Tentative Alps Gear List

July 9, 2007 | Laughing Knees | 16 Comments 

This prob­a­bly won’t make much sense to those who don’t do back­pack­ing, par­tic­u­larly ul­tra­light back­pack­ing, but for any­one who does, you might have some idea just how pas­sion­ate (or per­haps ob­ses­sive?) peo­ple can get about their gear. For those who do “ul­tra­light back­pack­ing”, weight in par­tic­u­lar plays a heavy role in help­ing one de­cide what to bring. Ul­tra­light back­pack­ing aims to pare every­thing down to the bare es­sen­tials, ide­ally leav­ing every­thing out that is not ab­solutely nec­es­sary to bring, some­times even down to the sur­plus edges of maps or the un­used por­tion of the bot­tom of a sleep­ing bag. The idea is that all the ex­tras add up, mak­ing for tir­ing weight that you have to lug up and down the moun­tains. Lighter ma­te­ri­als are used, run­ning shoes in­stead of boots, tarps in­stead of tents, al­ter­na­tive and new ways of com­bin­ing clothes so that you re­tain the nec­es­sary mea­sure of safety, but elim­i­nate what comes to dead weight. I’ve brought my pack down to a base weight (not in­clud­ing food, wa­ter, and fuel, which also add up) of about 5 kg. Just com­pare that to my base pack weight of about 15 kg in years gone by. Even the pack is smaller, a frame­less sack of a thing with sim­ple shoul­der straps that looks like a large day­pack when I’m on the trail. Those on the trail who see me and who haven’t heard of UL al­ways gawk at me when I tell them I’m on a five-​​day hike or so. It’s taken years to learn about and gather the gear for this (I taught my­self to sew and have made a few tarps, tents, ham­mocks, and packs) and to learn the meth­ods for how to use it, but it is so much fun! I’m hop­ing the trip in the Alps will teach me more about how to get out there as sim­ply and un­en­cum­bered as possible.

Here’s my ten­ta­tive gear list, for those interested:

Pack:

• Go­Lite Jam2 or pos­si­bly the newly ac­quired Back­pack­ing Light Arc­tic Pack
• Home-​​made sil­ny­lon pack liner

Shel­ter and Sleep­ing:

• Gos­samer Gear SpinnShel­ter (a feath­ery light tarp with doors at the ends, made of spin­naker sail­cloth) or pos­si­bly the Hille­berg Akto, if I just don’t have the con­fi­dence in my abil­i­ties to take such a light shel­ter up into the alpine regions.
• Ti­ta­nium Goat Ad­justable Hik­ing Poles (car­bon fi­bre, ex­tremely light­weight hik­ing poles). Will of course also use one of these for walk­ing (I don’t like walk­ing with poles very much, though they have of­ten done a lot to help me when my bad knees start hurting)
• Boze­man Moun­tain Works Vapr Bivy (a feath­er­weight, very breath­able bivy bag that will add a great mea­sure of safety and pro­tec­tion to the tarp setup)
• Ar­ti­ach Light Plus Closed Cell Ground Mat, 3/​4 length (only 75 g!!!)
• 12 ti­ta­nium skewer stakes (4 for the bivy)
• Mont­Bell UL Su­per­stretch Alpine Down­hug­ger #3 Sleep­ing Bag (wanted to get a Nunatak quilt, but don’t have the money)
• Isuka Com­fort­able Pil­low (an in­flat­able, in­su­lated pil­low, which is slightly heav­ier than the Mont­Bell UL Sys­tem Pil­low, but so much more com­fort­able and warm. I’ll use it on the plane, too)
• Mont­Bell Fisherman’s Ther­mawrap Jacket (will act as part of the sleep­ing sys­tem, and also my warm jacket for camp and breaks along the trail)
• Ex­tra pair of socks to keep my feet warm on cold nights and to change every other day af­ter wash­ing the pair I walked in that day.

Cloth­ing, worn:

• Patag­o­nia Trim Brim Hat (wide brim sun… and rain… hat)
• Mont­Bell Su­perfine Merino Wool Short Sleeve Undershirt
• Light­weight poly­ester run­ning shorts
• Mam­mut Cour­mayeur Pants (will usu­ally roll them up to the knees to act as breeches)
• Bridgedale shortie cross­coun­try run­ning socks
• Go­Lite Spike Tail trail run­ning shoes
• Sim­ple, so­lar pow­ered ana­log watch
• Mont­Bell Quickdry Towel (will use to wipe sweat while walk­ing, as a reg­u­lar towel for wash­ing, but also to act as a col­lar for my crew­neck undershirt)

Cloth­ing, car­ried:

