Lightweight Gear for Long Distance Hiking: Four Months in Europe

[Benjamin Smith]

Companion forum thread to:

Lightweight Gear for Long Distance Hiking: Four Months in Europe

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Adam

> f you think its impracticle with the Macpac harnesses, maybe sue could try the one planet (The only harness with Chiropractic endorsement)-it might work for her, it might not.
It's a thought. I'll take another look when we get back. Maybe my wife's back might be a bit better by then.

> Where do you source your x-pac fabric from?
You can buy small lengths direct from Dimension Polyant. They are very keen to get into the outdoors gear market.

Cheers

[Jason Brinkman]

Roger, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to lay out not only your detailed gear list, but the logic behind your choices. I have learned a lot from articles like yours, and they are the principle reason I subscribe to BPL.

Also, I too appreciate seeing an article now and then that isn't just a SUL contest. While I have all the respect in the world for those with the skills to go SUL, I learn as much or more from hearing the rationale behind UL or LW gear selections.

I consider myself a LW backpacker with base weights between 12 and 15 pounds for 3 season trips (has BPL defined what base weight range they consider UL?). My gear selection is based upon weight AND comfort, much like Roger's, with the caveat that I value simplicity and fewer total items/parts like Brett eluded to in his reply.

[Michael Paterson]

very detailed, informative, and interesting, thank you

[George Matthews]

Your report was not only both informative and enjoyable, but quite inspirational.

It encouraged me to add a long distance hike in Europe to My (& Wife's) Life List of Things To Do.

I love your bread and cheese strategy.

[Mandy Kent]

oooooh YESSSS! You're folks after my own heart, makes me feel good about still wanting to be "out there" after all these years. Am hoping to find time to go over your writings with a fine-toothed comb to enjoy your philosophy and experience and advice. Meanwhile I skimmed and am impressed.

I, too, have made and modified much gear and particularly enjoy seeing what others come up with when thinking outside the box. Kudos to you. If you ever hike the Long Trail in Vermont, please let me know.

[Tony Beasley]

Hi Roger,

I enjoyed reading your article it was nice change, sometimes it is not practical to go UL and SUL.

I recall that in previous discussions about Titanium vs Aluminium pots that you preferred aluminium pots with a thick base over Ti pots I would be interested as to find out why you are now using Ti pots.

I have used Ti pots for several years and my test indicate Ti pots are more efficient to use than aluminium pots although I have not tested the newer light anodized pots yet.

Tony

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Tony

> I recall that in previous discussions about Titanium vs Aluminium pots that you preferred aluminium pots with a thick base over Ti pots I would be interested as to find out why you are now using Ti pots.

The thick Al base was nice – more forgiving. But the Al pots were much heavier. And I don't burn the Ti pots in practice. Weight.

Cheers

[Einstein X]

Roger,

Excelent article, very informative. Seems you have a good reason for all the items you take. One question however; what are you gonna use the scalpels for? Those were the only items that for me seemed odd on your list.

Eins

[Ed Jones]

MSR makes the super fly stove which fits both types of valves: It breaks down quite well once you unscrew the head from the barrel–It has great simmering qualities as well– about 4.5 oz. I share your observation about the danger of the exploding cannister. As you surround the whole rig with a screen, the cannister warms and repressurizes itself, and then can be operated on a lower setting, conserving fuel while putting out great heat. Machs Gut–Ed Jones

[Roger Caffin]

> One question however; what are you gonna use the scalpels for?
A good question.
These are straight-edge scalpel blades, with a very sharp point. I am carrying a steel bread & butter knife ('sharp') and a small miniature box cutter (also 'sharp'), but no pocket knife at all and no scissors. The scalpel blades are 'very sharp' and weigh what – less than a gram each? They serve for getting large splinters out, cutting micropore surgical tape and elastoplast strip, performing minor surgery if needed (quite minor!) and so on. They start life sealed and so are sterile. Once again, there's a weight/utility trade-off here.

