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ultralight
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Overnight backcountry backpacking/hiking in the spirit of taking less and doing more. Ask yourself: do I really need that?
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I had both a cirriform min (long) in silpoly and the splitwing. I sold the Cirriform. The splitwing is the best shaped tarp out there (for me...) Here's why
- I'm 6'4" and sleep on my stomach. I'm basically 7ft long once I'm in a sleeping bag. The splitwing and cirriform both handled this okay. BUT...
- I can sit up in the splitwing. Because the height is flexible due to the front wings I pitch it with a 49" trekking pole at the front and still have enough side coverage to not worry about wind blown rain. The cirriform design does not allow me to sit up in it unless I pitch it about 8-10" off the ground.
- Splitwing 10D sil/sil fabric is magical. It dries really fast (I once dried it out in 5 minutes during a 10mph breeze on a summit by holding the front wings and flying it like a kite), doesn't need to be seam sealed, and packs to the size of an apple. The 30D reinforcements are superbly designed and make a huge difference.
- Splitwing design goes up fast. I always pack it so the back end goes in last to the bag. Regardless of whether it's super windy or rainy I can get it up in 90 seconds. Shake out the back of the tarp, leave the rest in the bag. Stake the back two corners, wrap the rear middle line around my trekking pole and stake it out so the back wall is vertical. I also put the tip of the rear trekking pole through a loop on the rear middle stakeout point. Then pull the rest of it out of the bag while walking forward, jam the front pole in, pull out the front lines and stake them. Pull the two front corners taut and you're done. I set it up in a hailstorm right below Mather pass on the PCT in 90 seconds. Tossed my stuff inside and I was dry while the other hikers cuddled a boulder trying to stay dry getting pounded by pea gravel sized hail.
- Splitwing with Paria 1.3mm guylines and Lawson line on the front/rear apex is 250g in stuff sack. The vestibule is 60g extra but I rigged my ULA rain skirt to be a vestibule and it works great. With an extra extra long Borah DCF bivy (147g) I'm at ~400g for a (tiny!) double wall shelter. The cirriform I had was 375g.
- The cirriform with side entry sounds great, because that's my biggest complaint about A-frame type tarps, but in reality that side entry point zipper is under a lot of tension and it seems like a bad idea to really cinch that down. With the splitwing I put insane amounts of tension on my guyline stakeouts and never worry about it. The cirriform entry point also needs to be switched from one loop to the other to shift from side to front entry which is difficult to do with it under tension.
- Splitwing stakeout points are perfect. Due to having 4 along each side, plus a fifth midway up the side of the a-frame, you can stake out the splitwing to handle any weather. And due to the closed foot, I'm never worried about wind blown rain. I typically carry 6 ruta locura carbon fiber stakes and 6 8.5" lawson titanium skewers. That combo allows for pitching in any type of terrain really well. I used the Splitwing plus ULA rainskirt along a 500 mile section hike this year on the PCT (Sierras) mid July to mid August. It rained every day for half those days (monsoon season baby!) and I was really happy with my choice. I was going to use an 8x6 custom built poncho tarp but believe it or not the weight difference is about 100g between the poncho tarp and the splitwing plus dedicated rainjacket and rainskirt. That 10d sil nylon fabric in the splitwing really is incredible. I've also used the splitwing for about 9 months prior to that section hike. It's been durable. Now there are some downsides with the splitwing.
- I could totally cook in the pitched tarp, and did numerous times, but not with anything setup. I'd usually pitch the tarp, toss my stuff in, cook dinner, then setup my bivy and bag. It's not super spacious when you're sitting up. During one driving rainstorm that dumped a half inch overnight the dry area was almost exactly the size of my bivy. It will keep you dry, and your backpack, but not much else.
- There's no way it's a two person shelter, unless you're not expecting any wind, you're both short, and you're really good friends/partners who sleep on their backs. It's wide enough at the front, but the rear is a fixed 36" wide. As a one person shelter it's great.
- I wish it were about 6" longer and 6" wider at the rear. Probably because I'm 6'4" as mentioned.