• Afore­men­tioned Mont­Bell Fisherman’s Ther­mawrap Jacket
• Fine­track Breezewrap Jacket (wind­breaker, one of my most im­por­tant pieces of gear, to give ex­tra warmth while mov­ing, to block wind, to stop rain to a cer­tain ex­tent, to act as a sec­ond layer shirt, to add warmth to my sleep sys­tem if necessary)
• Fine­track Flood­rush Tights (very wa­ter re­sis­tant and light, these add ex­tra warmth to the legs, both while walk­ing and while sleeping)
• Paramo Cas­cada Jacket (I’m still de­bat­ing whether to take this rather heavy, but very ver­sa­tile, sup­ple rain jacket or my much lighter Mon­tane Su­per­fly Jacket… they both have ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. An­other ad­van­tage of the Paramo jacket is that I can wear it in the city and not look too much like a moun­tain climber, plus, be­cause it has a thin liner in­side, and is more like a shirt with wa­ter­proof prop­er­ties, it can worn most of the time, in­clud­ing as part of the sleep­ing sys­tem, and have the sleeves rolled up for ventilation)
• Tur­tle Fur fleece tuke
• Patag­o­nia Bunting Fin­ger­less gloves (I do a lot of pho­tog­ra­phy and sketch­ing and I need my fin­ger­tips to be free to ma­nip­u­late the equip­ment. These are twenty years old. Have never found any­thing like them since)
• Ex­tra pair of socks
• Un­der­pants (for traveling)
• Light cotton/​ poly­ester trousers (for traveling)
• Bandana

Cook­ing and Wa­ter

• Snow­peak Gi­gapower Stove (in­side pot)
• Snow­peak gas can­nis­ter (to be bought once I reach Zurich)
• Foil and plas­tic card­board windscreen
• Evernew .9 liter ti­ta­nium pot, with stuff sack (I use the lid/​ bowl that comes with it. Oth­ers may like the light­ness of an alu­minum foil lid, but when I eat I pre­fer to have my food all at once in sev­eral con­tain­ers rather than dig­ging in my pot all the time)
• Light plas­tic cup (many peo­ple think this item un­nec­es­sary, but I like to drink my tea while the wa­ter for the meal is boil­ing. I can also eat soup while keep­ing my main dish in the pot)
• Bam­boo spoon (very light­weight and strong. Stronger and stiffer than a lexan spoon, and lighter than a ti­ta­nium spoon. Also the feel of the ma­te­r­ial and the knowl­edge that it is a nat­ural and re­cy­clable item adds to its beauty)
• Bam­boo chop­sticks (so many things can be done with this item while cook­ing and eating)
• Bic lighter and film can­nis­ter with matches
• Sponge with small bot­tle of Brunner’s Soap (the Brunner’s Soap can be used for clean­ing dishes, brush­ing teeth, wash­ing out mouth and hands, tak­ing a hand towel bath, etc)
• Stuff sack for food (enough for five days worth of food. A lit­tle tougher than my other stuff sacks be­cause of the sharp edges of plas­tic con­tain­ers and the weight of the food)

Es­sen­tial Items

• Clas­sic Swiss Army Knife (a tiny knife with only a knife blade, a pair of scis­sors, a tooth­pick… rather use­less most of the time… and a pair of tweez­ers… which have never re­ally worked for me. I may re­move the tweez­ers and tooth­pick and pos­si­bly the red plas­tic cover to the knife)
• 15m length of EVC spec­tra core cord (not the ab­solute light­est, but has good grip and is very strong)
• Whis­tle (part of the ster­num strap buckles)
• Na­tional BF-​​198B LED Head­light (tiny Japan­ese 3 LED light that uses a sin­gle CR2 lithium bat­tery. Sim­ple, un­com­pli­cated, and lasts for­ever. Doesn’t have the longest throw of beam, but is good enough for the walk­ing that I do. I will most likely use it mostly for read­ing in the tent at night and oc­ca­sion­ally for dawn or evening walk­ing. It is de­signed to be ad­justable so that you can hang it from your neck and you gain the ad­vantge of light cast from be­low your eye level, much bet­ter for dis­tin­guish­ing shad­ows on the ground)
• First aid kit (small, with just ba­sic es­sen­tials like ban­dages, an­tibi­otic cream, ibuprofin, su­per­glue… for clos­ing wounds, which is what su­per­glue was orig­i­nally de­signed for…I could use African sol­dier ants, but I have a feel­ing they’re some­what un­com­mon in the Alps…, sleep­ing pills… for when the ground seems hard and un­com­fort­able… earplugs, for those aw­ful times when I have to sleep in a room with snor­ers. Still have to re­search other items necessary)
• Re­pair kit (duct tape, tiny sewing kit, vul­can­iz­ing glue and fab­ric patches for slip­pery sil­ny­lon fabric)
• Toi­letry kit (shav­ing oil with small ra­zor, Dr. Bron­ners Castile Soap… for brush­ing teeth, wash­ing up, clean­ing dishes, wash­ing hands, etc… child’s tooth­brush, tooth­brush with the han­dle cut off to act as a fin­ger­nail brush, credit-​​card-​​sized, very light mir­ror… can per­haps also be used as a sig­nalling mir­ror in an emer­gency, roll of toi­let pa­per with spool re­moved, wide ti­ta­nium stake that can also be used for dig­ging when go­ing to the toilet)
• Di­a­betes kit (per­haps the item I am most con­cerned about and which I must pro­tect at all costs. In­sulin, nee­dles, blood glu­cose me­ter, blood strips, log book, copy of di­a­betes iden­tity card, emer­gency glucose)
• Doc­u­ments (pass­port, health in­sur­ance card, money, credit cards, di­a­betes iden­tity card, plane tick­ets, youth hos­tel card)
• Maps (the trails are too long and too many to carry all the maps avail­able. Will buy a gen­eral overview map of the Mont Blanc and Mat­ter­horn area and get more de­tailed maps along the way)

