Lightweight and Ultralightweight Backpacking
The View from Here
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| INTRODUCTION BACKPACK PACKING FOOD GEAR LISTS 10 ESSENTIALS PRODUCTS LINKS VIDEO SITE MAP
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The 10 Essentials
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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: |
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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 Sol 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 Sol Thermal 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 that would fit in a day pack or lumbar pack 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.
The heaviest shelters I list include the 30.3 oz Terra Laser Competition 1 double-wall tent and the 32 oz Six Moon Designs Haven Tarp and Haven NetTent and the 33 oz MSR Twin Sisters shelter.
Every one of these successful shelter designs weigh less two pounds or less.
Tent or tarp 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:
- Oware, Spinnaker Flat Tarp 1.0 5x8' Tarp 4 oz
- Oware, Flat Tarp 1.0 5x8' Tarp 6.75 oz
- Oware, CatBird TM 1 Tarp, with beak 6.5 oz
- Mountain Laurel Designs, Patrol Shelter Solo 8 oz
- Oware, Cat Tarp 8 oz
- Mountain Laurel Designs, Grace SilNylon Tarp 8.5 oz
- Mountain Laurel Designs, Monk Tarp SilNylon Tarp 8.9 oz
- Oware, AsymTarp1 Tarp 9 oz
- Oware, Cattarp1.5 TM Tarp 9 oz
- Oware, CatBirdTarp TM 2 Tarp, with beak 9 oz
- Oware, FlatTarp1.5 6x8' Tarp 10 oz
- Gossamer Gear, Spinn-Shelter
shelter 10.7 oz
- Kifaru, Para Tarp 11 oz
- Kifaru, ParaHootch Shelter 11 oz
- Six Moon Designs, Gatewood Cape shelter 11 oz
- Mountain Laurel Designs, Grace Duo SilNylon Tarp 13 oz
- Six Moon Designs, Wild Oasis shelter 13 oz
- Integral Designs, Silshelter tarp 16.5 oz
- Mountain Laurel Designs, TrailStar Shelter 17 oz
- Gossamer Gear, The One shelter 18.3 oz
- Black Diamond, Beta Light shelter 19 oz
- Oware, Flat tarp 1.0 tarp 23 oz
- Terra Nova, Bivi Tarp Bivi Tarp 25 oz
- Oware, Bivysack Hot Weather Bivy 5.5 oz
- Oware, Bivysack Drawcord Closure Small Bivy 5.6 oz
- TiGoat, Ptarmigan Bivy 5.8 oz
- Mountain Laurel Designs, Bug Bivy 6 oz
- Mountain Laurel Designs, Superlight Bivy 6.5 oz
- Six Moon Designs, Meteor Bivy 7 oz
- Adventure Medical Kits, SOL Thermal Bivvy 8.1 oz
- Oware, Bivysack Standard Zip Regular Length Bivy 9 oz
- Bibler, Winter bivy 9.8 oz
- Oware, Bivysack Standard Zip Long Length Bivy 12 oz
- Outdoor Research, Bug Bivy 16 oz
- Rab, Storm Bivi 17 oz
- Integral Designs, Micro Bivy 18.5 oz
- Integral Designs, South Col, eVENT version Bivy 22 oz
- Outdoor Research, MicroNight Bivy 22.4 oz
- Integral Designs, Bugaboo Bivy 23 oz
- Black Diamond, Bibler Hooped Bivy 22 oz
- Black Diamond, Biber Big Wall Bivy 26 oz
- Integral Designs, Backcountry Bivy 27.2 oz
- Six Moon Designs, Lunar Solo tent 23 oz
- Tarptent, Contrail tarptent 24.5 oz
- Terra Nova, Laser Photon 1 Tent 25.4 oz
- Tarptent, Notch tarptent 26 oz
- LightHeart Gear, The LightHeart Tent 27 oz
Continued
copyright © 2012 Connie Dodson. All Rights Reserved.
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