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.
Related
Discover more from Phil's Phieldnotes
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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…
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
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…
(There is a separate Trip Report for my backpack to the bottom that trip here.) Work in progress… I headed out to Grand Canyon National Park in January of 2011 to camp and do an overnight backpack to the bottom of the canyon. Why January? Well, less crowded. I had overheard a Ranger telling another…
Camping and backpacking at Dog Canyon campground; heavy snow made the backpacking impossible Gear, Lessons learned Trip Report Planning This trip was supposed to go something like this: camp at Dog Canyon campground in Guadalupe Mountains National Park (GUMO) then a long day hike followed by a rest and packing day, then an overnight backpack…