2014 Gear Review

Shelter – Tarptent Moment

A not so great pitch, but here it is under Mather Pass in the Sierras. I’ve said it in many a blog post, but I’ll say it again – I love this tent. It pitches super fast (hence the name) and it withstood high winds in the desert (when I wasn’t cowboy camping), snow on San Jacinto, hail in Oregon and rain in Washington. It’s super roomy inside, there was plenty of room for me and my gear. I bought this model a few years ago, and since then they have revamped this tent and it now comes with two vestibules/doors, whereas mine only has one. I can imagine this feature makes it more breezy, although I never had issues with stuffiness. The triangles on either side have mesh for ventilation, and there are also optional vents on the top.

Since it’s a single wall tent, condensation is a thing, but the inside was so roomy that I had no trouble making sure I didn’t touch the sides when it was wet. I would sometimes wake up in the morning with the footbox of my sleeping bag damp, but this would also happen whilst cowboy camping.

Tarptent’s customer service is FANTASTIC. I emailed them with a question about the best way to a field repair and I had an answer within hours. Every other thru-hiker I talked to on the trail said similar things. Some folks have issues with the zippers failing since we use the gear so hard, and Tarptent sent them stuff to fix it to their next resupply point.

The Short and Skinny:  I love this tent. It’s 4 years old so it won’t make it for another thru-hike, but my next tent will also be a Tarptent.

 

Sleep System – Marmot Helium 15 degree bag with REI 3/4 length inflatable sleeping pad

Let me start by saying I’m a cold sleeper, like, really cold. There was only one night on the trail when I was uncomfortably cold, and it was when I was camped on top of 6 inches of snow at 10,000 feet and my long underwear bottoms had gotten wet so I wasn’t wearing them. This sleeping bag kept me warm and was super comfy for the whole trip. I had the regular length (I’m 5’9″) and had enough room long ways and side ways.

There were a few times, especially in Oregon and Washington, where I woke up with a lot of condensation on the bag. It’s down, which is useless when it’s wet, but since the temperature rating is so low, it didn’t matter and I still didn’t get cold. I like having a hood to cinch around my head when I get cold, it became a comforting thing, being able to bury myself in my sleeping bag at night. It weighs just over 2 pounds, and packs down into a size small eVent compression sack.

I bought my sleeping pad on clearance from REI, and it did its job. It kept me warm and it was comfortable. Whatever material is used on the outside was super durable, and the pad only got one hole the entire hike. The trade off was that it’s kind of bulky and weighs almost a pound, so ideally I’d like to switch to either a Neoair or ditch the inflatable entirely and just go to a foam pad.

The Short and Skinny: I love my sleeping bag and I’ll use it until it’s a smashed ball of useless crumpled feathers.

 

Pack – Osprey Exos 48 / Aura 50

(Left: Exos, Right: Aura)

 

I started and finished with the Osprey Aura 50. In Agua Dulce, I pulled the Exos out of a hiker box at the Saufley’s – the only thing wrong with it was the ripped mesh front pocket. Osprey came out with this pack 2 weeks before I started the trail, and I just couldn’t rationalize buying a new pack when I already had one that I knew I liked. I patched the mesh and the Exos worked like a dream until after I came out of the Sierras and no longer had any ass or love handles left. The pack was a men’s size medium and it was too long for my torso, so I had Mom bring me my Aura to Tahoe when she came out.

The Aura weighs a whole pound more than the Exos, and it has too many pockets. The Exos had one main compartment, the mesh front pocket and two mesh side pockets. The hip belt pockets were also bigger, which meant they could hold more snacks, which was important because I was eating a bar every hour so I didn’t have to stop walking. There were also nifty pockets on the front of the straps of the Exos, which the Aura didn’t have. I used them to hold my headphones, glove liners and buff. The material of the whole pack was stretchier so it felt roomier even though it was 2 liters smaller than the Aura. Both packs were comfortable and could handle carrying 6 liters of water through the desert, though I could tell the Exos fabric was straining a bit more than the Aura fabric since it’s thinner.

Though I preferred the Exos to the Aura, both packs are great and I have always liked Osprey as a company. Their customer service is awesome. When an animal chewed through my pack, I went to the outfitter in Mount Shasta and they got in touch with Osprey and they exchanged my pack for FREE, even though it wasn’t a product defect. All I had to do was pay the outfitter $15 to ship my destroyed pack back to Osprey.

The Short and Skinny: If I were to do another long distance hike, I’d choose the Exos (in my size) over the Aura. I’m tempted to switch to a company like Gossamer Gear or ULA because they use dyneema fabric, which is supposed to be more waterproof and lightweight.

 

Cook System – MSR Microrocket, Snow Peak Mini Soloist (pot only)

I never once wished I was stoveless. Having a hot meal at the end of a day was good for morale, and my cook system was super compact. A small canister of fuel fits inside my pot with my stove, making it compact and lightweight. I was often camped with people who had Jetboils, which made me feel like it took forever to boil water, but really it only took about 5 minutes. I only used my stove once a day, usually for dinner unless I had to cook at a water source during long waterless stretches. I was concerned about blowing through fuel really quickly, but because I was only using my stove to boil water and then add potatoes or cous cous, I could go 500 miles on one small fuel canister.

