Stuff Sacks- overkill?

[Jennifer Mitol]

Haha!! I knew I could count on you guys for a Thursday morning laugh!! Wow do I need to get out. I was, of course, referring to the bag she was carrying, but I should have known. The women see the bag, you guys see, well, whatever it is you see.

[Travis Leanna]

Well, since Doug already took dibs on the girl, I've got dibs on the shoes.

Jennifer, what quilt do you have and what size stuff sack is it in? Also, which shelter are you using? What extra clothes do you bring?

[J-L]

I often put my quilt and any clothes in the "large rectangular dry bag" from ZPacks. Putting everything in one big dry bag keeps them dry and allows me to squish it all down for a pretty compact package that I stuff at the bottom of my pack – much smaller than separate dry bags for everything would allow. I would also try folding up your sleeping pad and placing it against your backpanel. Sleeping pads always end up much more compact when folded instead of rolled.

"Using larger stuff sacks can be one way to keep things organized but make the contents more flexible so they conform to the shape of the bag more easily."

+1 to this. I use a pretty large stuff sack for my shelter.

[Jerry Adams]

I've never quite understood shoes. Why is a closet full of shoes a good thing?

[Jennifer Mitol]

For the quilt, I used to use a sea to summit sil dry bag…squished as much as I can to get the air out. My last few trips I tried the cloud packing idea for the quilt, using a garbage bag as a pack liner. But still using all those other stuff sacks.

As for extra clothes, obviously it depends on the length of the trip and the temps. A typical weekend affair I just bring a merino shirt to sleep in and depending on the temps I may bring my montbell UL puffy (which would go in the cuben stuff sack with the clothes). Longer trips or colder trips ill bring a pair of capilene long underwear bottoms and a spare pair of socks. For example, my 8 days in the winds last August I carried 1 extra pair of socks, 1 extra pair underwear, capilene 2 long underwear bottoms and a mid weight smart wool long sleeve top for sleeping.

I also am working on my rain gear, as I used to use a precip and a pair of 9 oz 2.5 layer REI rain pants. I've switched to a Rab pullover for real rain or a Houdini for drizzle, depending on location and season, and will be getting the montane featherlite pants. Wondering about a zpacks cloud kilt…seems like a great idea! But I digress…

So…

I'm taking a trip to the ozarks in MO next weekend and will try no stuff sacks at all to see if it helps. I'm also planning some packing practice this weekend….I just feel like I HAVE to be missing something big.

[Mike Oxford]

Women collect clothes and shoes for the same reason that men collect tools, and both sexes collect UL gear.

It's the POSSIBILITIES that they represent, whether they ever get used or not, the options are available … and you can never have too many cool new options and new possibilities!

I know guys with garages full of tools they never use, and while their wives are asking why the need all those tools the guys are asking why the women need all the shoes…. :)

-mox

[Jerry Adams]

I have heard that some guys buy AR-15 and then buy cool accessories. "Barbie Dolls for guys". Same idea.

[Stephen M]

When not packing my winter sleeping bag everything I want to keep dry goes in to an Exped Snozzle dry bag which also serves as the pump for my pad and as a pillow, triple use :-)

[Dale Wambaugh]

General UL principles lean to minimizing as much as possible, and stuff sacks scan add up, especially the old tough PU coated Cordura bags. With the cuben and silnylon bags available, it's not as weighty a problem (nice pun, eh?).

The bags in my kit are there to organize and/or protect the items— or to protect everything else from what is in the bag. Dirty cookpots and nasty-leaky stuff like DEET and peanut butter need to be corralled. I do end up with about 5-6ounces of stuff sacks and ziplocks. I like to have everything in it's place and not spending 15 minutes and the aggravation of turning my pack inside out to find one item. I have things separated in systems: latrine, hygiene, small clothing, insulation, essentials, cook kit, food, and a small ditty bag for odds and ends.

[Justin Baker]

I usually take the clothing that I am only going to wear in camp and stuff it at the bottom of my sleeping bag. Once I have set up my shelter I pull out my sleeping bag and my camp clothing with it. This has worked really well for me.

[Nick Gatel]

Two stuff sacks, one for the quilt and one for the Caldera Cone set up. Four zip lock bags.

This was a 3 day trip with rain and temps around freezing at night.

[Stephen M]

Nick,

A bit off topic but would you mind letting me know what quilt, pad and insulated clothing you where packing?

Cheers,

Stephen

[Nick Gatel]

Stephen,

Quilt is a EE Ephinay Cuben.

Pad is a Suluk46 1/2" frame sheet.

Also note the doughnut looking thing. That is from a GG SitLite pad ala Mike Clelland for my hip. Did not workout well.

Carried a Montbell Ex UL Down Vest.

Also had a Smartwool Balaclava.

Cap 1 bottoms.

Mountain Hardwear Cliffer LS T was what I wore and slept in (merino/poly blend).

Gloves were Nike DriFit wind gloves — wool would have been better.

Base weight 3lbs 9oz.

[Stephen M]

Thanks Nick,

Thats a fairly Ul setup, these days I am always over cautious with my sleeping/quilt and pad as I still have memories of been uncomfortable in my youth.

