Miserable Environment: The Worst Conditions?

Gonna go ahead and second (or third or whatever) Washington State. Cascades this September were gnarly – all wet, no sun, and cold. Gotta love walking through soaking brush, freezing water pouring down your legs into your shoes…

But you have to time your trip with one of those weeks-long weather systems. Otherwise it'd be too pleasant.

I have been practicing UL (base gear < 10 pounds for multi-day trips) in Alaska's less than temperate conditions since the 1980's, back when our summers were really wet and cold, including multiple, multi-day crossings of glaciers and icefields.

If it had not been for those experiences (which include 30 mph winds and rain mixed with snow on bare ice camping in a 1.5 oz fabric megamid-style tent more than once), I would not have visualized the Arctic1000 as possible.

And IMHO the worst brush in the world is in Tasmania, so that mixed with leeches and rain comes closest to the worst conditions below freezing for me.

Limiting to Lower 48:

Everglades without a boat in high mosquito season, mid-summer is bad.

California Chaparall with an understory of poison oak and no trails also bad.

I think the Olympics are not as bad as Old Growth Redwood (i.e. bushwacking in the winter rain in Jed Smith or Redwoods Parks) because the fallen Olympic logs are smaller than the fallen redwoods.

Some of those Washington State briar patches are short in length but very nasty — very bad conditions, especially for lightweight gear.

Roman, is the pyramid tent your preferred option for miserable conditions during the arctic summer? Assume unrelenting rain and wind in conjunction with exposed locale. Assume also that temperatures don't drop far below freezing and that the winds are strong enough to cause hypothermia but not strong enough to destroy UL shelters. Two things I'm curious about: (1)Would you take a bivy in addition to the tent/tarp? (2)How would you deal with camping on really wet ground, eg some of the artic bogs?

Roman, what is your opinion of vapor barrier bag liners, and / or VB shirts and pants in those miserable conditions?

Florida is by no means the most hostile, but I had an experience during one spring break hike when I had to stop, strip down to my underwear, and pick ticks off my body. 74 was the total count and some were as small as the tip of a ball point pen That can be hostile my friend. They were everywhere.

Stephen.. that was luxury… (just kidding;) Think Alabama in the summertime and chiggers by the dozens. That was my fondest memory of an all-expense paid training vacation provided by the US Army.
Ticks can be removed, chiggers live beneath the surface of your skin, and take their time digesting you from the inside out..
"After secreting digestive enzymes, they suck up liquefied host tissues. The rash and INTENSE itching associated with chiggers is an allergic reaction to the mite's salivary secretions."
Another reason I sleep in a tent.

Alternate tour package… mosquito lunch, and you are the guest of honor..

Chris:

Yes, a pyramid tent is my preferred option for miserable conditions during the arctic summer. However it takes some experience to set it up in unrelenting rain and wind in conjunction with exposed locale — and with winds strong enough to cause hypothermia as well as strong enough to destroy UL shelters that are not pitched well.

Chris, I absoultely swear by that style of tent, given my own ultralight style (multipurpose, sharing, spartan)

"(1)Would you take a bivy in addition to the tent/tarp?"
No — I gave up on bivy sacks two decades ago; however, did use them for many years. Eventually discovered they did very little but add weight to my pack as they got wet. Prefer synthetic bags and foam pads alone. But I am very aware that this is a personal issue and there are likely people reading these very contentious words of mine who started using bivy sacks 2 decades ago and would never consider going without one.

"(2)How would you deal with camping on really wet ground, eg some of the artic bogs?" Look for a better spot! But suppose it's rainy and the ground is all wet. Well I spread my rain gear down on the ground inside facing up. Then put my dry bag down and then my foam pad and pack. Generally I build a little island of dryness and sleep on top of that. It's amzing how adept you get!

I prefer the philosophy of building dryness in a wet world to trying to keep the wet world out of a dry tent.

Climbing into a dry tent with wet clothes gets the tent wet. Climbing under the mid and onto the wet ground with muddy boots and wet clothes is no big deal. It feels great!

then I strip and build my island and sleep warm, dry , and happy.

