Adding to tripod stability

Great idea, but I was a bit worried that was, well, something used for hospital patients.

A rather peculiar story behind that. The springs where that water comes from are only a few Km from were we lived for 3 years , about 1 hour drive from here. They were discovered by Swiss -Italian miners that arrived in that area to do quartz blasting for gold mining. Those people are related to my ancestors from across the border in Italy, they spoke the same dialect, hate the same food , lived the same way.

Both my grandfather and my mother worked at the first Italian mineral water bottling plant so I grew up drinking real mineral water , the type that comes out of the ground not manufactured in a factory.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-diaspora_australia-s-ticinese-have-strong-ties-to-a-faraway-home/43917540

My wife’s family rents a cabin in Lost River State Park in WV for a week every summer.  They’re on well water and it also stains the sinks and toilets orange-brown due to the iron.

The park used to be a health spa 100 years or so ago and people would come to drink from the sulfur springs, which smell like rotting eggs.

Webbing with a ladderloc (or 3mm cord with a lineloc) adjuster, a hook on top, and a loop on the bottom for girth hitching a rock works very well – it’s adjustable in height and can loop around various sized object on the ground (rocks, logs, backpack, etc.).

The elastic part saves you from having to adjust the cord so that the item is on the ground but pulling down. You may need to try it to see how simple it really is.

Weighing down tripods in anything but the calmest weather is not a good idea. The extra weight acts like a sail and gets pushed around, causing low frequency vibrations that are impossible to average out with normal exposure times. I hike with a light-ish tripod (Gitzo series 2 or equivalent) and have never had the need to weigh it down. Of course, with photography bring the primary reason I hike my idea of “light” is probably anathema to many here. Until recently I hiked with a Nikon D800 body, 14-24/2.8 lens, 80-400 lens, some light-ish midweight, a massive Wonderland ND system, a tripod, ballhead, six spare batteries, a 15 mAh USB battery, the ksit falls on and on. Clocks in at over 15 lbs when everything is said and done. And I need a 80L or larger pack to fit it all in.