Gear Ruminations Again

Back in June I pulled my backpacking gear out and went through it. Most is in fine shape, some of it needed replacement because it was defective, and a few things needed replacement because my corcumstances have changed.

Consider my bivy sack, for instance. I have an OR Advanced Bivy sack. It retails for $299 (currently, it was cheaper back in the 90s), and is pretty much the ultimate mountaineering bivy sack. Before owning that bivy sack I once spent three days buried in the snow in a blizzard. I had a tarp and a garbage bag then. At one point I discovered for some bizarre reason that there were some frozen hot dogs down near my feet. I bent one of them and it made a terrible cracking noise, and at that point I realized that a) my toes were frozen, and b) that was a toe not a hot dog.

SAR was (and still is) an unpredictable trip planner. When I bought the bivy sack, it went into the SAR pack. Only the most durable and hardcore bivy sack would do. SAR missions are spontaneous, and often take you into bad weather. The state policy had been that teams should expect to be out 8 to 12 hours, but should be prepared for 24 hours. George had us be prepared for 48 hours, and on a big search in a remote area he might send you out on a single mission for as long as three days (there are no roads in wilderness areas, so remote searching requires a lot of hiking). Back then missions were long too, since people didn't have cell phones and GPSes. I spent a week searching for a young boy named Michael, and I didn't come the first day, and I left long before it was over. His body was found years later.

I'm not very much in SAR anymore though. I moderate the mailing list, and sometimes I think I should join AMRC for the excitement and difficulty of their training, but for the most part, I don't do SAR. My bivy sack is heavy, so I bought a new one. It is still an OR bivy sack, but this time it's the lightest sack they make. I'd say that most of the time it will still be overkill for what I need, but not as much overkill as the OR Advanced Bivy, and it saves me a noticeable amount of weight and size.

Since I was replacing my bivy, I decided to replace my long underwear too. I have three pairs of it. My black pair I purchased in 1991 or 1992, and is the kind of polypro that retains odors. They've been through a lot with me, and have some holes in them, but are still in good enough shape that I wear them. Sometime in the late 1990s I bought a set of white capilene long underwear. I haven't worn them as much as the black ones, so they are better shape, but they look worse because the color shows stains more easily. My final pair is a set of very heavyweight long underwear that seems to be military surplus. They've never been worn in the field, just around my house in the winter. My new underwear is a set of SmartWool microweight long underwear. I'm very interested in going back to being a wool-wearer for the cold weather. Wool is nice stuff, and merino wool is extra nice. I had planned to wait until winter, but plans have changed. I might make an Augusth 12th midnight ascent of Copper Canyon, and if I do, I'm pretty sure I won't be wearing shorts up there.

There is also gear I need to purchase for the first time. I hope to go up Ladrone this winter. And if I do, I need crampons. Admittedly, I have made it up Ladrone without crampons and I'm sure I could do it again, but I think I'd rather have crampons. I've never bought crampons before. Not only will I need to get crampons that fit the boots I currently have, but I should make sure they fit the boots I plan to upgrade too.

Losing my pack over the edge at Cold War Cave has led me to believe that I need to carry rope in it at all times. All it needs to be able to do is hold the weight of a pack, so a 50' length of the Kelty triplite would be idea. It holds far more than my pack will ever weigh, and it weighs nearly nothing itself.