Ideas that just didn't work

…and tooth powder that is better than just baking soda.

<span style=”background-color: #ffffff;”>Steve B – Intrigued, I followed your link and found the ingredient list below.  I don’t understand why all those extra chemicals are a good thing and better than plain baking soda…please educate me.</span>

• Sodium methyl cocoyl taurate: derives from coconut, a foaming agent.
• Tartaric acid is derived from fruit and is sometimes called cream of tartar. It is used to generate carbon dioxide through interaction with sodium bicarbonate following oral administration. It’s also used with baking soda as a leavening agent.
• Dicalcium phosphate dihydrate is a common polishing agent in toothpaste.
• Calcium carbonate is everywhere in nature as limestone, sea shells. And it’s a common ingredient in healthcare products including toothpaste.
• Magnesium carbonate is a common salt used in toothpaste.
• Hydrated silica is basically glass, like diatoms and diatomaceous earth are basically glass, and is another common toothpaste ingredient.
• Guar gum is a thickening agent used in foods.
• Commiphora myrrha resin extract is one of the flavorings, as is the peppermint oil.

Basically, the ingredients are the same as toothpaste.

Many years ago someone at Ozark Trail had an idea to make a fiberglass pole Tent and then sell it at Walmart for $28.  Then an idiot (me) bought one for a 2 week trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1999 and one windstorm cracked a pole and the tent leaked like a sieve.  Not just a Bad Idea but an Ugly Thought—

Even earlier someone came up with the vaunted Sierra Cup—we all carried them back in the 1970s.  Why?  Because they looked cool and were stainless steel.  Burned the lips, too small, fell off belt loops etc.

Then PUR made a water filter called the Hiker and they had an engineering idea to plastic-weld the pump handle with a MINIMAL TACK—and so of course the handle snaps in two.

Then Asolo came up with a great idea to make a full leather winter boot called the 520—alas poor Dorkic—

Then MSR came up with the terrible idea of making carbon fiber tent stakes and an idiot namely me paid $35 for 4 of them and one snapped like a bread stick—

And then MLD came up with the outstanding idea to make shell mitts out of eVent fabric—which leaked and got my inner fleece gloves soaked—

Then everybody was talking about Exped downmats and how wonderful they were so I bought into the hysteria and started a 19 day winter trip with one, nearly new—and on Night 1 of the trip is blew a baffle tube weld—

And then 20 years ago all the craze was Limmer boots and so I bought a pair and dangit if the entire welt thread didn’t rip and the sole came off and so I sent it in for repair and the boots returned and they did this after a couple days of hiking—

And finally, who came up with this Sponge Bob pack as being the best UL pack on the market?  It was a good idea on paper but seriously failed in the field.  Although the fitting clerks at this outfitting store really helped me get the correct torso length—the thing just didn’t work—and I just wasted $12.

Oh wow, I have those event mitts and just thought it was my bad job seam sealing them that causes them to not be waterproof. They are warm though, and therefore still have use in dry cold weather, or on my motorcycle in the rain where it’s not that huge a deal to me if I have to dry my inner gloves out in my office during the day.

My buddy had those boots.  His failed after we were at the top of the mountain…

Basically, the ingredients are the same as toothpaste.

Diane – thanks for the very complete ingredient rundown.  I hope you didn’t spend too much time on that :) However, I remain unconvinced of the tooth powder’s superiority and will continue to use old-n-busted plain old Baking Soda.  HYOH and all that stuff.

Ben H—wow I thought my 520s were bad.

Thanks for owning up guys, makes me feel better about some of my less than successful purchases. Marketers are good at making us think we need stuff, or sometimes it’s really just bad stuff.

Things I ditched after 1-2 uses, all being just too much and too heavy:

• tiny grater for fresh Parmesan
• tiny strainer (I use just enough water to cook the pasta, and eat the extra liquid too)
• tiny cutting board (actually I still take it when traveling by car/plane, for fresh fruit, cheese, sausage, but not for backpacking)
• eye shades
• clothesline (just use the tent guylines if needed)
• metal cutlery, all three utensils attached together
• Sporks – I really hate sporks,if by chance someone hands me a steak or piece of fish when out camping, I stab it with a knife or eat with my hands. I awoke from cutlery dependence when I realized I could eat rice with my hands (it came wrapped in a banana leaf, without utensils, and I was hungry)
• At least three different backpacking pillows, none great
• candle lantern

Life without doodads is better. And the satisfaction of giving them away.

