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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Wednesday the 13th I left Austin after work and some final packing around 6:00 P.M. and got to Ozona around 10:00. Next morning I kind of let Google navigate me, wanting to stay well away from US 285; ended up going East and North of it, to near Odessa, then coming into the Guadalupe Mountains/Lincoln…
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Hubba Hubba NX (2019) $299 from Enwild (formerly Backcountry Edge) This was a really good price on a pretty much state of the art tent. It’s not super light, but I thought I’d give it a try. If I want to go really light and am confident in the weather, I’ll just use my bivy….
It’s taken me a few years to figure this out. I’ve had a cheap old tarp in the past which I’ve almost never used; then, before my John Muir Trail hike I picked up a ultra-light Sil-Tarp (below) which was marginally effective but I still never really got the hang of pinning it down in…
After my somewhat unfortunate experience with water on my Shumard backcountry trip, I reconsidered my hydration options and decided to look into upgrading. Not only the technology/materials of the reservoirs themselves, but also strategy. E.g. is it wise to store critical water in a single point of failure reservoir, or spread it out in several…
This page has some good advice on and descriptions of ways to attach gear on the outside of your backpack. Sectionhiker.com Discover more from Phil's Phieldnotes Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email. Type your email… Subscribe