Lightweight and Ultralightweight Backpacking

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Panoramic view from a mountain top in Glacier National Park, Montana
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The 10 Essentials

Shelter

The shelter you need may be quite simple: a windbreak or a sunshade.

Where are you going? If only a short walk from the car, is there any chance you may become lost? This is a realistic question.

In the mountains, the clouds roll in. Because you are at the altitude of the clouds, you can get enveloped in "fog". In low lying areas, fog may roll in. Enveloped in a dense fog, most experienced outdoorsmen would be at risk. How much risk, depends on how much preparation and what appropriate clothing and appropriate outdoor gear you have with you.

If there is no natural shelter available if there is a sudden downpour of rain or hail, for example, what then?

It is important to not crouch under an overhang of rock or dirt enbankment. If lightning, lightning travels along the surface. The only reasonably safe place to crouch is on your pack. Mountainclimbers are told to crouch on the coiled rope. Do not lay down. The best thing is to get in where everything is the same height. The forest is basically the same height. One tree is not.

There is survival, by sleeping near the base of thick brush, curled up, knees to chest, hands tucked in. But we can do better. I don't want a miserable night, and neither do you. Reduce risk, by having more shelter than some thicket of underbrush.

I am not a "survivalist" nevertheless these two videos have helpful basic information:

The information presented is essential, and fundamental.

Any outdoorsman, or woman, would benefit from providing better than for survival for having to remain out overnight. This lessens the panic. You are prepared: there is no running in panic. If you know you will be alright overnight, there isn't much reason for panic.

The most basic shelter, in my opinion, is a 3.5 oz Adventure Medical Kits Heatsheet Emergency Bivvy. Out of wind, with layers of clothing, it is possible to avoid excessive heat loss.

For a 10 Essentials ordinary daypack or a large volume waist pack to include shelter, it could include the 6.9 oz. Adventure Medical Kits Thermo-Lite 2.0 Bivvy and your choice warm first layer top and bottom, perhaps lightweight merino wool, plus a warm hat, and for reasonable insulation from the ground the 13 oz. Cascade Designs NeoAir.

Make gear selections and acquire the skills with that gear to quickly be able to get snug and secure in the shelter you have.

Many of the shelters I have listed can be open to reflect heat from a warming fire or closed down to the ground to retain warmth and still have reasonable interior height for changing clothing, yet, are lightweight and even ultralightweight shelter and pack down to a small volume.

I have listed only lightweight and durable shelters.

Every one of these successful shelter designs weigh less than two pounds.

The heaviest shelters I list include the 28 oz MSR Twin Sisters tarp shelter and the 30.3 oz Terra Nova Laser Competition double-wall tent.

The Twin Peaks tarp shelter, now, called the Twin Sisters may still be pitched open or closed down, has added flaps at the foot for snow camping.

The Terra Nova Laser Photon Elite, at 29.4 oz is a new tent from Terra Nova.

The size is a "good fit" if you and your sleeping bag do not touch the interior wall. But that is true for every shelter for backpacking.

Many of the modern tents have a rainfly that may be closed down to the ground to achieve the benefits of a double-wall tent and offer the option of putting up either the rainfly or the tent or both rainfly and tent.

Few achieve this weight: pitch the rainfly and footprint.

I have additional durable lightweight shelter alternatives including the hammock shelter systems, which are no longer limited to use in the tropics, for consideration at Products: gear.

Make your choice among the many lightweight options available today.

May I suggest you make the initial comparisons online?

Here is my list for online comparison shopping:

  • Gossamer Gear, The One shelter 17.1 oz
  • Gossamer Gear, Squall Classic tarptent 21.4 oz
  • Six Moon Designs, Lunar Solo Enhanced tent 23 oz
  • Tarptent, Contrail tarptent 24.5 oz
  • LightHeart Gear, The LightHeart Tent 26 oz
  • Six Moon Designs, Refuge tent 27 oz

  • Mountain Laurel Designs, Monk Tarp Spinntex EXP tarp 5.8 oz
  • Oware, Cat Bird Tarp 6.75 oz
  • Mountain Laurel Designs, Grace Solo Spinntex EXP tarp 7.5 oz
  • Mountain Laurel Designs, Patrol Shelter 8 oz
  • Oware, Cat Tarp 1.1 tarp 8 oz
  • Mountain Laurel Designs, Grace Duo Spinntex EXP Shelter 9.8 oz
  • Kifaru, ParaTarp Tarp 11 oz
  • Kifaru, ParaHootch Tarp 11 oz
  • Six Moon Designs, Gatewood Cape shelter 11 oz
  • Gossamer Gear, Spinn-Shelter tarp 12.9 oz
  • Six Moon Designs, Wild Oasis shelter 13 oz
  • Integral Designs, Silshelter tarp 16.5 oz
  • Black Diamond, Beta Light shelter 19 oz
  • Outdoor Research, LightHaven shelter 21.7 oz
  • Oware, Flat tarp 1.0 tarp 23 oz
  • Mountain Laurel Designs, Supermid 2010 Shelter 24 oz
  • Black Diamond, Betamid shelter 28 oz

