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Oct. 4th, 2008 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sillygoosegirlAnother fun morning at the REI Scratch and Dent sale today. Hey, and at this one we actually did arguably save money. On Monday we decided to go ahead and buy the Kilo Flash Down sleeping bags, but were thinking of waiting for a 20% off coupon. On Tuesday they went on sale and we ordered them. Then today we went to the scratch and dent sale and we found a Men's Kilo Flash Down bag. It was a long, but that's only an extra 2 oz, and considering it was $50 instead of $135, I think for the price differential we can manage to shave 2 oz some where else. We also got me another pair of zip-offs that need a new fly ($9), an ultralight backpack for me ($25 and 2 lbs 9 oz compared to my other pack which is 4 lbs 7 oz), and a nifty bike trunk thing ($20). Plus a compression bag for the sleeping bags. All in all, we spent less than the cost of the $135 sleeping bag we will be returning the day we pick up our order at the store.
It seems to have totally slipped my mind to pick up some <a href="http://www.rei.com/product/736897">Chlorine Dioxide tablets</a>. I'm pretty sure I've not run across these before, but they seem to be strictly better than iodine. They take 4 hours to kill the toughest bug they kill (kills everything else in 30 minutes)... but iodine doesn't kill that particular bug at all ever. Also, without the health issues of iodine, and the little glass bottle. They are a bit more expensive, but given that you are supposed to replace your bottle of iodine tablets every season and these vacuum sealed tablets can be kept 3 years, I think the price difference should be truly negligible.
Anyhow, we're working on trying to get our pack weight down, in case that wasn't obvious already. The smaller sleeping bags are going to cut our weight by more than 4 lbs, and significantly reduce our volume. Less volume will hopefully help make it possible for us to get into lighter weight backpacks, which could easily cut another 2+ lbs each (I'm thinking about making something even less substantial than the UL pack we bought today, but I figured it probably had nearly $25 worth of notions in it that I could reuse). I couldn't believe how heavy our packs were when I checked earlier this week. As I said above, mine is almost 5 lbs empty, and Josh's doesn't seem any lighter (though I haven't measured). Additionally, we're hoping for backpacking more in areas where we can carry more like 1.5 liters each instead of 1 gallon (another 5 lbs each--plus, and I hadn't realized this before, those Nalgene bottles are heavy... 2.5 lbs of bottle for 2 gallons of water). My goal is to get my total pack weight down to less than 20 lbs (even less would be nice), and hopefully we can reduce Josh's too... though we're not looking to reduce it by as much because as things stand now I cannot keep up with him on the trail. I've been working on a spreadsheet and really rethinking everything we might take and I think we might be able to get our combined gear+food+water down to 45 lbs (from ~70 lbs). Fortunately or unfortunately, however, we are approaching the point where you cannot buy a lighter pack... you just have to suck it up and carry it or do without. Of course, there's also judicious choices to be made on food and clothes, but there's only so minimalistic you can go in those areas. Especially in cold weather.
Anyhow, we walked to the grocery store this afternoon and picked up around 20 lbs worth of groceries, which I carried back 1 mildly uphill mile in the new pack. I think the UL pack is promising, but it does need some adjustments. Somehow when it is full suddenly the space I want between the straps and the hip belt increases by around 2 inches. I think I have experienced this with other packs too. And I think it is adjustable. Maybe I should go check on that now. Yep. Nicely adjustable. Of course, the groceries are put up by now and I'm not in the mood for a loaded-down walk at this moment. Anyhow, enough rambling. I want my new sleeping bag already so I can really play.
