Tag Archives: tyvek

Gear Trials – A Comfort light trip in Mt. Rainier NP

Posted on by

Rain on the new tent

After a new ship is launched, it gets to meet the ocean for the first time with “sea trials”.  As our parks reopen and snow leaves the high country, it was time to get out for gear trials with recent projects.  I headed for a Park camp adjoining a couple of sub-alpine lakes at about 4700′.  The forecast was for a nice day, followed by a weak front overnight with a chance of rain in the morning.  As the first backpack of the season, I wanted to reality test my current set-up.  I had finished a new tent – the Hex-Lite.  My ultra-light bivy would serve as a quilt and air pad cover.  I was planning to Esbit cook with a single pot.  It was time to test a new Therm-a-Rest NeoAire Xlite air pad.  My Big Agnes pad no longer held air overnight and was 6 years old.  New gear keeps betting better. The Therm-a-Rest, with pump sack weighs only 15 oz., a 5 oz. improvement.

My claim for Comfort light backpacking is a 15 lb. base weight.  For this trip, my actual was 16 lbs. – close enough.  With overnight food and water, I left the car at 21 lbs.  (I don’t really count fuel separately anymore, since for this trip it was 3 Esbit tabs – 1.5 oz.)  Everything packed easily into my 2800 cu. in (46 L) RayWay pack, with the extension collar almost completely rolled down on top.  Now over 7 years old, it is still a very comfortable pack to carry. Continue reading →

HexLite – Making a spacious, full featured, sub 2 lb. tarp tent.

Posted on by

YouTube videos for tarp tents often show a 3 meter x 3 meter tarp being pitched a number of different ways.  One makes a single pole, hexagonal tent with a large interior and overhanging entry,  It is described as a great emergency shelter, roomy and quickly pitched.  I wondered if it could be made as a stand-alone lightweight backpacking tent.

I experimented with a cheap 10′ x 10′ blue plastic tarp to  visualize the design and interior space.  Using some of the new, reasonably priced, lightweight coated polyester fabrics now on the market, how light could it be?  Well, it’s finished and what’s not to like about a final overall weight of just 1 lb. 14 oz., including a 42 sq.ft. floor, 49″ center pole, stakes, bug netting door, and stuff sack.

I started with 7 yds. of silicone impregnated, 0.93 oz./sq.yd., Membrane Silpoly fabric from Ripstop by the Roll.  Continue reading →

Tent tuning

Posted on by

No matter how I pitched it my Night Wing tent from Six Moons Designs came out with a big wrinkle in the side. I thought it was my fault.  The tent is built from plans but I added some features.  Like all center ridge tents, the side walls sag claustrophobically into the volume of the tent.  So I added side pulls both at the bottom and midway up the side panels.  In a hurry to finish the tent, I did not get the pulls even on both sides.

Oh, well, the wrinkle was mostly an aesthetic issue.  But on a recent trip, I tumbled on a solution.

It turns out that the location of the middle stake loop on the panel lower edge is critical to getting a tight pitch. I moved one loop on one side of the tent. That aligned things so that now the the wrinkles are smaller and symmetric. And I still have the interior volume I like.

 

Here it is pitched on trekking poles.  Now I have my go-to solo tent, with 26 sq. ft. of floor space, good bug screening, an integrated Tyvek ground cloth, stakes and stuff sack all weighing in at 1 lb. 14 oz and fewer wrinkles

Tent Evolution

Posted on by

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 →