Help Me Lighten My Winter Gear

[Bri W]

Just did my second winter backpacking trip at Crater Lake! A snow storm hit us overnight, dumped 18″ of snow, lows were -10 degrees F, and 45 mph wind gusts whipped my tent around all night. Total distance was fewer than 9 miles. One baby avalanche zone (which I’d like to avoid next time, even if we were going on a “safe” day). We plan to do this trip again but over two nights with better weather. We are hoping to sleep closer to the rim (safely) for better photo ops, but our spot among a grove of trees was cozy. So here is my list from that trip, and here is a video of our trip.

Excuses for redundancies and heavy things:

• synthetic 20(o) sleeping bag + Nunatak 30(o) half quilt and hoodie. These will be replaced by a 0(o) Nunatak Raku sometime soon, so that should hopefully save at least half a pound.
• Snowyside Bivy + Tent: because I wasn’t convinced the bag + quilt would be warm enough. I was actually glad that I’d brought the bivy because the tent condensation turned to frost and the wind would shake this frost onto my bivy all night. I may bring along the bivy with the tent in the future, unless someone has another more lightweight suggestion that would keep tent frost off of my Raku in the event that I cannot vent my tent (e.g., wind forces snow through the opened vents/door).
• headlamp + lantern: because the multi-colored lantern is soothing. :)
• CCF+air matress: this is a must. I would freeze otherwise.
• Lots of dry sacks: Couldn’t find my stuff sacks and I needed to attach lots of things to the outside of my pack due to lack of internal space. I’m hoping I can pare things down so that the only thing on the outside will be the Ridgerest.

Things I’ll Leave Behind Next Time:

• Rite in The Rain stuff: my fingers were too cold to stop and take notes.
• PackTowl: this was great for wiping things off before packing, but I think I will cut it down a bit.
• Down Pants: Hopefully the Raku, Brynje suit, VBL suit, and two sleeping pads will be sufficiently warm.
• Outdoor Research Floodlight Jacket: this was perfect for the start of each day and for when we stopped for a snack, but it was too hot for most of the trip. Next time I’m just bringing my standard non-insulated shell.

Things That Worked:

• ColdAvenger Pro Mask: great for asthma, even better for blocking the wind.
• eVent mitts: when the winter mitts are too bulky but bare hands=PAIN.
• JetBoil Joule: heavy and bulky, but boiled water for three of us SUPER quickly.
• Toe liner socks: I’m so glad Injinji makes these!
• VBL socks, mitts, suit, and hat: I stayed warm (sometimes hot!) with this set-up, and my down stayed dry. My RBH suit is my favorite piece of winter gear! Meanwhile, my friends had wet socks, sweat-drenched/frosted insulated layers, and were cold by the end of our second day.
• Snowclaw: helped build our campsite.

Things I want to change:

• carbon poles for my tent
• Maybe if I can reduce the weight a bit, I can get away with my ZPacks Zero.
• Trying to stake out the tent in <10(o) SUCKS! Maybe snow anchors would be better.
• Other suggestions?

I’m a newb at winter backpacking and would like to avoid avalanche zones, so my winter gear list should be for relatively safe 1-2 night trips similar to this weekend’s. Any suggestions to lighten the load would be wonderful, as my back is telling me today that my pack might have reached its upper limit on this trip.

 

 

 

 

[Bri W]

Here is my pack fully loaded!

Also, correction: 17″ of snow overnight.

[Edward Barton]

Bri, I’ve found a summer weight synthetic quilt over a down bag works well to manage condensation and keep the down dry. I’ve also found a half pyramid to be a great winter shelter and very light. You’ll have condensation, but a synthetic overquilt retains warmth despite absorbing some water, and keeps the down dry.

How do you like the Brynje suit? Is the mesh comfortable next to the skin?