ETA: It is now tomorrow and I took the backpack, this time full of gear (my share of normal gear + 3 Nalgenes of water=20 lbs), out on a 1.3 mile walk. We made some additional adjustments as I decided that it is good for the hip belt to go below the poky bones in my hips, and all-in-all it was extremely comfortable. I would say significantly better than the 43% improvement implied by just the lower weight. As Josh pointed out, since the volume is significantly reduced, my improvement on torque is much more significant (percentage wise) than the improvement in raw weight. I really think I could do a significant hike with this thing on without being as miserable as I have been in the past. I'm also really impressed by the pack itself, and think it might be worth buying Josh something similar for full price. Josh's response to that suggestion is that he wants eventually to use this new UL pack and for me to pack into something even smaller and lighter. I think I could handle that.
It seems to have totally slipped my mind to pick up some <a href="http://www.rei.com/product/736897">Chlorine Dioxide tablets</a>. I'm pretty sure I've not run across these before, but they seem to be strictly better than iodine. They take 4 hours to kill the toughest bug they kill (kills everything else in 30 minutes)... but iodine doesn't kill that particular bug at all ever. Also, without the health issues of iodine, and the little glass bottle. They are a bit more expensive, but given that you are supposed to replace your bottle of iodine tablets every season and these vacuum sealed tablets can be kept 3 years, I think the price difference should be truly negligible.
Anyhow, we're working on trying to get our pack weight down, in case that wasn't obvious already. The smaller sleeping bags are going to cut our weight by more than 4 lbs, and significantly reduce our volume. Less volume will hopefully help make it possible for us to get into lighter weight backpacks, which could easily cut another 2+ lbs each (I'm thinking about making something even less substantial than the UL pack we bought today, but I figured it probably had nearly $25 worth of notions in it that I could reuse). I couldn't believe how heavy our packs were when I checked earlier this week. As I said above, mine is almost 5 lbs empty, and Josh's doesn't seem any lighter (though I haven't measured). Additionally, we're hoping for backpacking more in areas where we can carry more like 1.5 liters each instead of 1 gallon (another 5 lbs each--plus, and I hadn't realized this before, those Nalgene bottles are heavy... 2.5 lbs of bottle for 2 gallons of water). My goal is to get my total pack weight down to less than 20 lbs (even less would be nice), and hopefully we can reduce Josh's too... though we're not looking to reduce it by as much because as things stand now I cannot keep up with him on the trail. I've been working on a spreadsheet and really rethinking everything we might take and I think we might be able to get our combined gear+food+water down to 45 lbs (from ~70 lbs). Fortunately or unfortunately, however, we are approaching the point where you cannot buy a lighter pack... you just have to suck it up and carry it or do without. Of course, there's also judicious choices to be made on food and clothes, but there's only so minimalistic you can go in those areas. Especially in cold weather.
Anyhow, we walked to the grocery store this afternoon and picked up around 20 lbs worth of groceries, which I carried back 1 mildly uphill mile in the new pack. I think the UL pack is promising, but it does need some adjustments. Somehow when it is full suddenly the space I want between the straps and the hip belt increases by around 2 inches. I think I have experienced this with other packs too. And I think it is adjustable. Maybe I should go check on that now. Yep. Nicely adjustable. Of course, the groceries are put up by now and I'm not in the mood for a loaded-down walk at this moment. Anyhow, enough rambling. I want my new sleeping bag already so I can really play.
ETA: It is now tomorrow and I took the backpack, this time full of gear (my share of normal gear + 3 Nalgenes of water=20 lbs), out on a 1.3 mile walk. We made some additional adjustments as I decided that it is good for the hip belt to go below the poky bones in my hips, and all-in-all it was extremely comfortable. I would say significantly better than the 43% improvement implied by just the lower weight. As Josh pointed out, since the volume is significantly reduced, my improvement on torque is much more significant (percentage wise) than the improvement in raw weight. I really think I could do a significant hike with this thing on without being as miserable as I have been in the past. I'm also really impressed by the pack itself, and think it might be worth buying Josh something similar for full price. Josh's response to that suggestion is that he wants eventually to use this new UL pack and for me to pack into something even smaller and lighter. I think I could handle that.
