[Paddlewise] Nudes , Stephenson's tents & sleeping bags & cold weather camping.

I whole heartedly agree with what James Loften has said about cold weather
camping. He has obviously had a lot of experience as well as an analytical
mind.

Someone asked about Warmlite tents and then everybody got excited about the
nudes. The nudes are Jack Stephenson's own family. They are (or were)
nudists. I see from the website he is still using the same pictures he did
in his catalog back in the 60's.  Jack was working out of his house in CA
when I bought my tent and (later a sleeping bag) from him but he soon moved
back East to avoid CA's then new flame retardant fabric law which threatened
to add a pound of useless quick melting fabric to his ultralight tents (to
pass a really stupid flame retardant fabric test). (The official test was:
light a one inch wide by 18" long strip of fabric from below and if it
supports a flame it don't pass. (Gore-Tex didn't pass this test either but
its Teflon layer is nearly fireproof). To pass this test fabric makers added
a chemical that made nylon melt a lot faster so it would drip away from the
one inch wide strip faster than the material above could be ignited. Of
course in a much more likely scenario if you lit the top of your tent with a
stove the "flame retardant" nylon tent would melt down and cover you in
molten nylon nearly instantly. So much for governments response to some kids
burning themselves up in there back yard in a cotton pup tent.) But I
digress.
Sometime in the late 60's or early 70's I set my Stephenson 3R tent up on
snow in an arete at 6000 to 7000' elevation one late January or February in
the WA Cascades. We were winter hiking and ice skating on mountain lakes
during a freak low snow year. It was calm, clear and 20 below zero (F.) that
evening. I faced the door so I could have a nice view of rugged Mt. Stuart,
(~9500') in the morning. Striped down to my t-shirt and jockey shorts and
got into my Warmlite vaporbarrier sleeping bag with the 2" thick built in
foam pad and went to sleep, warm as toast. Didn't even need to bring the
hood and tunnel part of the bag around my head. The shoulder tube kept out
the cold below the shoulders (I think this was Stephenson's idea
originally--now much copied). We were awakened later by the tent flapping in
the wind. First time I ever had that tent actually flap on me but the wind
was so strong as it funneled through the arete that it was caving in the
upwind side of the tent and it was flapping at the top where the normally
smoothly curved fabric had loosened due to the pressure pushing the side in
(I think if I was willing to spend the money they cost these days I'd get
the three pole version for really serious above timberline mountaineering).
We had to get up, put on all our down gear and boots and turn the tent to
face end on into the wind and anchor it down again. That made the tent
relatively quiet but the inner vapor barrier of the tent (which usually
hangs down a bit  between the hoops) was being plastered against the outside
wall because of the wind blowing into the lower vent so we used some clothes
to block that upwind vent. Slept warn and cozy the rest of the night. In the
morning the little bit of frost that formed on the single layer end walls
was easily shaken off the coated fabric so the tent would be dry inside for
the next night. Not bad for a 3 to 4 person tent and sleeping bag/foampad
combo that weighed less than 9 lbs. total.

