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Field Notes: Careening into Winter
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Home › Forums › Campfire › Editor’s Roundtable › Field Notes: Careening into Winter
- This topic has 31 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 10 months, 3 weeks ago by AK Granola.
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Oct 29, 2023 at 5:38 am #3792078
Are you eve going to talk about your insulating jacket: Timmermade SUL 0.75 Down Sweater?
Nov 10, 2023 at 9:45 pm #3792894The new titanium mug has been added to this season’s Merch Drop!
Nov 14, 2023 at 11:05 am #3793092Ryan, Would you consider substituting Arms for Andes Alpaca Wool Thermal Leggings
250 Lightweight for Senchi Alpha 60 pants? I’m considering doing that and wondered about your thoughts about what conditions you might make the switch.Nov 15, 2023 at 1:19 am #3793124The Senchi pants are HOT when worn under my cold-weather softshell pants. It needs to be pretty chilly to make that combo work. The alpaca leggings make a more comfortable leg base layer across a wider range of temps. Plus, they’re more durable, and on some trips, I like to wear leggings under running shorts, and the Senchi has too much porosity to make them comfortable in cold wind as an outer layer.
Dec 3, 2023 at 5:35 am #3794398In order of preference, what would have other tents you had wished you had taken? How do you think Slingfin would have been. Thanks, Rob
Dec 3, 2023 at 8:15 pm #3794490Rob, for camping where I have some natural shelter (treeline or lower), I think a double-walled, solid inner, two-trekking pole shelter like the Tarptent Dipole DW or Durston X-Mid Solid would be fine.
For above-the-treeline use in bad weather (high winds and blowing snow), I lean towards a true double-wall solid inner tent where all mesh can be sealed. My personal preference is for two vestibules (one for gear storage, one for cooking/entry/exit. I like a to-the-ground fly, lots of guyline attachment points, a fly that attaches to the poles, no pole hubs (all poles should terminate at the ground), and pole sleeves instead of clips. All of this points to wind stability and snow-loading strength. The lightest shelter I’ve found to meet all of these criteria is the Slingfin Crossbow.
But the Crossbow is definitely a “specialist” shelter. It’s a legit mountaineering-class tent *IF you extensively guy it out. If you don’t, then there are plenty of lighter options. If you’re looking to use the Crossbow without the guylines, then you’re probably carrying more weight than you need to. I don’t see this as an all-purpose winter tent.
I think the Tarptent Dipole DW or Durston X-Mid Solid are probably better choices for an all-purpose winter tent if you’re looking to save some weight and have “enough” stability to hold up under a few inches of snow and some strong wind gusts here and there. But then again, a small pyramid can usually deal with those kinds of conditions as well. The tents are much warmer when it’s really cold, and that’s kind of nice.
If I’m not expecting much wind or snowfall, I still like bivies and tarps, even in winter.
Jan 5, 2024 at 9:31 am #3800912Beautiful! Good to know all the details about the Notch Li. I haven’t tried it in snow but it wouldn’t work for our minus 10F right now anyway.
Flu – how about a flu shot? I haven’t had flu since the 80s even with plenty of exposure working with the public every day.
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