JJBerk Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Hey, most important is to enjoy the outdoors in my opinion, whether you have fancy gears or not. This. We tent camp and only have Coleman tents. They've always worked perfectly for what we need. Nothing fancy, but they keep us warm and dry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cww Posted September 24, 2014 Share Posted September 24, 2014 Hey, most important is to enjoy the outdoors in my opinion, whether you have fancy gears or not. Where is this by the way? This. We tent camp and only have Coleman tents. They've always worked perfectly for what we need. Nothing fancy, but they keep us warm and dry. I agree with this fully. I talk about gear in this thread because I like gear, and now that I can afford it I'm accumulating more and more. But that's not to say that it at all necessary to have a great time camping or hiking or backpacking. I had so much fun as a kid out in the woods wearing jeans and a cotton sweatshirt, carrying little more than a steel army surplus mess kit / canteen and a Swiss Army knife in my school book bag. We went winter camping with normal clothes and department store sleeping bags and 3-season tents and guess what? It was fine! Fast-forward to my recent Colorado trip. I was talking to my mom, and she said "I was very near where you are now, about 40 years ago. We had some blankets with us, and slept on top of plastic sheeting... in the snow haha!" She grew up on a Midwest dairy farm and is admittedly much tougher than I am, but that really sunk in with me. She had NO gear and still talks about how great that trip was, 40 years later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cww Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 Bumping this old thread. I picked up a Bahco Laplander folding saw to replace my hatchet in the backpacking rig (much less weight). The hype is real. It ripped through some 2x2 lumber I had in the garage in seconds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhitter Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 Bumping this old thread. I picked up a Bahco Laplander folding saw to replace my hatchet in the backpacking rig (much less weight). The hype is real. It ripped through some 2x2 lumber I had in the garage in seconds. Just curious - do you actually need a saw when you camp? Most of the places I backpack have - no fire rules, or only burn what you can pick up. Stomping on wood to break them usually is fine. Not sure what you would use a saw for. But then my experience is limited to the West coast in California. My OBXT build Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrei Wolf Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/04/06/40968c90b2e367709b11ee3488dd616a.jpghttp://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/04/06/3924a93fb4c4765780f158425be7d9c0.jpghttp://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/04/06/614df85e168282a1c2333ebca977b935.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cww Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 Just curious - do you actually need a saw when you camp? Most of the places I backpack have - no fire rules, or only burn what you can pick up. Stomping on wood to break them usually is fine. Not sure what you would use a saw for. But then my experience is limited to the West coast in California. For camping in the Midwest and Appalachians, yes, I like to have the ability to process wood larger than I can snap. This is typically because along a well-used trail or hike-in spot all small downed wood will be used up and sometimes all that is left are limbs that are heavy/long/wet. But yea if I was in an area that had no fire rules I would leave all wood tools behind and just use my MSR stove for food (and water if needed). I'm moving west to New Mexico this summer and will more often be in "no fire" areas so the saw will see less use than it would out here, but hey it was <$20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cww Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 Shrei, in that first pic is there still snow on the ground? Ours is all finally gone. I went for a trail run on Saturday and there was some ice on the edges of the really shaded ponds, but that was about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrei Wolf Posted April 7, 2015 Share Posted April 7, 2015 That's an older picture of my newer hammock/rainfuly suspension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBT Posted April 7, 2015 Author Share Posted April 7, 2015 In late August one year, I went camping and fishing in the Sierras, East of Fresno, CA. We'd had a particularly hard winter with a huge amount of snow and a lot of frozen lakes. There was still a ton of snow on the ground - had to clear some of it to pitch the tent - and there was still ice in the lakes. Some upper elevation lakes never thawed that year. The fish were mad crazy for food though. Some of the best cold water trout fly fishing I've ever had. Brown bears were everywhere and they really made their presence known. - Pro amore Dei et patriam et populum - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BDII Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I hiked Tuckerman's ravine mid-June and it still had 3' of snow. I passed multiple hikers with skis on my way up. Need forum help? Private Message legGTLT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrei Wolf Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 Recently scooped up a hex rain fly for my Hennessy hammock. Taking a trip to a dark sky preserve in upper Michigan sometime in August! Also thinking of investing in a Pelican 45 quart cooler for car camping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBT Posted May 24, 2016 Author Share Posted May 24, 2016 Pelican or Yeti (my pref). Can't go wrong. - Pro amore