- I'd love it if it wasn't front entry, but that's the tradeoff. I generally get into bed and never get out until the morning. So twice a day I wish it was different but I practice yoga, I'm nice and flexible. I've never tested the mesh interior, but the attachment points for it are well thought out and it's probably a nice inner if you're shorter. The vestibule I think is well worth the money but you can rig something out of your rain skirt like I did, or even just a jacket if you're not needing absolute 360 degree protection. It's also a lot less of an issue if you're shorter since you can burrow down towards the closed foot more. It's silnylon so it does stretch a little while wet. But it's never been enough for me to adjust the pitch to compensate. I just stretch it tight when pitching and it does fine.
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https://piped.video/watch?v=wNkdfrSjSP4
Tathaniel hikes 30+ miles through the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho with a 16 liter child's schoolbag, tent, quilt, foam pad, filter and a bag of candy.
This is tongue-in-cheek ultralight jerk material but it’s a genuine reminder that you really don’t need much.
Not carrying any layers means if bad weather rolled in they’d have to setup up their tent — something that isn’t always possible everywhere so it introduces some risk. Also, all that candy and no half-toothbrush in sight 😜
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Step 1: Get a kitchen or postal scale. Yes, you need to do this!
You don’t have to buy one, use what you have. If you don’t own a scale, borrow one, or buy one cheap at a local thrift store or secondhand store if possible. If you want to buy one online, consider the AMIR Digital Kitchen Scale, it’s readily available, inexpensive, accurate, easy to use and light!
Step 2: Test it!
Test your scale with objects of known weight. For example, coins (U.S. nickels weigh 5 grams, quarters 5.67 grams), a full SmartWater bottle, or look up the weight of your phone.
What kind of scale do you have? What's the last thing you weighed? What's the next thing you want to do?
Illustration by Mike Clelland from Ultralight Backpackin' Tips by Mike Clelland
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Hello everyone! I have been fortunate enough to use just this one tarp for my triple crown, and also many smaller hikes. For this review I would go like to go over some of general tarp usage thoughts, some pictures of it in use, and maybe some other general thoughts.
Why the Grace Solo? What is the Grace solo? It's an "A-frame" Catenary cut "trapezoidal" tarp, It's basically a 7x9, but tapers to 5 feet on the bottom end. It also has what they call a "catenary cut," which cuts a little weight, but also helps keep it taught when pitched. In my opinion it's an excellent one person shelter. Just small to enough to go without a bivy, for splash protection, but just barely. It's extremely light weight and extremely well made. I bought this tarp for my PCT thru hike in 2014, (gear list here) I bought it in November 2013, the only thing I asked for was no trekking pole grommets on the ridgeline tie-outs. It was not the first shelter I tried, In fact I tried a Zpacks Hexamid, (now the hexamid pocket tarp) and didn't like using the Carbon pole it came with. I disliked trekking poles, (still do) and didn't wanna carry a flimsy carbon pole that might break, so i sent it back and bought the grace solo instead.
It came with linelock 3's and some heavy 3mm guyline. The linelock 3's with the guyline were heavy af. I think it was over 4oz? That's over 50% of the tarp weight in guyline, and guyline hardware, no thanks. So I cut my own guylines. I used 1.3mm Zpacks Z-Cord for the four corners at 5ft length, and the two middle tie outs are 2.5ft. This leaves a little extra on the roll if a tie out wears out. (which took a thru hike and several years.) For the Ridgeline, I used roughly 11 feet (each end) of 1.75mm "lash it." This stuff is just awesome. I have never replaced the Ridgeline after all these years, and it has wrapped around many trees and splintery sticks and it's no more worse for wear.
I used a pretty simple method with pitching, I use a truckers hitch for the ridge-line on a tree, Or I'll clove hitch it to a stick, someones trekking pole, random bush, etc... I just tie a figure eight loop in the Z-cord guyline, put the stake through the loop, apply some lateral pressure when placing a stake, and....thats it. Sometimes I'll do a little half hitch in the guyline if i need it to be shorter, and just put the stake through that way. If it is windy or the ground sucks, then i just use a log or rock on top of the stake. I would only do this with cuben though, as in my experience silnylon gets pretty flappy especially overnight or when it's wet, but for me this system is simple, light, and most of all worked great, oh and did I mention this tarp weighs 6.4oz with guylines?? So I thought I would share some pictures, Who doesn't like pictures? I honestly have cowboy'd more than setup my tarp, but it's always in the pack ready to go. To this day I've never had a hole or had to patch anything. I keep saying I'll replace, but it wont die!!