  • Mountain Laurel Designs, LiteSoul Bivy 4.4 oz
  • Mountain Laurel Designs, Bug Bivy 5.5 oz
  • TiGoat, Ptarmigan Bivy 5.8 oz
  • Mountain Laurel Designs, Superlite Bivy 6.9 oz
  • Adventure Medical Kits, Thermo-Lite 2.0 Bivvy 6.9 oz
  • Six Moon Designs, Meteor Bivy 7 oz
  • Black Diamond, Winter bivy 9.8 oz
  • Rab, UK Super Light Bivi 16.4 oz
  • Rab, UK Storm Bivi 17.3 oz
  • Integral Designs, Micro Bivy 18.5 oz
  • Outdoor Research, MicroNight Bivy 19.4 oz
  • Macpac, NZ Alpine Cocoon bivy 20 oz
  • Integral Designs, South Col, eVENT version bivy 22 oz
  • Integral Designs, Bugaboo bivy 23 oz
  • Integral Designs, Penguin Reflexion bivy 23 oz
  • Wild Things, Bivy Sack bivy 25 oz
  • Black Diamond, Bibler Hooped bivy 25 oz
  • Black Diamond, Biber Big Wall bivy 26 oz
  • Integral Designs, Backcountry Bivy 27.2 oz
  • Integral Designs, eVent Crysallis Bivy 28 oz


Rain

For ultralight shelter, the spinnaker cloth option is working out quite well in the wet.

In sandy soil, silnylon is a sand magnet, when dry, (needing to be shaken out) and "mists" and stretches, if wet. If the guylines incorporate a section of elastic cordage, that will alleviate much of this problem.

Both, spinnaker cloth and silnylon are for a well-ventilated product design.

Both, shake off water quite easily.

If it may rain, do not put your shelter away wet. After shaking off excess water, wipe it down, if you can, and carry it loosly shoved into an open weave pocket on the pack.

If no open weave pocket, hang it loosely on the outside of your pack. Keep the inside surface drier than the outside surface if you can.

When set up, wipe down the inside surface with the pack towel.

At the first opportunity, air dry it thoroughly, and then rinse and air dry it thoroughly before putting it away.

Avoid folding any of these shelters. The stuff sack is appropriately named for stuffing into the sack. The cotton, or cotton blend, or open weave storage bag you purchase is sized larger for stuffing loosely for storage.

Many people openly hang their shelter in a well ventilated place for storage.


Snow

There is some special knowledge required for snow.

For example, probe with hiking stick or ice axe before your next step. It may be a weak "snowbridge" undercut by water. It may be a deep snowdrift so you cannot get out. On a glacier, the snow can be a weak "snowbridge" over a crevasse.

If you try to go on the run, there may be a buried log that could break your leg.

In ordinary snow country, with trees, do not take shelter in the snow hole at the base of a tree because it is a sink hole for cold air. It is much colder in there.

I would not bivy anywhere in snow, except if there is nothing else to do. It has been done and people have survived: it may involve loss of extremities. Do put insulation on extremities, like feet, hands, ears and nose.

If going out in snow, or it may snow, have the specialised clothing for the coldest weather for all extremities.

The closed shelters, I have listed, can do well in snow. In fact, snow-shoers and cross-country skiers and other winter hikers using a closed tarp shelter or a double wall tent still have to shake the snow off the shelter.

Snow travel is specialized: learn how to make hot food using a suitable stove insulated from the surface of the snow. If not, don't do it.


Snow Cave

One time, when a snowstorm hit, we were enveloped in "white out". We stopped right there and made a snow cave shelter.

We were warm and cozy camped in that snow cave shelter.

It is common for a snow cave to be made against a slope.

The temperatures inside a proper snow cave can be quite comfortable, if the entrance tunnel is lower than the sleeping shelf.

It is necessary to poke air-holes out and up from the sleeping shelf near the entrance tunnel.

The roof should be a smooth curve for melt run-off to a small ditch around the sleeping shelf. This keeps dripping melted snow off your sleeping bag or bivy bag.

It is suggested you check the air-holes during the time inside, for example during the night, using an ice axe or hiking stick, because the air-holes could become snowed over.

I carry a rescue shovel. However, the Snow Claw will serve in soft snow. These two are for cross-country in winter, for use, even if the car is snowed-in. Have both. At only 6.1 oz the Snow Claw can also serve as a dry place to sit on the snow.


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copyright © 2010 Connie Dodson. All Rights Reserved.