[Roger Caffin]

> MSR makes the super fly stove which fits both types of valves

I field-tested an early version of this stove, and frankly I was left a bit unhappy about the reliability of the connection. Granted, the production versions may be better and stronger, but that fuel is serious stuff and I have seen too many accidents over the years. So I am a bit cautious.

[James Pitts]

On the topic of Ti vs Al…

I have done a lot of testing with pots and stoves, like so many in this community have no doubt already done. Among the many things I learned was that boil times with an Al pot were consistently much faster than with a Ti pot (hence one would use less fuel).

This all makes sense. If you look at a table of thermal conductivity of metals Al is right at the top. Ti is way, way down the list. I was talking about this to a friend of mine that welds. He laughed and said he could hold the end of a Ti rod for a while he worked with it. If he did the same thing with an Al rod he would badly burn his hand. It was a classic example of how empirical experience is more valuable than book knowledge. :)

Now everyone knows there are pros and cons as well as personal preferences. My lightest Al "pot" is a 2 cup aluminum flour measuring cup I bought at a flea market. I use foil for a lid. I don't have a pot (Ti or otherwise) that even comes close in weight.

The problems that I have my "SUL Al pot" are trivial and manageable. First, it's somewhat easy to mangle so it does need to be packed with care like almost every other piece of SUL gear I own. Second, because Al is so heat conductive it makes a terrible mug. The cup is literally the same temperature as the liquid within it. I burn my lip when I try to drink out of it if I don't let the beverage cool first. Finally, the Al pot cools very quickly and if I don't us a proper windscreen a slight breeze seems to rob the setup of heat.

The Ti vs Al topic is far from closed in my book, that's for sure. I switch-hit between my flour-cup pot setup (by far my lightest), the Fosters beer can setup, and a Ti pot setup. Still, for a weekend trip, the flour cup setup most often finds its way onto my ever-changing gear list.

[Frank Ramos]

Since I spend about 7 months a year myself hiking in Europe, I found this article very interesting. A few comments:

If you insist on shoes, the choice of Salomon is a good one, since these are widely available in Europe, especially France. I've used Salomon in the past and found them the best shoes for someone with wide front feet. Wide front feet are actually normal. Narrow front feet are not the result of genetic difference, but rather the result of weak muscles due to walking in shoes from early childhood. Same as a pot belly–a pot belly is due to weak muscles, not genetic difference. Personally, I use sandals. I recently had to walk for about an hour in snow with these (about 3 kilometers over the snow banks on Mt Helmos here in Greece). My feet got cold, but there was never any danger. Since reading about Wim Hof (http://www.innerfire.nl/), my whole attitude to cold has changed. By switching to sandals, you totally eliminate the problem of socks and keeping them clean and you are very unlikely to get blisters. You can also just plow right through streams.

I can't believe an Australian would choose a dinky canvas bucket hat versus a stylish Akubra felt hat.

Taslan/supplex pants/shirts are a good choice–same that I use. I wear my supplex shorts for 7 months in Europe and they never let me down, though I slip and fall on my butt often enough. Be sure to double or triple-stitch the seams. The shirt may wear out and become weak due to high altitude UV, so be sure to bring a replacement.

A trekking pole is very useful in Europe for dogs. In France, for example, I was once attacked by a 100 lb pit bull which leaped for my throat without even giving a warning bark. I saw him jumping at me from the corner of my eye, turned quickly, pointed my stick at his open mouth and braced myself for the impact. The stick caught the dog in the teeth and he fell back, shaking his head as if groggy. I hate to think what would have happened without a stick. I have also been attacked by packs of dogs in Spain. Here in Greece, the dogs are even more ferocious. These packs of dogs are designed to drive off brown bears (the European version of the American grizzly, though smaller and less aggressive) and wolves, which still exist in the Pindos mountains. I have already been mobbed twice by packs of sheep dogs in the Peleponesus and these are nothing like the sheep dogs of the Pindos, or so I've been told. I held the dogs off with my stick until the shepherd arrived. These sheep dogs understand the meaning of a stick since the sherherds here don't hesitate the beat the living cr*p out of their dogs whenever they don't obey his orders. They also keep the dogs underfed and generally try to make them as mean and vicious as possible. A sturdy stick is thus highly advisable when wandering in the mountains here.

