Looks nice, great pics! Love hearing about the weather and wildlife, how do salamanders survive up there? How’d you hear about the wolf sighting? Sad to hear about the fire but it’s all too common.
Thanks hombre! It was the right call but it still feels bad to blow up my big trip for the year in one day, but I guess I put myself in that position.
Gear-wise:
- 1L water capacity: workable but stressful on 19 mile stretch from McKee to Leidy. One option would be to carry 2L, but the better option would be to skip McKee Draw and go straight to Leidy TH, then 1L would be fine.
- Midlayers: 5.5 oz Kuiu Peloton 97 + 1.2 oz poly imitation buff — worked but just barely enough. Would swap out for 8-9 oz 100 wt fleece + 2-3 oz beanie for additional warmth safety margin.
- Antigravitygear rain jacket 2: I’ve been testing this every chance I got this year and I trusted it. Performed well in the rain and the pitzips are awesome. The hood is somewhat awkward and works best with a brimmed hat.
- Nunatak SULO 30: warm down to light frost, maybe ~30F on first night. Coming from an Arc UL 30 had initial learning curve keeping my neck/upper torso warm the first night as there is no draft collar and adjustment is more barebones, but it is there and I figured it out. Non-gram-weenies will prefer the Arc UL for ease of use.
- Borah Gear Solo Tarp: I have a custom tieout right in the center of the tarp, this does NOT help for storm mode. I’d like a tieout near the foot end so I can lift the tarp off my feet when pitched super low. Why haven’t I thought of this before?
- Easton Nano 6” stakes: was worried the heads would pop off but worked great in the wind, like them, will use again. Might get the MLD-recommended 8” ones someday.
- MYOG ~35L 13 oz frameless hipbeltless pack: love thruhiking with a pack that compresses small enough to qualify as my airline “personal item” and fit under the seat in front of me. Really streamlines travel and the tickets are cheaper. 4 days of food was manageable but slightly uncomfortable the first day, better on day 2 after eating food down a bit.
- 5g microscissors: steel blades starting to rust after several years. could feel them straining to cut Walmart packaging. They’ve served me well but I will upgrade to beefier 2.5” Westcott titanium.
- Rain skirt: worked great in rain
- 30 ml hand sani: this is way too much for a few days, I’d like to find a bottle half the size that works with thick hand sani.
- Ozark Trail trekking poles: threw away one half, just used one. Had to crank the shit out of them to get them to hold. Don’t really trust them, but for $22…
Nice backup 😁 be safe, take pictures and let us know how it goes!
love the nature shots and the minimal sound, the guy has a tasteful aesthetic
Does the snow signal the end of the season for you or do you do winter hiking/touring as well? I only got a few decent pictures as my trip was cut short but here’s some:
Gabbro Pass, with snow still on it end of August. Locals said there may have been as much as 20 feet this past winter.
Locals fishing at Chepeta Lake
Sunset over SLC
My favorite picture of all was completely unrelated to the Uintas or SLC, it was a mother and daughter watching buffalo at Antelope Island State Park:
Sorry to hear you got rained on but glad to hear you made it out ok. My wife and I have lost a hiking friend years ago after a harder-than-expected Presidential Traverse with a friend who had gotten badly out of shape. Back then we didn’t really know anything and didn’t realize what we were getting into. But it sounds like you do know what you’re doing; is there an opportunity to limit trips with the casual friend to lower risk endeavors?
Terrific photos! Too bad about the knee pain, but glad you worked it out. I hope to visit the Sawtooths one day.
Welp, got rained/snowed out of the High Uintas just as I was about to go over North Pole Pass, the weather over Labor Day weekend was truly awful with 3+ days of cold rain, thunderstorms and the first snow of the season.
That’s really thoughtful of you!
I’ve had good luck getting trekking poles and stakes through in my carry-on, but according to the written rules they’re apparently not permitted 🤷
both are great kits. i like the 3-day skateboard kit the best :) how do you like the Yama tarp? i’ve considered getting one from them and now they don’t make them anymore, think i missed my chance. how’s your sleeping pad, looks like a cheapo inflatable? anything you didn’t use on your trip? love the idea of a trip by skateboard, i’m a fan of all human-powered travel — where’d you go and where are you headed next?
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.
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 😜
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
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.
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?
Great pics! Sounds like a good shakedown hike, lots of useful feedback. Fleece-wise a cheap, run-of-the-mill 100 wt 100% polyester fleece should weigh 8 oz or so and do the trick. For camp shoes drop the crocs and use bread bags as liners inside whatever you’re hiking in. Swap the wool gloves for polyester as it absorbs less water. How’d your puffy get wet?