Big Bend National Park, Basin campground-the old tent corner peaking in from the left.
First tent I ever owned started out as a loaner from a friend of Dad’s. Not mine, but similar to this one I found on eBay.
Vintage Sears Ted Wiliams Hillary tentSierra Designs Clip Flashlight, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, March 1986 (above: without fly, below: with fly).Sierra Designs Stretched Domicile in action Capitol Reef NP, Utah, Fall 1986Sierra Designs Clip Flashlight, Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado, ca. 1997Sierra Designs Gamma at Big Bend Ranch State Park January, 2010The North Face Meso 22; got it on sale. Ok tent, but it’s mostly screen; in high winds (like Dixie National Forest here in Utah) the fine-grain sand blows right in. May, 2014.Marmot Tungsten 2P; a bit heavy for backpacking but good car camper, with some issues. It leaked once in a very hard thunderstorm at Seminole Canyon State Park. And the connection of the two main cross poles comes apart and apparently it’s not supposed to.Big thunderstorm; some leakage.Shumard backcountry site, GUMO, November 2017.
I still love the simplicity of sleeping under the stars with a bivy bag. Used it for twenty years. Not ideal if there’s much rain or a lot of flying bugs.
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I was trying to explain to someone why I had so many copies of Colin Fletcher’s Complete Walker series. It started in 1984 while I was working offshore. One of my trainees, an experienced backpacker whom I had been grilling for information on the hows and wheres of backpacking, noticed my subscription book club had…
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ZPacks accessories sell some pretty nifty lightweight gear for hiking and backpacking. Discover more from Phil's Phieldnotes Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email. Type your email… Subscribe
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