Our year wasn't super crazy in 2014. Got snowed on Mt. San Jacinto (17 degrees that night apparently, one of, if not the coldest the whole hike) got dumped on a few times, in fact the first night at Lake Morena we had a crazy storm and I saw some ruined shelters...But mine help up fine. It got pretty chilly up north, and it was wet. Lots of cowboy camping on the southern half, but it kept me warm and dry when I needed it.
Used it a bit on this hike. I finished pretty late due to some family stuff, but it held up to ice, sleet, snow, wind, I did use a Bivy (MLD bug bivy) on this hike because Lyme ain't no joke, but otherwise I'll never use 'em.
Years later and I thought about replacing the tarp for this hike but it just kept working! It took snow ice and rain, honestly didn't get a ton of use until later in the hike. Got lucky with weather for a while. On this hike I also roomed with my homie under his two person MYOG Rayway, and it was a palace compared to my tarp, you can see it in some of the pictures.
Still kickin'! Had a couple nights above treeline with some tricky pitches, but generally worked out great. I would advise against using shaped A-frame shaped tarps in other "fancy" pitches, they just don't work that well.
So what can i say after using a tarp all this time? It's awesome! I enjoy having that extra connection with nature when I camp, I can see everything around me, and when I cowboy I'm not burdened with a heavy shelter weight. Make no mistake tents definitely have their place, but for me, I do not like going into nature and then zipping myself out of it.
With that said, what are the downsides? Well there are three major ones I consider, but I have found a few ways to mitigate some of them.
1.) Bug and creepy crawly protection: This a big one and probably the most common counter answer to tarp usage, what I have found is that that most creepy crawly's leave you alone, this goes along with the second point down below, and I have heard some horror stories, however I haven't had any life altering bug/snake/centipede/bear experiences while sleeping. As for bugs, I usually just wear my baseball cap plus a bugnet, and if they're really bad, maybe some earplugs and Benadryl. Except for some specific scenarios, usually the bugs went away at night and I could take my headnet off. They let me know in the morning when it was time to start walkin'.
2.) Site selection, site selection, site selection: This I would say is the most important thing to using a tarp. You cannot just camp wherever like our Big Agnes fam, I'm sorry, but it just wont be the same. You have to be a little more meticulous about where you camp and where you want to setup. I feel like this is a worthy payoff for shedding all that tent weight, but you can't be lazy, especially if the weather looks bad. I didn't carry poles, so if you're heading above treeline or camping in the desert make sure you can figure out how to pitch your shelter. Spending that extra time on finding a good spot or finding a better area is paramount, or else you'll just be sad and wet (ask me how I know)
3.) Pitching a tarp. This takes some experience. Having numb fingers and trying to remember knots is recipe for disaster, know your shit before you go. There are a ton of ways to do it, but I've mostly stuck with the A-frame, this tarp specifically doesn't lend well to other pitches, but A-frame is easy to setup and can be pretty bomb proof, especially if you paid attention to number 2. Usually I pitched it pretty low. Not a lot of room to sit up but optimum splash and rain protection. Not great for hanging out, good for sleeping tho. Moving forward would I buy another grace solo? I've thought about it, the weight penalty for a rectangle 7x9 is not that drastic and at $270 before shipping, the MLD is a pricey bit of kit. It has however, held up great all these years and the only item that's stayed with me from my first thru hike.
Thanks for checking out my review.
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Swiss Army knife vs. individual (better) items (Opinel No. 3, 2-inch Westcott scissors, titanium tweezers, nail file)
SAKs are a popular item, but given that Swiss Army knives are not allowed in carry-on I was interested in alternatives.
What do you use?
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2163520
18.5mm diameter, 7.7mm thick + 3.7mm for the flange on the back (see photo on mfgr page https://niteize.com/ziplittm-led-zipper-pull ). Output is about 1 lm, wide flood, similar to using a phone screen to light your way. Definitely a functional light not just a location marker. Smallest light that I actually know where to buy. Drops ok edgewise into NDUR match safe and of course you can use the space around it. Weight incl battery and non removable pull cord, around 2.5g or 3g. More later.
