So we’ve rearranged the order of the July and August backpacking trips since the people going in July had already been to Yoho and those going in August haven’t been to either.

These means the June 30th to July 3rd trip is now to Kootenay National Park. A revised information sheet can be found here. The August 4th – 7th trip is now to Yoho National Park, although a partially different trail than last year. I’ve made up an information sheet for this trip as well and it can be found here.

My new tent came today. It’s light, really light. I’m quite happy with it. It’s light enough that I could even take this tent solo if I had to. And split between 3 people it will be just over 1.5 lbs/person. On that note it’s going to be a tight squeeze for 3 people. We’ll definitely have to sleep staggered like the tent diagram suggests. While it may be somewhat small I’m very confident we won’t have any “it’s raining in the freakin’ tent!” issues like we did last time we went to Absaroka.

I still haven’t received the footprint as it’s backordered, so I haven’t been able to test the Fast-Fly setup yet. Setting up the tent in this matter means not using the main body of the tent at all, and simpy securing the fly directly over the poles and attaching it to the footprint. This cuts more than 25% of the weight and doesn’t look like it will affect the weatherproofness at all. I’m hoping I’ll be able to field test the Fast-Fly setup in Kootenay in July when the bugs shouldn’t be an issue.

All the stated weights are accurate with everything weighing in at 2.207 kg including the footprint.

This was also the final piece of gear I needed to finally have a fully accurate pack list. For a 4 day, 3 night trip to Kootenay my base pack weight will only be 14.34 lbs, and total initial pack weight – including fuel, food, and 2L of water – will be only 24 lbs.

Every year around the middle of April I start running again. Part of it is to get in shape after spending the winter fattening up. But I think I major part of it is the stress of finals. Pretty much that only way I can get to sleep at night during finals is if I’m exhausted. [Un?]forunately I seem to have to run more and more rather rapidly in order to get as equally exhausted and thus fall asleep so I seem to spend more and more time running and less time studying. Maybe I’d be better off to just give up sleep during finals and adopt the coffee method that everyone else seems to live by.

Either way, I’m done now… yeah that’s right! So now I need to find other reasons to keep up this running momentum. I keep rereading the description for the Absoroka trip slated for the end of August and I think I’m going to need to be in freakin’ marathon shape to pull this one off. It certainly won’t be as wet, bug infested, and trail-less as Purcell, but the elevation sounds insane!

“After getting to the top of Speculator Pass you won’t need to hit the Stairmaster machine for a while. But if you want to get ready for this trip, you should spend three hours a day on it.”

It’s not like there’s a lot of hills to run up around here….

In other news, I finally ordered a tent. Big Agnes Seedhouse SL 3 – should be here this week I hope.

Looks like I’ll be going on at least two major backpacking trips this summer. The main one being with Aidan and Mike to Montana at the end of August. To prepare for that fairly difficult trip (read: very difficult) Chantal and I have been planning a trip to Kootenay National Park, which of course is in BC. I’m hoping to take a total of 6 people, and so far 5 people have signed on. The trip is 34 km in total over 4 days. There is also a good chance of a day hike to a mountain lake and possibly a summit on the second day (Mike, you should be happy). Estimated cost of the trip is $160-$200 depending on how many people come along (and the gas price situtation at the time).

If you want to come on the trip email me asap. Also a $100 deposit is due on June 1st – no exceptions!

I’ve put together a information sheet for the trip, you can read it here: Rockwall.pdf

What does one do when they need to field test some new gear and a homemade stove in a cold Canadian climate? Walk out into the cold snowy field behind their house of course! I hiked for about 20 minutes before stopping to test out the stoves.

First off, the MEC Kokanee gators worked awesome with my Merrell Pulse IIs, no snow in the shoes what so ever. And my feet we very warm with smart wool and thick wool socks. Even when I was sitting for 30 minutes testing the stoves they didn’t seem to get cold at all. Hopefully that holds true for a whole night. Although I will also likely have a fire for most of the night in Duck Mountain.

