Working in the outdoor retail industry has turned me into a serious gear head. I now have a gear solution to every problem. It's sick. And seriously, I am in a situation where I get to use all of the gear, and buy it cheap, so my gear headedness is easier for me to maintain than it is for others. That said: I use a snowpeak lantern. It puts out about 80 watts (enough) and uses fuel conservatively. I think you can get about 3 hours of full blast burn time from one canister. I once used a peak multiple, that was ok. My only gripe with the snowpeak is that the mantle breaks almost every day. So around sunset when I need to pull it out, I have to use a new mantle. Its a bit of a hassle. I use a candle lantern in my tent. It serves a couple of uses. The candle lasts 9 hours, which is better than batteries for most (not LED) headlamps. It also heats the tent slightly, I notice it a lot in the winter. I have never had a problem with wax or fire. I am, however, careful as the top of the lantern is really hot and could melt a hole in the tent. On sleeping pads, I wanted to mention durability. In all the years of using my pads, I have NEVER punctured one in the field. I have seen it done, usually in snow caves with stoves. The patch kit is easy to use, light, and cheap. Durability is NOT a concern to me with these things. Cascade Designs does a good job standing behind their product if you ever do have a problem. > * * * * * * * * * * * * * > Joel P. Curtin *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
> Working in the outdoor retail industry has turned me into a serious gear head. I now have a gear solution to every problem. It's sick. > And seriously, I am in a situation where I get to use all of the gear, and buy it cheap, so my gear headedness is easier for me to maintain than it is for others. That said: > I use a snowpeak lantern. It puts out about 80 watts (enough) and uses fuel conservatively. While it is certainly nice to have the comforts of home in terms of lighting and bedding, I see myself poles apart from this approach. For several reasons. First, on lighting, a lot of the camping I have done is commando style and you just don't want to show a lot of light that announces your presence. In most cases, your eyes do dilate enough to see what you are doing with an occasional quick flick of a low power flashlight like an LED one for trickier situations. You would think that a city kid like me would be afraid of the dark in the mean bad woods but I am not; being in the dark brings out the wilderness experience and divides that world from the world back home which is so full of lights that you can drive without headlights if you wish (albeit illegal). Same with bedding. Minimal padding and even length (i.e. use a 3/4 length mat) unless you arrived at your launch site by car. If you are carrying all the gear to the launch site using public transportation, then you do think like a backpacker, not a boat packer in terms of weight of stuff. It actually pays even while on the water trail. Less stuff carried means less stuff to unload and get up to your campsite and back down to the water the next day. Of course, all bets are off if it is a trip of several weeks. Then the longer pad and thicker stuff is welcomed. But for just a few nights, you'll live with less. We should all take a lesson from John Muir. He would hike for weeks with just a sack over his shoulder in which he had tobacco and flour and no extra clothes. For cold nights he would stay up and dance all night on a flat rock to keep warm. The tobacco and flour in the sack is admittedly an extreme; I keep having these images of the two getting mixed together over time. :-) ralph diaz *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
> While it is certainly nice to have the comforts of home in terms of lighting > and bedding, I see myself poles apart from this approach. For several > reasons. First, on lighting, a lot of the camping I have done is commando > style and you just don't want to show a lot of light that announces your > presence. Reminds me of a trip I took years ago among a group of islands in Southern Japan. We were paddling in April or May. We had intended to go camping but the inhabitants were overwhelmingly gracious and we always stayed at various inns. (often spontaneously people would usher us into a car and whisk us off to an inn miles away just leaving our kayaking gear behind). The inns were very nice and the beaches fairly scummy so it was OK Finally we decided that we had to camp at least one night. We had brought all this camping gear and not used it. As we paddled into a village we saw a likely beach about 1/4 mile away and decided on staying there. We refused all the usual offers of places to stay and hiked to the beach. As dusk arrived, a gentleman appeared lugging something quite heavy in one hand and a bag of oranges in another. The oranges were for consumption. In this part of Japan there were very few English speakers and we spoke no meaningful Japanese so we just watched as this guy set down his burden. He then fired this contraption up by pulling on a chord like an outboard motor. It responded with a throaty growl. It chugged away. Then he handed us a chord at the end of which was a 100 watt light bulb. He plugged the cord into the device which was a Honda generator and walked away. The combination of the sound and the light transformed the area. One thing I remember about the light was how little you could see. It was so bright in the vicinity of the light that your eyes became light adjusted and suddenly everything beyond the circle of light turned ominously black. I am of the school of minimal light needs (aided by the fact I do most of my kayaking in Canada during the summer when there is plenty of natural light) Because of the generosity shown, we felt obligated to run this thing for a suitable period of time. Then, with the aid the the light, we were able to figure out how to turn it off. The next day we lugged it back to the village and just left it in the public square having no way of knowing who our benefactor was but having little doubt it would end up back in the correct hands. It snowed lightly that night. In general, in our planning, we had thought that since it was about the latitude of Los Angeles that it would be plenty warm. In fact, the weather was not much different than one might encounter paddling in the San Juans in April in Washington state. Some sun some rain some wind and lots of very kindly (or concerned) people. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
> First, on lighting, a lot of the camping I have > done is commando > style and you just don't want to show a lot of light that > announces your > presence. Ralph, I assume you are referring to kayaking and not your prior military service :-) As such, what is "commando camping"? My first impression is that it's a situation where you are camping where you possibly shouldn't be camping and don't want to bring attention to yourself in order to avoid being run off of the property. Is that correct, or is it just a variation of being a minimalist? Rick *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
----- Original Message ----- From: <Rick.Sylvia_at_ferguson.com> > First, on lighting, a lot of the camping I have > done is commando > style and you just don't want to show a lot of light that > announces your > presence. Ralph, I assume you are referring to kayaking and not your prior military service :-) As such, what is "commando camping"? It is mainly a question of being at an unorthodox camping spot and not wanting the long arm of the law to grab you. It has nothing to do with being minimalist, but clearly "commando" does have a minimalist angle to it as well. While I have no paranoia of being out in the woods, it is also a safety consideration. You never know what two-legged critters may be wandering around and up to mischief or mayhem. The less you are lit up like a Broadway marque, the less such critters will know that you around. I believe I coined the term "commando" used in this way. I remember it led to all sorts of arguments about the military angle from anti-military types. It also got me into trouble back here when the Hudson River Watertrail newsletter picked it up. Someone who had personal differences with some of the organizers, faxed it to a bunch of officials saying that we were outlaws, etc. I had to lay low for awhile under an assumed name with little rancor attached to it, Tim Ingram :-) ralph diaz *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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