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I’ve found this book by word of mouth, having myself hiked through several states in the American West as well as harboring a fascination with trails and deserts it seemed like a no-brainer. It is worth noting that this is part of an attempt to rekindle my passion for book reading as in recent years I have fallen prey to the doom-scrolling epidemic that plagues this era. I write today through the lense of ultralight backpacking; to study what has and hasn’t changed in 65 years. I will highlight and annotate sections of interest re: ultralight as well as some choice passages.
In 1958 Colin Fletcher thru-hiked the state of California on a 1,272 mile route of his own design.
The book is composed of ten economically-titled sections: In San Fransisco, Up the Colorado, Across the Mojave, Through Death Valley, Beyond the Panamints, Over White Mountain, Into Bodie, Beside the Silver King, Along the High Sierra, Across the Home Stretch. Each section is associated with its terrain in the attached map.
Thirty-three years before Ray Jardine’s PCT Hikers Handbook, Fletcher does have a lot of the right ideas:
p.5
I had grappled at close and sweaty quarters with the problem of what a man can and cannot carry, and I knew that if you look after the ounces the pounds look after themselves.
…during that hectic month I went shopping with a postal scale and checked like gold dust every item from salt tablets to jockey shorts.
Along the way Fletcher discovers many familiar thru-hike elements: fear, gear, shakedowns, race, pace, resupply, routine, roadwalks, electrolytes, caching, slackpacking, siestas, night-hiking, latitude and gratitude.
p. 17
It was almost time for the hourly halt, so I slipped off my pack and sat down beside the stove…
…the halt had already run to double its allotted ten minutes*. I heaved the pack onto my back and hurried northward…
His pack is so heavy he takes a 10 minute break every hour, and sometimes longer.
Race and Pace p.18
I was still fighting one real deadline. To avoid the risk of unbearable heat, I had to be through Death Valley by May 1. That meant reaching the south of the Valley no later than mid-April. Three hundred and fifty miles—and almost six weeks to do it in.
Climate does force some real deadlines, forcing a specific pace that drives his trip from the start.
Shakedown p.20
In my pack were a five-piece fishing rod and a paperback book… by the end of the week I had fished for a grand total of half an hour and had read less than two pages.
Once burdened with carrying the full weight of his pack for a week he begins to consider more carefully the usefulness of each item.
p.42
“Can’t understand why you carry a great pack like that. Why, when I was a young man I didn’t pack nothing but a blanket in the desert.”
p.53
At the start… I had carried a 2-lb plastic mattress. I didn’t expect it to last long, and it didn’t. From the fifth day onward I spread foliage under my bed. Within a day or two I was sleeping just as comfortably. And I was thankful to be carrying 2 pounds less.
Gear failure and adaptation, though a bit ambiguous. Somewhat surprisingly due to the importance of sleep, he doesn’t elaborate on his bedding situation.
p.??
The successful 1953 Everest expedition established that in terms of physical effort 1 pound on the feet is equivalent to 5 on the shoulders. He mentions this as coming up in his research, though he still wears classic hiking boots.
Pace p.54
A regular fifteen miles a day was the target I had set myself for the Mojave Desert.
Pace p.55
By now, I knew my walking rates fairly accurately. Along roads I covered three miles in the hour, including a ten-minute rest. Cross-country, I rarely managed more than two miles. Over really rough desert the average sometimes fell to less than half a mile.
p.55
Seven hours’ walking a day does not sound much. But put a** fifty-pound pack** on your back and walk through desert that teems with attractions and you will begin to understand.
Caching p.75
Seventeen miles ahead was my first buried water. At least, I hoped so. On the drive south, after making caches in Death Valley, I had discovered a waterless third-odd miles between Marl Spring and the little settlement of Baker. In a sandy wash halfway between I had buried a five-gallon bottle of water. On the bottle I had put a note:
If you find this cache, please leave it. I am passing through on foot in April or May, and am depending on it.
I had camouflaged the site carefully and marked it with a big black stone.
p.80 But the hills were no longer black. They were not even fiery red. They had passed beyond mere heat, beyond incandescence, to something purer. They glowed with a radiant magenta that was never one single and definable color but bloomed and swelled and expanded into a thousand transplendent hues until the whole line of hills was a pulsating mosaic held fast between black lava and gray sky.