[Nick Gatel]

The quilt was right on the edge… I was a little cold my last night.

[Stephen M]

I find it hard to sleep when cold, how about you?

I always end up packing about an extra pound of pad/sleeping gear than what is necessary but always keeps me warm.

[michael levi]

Nick, where are how do you arrange your water bladders? Im thinking about getting a small zero without pockets. Zpacks does sell a hydration bladder and port for $20.

[Nick Gatel]

The 1 liter platys go in water pockets and the 2 liter platy in the main bag. I have never used a hydration bladder as they seem heavy and if I need this much water I don't want it in one vessel, should it develop a leak.

[Bill Segraves]

"I just feel like I HAVE to be missing something big"

I suspect it's that there's not a very good relationship between a pack's weight, its carrying capacity in weight, and its volume, and that there's also a large range in various backpackers' gear density. It makes it hard to compare with others' experiences unless you match up all the details.

If I'm taking a synthetic quilt that I don't want to compress to death, a foam sleeping pad that I'm using inside the pack for support, a fleece for warmth, a Driducks jacket, and a bunch of crackers that I didn't crush first, I'm going to need more pack volume for a given base and food weight than if I have a highly compressible quilt of the same weight, an inflatable pad, more compressible outerwear and a ziploc of Grape Nuts.

If I have high volume and low weight, I might choose something like a Granite Gear Virga, which feels cavernous when I pack it. If I needed to carry a ton of water, but not a lot of gear, I might choose a relatively low volume pack but one that's designed for heavy loads – something like the Osprey Atmos 50 I used to have. About the same volume as the Virga, but easily capable of carrying twice as much weight (YMMV).

The cottage packs seem vary a fair amount in their density sweet spots, but in my experience, tend toward low-ish volumes relative to their weight-carrying capacity. (Interested to hear about counter-examples.) I'm guessing this is at least in part to avoid the half-full problems that the higher density users would experience, but that's what you're running in to. Other than getting more dense stuff or a higher volume pack (which need not weigh significantly more, as long as there's no feature creep), solutions include adding a longer extension collar and strapping stuff to the outside until food volumes shrink (with caveats related to bear can use).

Cheers,

Bill

[Hiking Malto]

In order for me to carry a stuff sack it has to have a purpose other than just to hold stuff. (This is pretty easy to say since I don't carry very much random stuff.) For a multiday carry similar to say a thru hike leg, I will have three stuff sacks. Two are cuben food bags (more on these in a minute.) and the only other one is the bag for my extra clothes which serves as my pillow. Here are a couple of lessons I learned over the last couple of years.
1) I use an inflatable pad, xtherm. This needs to be protected from abrasion. I use a pack liner, trash compacted bag. If rain is not expected then I only pack my folded pad in the bag for protection and place it as the pack frame in the front.
2) I use two cuben food bags. One has the food that won't be accessed during the day. This goes in the bottom and is the highest density, solid mass in my pack. Next in is my quilt and bivy, loosely rolled to conform to space.. The hard layer is next, cook pot and tarp followed by the day food bag and the soft loose filled clothes bag on top. This gives me hard layer, soft layer, hard layer, soft layer. I think this approach help form a solid yet flexible mass without hard lumps from hard things.
3) I custom made my food bags to the inside dimensions of my pack. This was an added after my thru hike when I had one "properly sized" bag and one the was too long and narrow. The properly sized one was used in the bottom and filled out the pack much better. Now both bags fit the pack perfectly and this allows the loading to be like building blocks.

I should probably mention that my pack is very small volume, MLD Burn. Its low volume is a dream to carry but it has forced me to optimize the loading to find perfection for me.

[EndoftheTrail]

"Now both bags fit the pack perfectly and this allows the loading to be like building blocks."

This is just my own comparison that convinced me to ditch stuff sacks with bag, pad, clothing and food. In my own experiment, one actually gains packing efficiency (i.e. the ability to pack more in the same amount of space) by avoiding the stuff sack's tendency to compress things into blocks. In my case, I found that simply shoving in the bag first, and then clothing, and then food, etc. items in all nooks and crannies was actually more efficient. I sometimes bring along a food bag. Even with that, I find shoving the pieces (including the bag) separately into 'the corners' more efficient than packing a solid block.

If you've tried this already and it didn't work for you, please ignore. But in case you haven't — maybe give it a try. If you can avoid the effort of wrestling things into their stuff sacks — esp. bag and pad — and gain packing space as a result — that can be a good thing, right?

[Richard Mock]

That has worked for me for 40 years in principle however sacks can be convenient jn a large structured pack.

[Jim Colten]

That has worked for me for 40 years in principle however sacks can be convenient jn a large structured pack.

were you meaning unstructured?

That is where I find stuff sacks worth carrying a couple ounces.

But I avoid the structured mass problem (mostly) by using sacks that are too large for their contents. That allows sacks of stuff to mostly assume the shape of available unused space in the pack. It also avoids the problem of a tightly stuffed sack (aka a "rock") abusing my kidneys or ribs when using a pack with no backpad.

[Author]

Posts