[Bri W]

@porosantihodos, the Brynje suit is very warm and comfy, and doesn’t seem to retain much stink after my trips. I sweat a lot on this trip and only felt as though we were all mildly stinky. :) As far as the synthetic bag goes, I ordered my Raku in 0.66 Membrane with water-resistant treated down. My current 0.66 membrane quilt and hoodie shed water pretty nicely, but I’m looking for something that weighs a lot less than a synthetic quilt to protect the. bag. I saw that Montbell makes an outer bag liner, but it’s still on the heavy side. Maybe I’ll just make a SUL bivy. My 4 oz. Cuben bivy would probably work. As far as the half pyramid goes, I wanted a free-standing tent for winter so that I don’t have to deal with stakes and guylines. I’m glad I made this decision, bc trying to stake down that tent with bare hands was painful, and a PITA. Maybe I need more practice?

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Bruce Tolley]

The guylines and stakes increase your tents’ strength to withstand a static snow load as well as resist wind. You are asking for serious trouble if you avoid staking your tent down even below treeline.

If you tie all your knots before you leave your house, there is no need to stake the tent down with bare hands. You just wrap the pre tied loop of your tent guy line around your deadman. or better have a loop on your deadman already. Go to your nearest gear store and inspect the SMC snow stakes which come with directions on how to do this.

Ryan Jordan had a very good article on camping lightweight in the snow published in BPL Dec 2014. Ryan assumed you were going to build a snow cave or snow trench. For nights above about 15 degrees and no big storm, I sleep under a MLD mid. My winter pack for 2 nights is about 23 lbs including consumables with a rather heavy, ancient Osprey 50L pack. If I expect the night to be colder or a lot of wind, I take the time to dig a shelter. You can get a snow trench done in about 90 minutes. BTW I gave up taking a snow claw. For Sierra cement, you need a shovel with a metal blade.

[Bri W]

@btolley Thanks! I thought about pre-tying my stakes, but I packed last minute and figured I’d be fine. Live and learn. That’s why I’m doing “easy,” short trips! I have the ZPacks snow/sand stakes. Do you think these are inferior to the SMC stakes? I’m seeing mixed reviews online. I like the idea of the snow anchors more than stakes, though. Although it’s heavier, I like the tent more than the tarp idea right now. I may change my mind in the future.

I’ve read the article you mentioned, but I’ll take a look at it again to see if there is any new info I overlooked.

[Bob Moulder]

Winter is a toughie because personal choices and local conditions can vary so much. You’ve listed some very low-hanging fruit such as the 20deg synthetic bag.

Personally, I see a lot of replication of some clothing stuff, but who am I to say if you need it all or could do without some stuff? You have to be extremely careful with this in the winter because of the ever-present threat of hypothermia. The trick is to make small changes, eliminating things only when you’re absolutely positive you can remain reasonably warm and reasonably dry. I say ‘reasonably’ because you won’t be totally warm and totally dry all the time, but you have to manage moisture and layers to prevent (for the most part) excessive sweating. The way to go about this is by testing in the backyard or in the woods not too far from your car.

I don’t want to go into a lot of detail with your personal clothing choices — I have no basis to know what you need, after all! — but I will give you two examples of some simple things that work for me down to 0°F:

Hands: Polyester glove liners, Polartec 200 fleece gloves, and either MLD rain mitts or some heavier REI shell mitts if there will be significant scrambling requiring a tougher shell. That’s it — base, insulation, shell… done!

Top: polyester T-shirt, 1/4 zip stand up collar polyester long sleeve, 150wt fleece jacket, shell such as Versalite or EMS eVent, Eddie Bauer down parka… done!

Here is my fairly complete gear list for a 0°F (down to -6°F actually) overnighter trip in the snow, pack weight of about 22 lbs including consumables (with 2 quarts of water!) and about 33 lb FSO.

When it comes to moisture management, instead of using a lot of VBLs it is possible to monitor yourself and adjust layers as needed to avoid overheating and sweating. But if you’re comfortable in a lot of VBLs, more power to you because you are one of the lucky people who can tolerate them.

[Bri W]

@bobmny10562 Thanks for the suggestions and your gear list. I like your bottle insulator idea. Does the bubble wrap work fairly well?