Siesta p.83
Each morning I was on the move before sunrise. By nine or ten o’clock the day’s ten-mile stint was over. A wind that originate in hell might touch off a wrestling match with my poncho, but eventually I would get it stretched out between creosote bushes and crawl thankfully into the shade.
Slackpacking p.87
When [the rangers] drove away they took my sleeping bag. It weighed almost six pounds, and with night temperatures never dropping below 80[F] I was hardly likely to feel cold.
Night hiking
p.92-97 …cool night air was moving slowly and steadily across the desert’s surface. Like the tide advancing across mudflats, it penetrated every corner. It passed over me. It passed around me. It passed underneath me. Soon it seemed to pass through me as well…
The night wore on, an endless blur and blackness. Unreal walking. Halts. Restarting that took progressively more effort. Aching legs. Aching shoulders. Cold.
Slackpacking his sleeping bag proves a mistake, as the nights turn too cold for him to sleep. He ends up sleeping (badly) during the day and night hiking 50 miles through Death Valley. He does in three miserable days what he thought would take six, and has an entirely different experience than he expected (including meeting a curious fox in the middle of the night).
This is by far the most intense and interesting section, as the author’s lack of preparation forces adaptation. He is never in any serious danger, but his pride overrides his discomfort and he rejiggers his schedule as to arrive at the ranger station exactly on schedule and without assistance so he can prove to the ranger he can handle himself.
p.158
I was now carrying a small nylon tent that, complete with aluminum poles, weighed 3 pounds, 1 ounce
p.160 For a hundred miles across the glowing desert — out beyond the desert itself and up into the haze beyond — there arises with awesome and inevitable bulk, the vast pyramid of the mountain’s shadow. For long, clear-cut minutes it stands as a fitting monument to the day. Then the shadow envelops the whole desert, and it is ready for the night.
p.206
She smiled again. “It’s wonderful how honest a mountain makes you, isn’t it?”
“Beside the Silver King” is about a week-long fishing side-trip. Boring.
p.217
And afterward, as I walked on through the desolate sagebrush, I realized with an even greater shock that, like summer, The Walk was nearly over. I had known all along, of course, that it would end in early September. In a sense I had known it when I took the first step northward from the Mexican border. But this was the first time I had looked at the end as something that was really going to happen. And now here it was, suddenly and disconcertingly, as close and probable as next payday.
I’m not sure what the best term for this feeling is, but anyone who has hiked a long trail feels it, I suspect.
Race and pace p.212
I wanted to be at the boundary by the end of the first week in September. That left me just over three weeks. To make the border on schedule, I would on most traveling days have to walk a good twenty miles.
The realities of the season as well as the need to get back to real life dictate his schedule towards the end of his thru-hike, a common occurrence.
Pack weight and comfort p.218
But walking had never become effortless. People often said, “I guess you’re so used to the pack by now that it doesn’t worry you.” But on those rare occasions that the load fell below forty pounds could I sometimes forget it. At fifty pounds I could not. At sixty the pack was heavy. And at seventy it took the joy out of walking. Short side trips with no load on my back were like running into the sea after a hot day in the city.
p.221
Ever since the last leg of southern desert I had, when water posed any problem at all, tended to make dry night stops. During the heat of the day I rested up at water. In the cool evening I walked for an hour or two, camped wherever nightfall found me, and moved on to water next morning. This way I rarely carried more than half a gallon; and during my midday rest I had unlimited water for washing pots and pans, clothes, and myself.
He adapts and adjusts his daily routine to suit conditions, taking siestas to maximize water availability while minimizing water carry.
p.223
Such nostalgia was not, I suppose, really surprising. For after five months and a thousand miles, these simple things had become as much a part of The Walk as deer tracks in the dust or the champagne taste of mountain water.
p.232
…and feeling that for me too it was justified, just this once — I carved my name on a tree. Carved it in full.
Yikes. Attitudes towards damaging trees and graffiti have luckily since changed. There are a number of 1950s social attitudes on display from killing rattlesnakes to casual racial slurs to smoking cigarettes on mountaintops.
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