This is my first year using GPS. I'm finding it surprising useful even with topo maps and good map reading ability. The Garmin Foretex weighs only 70 grams and costs about $120. Even the best mountaineer is liable to get lost without GPS when it is foggy, as it often is in Europe.

Contrary to what you wrote, tightly quilted polarguard, such as the Patagonia Puff pullover, will NOT break down under heavy use. If you get a piece of raw polarguard insulation and pull at it, you will immediately see that the fibers are extremely strong in one direction, as strong as polyester thread in fact, and so all you have to do is prevent the fibers from separating in the other direction by quilting every 2 inches or so. I am not sure if the Cocoon is this tightly quilted. Tight quilting reduce loft some. However, even with this loss of loft, my Patagonia Puffball (same design as the cocoon) is adequate for temperatures well below freezing, and that is after wearing it for several years now under my pack straps .

You don't need so much cold weather gear, especially given that you have a tent. Yes, it can snow in the Alps in the spring, but mostly the weather is mild. The worst situation you are likely to encounter is near-freezing rain with a strong wind. Put on the cocoons and the poncho, press on until you find a decent campsite, then make camp and wait the storm out.

I don't understand this comment about soft alpine soils. Yes, some of the soils are soft, but these are also covered with turf and nail stakes work fine in that, especially if covered with heavy rocks. I've tried many stakes and finally went with 100% Vargo titanium nail stakes, regardless of the minor extra weight (use a PVC t-joint as pusher for situations where no rocks available to pound the stake into the ground). My own experience is that about 50% of my campsites have very hard ground. In particular, I often find myself on the tops of hills where the ground is basically nothing but rock. Any less than a titanium nail stake is unlikely to work in places like this.

I suppose a stove is a personal choice. Personally, I'm quite happy eating uncooked food (biscuits and dried fruit here in Greece) or just fasting between town stops, given that I can eat at restaurants and buy fresh food from the grocery at these frequent town stops.

I think you should spend a lot more effort worrying about the appearance of your hiking clothes as opposed to funtionality. In the wilderness, no one cares what you look like. But when walk into town, it is a wonderful feeling to be able to dump your gear at a hotel or campground, shower up and wash your clothes, then put the clothes back on and let them dry from body heat (20 minutes for Taslan/supplex) and walk around town looking like a normal person rather than some geeky hiker. I would be especially surprised if your wife doesn't feel conspiciously underdressed during town stops. Given that you are making your own pants/smock, it wouldn't be hard to make these such that they are suitable for town use (ditch that silly kangeroo pocket and those elastic cuffs on the pants, in particular).

Instead of the silly kangeroo pocket, I recommend making a simple purse which you hand around your neck while hiking to hold maps, books, compass, etc.

My own experiences with long hikes in Europe are here. I've already changed my opinions about a few of these items on my gear lists, so don't take this as gospel.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi James

> Among the many things I learned was that boil times with an Al pot were consistently much faster than with a Ti pot (hence one would use less fuel).
I have to record that I completely disagree with you. And yes, I have done the tests too. There are several reasons why what you say is not true every time.
First, the thermal mass of the pot is trivial compared to the thermal mass of the water. It takes huge amounts of energy to heat a mass of water compared the same mass of any metal.
Second, the thickness of the metal base in lightweight pots is so small that the temperature gradient across the base is usually of the order of about 1 to 2 degrees centigrade, despite the differences in thermal conductivity. This is a trivial temperature drop as well.
Third, the blanket statement that Al pots boil faster ignores two other quite important factors: the diameter of the pot and the thickness of the metal. The base can vary over a large range of thickness, which does affect the thermal mass, while the diameter of the pot directly affects the rate energy is absorbed by the pot. The bigger the diameter, the faster the heating. Yes, I have measured this, although it is not that easy to make accurate scientific measurements here.