Dei et patriam et populum - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BDII Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Those Yeti coolers are top notch. Need forum help? Private Message legGTLT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Yeti coolers are awesome, but so are the Pelican coolers. Even the house brand Cabela's model is top notch, in fact I think they beat Yeti in a head to head test recently. Might be time to hit up my brother's brother-in-law, he has worked for Cabela's for well over a decade and his employee discount is ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrei Wolf Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 Ended up getting a Pelican in green for my girlfriend and I. Also a Bahco laplander to compliment my Tahoma Field Knife. I'm switching over from WetFire to trioxane for fire starting after having a bad batch of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBT Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 Why not make your own fire starter? - Pro amore Dei et patriam et populum - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBT Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 Yeti coolers are awesome, but so are the Pelican coolers. Even the house brand Cabela's model is top notch, in fact I think they beat Yeti in a head to head test recently. Might be time to hit up my brother's brother-in-law, he has worked for Cabela's for well over a decade and his employee discount is ridiculous. I'll take one too... will pay shipping... - Pro amore Dei et patriam et populum - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cincy05LGT Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Trioxane is pretty good. I was able to light a fire in the gorge with wet wood and zero kindling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBT Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 Recently scooped up a hex rain fly for my Hennessy hammock. Taking a trip to a dark sky preserve in upper Michigan sometime in August! Also thinking of investing in a Pelican 45 quart cooler for car camping. BTW - Get some really good mosquito and black fly defense, particularly if you're going to be hammocking in UM in August. You'll be fortunate if they don't (can't) pick you up and clean your bones before they drop you lifeless back to earth. - Pro amore Dei et patriam et populum - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xt2005bonbon Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Trioxane is pretty good. I was able to light a fire in the gorge with wet wood and zero kindling. Yeah I think it is the best firestarter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cww Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 BTW - Get some really good mosquito and black fly defense, particularly if you're going to be hammocking in UM in August. You'll be fortunate if they don't (can't) pick you up and clean your bones before they drop you lifeless back to earth. This is so true. I am from Michigan originally and have camped in northern Michigan many times, and especially in the UP, the black flies in late summer / early fall are horrible. DEET UP. One time when I was in high school, my family was at the shore of Lake Superior in August. We had driven up from downstate in my dad's new-to-us black '99 Yukon Denali (that truck was so sweet). When we got back to the trailhead parking lot, the surface of the Yukon appeared to be moving slowly. When we got closer, it was totally covered in black flies, soaking up the heat of that black paint. It was so gross. We nominated my dad to go hop in (lol) and he drove the Yukon around the parking lot like 10 times to get the flies off, but I swear we had to drive halfway back downstate with the windows down to get all those sonsofbitches outta the truck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xt2005bonbon Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 ^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrei Wolf Posted June 11, 2016 Share Posted June 11, 2016 Did some hiking at Starved Rock with the SO. Picked up a Kovea Spider backpacking stove, and Osprey Kestrel 32 to replace my TNF Recon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBT Posted June 11, 2016 Author Share Posted June 11, 2016 Nice! Well, my backpacking days are over for this year, maybe forever. Time will tell. Was helping a friend move a refrigerator into his home, and had my weight and the weight of the refrigerator on my right leg...which was sittings on top of a 3" pile of flattened cardboard boxes on concrete. Yep, foot took off backwards sliding on the boxes and kept going until it it hit the wall. Now my foot is pinned back and under me and I just watch in slow-motion horror as my weight and the weight of the refrigerator continue to collapse my leg like a scissor-jack until the quad tendon can't take any more and it just snaps...loudly. At that point, there was no more resistance, so everything just collapsed as did I onto my side. Transported to the ER, and admitting doctor brings staff in from the ER area to see the "hole/canyon" in my right knee area. The xrays show that a large chunk of my Patella was also broken off. Not sure what else is damaged, but I've been sitting on the couch since Tuesday and will be seen by one of the best surgeons (retired Navy flight surgeon) in the area on Monday morning. Hopeful that the repair goes well, and I can get back to hiking and backpacking. If not, I may have to do a gear part-out sale to cover my expenses. - Pro amore Dei et patriam et populum - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJBerk Posted June 12, 2016 Share Posted June 12, 2016 Yikes! That sounds horrible Dale! Rest easy and recover quickly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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