:)

Vapor barriers IMHO are great for winter trips when condensation wets the bag and makes it heavy and cold.

I once skied across the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and it was so cold our whiskey froze for a week. For a month the temperature never climbed above zero F. We could not stay warm eneough to sleep more than 4 hours per night. It was the Nation's absolute zero chamber that year.

The only thing that kept my gear dry was a vapor barrier shirt, pants and socks that I wore.

However, when the temp's above zero, my feeling is that condensation is not such a big deal. So I do not wear them.

Also I have no experience with VBL sleeping bag liner.

Roman-For the last two years I have spent 1 1/2 months, each year, kayaking portions of the SC and SE Alaskan coast. I have been successfully using a Black Diamond Megamid (pyramid shelter). I am considering replacing the MegaMid with the lighter silnylon MegaLite. In your opinion, will it hold as well to the incessant wind and rain?

Richard,

My favorite is the Black Dimond Megamid, too.

I do not like the silnylon fabric much. I had a silnylon megamid type made for me back in 2001 and while light — very light — it did not dry easily and just felt a bit too uncomfortable to sleep in with its wet walls — condensation seems to build up or maybe just cling tighter or something. I also have the Go Lite Hex and have used it a few times (Alaska, tropics, Mt Ranier) with similar results. Haven't used the silnylon MegaLite itself, however.

I find the silnylon fabrics rip too readily also in other applications.

Not a big fan of Silnylon — maybe just my wee bit of conservativeness coming in.

Sorry guys … wettest, roughtest places I've hiked are the Star Mountains in PNG – which get 10 METRES of rain per year (i.e., almost 400 inches) and have house-sized spider webs and Yakushima, south of Okinanawa, parts of which get 10 metres of rain a year, but which had 12 metres (400+ inches) the year that I went there …

Damian,

No doubt if you you're Ozzie and been to Tazzie and telling us PNG's the beast — then that's gotta be the most god-forsaken place!

And why/what were you doing there?

What do you know about PNG's Klinky Pines? Have you heard of them, know where they grow or beter yet seen them?

Roman

"No doubt if you you're Ozzie and been to Tazzie and telling us PNG's the beast — then that's gotta be the most god-forsaken place!

And why/what were you doing there?

What do you know about PNG's Klinky Pines? Have you heard of them, know where they grow or beter yet seen them?

"

Roman

I did the Overland Track a long time ago and actually had good weather but PNG is very wild and very different … and much, much wetter than Tassie, so I think it'd win a bad weather contest … although it doesn't snow much, which it can at any time of the year in Tassie. Why was I there? Summer job during law school helping collect documents for a court case.

What's a Klinky pine????

In the Whites of NH right as the majority of the snow is melting is always interesting. Rivers and streams are overflowing. Sleet can turn to rain to snow and back to sleet again on windy fogged in summits. I experienced my first bit of hypothermia on a trip in this area last year. Great experience to teach you what is nessesary (Sea to Summit sil bag liner and extra long underwear for camp) and what is just dead weight (canister stoves)

Ah, I see….

Well a Klinky Pine is a type of Auracaria tree, a 80-90 m PNG version of a monkey puzzle tree.

I was out on the Olympic Coast this past weekend actually. Unfortunately for your potential gear testing experiment, there were some beautiful patches of sun. However there were also periods of blowing hail and driving rain (very squally weather).

For this “worst conditions in the lower 48” are you going for just weather (on trails), or are you also including bushwhacking (tough on a lot of light gear)?

-Erin
some more pics from the Olympic Coast on my blog

You could do the exact opposite and do the Big Bend area or Guadalupe Peak area in Texas in August.

If your focus is on how well the gear serves, I agree that I'd include some coastal hiking (the Olympics can offer that too of course). You get salt water impact on gear, lots of wind, different types of conditions to pitch your shelter in, even different wildlife issues.

Now, another class of "miserable" involves plant and animal/insect life … poison oak, ticks/mosquitos/gnats, etc etc …