> (hence one would use less fuel).
Here I have to disagree with you as well. The faster you heat a pot the less efficient the heating, because at higher power more of the heat is wasted up the side of the pot. This is quite well-known these days.

Sorry, but based on my measurements I think the Al vs Ti claims are another suburban myth.

[James Pitts]

It all sounds good but it didn't pan out in my tests. Perhaps I have the wrong kind of Titanium.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Frank

Thanks for your comments. It's very interesting to get someone else's perspective. However, I think you do a different sort of walking from us. I get the impression from your web site that you often go from town to town, and often eat and sleep in the towns. We live in the mountains and only go into towns to shop, then we leave quickly. So our needs are different.

> I can't believe an Australian would choose a dinky canvas bucket hat versus a stylish Akubra felt hat.
Chuckle. The Akubra hats are what we sell to tourists from overseas – for megabucks. I make my own hats from heavy unbleached calico, so they cost me maybe a dollar each. Unfashionable but very functional.

> Contrary to what you wrote, tightly quilted polarguard, such as the Patagonia Puff pullover, will NOT break down under heavy use. If you get a piece of raw polarguard insulation and pull at it, you will immediately see that the fibers are extremely strong in one direction, as strong as polyester thread in fact, and so all you have to do is prevent the fibers from separating in the other direction by quilting every 2 inches or so.
This is very interesting, and encouraging. Maybe these synthetics have improved over the years? Sounds good, because we are taking the Cocoons instead of the 200-weight fleece. Thanks for the information.

> I am not sure if the Cocoon is this tightly quilted. Tight quilting reduce loft some.
No, there is no quilting in the Cocoons at all. Ah well, we shall see.

> don't understand this comment about soft alpine soils.
> My own experience is that about 50% of my campsites have very hard ground. In particular, I often find myself on the tops of hills where the ground is basically nothing but rock. Any less than a titanium nail stake is unlikely to work in places like this.
You should see some of our local Australian ridges! Hammering in Ti wire pegs witha rock takes time and breaks the rock … trying to push the wire pegs in just wouldn't work. Our experience in the Pyrenees has been that the soil there is generally softer than our hard stuff at home, but I know that doesn't mean it will be the same everywhere. So I am taking some Ti wire pegs and some larger tubular pegs, to cover all bases. Of course, in really rocky situtaions I can often wedge a tubular peg in somewhere and then cover it with rocks.

> Personally, I'm quite happy eating uncooked food
No stoves and no cooking? Not for us. But we live in the mountains and don't eat in restaurants like you. As well, we find the ability to make hot food to be an absolutely vital safety factor in cold wet windy alpine situations.

> I think you should spend a lot more effort worrying about the appearance of your hiking clothes as opposed to funtionality. In the wilderness, no one cares what you look like. But when walk into town, it is a wonderful feeling to be able to dump your gear at a hotel or campground, shower up and wash your clothes, then put the clothes back on and let them dry from body heat (20 minutes for Taslan/supplex) and walk around town looking like a normal person rather than some geeky hiker. I would be especially surprised if your wife doesn't feel conspiciously underdressed during town stops.
Ah well, we don't spend any time in the towns you see. We shop and run. We have stayed in campgrounds a few times for the hot showers, but the hotels and restaurants thing – never done that, except when the trip is finished and we are waiting for our flight home
No, my wife does not feel any concerns about looking fashionable either. She usually just wants to get out of the town and back into the mountains.

> Silly kangaroo pocket, or a purse around your neck
Ah, but we aren't in the towns much you see. In our experience the kangaroo pocket works much better in the mountains than something hanging awkwardly around our necks. Very different requirements I think.

