Tag Archives: Bilgy tent

A comfort light trip and a bright idea.

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Bilgy2This spring I am helping with our outdoor club’s courses on wilderness travel and backpacking.  To practice what I am preaching and  prepare for an upcoming trip, my wife and I took a leisurely backpack up a wilderness river valley in Olympic National Park.  Snow remains in the high country, but we had spring flowers, fresh bear scat just before camp and evening Harlequin ducks feeding in the river.

Since this was just an overnight family outing, I felt I could pack some extras. I even brought a small can of chicken!  Still, playing Sherpa, my walk-away-from-the-car weight  was only 28 lbs. and my wife carried 15. With two people, this was a trip for the Bilgy2 tent.  We had a large camp site all to ourselves and were joined at supper time by another couple who set up on an adjacent river island.

LuminAID-PackLite-16-Solar-Inflatable-LanternOne of the packed extras was a LuminAID PackLite 16 solar light.  Continue reading →

End of season review

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New snow - RainierMt. Rainier is now wearing a new coat of snow and the high country is making the transition to winter.  Days are short, the rain is arriving and it is time to look ahead to ski season.  This is  a good time to reflect on this year’s outings.  What worked well?  What didn’t?

Comfort light delivered for me this season.  Good, light weight equipment continues to open opportunities.  My wife and I are backpacking again, without me as the mule.  I am able to do grab and go trips to support climbs requiring a base camp.  Bake a load of Logan bread.  Take a quick shopping trip and I am off.  With less gear, packing is quicker.  In the past even overnight trips seemed to have packing drama. Continue reading →

Tent Evolution

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Big Agnes Seedhouse SL1Tent design and fabric technology have come along way from the waxed canvas pup tents of my boyhood. This entry shares my approach to and experience with “comfort light” shelters. There are many choices of very light solo and two person tents from major suppliers and a lot of cottage manufacturers. The lines blur when tents start to become only shelters, like tarps or even modified rain ponchos. Beyond that there are bivy sacks. Three tents that I have used in recent seasons illustrate a range of tent choices as well as my search for the illusive “great balance” between weight, function and cost.

I travel in a part of the world where rain and bugs happen. I like to have my stuff inside in these conditions and so prefer tents to bivy type solutions. Mountain tents, built to withstand really high winds and snow seem too heavy for general use. I have gravitated to solutions that are enhanced tarp tents, either modified or sewn from materials and a pattern. Continue reading →