Bill’s SUL Gear List

[Anonymous]

The Kidd (Ryan) is an SUL Prodigy!

[Ken Helwig]

Yep Ryan is, and sorry to hijack your wonderful thread there Bill.

[paul johnson]

another dbl-post. my apologies to all.

[paul johnson]

Which Ryan was it that’s goin’ on that Winter SUL adventure?

Watch out Dr. J, this young’un might be startin’ BackPackingLighter.com

good work young man. nice tight pitch on that poncho tarp. you put my attempts to shame.

my apologies also to Fornshell-san. Bill, i just had to go back to re-read your “Cuben Snow” Post. good stuff. thanks for the explanation.

[Ryan Faulkner]

Bill, what is in your first aid kit?

my first aid kit is very minimal
it includes

6 Wound clousure strips
one adhesive knee bandage
3 smaller bandages
2 2×2 gauze sponges
a few saftey pins
tylenol
diphen
and 2 small packets of antibiotic cream
tweezers are on pocket knife
( it weighs .5oz now because I just removed tweezers because I have some on my Knife)

but keep in mind that you can use disinfected water to clean wounds and can cut duct tape into wound clousure strips. also you can use a bandana or clothing to stop bleeding in an emergency (just make sure it is clean)
some people also put in a small tube of krazy glue to use as a wound clousure.

.5oz saves an ounce

[Ryan Faulkner]

do you think one, two liter water bag may be lighter then two, one liter bags? if so, that may drop some weight off Bills list

[paul johnson]

RyanF,

generally speaking, yes.

[Ryan Faulkner]

just a comment,

sub 5lb gear loads hve been dubbed super ultralight. and sub 4 has been named extreme ultralight by Glen Van Peski. but what Bill has done has set a new standard. any suggestions for names? uberlight?

SUL

XUL

???

[Bill Fornshell]

Ryan and Paul,
Ryan the answer to your question is based more on how I expect to treat my water. If I carry a filter then one bottle would be the lightest way to go. If I treat my water with Katadyn Micropur I always use 2 bottles. No matter what I like to have a backup bottle in case something happens to bottle #1.

There is an interesting Thread over in the:
“Forum Index >> Food, Hydration, and Nutrition >> Hydration and water sources”

If you haven’t found this thread yet you might enjoy looking it over. As a part of one of my messages I listed the following:

“I have looked back at all the Platypus bags and they have 6 that might work. They are
5″ x 7.5 = .5L – Platy Bottle – .7oz
6″ x 10″ = 1L – Platy Bottle – .8oz
6″ x 11″ =1L – Platy Reservoirs – .8oz
6″ x 16″ = 2L – Platy Reservoirs – 1oz
6″ x 12″ =1L – Big Zip II – 3.5oz – come with tube
6.25″ x 17″ = 2L – Big Zip II – 4oz – come with tube”

If you notice I have a bunch of feeding tube bag’s that hold 1200ml (1 liter plus) of water and weigh 0.41oz with the top cap and all the hose cut off. The open top will get heat sealed close and the bottom outlet was drilled out and threaded to 1/4″. The bag can be filled from the tube on my 3oz gravity water filter hose. One of the feeding tube bags may be carried as a back-up water container for awhile to test its durability.

Click here for larger image.

[Bill Fornshell]

Ryan Posted: Just a comment,

sub 5lb gear loads hve been dubbed super ultralight. and sub 4 has been named extreme ultralight by Glen Van Peski. but what Bill has done has set a new standard. any suggestions for names? uberlight?

SUL

XUL

???

---

Hyper-Light–??

[Ryan Faulkner]

Bill what do you think about the tarp, sleeping bag, and first aid suggetions I posted?

Hyper light sound good to me, whatever you say.

HPL???

[Bill Fornshell]

Ryan,
Tarp – I am not sure if you know but I use a Hammock almost all the time to sleep in. This requires my tarp be set-up tied to the same tree as my hammock. However I like your set-up and at times I do have to sleep on the ground. One of these days I will practice “ground mode” tarp set-ups in my backyard and will try your idea.

For a new tarp I am going to make another larger one out of some Cuben material. It will be 10.5′ long and about 9′ wide. It should be really light.

Sleeping bag – As we speek I am working on a new sleeping sort of bag. It will be made like the Arc Alpinist style and be used with my DAM. I am also using Cuben material and the shell, inside and out should weigh 2oz or less. That gives me about 14oz of Down and a bag good for at or near “0” degrees for a total bag weight of 16oz or less. 16oz is my weight cut off. Nunatak figures 17oz of Down in their Arc Al… for “0” with 800+ Down. I use 800+ Down but can get 900+ and might try it. Using the Cuben material for the inside I have a built in Vapor Barrier Liner and that might give me a few more degrees of warmth.

First Aid Kit -Your First-Aid kit is good. There is a good article here called “Face-Off: First Aid and Emergency Gear. I do some combination of what is talked about in that article. What I carry has a lot to do with the time of the year, where I am going, how long between resupply or how long is the hike, and my current physical condition. I am on two different kinds of medicien so that is a constant and you might even say my food is also my medicien since I can’t chew anything for awhile yet.

I know this really doesn’t answer your question but I look at a hike as something that is a few days between resupply points and only take enought of what-ever for 3 to 5 days. I don’t carry enough stuff to give away to others, but I will help someone that is really hurt as much as I can. If you are bleeding I should be able to stop the bleeding, if your are choking I can do a tracheotomy on you, if you are trying to go into Hypothermia I will do everything I can to save you.