I also wanted to test how long it takes to get 2L of water by melting snow with my MSR SimmerLite. It took quite some time, probably the better part of 30 min. This was using a 2L pot and the windscreen. Of note, always add some water first! I’ve always read this but I always figured it was just to speed things up a bit. But no, it’s definitely a necessity. I lifted the lid to check on the status and was surprised that nothing seemed to be happening. And then I noticed an orange glow coming through the snow. The pot bottom was red hot on bottom; looks like it kind of distorted the pot a bit even! Anyway, won’t be doing that again. It didn’t seem to take much water, maybe 1 cup of water or so and then things really started melting. There also didn’t seem to be much difference between running the stove at full blast versus low until there was nothing but a chuck on ice floating in the water. One thing I’ll have to consider on the Duck Mountain trip is how to get all the crap floating in the water out. Hopefully this was just because I had to scoop the thin layer of snow off the grass filled field.

The test I was most interested in was the Mini Zen alcohol stove. I wasn’t very scientific about it, but was very surprise how well it performed in the cold. Air temperature was -14ºC with barely any wind. I didn’t put anything under the stove, so it was sitting right on the frozen field. I did use the windscreen however, and I’m sure this made a fairly significant difference. I’m not sure how much fuel I put in the stove, but I’m estimating it was around 28ml based on how long it burned after I was done boiling the water. I used the MSR Titan Kettle filled with a little less than 2 cups of water (which was still around the room temperature). It took the stove a little longer than usual to prime, but that seems normal and once it did it only took about 8 min before the water was steaming. I didn’t let it get to a full boil, but it definitely would have given that it burned for another 2-3 min after I took the pot off. Of course I wasn’t going to hike all that way just to boil water, so I made some hot chocolate before heading back. I don’t think I’ll be taking the Mini Zen as my main stove in the winter, but I’m definitely considering taking it to make drinks or ichiban while I’m melting snow with the SimmerLite.

Here are some photos of the Mini Zen in action.

Oh, and lastly, the RidgeRest made a great seat while I was doing all the tests. It actually felt warm.

I also packed my pack with what I figure I would be taking on the Duck Mountain trip, minus food. And strangely, even with all the extra clothing it was only 25 lbs! I’m not really sure why, I have 2 sleeping pads, an over bag for my sleeping bag, my heavier North Face pack, and 4 heavy main layers, plus ski pants! Does a tent really weigh that much? Food for 2 days will only be around 5-6 lbs, and the only over thing I can thing of that I’m missing it a shovel to make a snow cave. I’m planning to purchase this shovel before I leave so even with that I should still be around 30-32 lbs (27-29 if I opt of the Vapor Trail).

Well my latest lighter-weight-than-previously-perfectly-fine-gear finally arrived today… The first item that I’ve been really wanting for quite some time is the MSR Titan Kettle. This thing is deadly light! I love it! It’s lighter than the steel mug I was using previously and it holds twice the volume, and has a lid. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a decent place to order just the kettle from, and had to pay extra for the MSR PocketRocket/Kettle package. (MEC, please carry the Titan seperately!) I doubt I’ll ever use the PocketRocket, but ordering just the kettle from the US I would have risked paying even nastier duty charges. One of my favourite things about this pot is that fact that titanium doesn’t retain a lot of heat, only seconds after emptying boiling water out of it I can handle it without burning myself (something I tended to do often with my other steel pots).

The next new item is a Them-a-rest RidgeRest short. Even though it is physically more than twice the volume of my Prolite 3 it is more than half the weight and a slightly higher insulating factor too. The real test will be to see if my hips can handle it… only time will tell.

The last item isn’t really light, at 240 grams I think of it as quite heavy, but the MEC Kokanee Gore-Tex gaiters are mighty nice. I plan on putting them to good use this winter and will definitely make the pack list should I ever return to Purcell. Take that Stinging Nettle and Devil’s Club!

I’ve also be spending a lot of time tinkering with homemade alcohol stoves. I think I’ve finally got a really well built stove based on the Mini Zen side burner stove design that will replace my MSR SimmerLite for spring/summer trips. The SimmerLite with burner, pump and a 650ml fuel bottle is 370 grams, whereas the Mini Zen is only 8 grams! I picked this stove design mainly because it doesn’t require a pot stand and seems pretty failsafe. And in my tests it only takes 16ml of methanol to boil 2 cups (500ml) of water.

