Dan's Outside

2003.08.08

***I have not finished
organizing my pictures from the Pioneer Basin pack trip yet – hopefully I’ll be able to post some later tonight. In the meantime, here is a picture of “Camp Dan” – the new light-weight version featuring a 2-pound sleeping bag, a 7-ounce Siltarp, and a bivy sack (not shown).

(To answer the obvious questions: No, I do not sleep on rocks, and I did not build the rock wall around the campsite.)

This is the first time I’ve been able to put a bunch new gear to the test, and I can report it all worked well under the cool, breezy, and mostly-sunny conditions that we saw this week.

• My Mountainsmith Auspex pack has a capacity of about 4000 cubic inches and weighs only three-and-a-half pounds. I wondered how it would handle the 6-night/7-day load for this trip, but it was fine. It is actually a very comfortable pack, something I worried about a bit given its minimal padding. I augmented its capacity with the Mountainsmith Boogeyman day pack, which weighs only 1 pound and attaches to the back of the Auspex.
• My Marmot Arroyo sleeping bag weighs only about 2 pounds and packs to about the size of a football. It is rated to 30 degrees but it worked in colder conditions if I wore extra clothes to bed.
• I relied on the combination of my Moonstone Bivy Sack and Integral Designs Siltarp (7 oz.) instead of a tent on this trip. Although we faced nothing more daunting than first-night sprinkles I am happy with this combination.

This gear probably lightened my pack by 5-6 pounds compared to my older gear: Mountainsmith Crestone II pack, Marmot Never Summer bag, and Walrus Zoid 1.0.
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August 8, 2003 - Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary