Ultralight in the Icebox

Joshua,

Andy is hiking as a business and GoLite is his big sponsor so I would not look for a lot being said for other companies gear that he has along. If he can "make-do" with a GoLite product I would expect him to stay with them. I do hope he tries the RBH NTS Shirt so we can find out what he thinks about it. I believe RBH does not sponsor with free products things like Andy is doing. I expect he bought the NTS Shirt so it will be interesting to see what comments he has if any about it.

I will be wearing an RBH Vapr Thrm NTS Shirt and the NTS Pants (I bought my shirt and pants) on my hike this month if I can ever get out of Texas. I will start each day with the Shirt and Pants on – cold or warm – and wear them as long as I can each day. I will be recording the temperature every 2 hours and will recored how the RBH items are working. If I get to hot, I will note that, and if I can't vent enough to cool of I will remove them. I will wear them next to my skin and as my only garments as long as I can. I will also wear them to sleep each night or at least to start each night. I will live in them 24 hours a day if possible. I want to really see what temperature range I can make them work for me.

My NTS Shirt can vent through zip'ed mesh pockets and I am getting the optional "Forearm Zipper Vents". The NTS Pants come with 16" outside leg zippers to vent my legs if / when necessary. I have used VB's in my Down sleeping bags and on my feet for over 15 years so the trick will be to see how I do with the RBH Shirt and Pants over a broad temperature range.

Gear Companies being used by Andy and the number of products by company or Store (BPL.Com) from each:

GoLite 17
BPL.com Store (?) 7 (+/-)
MSR 4
DeFeet 3
RBH Designs 3
MYOG 3
Timberland 1
Forty Below 1
High Gear 1
Leki 1
Northern Lites 1
Marmot 1
MontBell 1
Headsweats 1
PossumDown 1
Oakley 1
Jacks R Better 1
Gossamer Gear 1
Therm-a-Rest 1
SMC 1
Nalgene 1
Snowpeak 1
Mini-Bic 1
Brunton 1
LG cell phone 1
Canon 1
Olympus 1
Photon 1
Petzl 1
Victorinox Classic 1

Andrew should be in the Grand Marais area. Their airport is back away from the lake much like the trail is and at 11:30am they're reporting -8F with a 10mph north wind … windchill in the -20's. Fortunately, the forecast is for a slight warmup Sat-Sun b4 the next cold snap next week.

An indication of the strength of the lake effect is that the harbor is reporting +1F

Folks interested in tracking his weather might find these links useful:
Silver Bay
Grand Marais
Ely
I like the graphs … -16F in Grand Marais yesterday!

I have not visited the BPL website for a while…and so just came across this thread. First of all….good luck to Andy….gutsy effort…and I am looking forward to hearing more on how his gear performs. Second…I am in Minneapolis, and the temps are definitely taking a dive these days…should be something like -10 to -15 for him tonight. I will be wondering if he will be able to keep up anything like the pace he is keeping on the superior hiking trail once he turns west onto the Border Trail and then the Kek. The Superior trail is a well maintained clearly marked trail, with ready access, so it is heavily hiked. The Boarder Trail and the Kek are different in two ways: access is far more difficult (I think this is some of the most remote area in the upper 48), and being in a national wilderness area, anything man-made, including signs or blazes, are forbidden. thus the trail is not actually marked at all, and because foot trafic is so low, it is sometimes nothing more than a game-trail (i.e. barely visible)…and that is with no snow on the ground. Also, with all the iron ore in the ground, compasses literally can turn circles as you move from one place to the next. It can also be very, very rutty with exposed roots and rocks. This is absolutely drop-dead beautiful wilderness…I was up there in early October for a solo getaway…and can only imagine how majestic it would be in the dead of winter. I both envy Andy the experience (pictures please!), and cringe at the challenges. Be safe Andy.

Sam – interesting to hear he has hiked those trails before and feels he can keep up that kind of pace. From what I hear, the biggest issue in the most remote portions of the trails is tree-falls, as routine maintenance is not….well…routine. Certainly on the north end of the Powwow trail, which is not even as remote as the Kek, falls really slow you down. Oh how for maintenance like that which is possible on the AT…where you can really pretty much fly. But then again, on the Kek you get nearly daily doses of the northern lights! At least the temps have been pretty moderate this last week for him.

His first time through the boundary waters he often chose to walk chains of lakes as the going is utterly easy compared to the mess of blowdowns from 1999. When I was with him in Grand Marais he told me he was going to stay strickly to a land route this time around and that he expected to be done on Thursday. As you can see from Carol's last post that he didn't arrive until Friday and that he obviously had some trouble with either route finding or (more likely) slow conditions.

The BRT and Kek are trails synonymous with slow travel as their maintenance organizations are small (albeit dedicated) crews of people who can only get out a handful of times per year. Winter conditions probably heighten the difficulty for game trails are more obvious taking you off track, having to contend with walking over and through the literal bomb holes that moose put in the ground as well as the added weight of snowshoes on the feet.

My congratulations go out to Andy on a difficult hike that was from what I can tell well-executed. I look forward to hearing his perspective.

Not all canister stoves can have the canister turned upside down, only remote canister stoves. As for why he opted for white gas over a remote canister stove though, who knows. Still, he survived so it must have worked out ok for him :D

Tom

>Yes if you turn the canister upside down on a non-remote canister stove you have big trouble. Your dinner is on the ground! ;)

Nah, you gotta light it before putting your food on it, so all you end up with is a really cool paperweight :D

Tom

Yes indeed, the icebox is trying to live up to it's name. International Falls, which worked long and hard to trademark the term "Nations Icebox" is reporting -26F. For Ely it was +1F yesterday afternoon and the forecast for the region holds no hope of warming up to 0F until Tuesday … that'd be 96 hours below zero.

Could be colder though, yesterday (Ground Hog's Day) was the 11th anniversary of the coldest temp ever recorded in MN …. -60F in Tower, a days walk west of Ely (for Andy). It may have been even colder that morning in nearby Embarrass, MN but the lights from the TV crews messed up the measurement.

Down here in tropical St. Paul the reliable thermometer nearest me is reporting -16F and I'm logging off to test some clothing combos on an all morning day hike.

Andrew
I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed reading your article. Inspiring to say the least.