Mis­cel­la­neous

• Cam­era* (I will be spend­ing a lot of time tak­ing pho­tographs and I want the best con­trol I can have with them, so I am tak­ing my heavy Nikon D70s with Nikon 18–200 VR lens. The VR lens al­lows me to do away with a tri­pod in most sit­u­a­tions and keep the kit rel­a­tively light by only hav­ing a lens that cov­ers a good range of angles)
• Ex­tra lithium bat­ter­ies and (per­haps) charger
• 2×2 gi­ga­byte CF cards for the great num­ber of pho­tos I will take
• (pos­si­bly) 30 GB iPod Video, partly to down­load and store my pho­tos, partly for lis­ten­ing to mu­sic, partly to up­load and store pod­casts for lis­ten­ing to at night in the tent. Not re­ally sure yet on this one. I haven’t bought it and it is expensive.
• Sketch­book* (very im­por­tant. I write en­tries every night and do a lot of sketches and car­toons to go along with the writ­ing. I value this even more than my camera)
• Wa­ter­color set* (small trav­el­ing kit with palette, paints, brush, pen­cil, and pen)
• Book* (those hours on the plane can be very long, as well the hours in ho­tels and air­ports. One book will just not be enough for a month, though. I am think­ing of bring­ing Ed­ward Abbey’s “Desert Soli­taire”, one of my fa­vorite books, to read once again. Any sug­ges­tions, anyeone? Just can’t be too big. I have to carry it and I’m try­ing to keep the weight way down)
• (pos­si­bly) Pocket Mail de­vice (so I can stay in touch with fam­ily and friends. Again costs money and adds more weight. It also would prob­a­bly dis­tract me from my jour­nal. On the other hand it would al­low me to write post en­tries here on my blog)
• Snufkin fig­urine (Snufkin, my hero since I was a boy, from Tove Jansson’s “Moom­introll” books se­ries, rep­re­sents part of how I view and would like to live my life. One of my fa­vorite fic­tional characters)

The cam­era and lens, book, note­book, sketch­book, wa­ter­color set, and Snufkin fig­urine are not in­cluded in the base pack weight.
_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​

I’m sure there’s more, but it’s late and I’m tired. If there any changes I’ll add them later. It seems like a lot of stuff, but most of them are very small or very light. My pack should be no more than about 40 liters with­out food, 50 liters with food, ex­cept that in the Alps I may only need to carry about one or two days worth of food every day.

Snufkin car­ried a day pack every­where. I al­ways won­dered how he got his big teepee style tent in there…

Crossing Borders

July 2, 2007 | Laughing Knees | 2 Comments 

For six months my next door neigh­bor, a land baron who gives lit­tle thought to the qual­ity of the com­mu­nity, sell­ing off the farm­land he in­her­ited to make a for­tune, has been build­ing ticky-​​tacky hous­ing lots in the tract of land out­side my win­dow. One of the rea­sons I took this place was for the unim­peded view of the rice pad­dies that ex­tends all the way to the hori­zon. Now half the rice pad­dies are gone, re­placed with newly graded streets and aer­at­ing mounds of new hous­ing lots.

I think the land gods have got it in for me…

For the last three nights, want­ing to test my tarps and tents for my up­com­ing trip to the Alps, I crept out onto the soft soil, alone in the dark­ness, and set up the shel­ters. For this short time the land was mine. The wind blew, the shel­ters luffed in the gusts, and the sky opened above me with­out a roof to break the ex­panse. Orion watched with approval.

Then, in de­fi­ance of the dis­tant lights of houses and apart­ments, I un­zipped my fly and uri­nated in a full arc. There, unto thee I wa­ter the world!

Now I can go home and hold in my heart: to pee where no one has peed before!