Doggie bags can make great VBL socks depending on your feet size. And also temporary waterproofing bags if you tie them tightly at the top. A roll weighs next to nothing and is tiny in your pack. I almost always having them in case there is an unexpected stream crossing and you want to quickly waterproof some small items and of course they work well for packing out you know what as well if that is required.
Other hack is for nav – clip a small suunto clipper or similar compass to the strap of your trekking pole. Important to get a tiny one that is actually reliable and has declination adjustment. You can now use it for dead reckoning super fast and super easy without having to pull out a bigger compass ( I carry one still of course) and it weighs almost nothing. If you want to get really fancy you can clip a small Casio F91 or F84 (my personal favorite – japan only – dirt cheap and extremely light) right next to it since time is such an important feature of navigation.
Another nav tip – print UTM or GPS lines on your paper maps from Caltopo. Set whatever device you have to also display coordinates in the same system (such as an in.Reach or a phone). Now you can very quickly verify your exact location on the paper map using your electronic device and you can keep the tracking / GPS set to OFF 99% of the time to save battery. Simply just only do manual GPS pings / location pointer drops and then if you want also mark your paper map with a pencil or marker. Paper maps can be huge and much more readable than a tiny screen and you get the best of all worlds this way. This is especially useful offtrail hiking.
Since I am on the caltopo topic now I guess might as well go through my full system – I usually print using their hybrid topo layer slightly modified – sometimes (depending on the quality) I will print the exact same view / paper size in multiple layers. This way you can switch for example to a USGS Topo or Forest Service and compare exactly the same routes and sometimes the older maps could have better info. But most of all I like printing out recent Sentinel imagery if one is worried about snow cover or the higher res satellite imagery in false IR color. The false IR makes brush and trees standout in bright red and really helps in avoiding large amounts of chaparral and other nasty thorny crap when you are offtrail.
For mid panel tie outs making your own stretch guylines can be awesome – theraband green tubing works best and you basically just thread your regular guyline cord through a short piece of it (say 4 inches). Tie a knot at each end of the 4 inch theraband (tie a knot using your line – not the tubing) and make sure when you tie that knot that you encompass the ends of the theraband. Also when doing the second knot make sure you push extra cordeage into the theraband tubing so that it coils up a bit and then finish that second knot. What you will end up with is a guyline with some stretch due to the theraband piece that will still work even if the theraband part snaps – because the line goes THROUGH the theraband tube if it snaps then the line will just catch as normal. The extra bit of coiled line inside the tubing is key as this allows you to tension the whole setup when pitching your tent so that the theraband tube is applying elastic tension without being stretched out to its max length. Dont both using this on ground tie outs – only worth it for mid panels – it will keep your whole shelter nice and taught, reduce wind chatter and flapping, and best of all if it rains super heavy during the night and your shelter sags / or stretches at all it will help to counteract some of that. This adds very little weight and theraband tubing is very durable and UV resistant compared to other forms of tubing like medical latex. All my shelters are pretty now setup this way using high quality Lawson line (blows away everybody else – seriously – so easy to knot) + the skurka guyline method with no plastic hardware.
Another neat tieout trick is to color code the different ground level tie outs of your shelter. Get the same line in multiple colors ( I usually go for bright orange and bright blue Lawson Glowwire in 2.5mm or 3mm). Use the brightest color for the main required ground tie outs (the ones you need to do first in order for the shelter to stand properly). Use the second color for the other tie outs. When your super tired at the end of the day and light might be fading this makes it a lot easier to not accidently using the wrong tie out or setup things in the wrong order. If you really want to get fancy you could use a third color for the mid panels or even mix and match different diameters (generally I find 2.5mm the smallest that I can easily knot with gloves – I do not find going down to 2mm worth the weight savings)
For winter shelters (or even others) you can rig them mountaineering style if you are using super sturdy anchors (such as a ski stuck in the snow or a buried ice axe or snowshoe or even tieing to a tree or something). Instead of using one buried anchor per guyline / tieout you can cow hitch multiple tie outs on the same side to a metal ring. Then have a single line go from the metal ring to your anchor. Properly balanced this is still extremely sturdy and makes setting up your winter shelter in a snowstorm much faster. I usually like to always have 4 corners of ground tie outs on the shelter on their own dedicated anchors and then will pair 2-3 mid panel tie outs (depending on the size of your shelter) to one ring and if there is more than 4 ground tie outs then I might add one of those in as well. Make sure to keep everything symmetrical when you do this – you want the ring centered among multiple tie outs and the anchor also centered between the tie outs.
And finally never hammer your stakes in unless absolutely necessary – always just grab a rock or something and push your stakes in with your weight behind it. If they will not go in this way move the stake to a slightly different spot. No more bent stakes.