Cheers

[Tony Beasley]

Hi James,

I have to say I do not agree with you, I have tested Al, Ti and Al pots and Ti comes out slightly in front. Roger in my view is mostly right there is not much in it. The most gain what ever pot you use is from turning down the flame.

I have just returned from a hard widerness walk and I am very tired I will post some of my pot results tomorrow.

Tony

[James Pitts]

No worries. I am used to it.

To be fair my tests were not designed to evaluate pots and their material. Several years ago I was in my "everything is better when made from a pop can" phase. I swear every backpacker goes through this at one point or another. I don't think I ever left. Anyway, my goal was to concoct a cooking setup that could reliably boil 2 cups of water in realistic conditions using .5 oz of alcohol (including "priming" fuel if the stove so required). I defined boiling as 212 degrees on a thermocouple and started with, I think, 68 degree water. My memory is a little foggy on this but you get the point. I started in my kitchen and then moved candidate designs onto my backyard picnic table. Those that did well went into my pack and onto the trail. For each series of test I had a control setup that I would burn at the start of each of a series of tests. I am not sure if "control" is the right word but I would use it to make sure the starting conditions for the test were the same.

I went through a pile of pop cans changing the number of burner holes, burner hole patterns, burner height. I build pressurized side burners, open-top double-walled stoves, open top stoves (like the "ion"), etc, etc. I was scolded by the man that picks up the recycling because apparently you aren't supposed to put chopped up cans in the bin for pickup. It was THAT bad.

I have no clue how much denatured alcohol I bought from Home Depot. I bought it in gallon cans.

I even experimented with "fuel blending" meaning the mixing of higher BTU/lb fuels with alcohol in different ratios.

I learned a LOT from this, however. So it was worthwhile for sure. I recognize that there are many that could have just told me the answer and sent me packing but I am the kind of person that has to figure it out for myself. It's not that I am stubborn. I just like to have some sense of rationale behind what I am doing besides, "Linda said the fuel blending exercise was dangerous and a mistake." (She really said this and THIS is another story!)

One thing that I think everyone will tell you is that a cooking system has a lot of variables. You gain advantage in one area but lose it in another. All of the elements have to work together in the right conditions to produce consistently good results. Pot, lid, windscreen, stove, etc, etc. It's a balance.

I tried to change as few variables at a time as possible. Being a firebug I focused on the stove first (because that is the fun part). Later I moved on to the pot and windscreen.

The pot was a particular challenge because at the time I only had two of them. One was aluminum, an old pot my wife inherited from an aunt that passed away… old "garbage" from her house (one man's garbage is another man's…) The other was a Snow Peak 700 mug that I had used and abused. By the time I was done I couldn't pull a shirt out of my closet and not have a cascade of pots and pans fall out. I bought coffee pots (2 cup pots) both new and ancient, "normal" pots, the WalMart grease pot. I spent money on titanium pots that I only used once or twice. Really, it was nuts.

Anyway, I did manage to get a setup that boiled 2 cups of water with .5 oz of alcohol in the kitchen and sometimes in the field. Not a big "fireworks" discovery but the only way I was able to do this was using aluminum pots. I was never able to achieve this result with a Titanium pot, not even close.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi James

Sounds like a lot of fun! But as to your experience that:
> I was able to do this was using aluminum pots. I was never able to achieve this result with a Titanium pot
I wonder whether this could be explained by the well-known observation, that aluminium pots usually are wider and lower than titanium pots, at least in the past? All those tall coffee perks and tall narrow Ti mugs are grossly less efficient designs than the low wide grease pot Al designs.

This is why the new BPL pots are so interesting, apart from their light weight. They are wider, and that's more fuel-efficient with any sort of stove. ( :-)

Cheers

[Tony Beasley]

Hi James,

It does sound like had fun with your testing, I am not much into testing Alcohol burners other than the Trangia,
“Anyway, I did manage to get a setup that boiled 2 cups of water with .5 oz of alcohol in the kitchen and sometimes in the field.”

