A 7 hour rain in a Moment DW and a DWR fix

[Eric Blumensaadt]

Last week I backpack hunted in Nevada’s Hendry’s Creek canyon, an approach to 12,000+ ft. Mt. Moriah.

My second day was a five hour climb to 8,125 ft and the 2nd camp. IT was tough with a total of 55 lee., pack, 10×42 binoculars and a scoped rifle but the scenery was beautiful.

After hunting that afternoon I ate diner and turned in. Then a big windstorm came up and raged most of the night but the canyon walls protected me from the worst of it. It was a front moving in.

The next morning I hunted from dawn to 9 am and returned to camp and made a hot breakfast. By 10 AM, as I had just cleaned up the breakfast dishes it began to sprinkle so I got my rifle and myself into the tent. The sprinkle soon turned into a steady rain and then a hard rain that did not let up until 5 PM. Seven hours in a little solo tent was not entertaining but I did get a few hours of snoozing.

At 3 PM I made some sandwiches of potted ham and whole wheat bread rounds, two with brown mustard and one with Colby cheese. A few slices of jerky and a fig breakfast bar was my lunch/dinner, all done inside the tent. My pack was right outside the vestibule, out of the weather.

Then at 5 PM the rain turned to snow – no surprise at 8,000 ft. The next morning I hunted and made another hot breakfast. I’m beginning to develop a taste for Ghirdelli hot cocoa mixed with 1/3 tube of VIA  coffee (makes “mocha”).

The TT Moment DW kept me totally dry, that is until I pushed the inner tent against the condensation-laden fly as I was dressing and wetted it through. That morning it was 30 F. and all the rain on the evergreen trees was frozen. Looked pretty, like crystals everywhere. That’s when I decided to wear my neoprene sox over thin poly liners so be sure my feet would stay warm.

So I packed up and headed back down the trail. This time to hunt where I had heard a yearling bleating the on the way up. I hunted all the way down, carrying my rifle in a Kifaru “Gin Bearer” and using hiking poles. As I approached camp 1 it began to rain and then snow mixed with rain.

That was enough for me. I had a wet tent fly  from the rain outside and condensation under the fly. A rolled up tent meant the inner tent would be thoroughly wet and the weather meant no chance to dry it out. And also I didn’t need another afternoon and evening inside the tent eating cold sandwiches. So I just walked out to my car at the trailhead. On the way to Ely, NV I drove through a heavy snow storm for 15 minutes and had t slow to 55 mph. due to poor visibility. Mountain tops were all snow covered by then with about two inches on the fields in the storm area.

A Carl’s Jr. chicken, cheese and bacon sandwich at Ely made me feel human again, almost as much as changing into clean clothes at the trailhead did.

SO… once home I did my ritual “rinsing of the tent” in the bathtub. But this time I separated the fly from the inner tent. Once rinsed I put Grangers DWR solution into a 1/4 full tub clean water, tossed in the inner tent and, nylon cargo pants pants and a polyester L.S. shirt. Then after agitating them for a while I drained the DWR, rinsed everything and hung the inner tent out to dry in the backyard. (I live in ‘Vegas so drying the tent was no problem.) Later that day I sprayed the dry inner tent with Techtron DWR for good measure. Now I’m hoping it will repel most condensation on my upcoming North Rim-to-South Rim Grand Canyon hike in early November. Plus I’ll vent the tent better this time!

BTW, I used ESBIT and my Trail Designs Sidewinder stove the whole time. It worked well.  Using two tablets (side-by-side, not stacked) did the trick for fast boils.

I tried Jon Fong’s flame concentrator over my BGET tablet holder and it didn’t seem to make much difference except on that one windy evening meal. Then it was very useful. Also I began using hand sanitizer to start the ESBIT tabs and that worked well too. It’s now part of my ESBIT stove kit.

 

[Author]

Posts