries for my camera and GPS. I didn't really need as many as I took. The batteries in the camera were swapped out on day 6 after 400+ pictures, and they weren't dead yet. The new alkalines in the GPS lasted just as long. My LED headlight is so small and lightweight and the batteries in that seem to last for years. Needless to say, I didn't need the extra batteries I took for that.
I took my Leatherman Wave as a pocket knife. This thing is very heavy, but useful. I really didn't need to use anything but the knife. Next time I'll just take a small pocketknife, or a smaller, lighter multitool.
I also took a paperback book to read. I managed to read over 300 pages relaxing in the tent before bedtime.
The boys had several decks of cards and one night we played 2 deck Hearts with all 9 of us. That was fun, and the cards always provided them with something to do.
My toiletries were all stuffed into a small ziploc bag. Unfortunately, trying to keep a bar of soap in there along with a toothbrush and contact lense cases ended up being a slimy mess. Next time I'll compartmentalize better. I should have kept the smellables away from the non-smellables.