The Microrocket is a smaller version of the Pocket Rocket – it’s a few ounces lighter and the burner edges fold down smaller. The Pocket Rocket is sturdier, but doesn’t fit inside my pot with everything else. One thing I don’t like about the micro rocket is that the burner pieces fold out wider than the pocket rocket. This was intentional in the design to allow larger pots to be more stable on the burner, but since my pot was so small it was less sturdy and sometimes it would wobble.

The Short and Skinny: I don’t want to change anything about my cook system, except maybe switching from a spork to a spoon to make it easier to scrape the bottom of the pot.

 

Water Purification – Sawyer Squeeze/ Aquamira/ Katadyn Hiker

 

 

 

Getting water is my LEAST favorite trail chore. I love drinking water, but I hate stopping get it and because of that I always carried more than I needed. I was TERRIFIED of running out of water in the desert, and I never did, because I carried a metric fuck ton of water. But it meant I could drink as much as I wanted, and that was important to me.

I started with the Sawyer Squeeze. People rave about this filter, and it’s decent, but I ditched it at Kennedy Meadows because I’m impatient. The packaging says that the filter will get faster with more use, I didn’t find that to be the case. I hated having to back flush it constantly, and it took a long time to squeeze the bags and get water. The filter also has a water bottle cap feature to allow you to drink straight from the bag, but the flow was so slow that I felt like I was working unnecessarily hard and my thirst wasn’t quenched – I wanted to gulp it down, dammit! My biggest issue with it was the fact that I was never sure if it had frozen or not – they say if it freezes then it will no longer work properly, and there were definitely a couple of super cold nights where I forgot to put the filter in my sleeping bag with me. I wish it had some sort of indicator to tell you if it’s still good.

So I switched to Aquamira, which I didn’t want to do because I didn’t really want to drink chemicals, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really change the flavor of the water, not like iodine. I was okay with waiting 15 minutes for the chemicals to react, because I could just dump it in my platypus and keep hiking. I stopped using Aquamira simply because I couldn’t find it. REI doesn’t sell it in any of their stores for whatever reason, and all of the outfitters I went to in Portland were out of it. Aquamira is the only chemical treatment that doesn’t take 4 hours to purify water, aside from Potable Aqua, which is iodine and shouldn’t be used long term.

The Katadyn filters are tried and true, it’s the first form of water purification I ever used in the backcountry. I was considering starting with it, but decided against it because of the bulkiness of the filter. It doesn’t take too long to pump water – it’s definitely faster than the Sawyer. The only drawback (besides the size and weight) was when it came to filtering from the little creeks running across the trail. They aren’t very deep so I’d have to dig a hole or just wait for the next water source. BUT I could filter from disgusting ponds and feel okay about drinking it, so there’s that.

The Short and Skinny: I don’t think there’s any perfect water purification method. For the last 2 weeks, I didn’t filter very many sources, mostly out of laziness. Part of me wants a Steripen, but I hear those are finicky, and they’re also expensive. If Sawyer were to revamp their filter to make the flow faster, I’d go with that.

 

Technology – Suntactics S5 Charger / iPhone 5s in Atlas case

I used my phone a lot on the trail, and having a solar charger meant I didn’t (usually) have to worry about running out of battery before I got to town. The Suntactics charger is a little pricy, but I think it’s worth it. I just wasn’t satisfied with Goal Zero or any of the other brands that you could buy at an REI, and I knew a lot of hikers who had their chargers break. I didn’t have that issue. The Suntactics S5 weighs only 8 oz and folds up to the size of a CD case. It doesn’t store power, so it has to be in the sun to charge. Through the desert and the Sierras where there isn’t a lot of tree cover, it worked wonderfully and charged my phone faster than a wall charger. It was more difficult in the Pacific Northwest, but that just meant I’d have to stop and take a break to let it sit in the sun and charge a bit. Sometimes it would be a little finicky if I crossed a patch of shade, and I would have to unplug my phone and then plug it back in. I’ve been told this is a bug with Apple, not the charger itself.

I did a ridiculous amount of research on phone cases before deciding which one I wanted. This was due in part to the fact that this is my first smart phone, and these things are expensive. The Lifeproof cases are lighter, but I didn’t like the screen protector because it was plastic. The Incipio Atlas has a glass screen protector, and is completely waterproof, shockproof and drop proof. I dropped this thing so many times (including into a few streams) and my phone is still completely intact. EVERYTHING gets beat up on a thru-hike, no matter how well you take care of it. Any indestructible case is going to negatively affect the functionality of the phone, that’s just the sacrifice you have to make. The Touch ID doesn’t work as well with the case, and typing on the screen is a little obnoxious because it’s less sensitive with the screen protector on it. The bottom of the case (where the speakers and charging port are) is covered with a little plastic door, which muffles the sound if you’re trying to listen to music or use speakerphone. I stopped using speakerphone altogether with this case because I felt like I was yelling at the phone to be heard. This case is great for protecting the phone on adventures, but in real life I’m switching to something more user friendly.

The Short and Skinny: I used my phone for navigation (Halfmile’s app), blogging, and music while I was hiking on the trail, and the Suntactics charger allowed me to do that. On hikes that are more in the trees (like say, the AT), I’d probably go with a battery pack, but it worked brilliantly on the PCT.