Warmlite tent: pros
1)great moisture venting--with the all coated fabric I have never had enough
condensation build up to drip or run down the walls even in 40 degree & 100%
humidity during a rainy still air night on the WA coast. The end walls will
get a light coat of dew but I don't remember ever seeing it build up enough
to run (which unlike most arched or domed tents it would do before dripping
inside). The double walled roof has only had detectable dew on it once I can
remember (the night I described above) and it was barely noticeable. I used
to be a backpacking gear freak and never could understand why no other
manufacturer put the vents at the highest point of the tent to let out the
warm rising moist air (much less added vents at the bottom to bring in cold
drier air to replace it so it could flow out. This tent kept me drier than
any Gore-Tex tents or rainfly tents I have ever used.
2)Super lightweight--and it weighed exactly 4 lbs. (what Jack advertised it
would be not a pound or two more like some companies tents). I worked for
one of these lying companies in the late 70's--Early Winters--and was amazed
and saddened at how few of the customers ever weighed the products and
complained, much less returned them. When I informed the owners about the
advertised weight vs. the real weight and refused to lie for them they told
me I was free to tell anybody the truth but since many of their competitors
did the same thing, or omitted the rainfly weight in their catalogs, that
they were not going to change the listed weights in the catalog even though
one tent had grown to about 1.5 lbs heavier than advertised. They claimed
this same tent could withstand thousands of pounds of snow loading (based on
the estimated weight of the snow that formed an arch over it and built up
once during a big dump on Mt. Rainier). I took a Polaroid  of a woman
sitting on top of one (with me hidden inside with my back arched to hold her
up). Upon giving this photo to the copywriters, hired for there writing
skills not their common sense, they took it as proof the "Omnipotent" was as
strong they had been told. I then gave them another photo of the same tent
sagging and nearly collapsed under the weight of two telephone phone books
with a sign in front of it that said "Amazing 500 lb. phone books". Maybe
that insubordination had something to do with them later firing me. Oh, I'm
digressing a lot today, must be old age.
back to the pros:
3)big and roomy, for the same floor space the Conestoga  wagon shape had
much more floor space than the A-frames that were its competition at the
time. Domes and freestanding tents hadn't come on the scene yet.
4) no long guy lines to trip over
5)usually very quiet in the wind
cons:
1)Needs a large reasonably flat area to set up, (I once walked a mile and
one half on a beach before finding a big enough spot between high tide and
the salal thicket to set up a much smaller tent).
2)Needs to be staked out under tension
3)Cost (mine was only $150 in the 60's-but looking at what they cost now it
has probably appreciated--well okay the money really became worth less)
4)It is best for backpacking where weight matters more than minimum
bulk--the superlight precurved thin wall aluminum poles are about 1/2" in
diameter and take up most of the packed room. I use other tents (or an
inflatable one person sleeping system) under a tarp for most kayaking partly
because I don't want to wear out my ultralight backpacking tent when I don't
need to worry much about weight.
5)If all the vents were closed (and the ones you can't close are blocked) I
imagine that the all coated fabric construction might mean you could
suffocate in it.
6)The thin lightweight nylon should be kept out of the sun as much as
possible to increase its lifespan.

One night (again at well below zero F.) I wanted to see just how the
Warmlite sleeping bag's breathing tube hood worked in its warmest position
(even though I didn't need it to be that warm). Unfortunately, I then
quickly fell asleep before backing it off. I woke up an hour later soaked in
a pool of sweat. Normally the vapor barrier just increases the humidity and
therefore keeps me from needing to sweat more--to keep my skin moist so it
doesn't crack. A normal down  bag wicks the moisture off my skin so I need
to sweat more to keep my skin moist and the increased water loss ends up
making me thirsty (and my sweat dampens the down reducing its insulating
ability). How to deal with the pool of sweat? I opened both the foot of the
bag and the top so I had an open tube and by lifting my arms up and down
pumped cold dry air through the bag for a few minutes to both cool me down
and let the fresh air "sponge" up the moisture. Cold air is very dry air and
when you warm it, it can pick up a lot of moisture. I was soon comfortable
again. Normally if I get too hot in a down bag without a vapor barrier it
stays clammy all night. If you are going to use a vapor barrier make sure
you can open both ends of the system like you can with the reflective vapor
barrier lining in a Warmlite bag so you can do this.
This is my backpacking bag and way too bulky to fit into a kayak. (Although
the inflatable down airmattress--I have never seen--might make it much more
compact). It also has a lot of small coil zippers but so far none has
failed.
 I highly recommend both the tent and the bag (at least to financially well
off backpackers and climbers). I have no affiliation to the company (and
once even worked as production manager for their competition) but in looking
at their website I realized (for the first time) that they have probably had
an influence on how we now run our company.
Matt Broze
http://www.marinerkayaks.com

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