Note To Self

For years now I've been meaning to get into bikepacking, specifically by doing the Palouse to Cascades Trail, a 285-mile rail trail across Washington State. Having formerly been a railroad, the grade borders on completely flat and the surface is gravel (or, at the least the parts I've seen are). A so-called gravel bike makes a lot of sense. Although I have yet to pull the trigger on an actual bike, I wanted to share some notes from my research over the summer. Link to my bike spreadsheet Terminology [Note: I have a bad habit of using the term "pedals" [...]

My fire district recently had a training on how to perform a "hot load" (loading a patient into a helicopter while the blades are spinning). Afterwards I had a brief discussion with one of the pilots from Airlift Northwest about locating patients in the wilderness. He mentioned that, during the day, signal mirrors are actually quite effective when used properly but that it's usually difficult for folks on the ground to shine the light right at the helicopter, which is what actually gets their attention. Some mirrors, such as the UST Starflash, include a sort of targeting reticle which lights [...]

As a new dad, I don't know how much backpacking, if any, I'll be able to pull off in 2021. As a substitute, I'm starting to look into trail running as a way to get out and see the sights without the time commitment of spending the night. However, I've still had my eye on a number of backpacking upgrades for theoretical future trips: The Zpacks Arc Air 50L backpack is 532g in size medium/medium and constructed from Dyneema. Not only is it a jaw-dropping 321 grams lighter than my Osprey Levity 60L, it uses pre-curved stays to arch the [...]

Having tried canister and alcohol stoves, this evening I decided to broaden my horizons with a solid-fuel stove, specifically the Esbit pocket stove and Esbit-branded hexamine fuel tablets. Conditions were a 65F ambient temperature and 5mph winds gusting to 10mph. The goal was to bring two cups of water to a rolling boil inside the Evernew TI Mug Pot 500 with lid. Note that, having a relatively narrow base, this pot doesn't heat as efficiently as a wider-bottomed pot would. Weights Esbit pocket stove: 88gEsbit fuel tablet: 15g each Experiments The first round consisted of using the pocket stove itself [...]

I was browsing clearance outdoor gear on DVOR (a sort of Drop [which has largely abandoned outdoor gear] for hunters run by OpticsPlanet) when I came across some really interesting winter traction options from Black Diamond, a brand I normally don't pay much attention to: First up is the Blitz, a minimalist device with spikes only in the front. The website claims that the weight of each device in size medium is 57g, but it also says that the weight of a medium pair is 45g per pair, so... Either way, my Snowline Chainsen Lights in size XL are 136g [...]

On the tail-end of a recent eye exam I had a chance to ask the doc one of my longest-burning questions: do wide-brim hats interfere with the ability of photochromic lenses to darken in response to UV light? Her answer was no. For context, almost all photochromic lenses rely on ambient UV light in order to trigger the darkening effect. However, car windshields block the portion of the UV spectrum that the lenses are sensitive to, effectively reducing them to regular fixed-transmission sunglasses while driving. Since wide-brim hats block all of the direct sunlight that would otherwise hit the lenses, [...]

Montbell's new traction offerings are just rebadged Chainsens from Snowline. Earlier this month, Montbell announced their new traction (chain spikes) lineup, including their aptly-named and outdoor-focused Chain Spike. They listed the country of origin as Korea which immediately made me suspicious since Snowline, who make the Chainsen line of traction devices (and, I believe, were the original manufacturers of Kahtoola's Microspikes), are headquartered in Korea. I used my meager image compositing skills to put together this side-by-side comparison: Snowline Chainsen Pro left, Montbell Chain Spike right Snowline makes a number of Chainsen models, however, it appears that the Montbell offering [...]

Q: Will a Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer puffy keep me warm down to 30F? A: Yes. In fact, it will keep me warm down to 23F. For an upcoming trip the expected lows are around 30F and I wanted to determine whether my current ensemble was warm enough or whether I should purchase a beefier hoodie (specifically I had my eyes on the Rab Proton since it's the best puffy with around 5oz of down fill according to a puffy spreadsheet I put together). Based on the forecasted low being between 6 and 7AM I set my alarm ridiculously early [...]

After previously testing out my Enigma 10F down to 24.5F I was excited to see last Thursday's forecasted low of 18F. Actually there were two lows, 18F at 11PM and another stretch of 18F from 6AM to 8AM. Unfortunately I just missed them both, I was too late getting set up and then when I woke up at 5:30AM and had to use the bathroom I decided that I might as well come inside since I didn't think I could fall back asleep. The good news is that our new tested low is 21.5F: This is a screenshot for the [...]

I've been working on putting together a winter backpacking ensemble and one of the first steps was to get myself a warmer quilt. I ended up buying an Enlightened Equipment Enigma 10F Long/Wide ($355, 774g) but thought I'd share my research and thought process along the way. Baseline For three-season 2019 I've been using a Sierra Designs Nitro Quilt 800 20F. What I like about it is that it's big: I can just drape it over myself like a blanket and I don't have to fuss with straps or any other gadgets to attach it to my pad. Specifically, it's [...]