Regarding the gloves, I only bring 3 pairs: Brynje wool liner, eVent mitts, and VBL mitts. I wear the liners with either the eVent mitts if I have more technical things to do (like set up my tent) or with my VBL mitts for hiking. I feel like my glove situation is refined fairly well. My fingers get cold pretty easily and take a long time to warm up, so I’m not sure going with anything thinner would be smart for me.

My worn clothing is basically the baselayer, the VBL jacket, and a shell jacket and pants. My sleeping clothes will add VBL pants (I’ll likely leave my down pants behind). The down jacket will be built in to the Raku. The Floodlight down jacket was overkill on this last trip so I’ll be leaving that behind. Maybe I’ll add a fleece top layer to the mix if my shell jacket isn’t warm enough. Any other suggestions in refining my worn clothing?

Regarding VBLs, they’ve been wonderful and I rarely get clammy or uncomfortably sweaty. I can vent pretty easily with them, so I’ll likely keep them in the mix.

Does your MiniMo work well in cold conditions? When I’m not boiling water for the whole group, it’d be nice to take something more lightweight.

 

[Brian B]

– depends on conditions, but windpants or regular summer hiking pants instead of soft shell pants.
– could stop every hour and boil up water versus carrying 48 oz.
– keep the tent: sub-zero and 45 mph winds are kind of the firstlight’s wheel house — pairing down to a tarp world invite trouble in my opinion.

[Bruce Tolley]

@Bri
When snow camping,I always tell my groups that it takes twice as long to do any task, especially tying and untying knots.

I have no experience with the Zpacks stakes. I bought my SMC anchors years ago. They have been renamed snow flukes, metal cables have been added, and the cost is astronomical. So I might take back my recommendation. From the photo on the Zpacks website, their snow stakes are a simple V stake and look a little small to me. You want the snow to freeze to the surface of the deadman. Thus wood works very well. Some plastics do not work.

I can take a photo of the loops on my premade deadmen and post it if that would be helpful.

The SMC anchors have a big wide shield like surface so they are easy to set quickly on the windward side of the tent and since they have a large surface area, the snow sinters around them quickly. The last thing you want is your tent to turn into a kite.

I sometimes take my Big Agnes 4 season tent that has 12 anchor points. I take 4 SMC anchors, 3 or 4 of the Big Agnes stakes that came with my BA tent, and for the rest of the anchor points I assume I can find some downed wood for deadmen.

A piece of wood about the size of a your thumb and as long as a pencil can work. Sometimes I take a few chopsticks, often with two taped together to create a larger surface area. Except for the SMC anchors, all the stakes are placed in the snow as deadmen.

[Bri W]

@btolley pictures would be helpful if you already have them! Thanks! Regarding wood, I think it’d be pretty tough to find wood since most trees are surrounded by tree wells. Crater Lake is covered in snow most of the year anyway. My first trip to Lake of the Woods might be more promising for wood finding. I plan to return there later this month for another easy overnighter. The Zpacks snow stakes are fairly small. Any experience with cloth snow anchors?

[Bruce Tolley]

At Bri. I’ll see about some photos tomorrow.

In reference to twigs for deadmen, I was talking about deadfall on the ground, or more accurately on top of the snow. I never take anything off of a live tree.

In the Sierras you can usually find a bit of twiggy and larger deadfall from the pines and Douglas Fir after a storm and it takes a while for the next storm to cover it up.

[Bri W]

The only thing I saw on the ground were tiny balls of moss or lichen. No dead branches where we stayed. But maybe I’ll look out for some along the way next time when we are lower in elevation.

[Greg Pehrson]

Great video; nice editing and it looks like you all had a ton of fun.

Bri, I was wondering if you’ve found the forearm zips on the vbl jacket useful/necessary, or are you primarily venting with the main zipper and pit zips?

[Bob Moulder]

For deadman stakes when wood is not available (above treeline, deep snow cover) I used to carry some of the plastic stakes with the heads and tips cut off, and some holes drilled in them to lighten them… still plenty strong and lighter than most metal options, although I had to dig them up. I called them DeadFeathers.