[Ryan Faulkner]

Bill,
will you sleep in a hammock or on the ground forr your thru hike?
I like this tarp set up because it is easy and only need 5 feet of guy lines( less weight)

[Ryan Faulkner]

the things I am recomending are to lower your weight of the gear list at the head of this forum. have you changed your mind about any thing on it, any thing I have recomended?

what is your most current gear list, is it yet sub 1 pound?

[Bill Fornshell]

Ryan, I will try and revise my list sometime in the next few days. I spent some time yesterday reading over a lot of your’s and others gear suggestions. As I am working on more items made out of Cuben Fiber (which I have to say up front may not all work out) but the ones that do should be a lot lighter than the things they replace. I should be able to get my empty pack weight down to about 1oz if I am able to reduce the volume with the use of more Cuben fiber gear. The Cuben material folds up really small.

As for the question about using my hammock. For a Thru-Hike hammock as much as possible. It gets me off the ground and I think it is better in the rain. Most AT Thru-Hikes start in the spring and can expect a lot of rain.

I am working on a lighter version of a hammock with a built-in bottom for the DAM tubes. I can replace the Down baffles in the DAM with more or less Down to adjust it for the change in temp/seasons and save some weight over a DAM with a fixed amount of Down. The absolute lightest setup should be a tarp and sleeping on the ground. If I can get the differenct between the hammock and the ground to 6 or 8oz I will go with the hammock.

Ryan, Can you sew? Do you have a sewing machine to use if you wanted to sew some gear? I make everything first out of $1 a yard stuff from Wal Mart for practice and to figure out the sequence of putting the item together so everything gets sewed on how I want it. Making your own stuff isn’t that hard and will almost always be lighter/better than what you can buy.

[Ryan Faulkner]

I can sew and have done it before, but do not have a machine. I want to get one, and when I do, I will try some of the things you have done. I would like to make my own gear because if I dont I will not be able to get my list down to your weight. I have even thought up some projects to make, but dont have a machine yet. do you know where I can get one, how fancy should it be to make this ul gear? where can I get this cuben fabric, and what is its weight per yard?

your pics will be a great help.

I want to see your 9oz sleeping bag, have you posted any pics? what material did you use?

P.S. I want to make gear so bad but without a machine all I can make is stoves, so I have made over 30 different kinds. I wonder how much gear I will make after I invest in a machine :-)>

[Jim Colten]

Ryan,

I’m gonna fork this thread over to MYOG to talk about getting sewing machines. See ya there.

[Ryan Faulkner]

good idea thats not what this thread is for.

[Bill Fornshell]

Jim and Ryan, There are 2 threads started at the Make Gear Forum that you might want to use. One is called Sewing with Cuben and the other is called something like Lightest Material.

[Ryan Faulkner]

Bill,

can you give me more info on cuben, weight, price, where to buy, ect.

and info on your 9oz arc. materials, temp rating? (pics)

[Ryan Faulkner]

I found the cubenfiber website.

what style did you use for your tarp and pack and everything else?

please say the .2oz stuff is durable enough

I cant find the prices?

[jacob thompson]

Ryan just do a forum search with the word cuben. I always lost that kind of information so I just search it in the forums.

The price is around $15yd including postage and manhandling. I live in Australia and they were still more than happy to send me out a whole sample of all their products. The website info is a little old so look in the old forums for the new stuff that bill has posted. The cuben is quite durable. Not quite as strong and durable as spinn. But more than enough for HUL projects. I have plans for a cat tarp and a few other things from the material and I’m not worried about it at all. One thing that I don’t see mentioned elsewhere oin reguards to the fabric is that is has almost zero stretch. This is a help and a hinderance in different applications.

[Bill Fornshell]

The material I have started using comes from Cuben Fiber. It is very light but strong sail material

http://www.cubenfiber.com

It is their product # CTO.6k.08 and costs $13.40 a yard plus a freight and packing charge. The cost then comes up to about $15 a yard. This product number comes in several width’s. I have this weight material in 48″, 50.5″ and some that is 54″ wide. The weight of this product number is about 0.44oz per square yard. This is a 36″ by 36″ yard. Cuben list’s several different products but if you call them ask about anything new and the weight.

They now can take a credit card so it is much easier to buy from them.

They don’t have a 1-800 number but their regular phone number is 480-641-0438. I email them at [email protected]

This stuff is not for everyone.

9oz Home-Made -Quilt:
The way I make a sleeping system is in two parts. One part is the bottom such as my DAM. Then I make a Top Cover for a specific temperature range. The lower the temperature the more Down is necessary. I use a scale from Thru-Hiker to decide how much loft I need. Then I make a set of silk baffles and fill them with the Down necessary to give me the loft I want. By using Cuben material for the shell of the quilt I can get about 7oz of Down in a 9oz (total) weight quilt.

This gear list is not for cold weather but something like a mild 3-season hike.

When I revise this list I will make it specific for a 3 to 5 day AT Section Hike. My first thought is to Hike from Springer Mt to Dicks Creek Gap or 66.8 miles. This would give me one resupply at Neels Gap. I think tagging the gear list to an AT Section Hike will give the list a degree of credibility that is much higher than just making a list. My challenge will then be to take this list and go do the hike.

[Ryan Faulkner]

do you use cuben for the shell and lining of your quilt?

on the cuben fiber website is the “Break” the tear strength, if so I think the .2 oz style will be strong enough

Cuben Data

[Ryan Faulkner]

if I use the design on the newsushi.net site with cuben and a high power down could I make a sub 10 oz quilt?

what silk did you use in your baffles?

the cuben snow you speak of sounds virtually unavalible.
I know you can get 800 fill down from thru-hiker.com
do you know where I could get some 900 fill?

[Author]

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