The JetBoil that I have just Purchased and tested used 4 grams (1/7th oz) of gas to boil 0.5 litre of water in the lab and I have just completed a three day walk which we used a JetBoil with the larger pot most of the time and I was very impressed with the ease of use and the efficiency of it although I did not have to carry it.

Here are some graphs of the results of my test on Titanium vs Aluminium vs Stainless Steel pots. The tests were conducted in similar conditions. The pots tested were similar in size but not exact sizes, each pot was tested on a MSR Pocket Rocket through a range of burn rates from very slow to very fast. At fast burn rate there is not much difference as most of the heat is being blown out the sides before it has time to transfer into the pot but at slow burn rates the pots showed different characteristics with the Aluminium pot coming out as the least efficient and the Ti pot the best.

I think the reason for the Aluminium pot being the least efficient is that as Aluminium has by far the best thermal conductivity which means the heat can be transferred to the water better it also can loose the heat from the side walls easier.

The first graph is thermal efficiency vs time.

The second graph is Time vs Fuel used to boil 0.5 litre water.

The picture is of my home testing lab. I use a calibrated Thermistor probe to measure water temperature and a thermocouple to measure gas temperature coming up the sides of the pot both temperatures are recorded on a computer using data logging software.

Tony

[James Pitts]

LMAO! It looks like you were either testing pots and stoves or you were trying to re-animate dead body parts. Either way I totally approve of your lab setup.

Like I said, I wasn't studying the pots directly, only certain combinations trying to optimize an end result.

That said, I would imagine a lot would have to do with the geometry of the pot itself. I do know that some of my aluminum pots worked better than others. I couldn't fabricate my own pots so my options were limited to what I could purchase.

I will say that I have been getting excellent results with the JetBoil pot. I have yet to decide why it works so well… the heat exchanger, the neoprene sides, etc, etc. It has something good going for it. I used it on a recent trip and used the Snow Peak Ti stove with the Snow Peak windscreen (the windscreen nests _perfectly_ with the pot). Just a trickle of gas produces an absolutely sublime/perfect simmer. I actually had enough gas for that week in the Grand Canyon that I heated wash water to bathe with… unheard of for me. I finished with a lot of gas to spare… too much to make me happy in fact.

Anyway, I appreciate your results and find them very interesting to say the least.

I think I may have hijacked this thread! I just remembered what it was originally entitled… :)

[Tony Beasley]

Hi James,

I ran some test on the JB using the larger JB pot and from the slowest flame setting (or burn rate as I like to call it) to the fastest flame (fully open valve 3.5 turns) while boiling 0.5 litre of water. The time taken to boil was between 16 minutes to 2 minutes 20 seconds. The amount of fuel used was between 4.0 grams to 4.9 grams. The Pocket Rocket used up to 10 grams of fuel to boil 0.5 litre of water in some tests.

Tony

[Adrian B]

It's good to see some thought put into keeping sleeping bags clean, although for me it's because I want to avoid washing my bag as much as possible.

I find liners a pain.. they make the bag even harder to get in & out of, they constantly slip down/twist, and they often don't match the bag size/shape which either means you waste the roominess of a big bag or you end up with too much material kicking about. And they still don't protect the bag from my head (picture Homer dribbling here).

I've ditched my silk liner in favour of sleeping in thermal underwear+socks + a thin powerstretch balacava (saves on a pillowcase too). I'm wondering how comfortable this will be in summer though.

Would be nice if sleeping bags incorporated removable lining for washing, or there was a way to easily attach a liner so it just felt like part of the bag.

Also, having only used a mummy style bag I wonder if quilt/arc style bags are easier to keep clean? You don't have any bag underneath you, and you don't put your head in or on a hood.

Maybe I'm overly paranoid about washing my bag though.

[Allan Starr]

Hi Roger,

I would like to make a pillow like yours. How does one put holes so neatly into the foam?

thanks

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