This one is about 10″ in length…

[Stephen M]

Your snow shoes can be used as dead men anchors also.

 

 

[Bob Moulder]

Good point, Stephen, and you can also dig snow with them, so no need for a shovel or the snow claw.

[Bri W]

@gregpehrson I use the pit zips more than the one other venting zips. It’s a very long zipper, so it definitely does the trick.

Thanks for the pics and suggestions! I used my snowshoe as a shovel to dig up my car and it was kind of a hassle, but I do appreciate that it turns my shoes in to multipurpose gear and saves me weight!

 

[Bob Moulder]

Bri, I have used the bubble wrap envelopes down to about -5°F with no problems. Above 15°F I usually use 1 of them and below that usually 2, but there’s nothing either magical or scientific about that guideline… just something I started doing.

The saga behind the MiniMo operation in cold weather is here. ;^) You can read the last 3 pages or so and be all up to speed on it, however.

[Link .]

.DITCH YOUR STAKES: A GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE SHELTER ANCHORS .

[Bri W]

thanks @bobmny10562 ! That copper strip thing looks very clever! When I have time I’ll have to read through all of the thread

@annapurna unfortunately, my finances disallow me from accessing that article. But thanks!

[Edward Jursek]

That BD tent looks heavy. I use an cuben MLD DuoMid for winter camping. 12.5 oz, rock solid, roomy even with a partner. Even the slightly heavier sil DuoMid will be a huge weight savings and better for your wallet. I also have a Snowyside Bivy, so I never have to worry about spindrift blowing in. The Snowyside also gives me some added piece of mind should the weather really go South or a snow cave or snow trench is needed for some reason.

Looks like you are carrying a pretty heavy stove for a group of 5? Stop being so nice and get a Kovea Spyder stove or, if you are independently wealthy, a Caffin Vortex stove.

Please let us know how the Raku works out! I read Steve Evans thoughts and experience using one and I am intrigued. My current down clothing pieces are a Nunatak Skaha jacket and Kobuk pants. Combined they weigh 22oz. Merging the down clothing into the sleep system might offer some advantages, as well as a few drawbacks. I have also considered what an over-filled FF Winter Wren bag might be like.

[Edward Jursek]

Also, the Vargo Pack does look too small. I like my winter pack roomy and use an old HMG Porter 4400 Expedition (31oz) w/stuff pocket for winter. I would be reluctant to try and cut my volume down too much. That might lead to the need to make some difficult trade offs and compromises. I am much more willing to play around with my summer kit and see what I can and can’t leave behind. For winter, I am much more conservative. I have not been able to get my winter 0 degree kit below 15 pounds and I am about done trying. There is just some comfort and safety items I won’t part with or cut corners on in the winter. You might want to consider selling the Vargo and getting a Porter, or having Chris Zimmer at Zimmerbuilt make you a larger bag for the Vargo frame.

[Bri W]

@nedjursekgmail-com thanks for the suggestions! I’m going to lighten the BD tent with carbon poles. I really don’t want anything for winter but a freestanding tent.

I’ll look into those stoves bc mine really is heavy ant bulky. But it’s great for quickly heating up 2+ L of water for my warm bottles for sleep. :)

The Roku hasn’t yet shipped, but I plan to take it out as soon as an opportunity arises! :)

[Edward Barton]

Edward and Bri,

I wonder whether an EE Convert might be another wearable option. It has a two way zip so you can wear it and have the use of your hands in front, or cinch it around your chest and wear a jacket on top. The pad straps and shock cord at the foot end add more options. I’ve done something similar and used a sit pad to cover the middle opening for my hands with a DIY wearable quilt I had made with partial zippers on top and bottom. I think it could work well for camp chores. Cumbersome compared with a Roku or winter wren, but a higher warmth/weight?

Below treeline, I’ve tried tyvek shell clothing as well. These can be worn sleeping to cut vapor transfer (though not completely? – they are air permeable), are very light and packable (5-6oz for top and bottom combined) and I find they repel snow well, though I haven’t worn them in wetter conditions. Also cheap to experiment with, and easily dyed pink!

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