Now that I’ve pretty much settled on the stove design I’ve started tinkering with windscreen size and design. Currently I think the one I’ve make from cutting down the MSR windscreen is too tight to the pot and is causing a build up of heat (a good thing right?). Well maybe not, since the increased heat is causing the alcohol to vaporize much faster than usual. In turn the flames are jetting up the sides of the pot and thus wasting heat and burning out much faster. I haven’t tested it quite enough yet to say how much shorter it is but it’s enough that 16ml of fuel will no longer boil 2 cups of water.

Well, looks like I won’t be getting an MSR Microzoid unless they suddenly release a new model soon. The new Big Agnes SL 2 (avail. Oct 15th) is only 1.6kg for a 2-person tent! Compared to the (newly revised) weight of the Microzoid at 1.33kg for a 1-person tent I think the SL 2 is a much better investment. Especially once you consider that the SL 2 would only be 800g per person. Of course I would also get the SL 2’s footprint which adds 184g or 92g/person making the total trail weight less than 900g, even lighter than the Microzoid. Even if I’m not backpacking with someone else 1.7kg is bareable. Or SL 2 also has the option of leaving the main part of the tent behind and only taking the fly, poles, footprint, and pegs, making it only 1.1kg – still lighter than the Microzoid! The only downside to the Big Agnes SL 2 is the price, the tent is $364 CDN and the footprint is an additional $64 CDN making the tent a steep $428 CDN.

Of other note I decided not to purchase the North Face Work Gloves – they stock them at FAE now and they aren’t really what I was looking for. However, I did find some really nice North Face Windstopper gloves that were put to the test this weekend in Duck Mountain. I wonder if they are as good as the probably much cheaper MEC version…

Since I’m thinking about continuing to backpack through the winter this year I’ve started making a list of gear that I would really like to get for those cold nights.

North Face Quantum Nuptse Jacket

- 900 filll goose down
- Weight: 623g
- MSRP US $299
- Could also get the Nuptse Jacket, which is 700 fill down for US $199

North Face Work Glove

- Kevlar reinforced stitching
- Weight: 124g
- MSRP US $50

North Face Hightail 900 Sleeping Bag

- Temp. Rating: -10ºC
- 900 fill goose down
- Weight: 921g
- MSRP US $349

Drew’s gear wishlist (which happens to be strikingly similar to Aidan’s gear wishlist…)

MSR MicroZoid

- Capacity: 1 person
- Floor + Vestibule Area: 15.9 + 5.8ft^2 / 1.5 + 0.5 m^2
- Interior Peak Height: 26in. / 70cm
- Fly w/ Footprint Weight: 1lb 10oz / 0.8kg
- Minimum Weight: 2lb 5oz / 1.1kg
- Packaged Weight: 2lb 13oz / 1.3kg
- MSRP US$159.99 + US$34.95

Therm-a-rest ProLite3 (Small)

- Dimensions: 51×119cm
- Thickness: 2.5cm
- R-value: 2.3
- Rolled Size: 28×9cm
- Weight: 370g
- MSRP US$69.95
- MEC $87

MSR Titan Kettle

- Weight: 118g
- Volume: 0.85L
- MSRP: US$39.95

Congratulations Mike!

It looks like my best friend Mike landed himself a sweet job at Electronic Arts in Vancouver for the next 8 months. It’s crazy how fast things can change. I’m sure Mike will be able to turn this opportunity into a career if he so chooses. Even since I can remember Mike has been talking about how he’s going to be a game developer when he “grows up” it’s awesome that it’s actually happening for him now, especially with such a large and well respected company. It kind of makes me wonder if I’ll ever really see Mike again. I can somehow see him finishing up his degree in Vancouver and starting his dream career down there.

But it’s funny how things work out… I first met Mike in preschool when I was 3 years old, after that he moved to another part of Regina and we went to different schools in Kindergarden. Simply by conscience )(or was it…) my family built a house and moved to where we live today, which is also a 5 minute walk from Mike’s house. If we hadn’t moved, there’s a good chance I would have never seen Mike again. Who knows, maybe Mike will stay in Vancouver, start up his career, and a few years down the road I”ll get an engineering job down there.

Anyway, best of luck Mike!