Imogene Outfitters Toleak Chair- 8oz!

[Chris Mescia]

I will first start out with a disclaimer. I am not a thru-hiker. I dream of being one. I am not even that hard core of a hiker, having never even done a 15mile day. I am a family sherpa. As a pediatrician with a busy practice and a wife attempting to publish and get tenure at the University and three kids now age 6,8,10 my major hiking trips take place in my mind and vicariously through this and other hiking sites. That being said, my kids hang pretty well for their age, always having a pack around 15% of their weight and handling around 5-7 mile days. If I have the uber rare phenomenon of going by myself with my friend SectionHikerSam, I have a base-pack weight around 15-17lbs. However, I almost always hike with either the 3 kids (leaving my wife at home to slog through grading and writing) or the whole fam damily. When that happens, my pack magically springs up to 50-60#. (you know you have to have the second hammock so there isnt fighting and things like that ;)

I lurked on this site a while before becoming a member, and love the lessons I have learned here. So, although I don’t have much trail-cred, I know, I am very interested in dropping weight while still maximizing fun. My luxury weight items without the family are a chair and heavy food.

I always like having a chair, and have used a crazy creek regular, then hex chair for a long time and love them. I prefer to sit a bit higher on the ground, though, and was very intrigued when I heard about the Imogene Outfitters stools and chairs. This wasn’t an opportunity to shave a few grams….this chair was almost a pound lighter! I was lucky enough to get in on the BPL discount that Ron offered a couple months back, and got one in time for a recent trip over fall break to the Smoky Mtn NP. I went with the 'heavy' Toleak, with a 16”height and ~8oz weight. Though I like the Helinox chairs I have sat in, their weight is about the same and they dont have enough other advantages over the crazy creeks, which I prefer. So my experience is limited to the CC, Helinox chair one, and now this Toleak. Sorry I dont have pictures. Ron has nice ones on his site, though. http://www.imogeneoutfitters,com

First off, I like the chair a lot and would give it high recommendations for any adult. I tucked it into the side of my pack, so I could reach up, pull it out and deploy it without taking the pack off. We cant go more than a ¼ mile without finding a rock to climb or vine to swing on, butterfly to chase, or flower to pick for the requisite fairy garden home we always build at camp. So, although I love that we stop and smell the roses a lot, taking the pack off and on that much is tedious and a chair you can deploy and sit on, then stand and stick back in the pack while keeping the pack on is AWESOME. For all of the transit stops I only used it as a stool. If kept in the bag, it is another step to load it back in before putting it on my pack, but the grosgrain ribbon used to attatch to the hiking poles dangled and made it hard to easily put it on the pack without the bag.

It is a three legged stool, so it has intrinsic limitations. It works just ok on steep slopes, falling over when you stand up. However it did not sink into the ground with the nice feet he used, even on moderately muddy areas. It is a stool, though, and in deep mud, it is what it is. I did accidentally once step on the foot while picking up the chair and pulled the foot off. Once back home I put a dab of superglue on them and locked the feet down better.

It is not super kid-friendly. They had a hard time opening it and having it not fall over. They thought initially it was cool, but quickly went back to their crazy creeks. I would expect >99% of Ron's customers wont be 6 or 8 yrs old, though, and I had no problem with its use.

I want a chair at camp with a back. This one is a bit fiddly to set up with poles, but I am sure that the main issue was me being on the front end of the learning curve. I got sig faster by the last morning. Once set up, though, it was VERY comfortable, and I liked the recline. You have to be a bit careful when you stand up that you lean the back of the chair towards the stool, but once you learn that it was not that big of a deal unless on a slope. We use a BA copper spur4 (kids) and a TT stratospire (parents) so we need at least one set of trekking poles for the Tarptent.

To summarize and compare/contrast to my crazy creeek:

Advantages over the Crazy Creek:
-It is waaay lighter. One for me and my wife drops ~2#. Big bonus there.
-It can be used while never taking the pack off, impossible with the Crazy Creek.
-It's height is nice on the knees and back, great and/or essential for certain hikers. I never seem to sit for more than 10 seconds before being asked to help with something, so that was a bonus for me ;) In that scenario, I have to vote the Toleak as more comfortable.
-I liked that it can be used as a stool with or without the back.
-It wont get as dirty/messy if using in the mud like the CC, but the CC doesn’t have feet that could come off or sink into deep mud. I did use it after a rain and had no problems with the feet in moderate mud, though.

Disadvantages over the Crazy Creek:
-Cost, you can by several CC's for one of these. It is an expensive chair, but so is a lot of the UL gear.
-Nothing beats the CC reclining capability. With just a tug on the straps, you can sit up for cooking, recline for resting and even recline it totally flat to lay down or for a 2 person sit pad. The toleak recline can be adjusted somewhat by reaching back and moving the poles. A major recline adjustment requires the poles to also be shortened/lengthened which you cannot do while still sitting. If I had no children with me, this would end up being a minimal disadvantage. I sat up for cooking, and leaned back with minimal fiddling once I knew which pole length I preferred (between 105-110cm).

Changes I would make:
Secure the feet with a dot of glue.
I am thinking of wrapping the ribbon/trekking pole hookup around the leg with the velcro in a more secure fashion so I dont need to have the carry-bag. Not to drop the 8gms or whatever of the bag, but so that I can pull it on and off the pack faster without fiddling with the bag. Maybe even make a tiny bag the ribbon stuffs in and dangles off the leg.

Here is the gold standard compliment: I like it so much I bought a second one. If you want a chair off the ground and with a reclining back, this is very comfortable and has an unbeatable weight.

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