I really liked the candle lantern for snow camping. Kept the tent way warm. But, I never experimented with letting it burn all night.

*Thinking a normal sleeping bag would work fine as a quilt for two.

reactions:

The Brondell GoSpa Bidet works way better than those Perineal bottles that hospital gives to new moms.

If you are going to try one of those ladies’ pee funnels: practice in the shower first. I didn’t…

Regular use of baking soda on your teeth is supposed to be bad for your teeth. I’d do some research to make sure it’s not harming your teeth to use it regularly.

You know what was another fail? A vinyl rain poncho like you can get at a gas station. The chaparral on Hurricane Deck destroyed it in about 5 minutes. About the only thing it was good for after that was to provide a breadcrumb trail for others to follow, however I was not the first person to have suffered such a catastrophe and so the others who thought they were following me were actually following someone else’s vinyl rain poncho shards and they got lost for a few hours.

“another fail? A vinyl rain poncho”

In the backpacking store, we called those “suicide ponchos” because they’d fail the first time you needed them.

I sat under one, with a customer (of the store) – a young women I fancied on a high-Sierra BPing trip I was co-leading – during a thunder storm at 9,000 feet one afternoon in 1986.  Temperatures drop during a thunderstorm and vinyl gets very brittle at mildly cold temperatures.  She, an EMT (later a paramedic and now an MD), sarcastically repaired all 47 holes in the vinyl poncho with first aid tape.

No, that wasn’t the Internal-Medicine MD I met on a backpacking trip and ended up marrying.  Romantically, I seem to do better at sea level than in alpine settings.

Look up polyurethane midsole failure and you will discover that boots that sit around for years can fall apart from the inside out.  This happened to me when I pulled out a long idle pair of Asolos and went for a jaunt in the snow.  At lunch I looked down to discover both soles were flapping.  Pretty soon the entire midsole had crumbled away.  We duct taped and tied the soles on with cord to waddle back to the car.

Something about moisture reacting with the polyurethane caused it to rot from the inside out.  Especially if they sit unused.  I guess you are supposed to see cracks or compression in the outer side wall of the midsole before it all goes to crumbles.  Asolo has a specific exception for this in their warranty.

Glad it was just a day hike to see snow…

Scott

Hydrolysis.

(common cause for boot sole failure)

I’m glad I came across this thread. I had a look at my Asolos last night and they’re both starting to peel free….

Last year I bought a new pair of Asolo Fugitive boots and in EXACTLY three months they did this on a trip—

And then there’s the Smartwool sock woes.  One good snag on a thorn or wood stob and you get this—

And then there’s the usual Thermarest delamination and bladder blowdown—got the T-shirt which says–“I’ve been down this road before. . . . about 10 times.”

And then everyone recommended the -40F Hunersdorf water bottles so I bought one like an idiot and it released such a horrible plastic stink (and tainted the water) that I had to deep six the thing.

And then I bought a pair of Corona pruners to carry in my shorts pocket for on-trail clipping as I hike and these wonderful things snapped in half because I guess they weren’t made for clipping, just carrying.

I paid dearly for some Black Diamond cork alpine carbon fiber diamond–bleached–laminated–polished–whatever hiking poles and of course the cork cracks and splits and falls off eventually.  The only solution is to continually coat the cork with Birkenstock Cork Saver glue.

So I thought I’d be quite cool and swap the nylon seat of one of those X-type folding stools with 1.43 oz. cuben. I had just gotten into making all sorts of things from cuben, and I went crazy playing with different ideas of what I could do with it. Well, the stool served me well for 5 years, and I knocked 2 oz. off the total stool weight. Some places provide good logs to sit on at the campsites, but Yellowstone and RMNP don’t, as they are mainly in lodge pole forests.

So 2 years ago at our super-secret aspen grove in RMNP I plopped down onto my beloved cuben stool and promptly ended up on the ground. The cuben finally tore. So I had to eat my dinner on a weenie 6″ lodge pole log, grumpy that my beloved stool was now 17 oz. of dead pack weight. When I got home I went to work to repair the sucker. I was convinced that I fixed it.

Then last September we again went back to that campsite to peep at the fall aspen colors like we do every year. That first night I sat on the stool, and I immediately popped through and once again ended up on the ground. 0-for-2 now, I decided to try the repair once again. I did all kinds of extra reinforcement, which now had increased the weight to 17.5 oz. When spring comes, I’ll take it to my favorite open space to watch the birds and give it a serious test. If it again fails, I’ll cry ‘uncle’ and find some strong nylon to replace the cuben. It will add a couple ounces, but at least I’ll have a serviceable camp stool.

Sometimes, no matter how badly you want something to work, it simply doesn’t.

CANDLE LANTERNS-> looks like a good idea but the light given off sucks.

And Ooooo Doug! “getting married.” You say the like it’s bad thing. ;o)

Yes, it’s sometimes an ordeal but after 50 years with my “starter wife” I can say I’m probably as happy as if I’d have re-married once or twice again. And it’s a he!! of a lot cheaper staying with the “starter wife”.

Walter,

Since you “got the T shirt” for the delam. of your Thermarest just slide it over the “head” of your mattress to absorb those de-laminating body oils, sunscreen and DEET. Works! Try it. I use a synthetic T shirt B/C it’s light and dries fast after washing on the trail.

Polycro groundsheet

There’s something unnerving about being able to see the mud, bog and dung you’re sleeping on. I now use an opaque emergency blanket.

Knee length rain jacket

I had the idea of going back to something like the classic Scottish cagoule jackets of my youth, so I could wear chaps and avoid sweaty rain pants. But the old cagoules were made of sturdy neoprene nylon, while modern lightweight jackets simply whip about in the wind and leave your crotch exposed…

Tipi Walter gets the prize for best posts in this thread.

Also a prize for best advice…whatever he buys, do NOT buy it!

I WANT the natural materials/bidet thing to work, so bad. I’d like to not carry toilet paper. But since you have to carry a squirt bottle of water, one of the heaviest things we carry, am I actually lightening my load?  And, once you’ve squirted yourself off, then your backside is dripping wet. So, you still have to dry yourself off with something, and I’m not going to use the same bandana/cloth/whatever that I use to clean my face. Also, ripping up vegetation doesn’t seem very LNT. I’m probably going to keep poking away at it this hiking season and see if it is a technique I can adopt, but I’m not completely sure it is practical.

I think the squirt thing is overrated, although I do have, and have used, a portable bidet. But it’s one more thing to carry and find and keep track of. I now prefer just using water bottle water. If you’re “messy” use a rinsed off rounded rock, then put soap and water into your left hand, and wash. One more rinse, pouring water with the right into the left, and done with the undercarriage. Then wash both hands well with soap and water, and by the time you’re done you’re mostly dripped dry underneath. With quick dry undies and pants any dampness dries off quickly. It also helps to be able to stay in your squat for a bit! Practice, practice. I don’t envy people who take a long time to do their stuff; I’m done in less than a minute. Not boasting – it’s not a race! But for those who sit on a pot for 20 minutes, gads, I have no advice. Must be hard to go outside!

Always using your left hand (if you’re right handed) keeps a pattern that allows you to be more sanitary. And a custom used by 3/5 of the world’s people. Lefties have to figure out what works for them!

You do have to get over squeamishness about a bit of something getting on your hands (which happens with TP also, whether you know it or not). Two babies quickly resolved any of that concern for me! And you’re then washing well afterwards so the hands should be clean. This technique doesn’t work if there isn’t enough water, obviously.I also wouldn’t use hand sanitizer for this purpose. Alcohol back there could really be harmful.

TP actually kind of grosses me out. I use it in civilization of course, because it’s not convenient to do otherwise. But I don’t feel as clean. I’d be scared to use vegetation; I tend to get skin irritation to many plants, even ones that are not nominally poisonous. That could be a really bad deal on the trail!

Freezer-bag cooking.

It leaves you with a mess in a bag.  If a bag punctures a few days after being eaten you have smelly half-rotten food particles in your backpack.  Or you can clean your bags after eating their contents, of course, but then why not just “cook” in the pot and clean that?  So that’s what I do.  I use FBC techniques, but in my pot, then clean it.

I don’t envy people who take a long time to do their stuff;

This doesn’t apply while hiking, but in the real world, obviously you use the time to return calls. That way you can bill for it.

I found how to always have dry feet. Let’s say you step on a puddle:
1. Remove your wet boots and socks.
2. Dry yout feet with a towel/cloth.
3. Put on new socks.
4. Put on a gallon Ziplock bag as a “second sock”.
5. Put your wet boots on.

No matter how wet your boots are, the ziplock bag will keep the socks dry. Been using it for a while now!