Gear Update 3
Running Total - $1218 (No longer a cheap hobby)
Things we added:
$300 Nemo Dagger 2 3lb 14 oz (2019 new on sale)
$0 1.3 L Evernew titanium pot (x-mas gift) 4.6 oz
$72 Ursack Major Bear Bag 7.6 oz (new on sale)
$2 12 in cross band .93 oz (to strap cookie tin to picnic table in campgrounds)
$2 9 in cross band .51 oz (for new pot)
$5 two FlexAir Inflatable pillows .9 oz each
$9 two sit pads .98 oz each
$3 LiteSmith shipping
$28 two 2 liter Platy bottles 1.3 oz each (for camp water at the end of the day)
$33 SUUNTO M-3 NH compass 1.6 oz
$16 Aquamira drops $9 Velcro (last ditch attempt to strap our pads together)
Not counting these in running expenses total:
$58 two off-brand “lightweight” camp chairs 2 lbs each (meant for camping and our deck at home)
$80 OR Helium II Mens jacket 6.4 oz (sale - $14 dividend) (bought for home and travel)
$75 OR Helium II Women’s jacket 5.5 oz (sale - $17 Coupon Cabin cashback deal)
$$ otherwise spent upgrading/replacing old clothes since these would have happened regardless. We’re now trying to make sure new clothes pull double or triple duty to also work for backpacking, but the cost was the same.
Thing we dropped:
Kelty Tempest tent 5 lb 4 oz
MSR alpine 775 ml pot - 16 oz
ALPS Mountaineering compressible pillows - 8 oz each
DIY sleeping pad sheet/liner 10.6 oz
15 oz rain jackets (one each)
(Plus we traded our old tent and DH sleeping bag for a used grill, so minus $50 from running expense)
The new tent was the big upgrade. We were a little leery of the scrape marks on the bottom of the old tent in terms of rain, since they weren’t holes but looked like thin spots. Fine for shorter overnight trips close to home, but we didn’t want to risk it on a longer trip. We also decided if we were going to be doing this more we wanted two doors/vestibules and larger vestibules. We ruled out non-freestanding tents because we have enough to learn as is.
I spent too much time researching tents. We consider cheaper $100-150 tents on Amazon (like naturehike etc) but they all had flaws for us. They were either as heavy as the Kelty or they were in the weight range of the Nemo Dagger but cut weight by being shorter (too short for what we wanted), one door, two door but with tiny vestibules, or two door but with only one real vestibule. So that pushed us to say f it and just spend the money on one that had everything we wanted. If it was a matter of we actually can’t afford to spend more versus let’s not spend a shit ton of money on a new hobby that might only last a year, we would have picked one of the look-a-likes on Amazon or just put some plastic inside the Kelty floor.
We almost got the MSR Hubba Hubba for $260 but waited too long and the price went back up to a wash with the Nemo Dagger, which is longer and has bigger vestibules. At the time the Copper Spur 2 HV also was $300, but we weren’t fans of the taper...these tents are already small enough and we like to put things at the foot of ours. The three person tent wasn’t much more price wise, but we taped it out and it seemed too big. (Yes, we’re acting like goldielocks over here.) Also, DH couldn’t get over the images on REI reviews of water bubbling up through the Copper Spur tent floors. Counter reviews said there’s no problem if you’re smart and pick your campsite appropriately. But that’s not reassuring for newbies who have only *read* about how to pick good sites and are frequently camping in campgrounds where your choices are limited. The slightly thicker floor on the Nemo was more reassuring. And it worked out great; we’re happy with this purchase.
We don’t really need the Ursack until our trip to Colorado (if that still happens w/ Covid), but we wanted time to practice using it. As mentioned before, we started learning to backpack to take a trip this August that includes 5 days in RMNP. They just recently started allowing Ursack with liners. We can’t rent a bear can there because our trip is one way. We decided to go with the Ursack since it’s lighter and we can use it on more “local” trips to northern WI/MI/MN even though a canister isn’t required. Then we don’t need to learn how to do a bear hang on those trips. We watched some YouTube videos on how to tie the Ursack and tie it to a tree, which were helpful.
We also watched some videos on how to use a compass and I read a wilderness navigation book, did some practice questions, etc. We need to practice with the compass in the field, but we forgot to do so on our Kettle Moraine trip since navigating the trail was so easy.
A bunch of the little stuff from LiteSmith was mostly for convenience. I think I wanted everything thing they had on their site. Ohhhh that would be so useful! I found them in my search for smaller pillows. To recap, we tried stuffing cases with extra clothes, which was terrible. Then we tried the Alps Mountaineering pillows which were comfy, but they took up way to much space in our packs. The FlexAir inflatable pillow was surprisingly comfortable, if not somewhat crinkly, and I loved how little space it consumes.
Excluding expensive rain jackets from our running costs might seem like cheating, but here’s the rationale for that. Our Columbia rain jackets are old and not even close to water proof. We consider them more of a quick drying jacket and wind layer. They were the lightest weight jackets we’ve ever had, but they still take up an annoying amount of space on trips and in our daypacks at home (walking to work and on our errand and leisure walks). Reading random forum posts, I came across frog togs and thought that would be a great, cheap way to save space on our backpacking/camping trips. But yeah, I’m not wearing those things around home or on my city travel trips.
Then I read that Skurka gear book and other forum posts, and I realized the reason why our rain jackets suck so much is because after 5 years the DWR is kaput. Aha! Okay, so then I thought, in general, we should replace our jackets and maybe we can get some even lighter ones so they don’t take up quite as much space in our daypacks. After further research, I was amazed at all the compact ones out there. Down a rabbit hole of tiny detail syndrome I went, dreaming of how nice it would be to have extra room in our daypacks when bringing a jacket “just in case” and on our travel trips. The Helium certainly was a luxury purchase, since it is too minimalist to work as our everyday cold weather layer. We will eventually need to buy another jacket for that purpose (probably something like the Marmot PreCip Eco during a sale). But having toted it around for a few months now, the Helium’s made me so happy. We can fit both of them in DH’s daypack and still have room for picking up stuff on our walks. That means I get to skip out on bringing my pack. :) Water actually beads off the jacket, amazing.
Things we added:
$300 Nemo Dagger 2 3lb 14 oz (2019 new on sale)
$0 1.3 L Evernew titanium pot (x-mas gift) 4.6 oz
$72 Ursack Major Bear Bag 7.6 oz (new on sale)
$2 12 in cross band .93 oz (to strap cookie tin to picnic table in campgrounds)
$2 9 in cross band .51 oz (for new pot)
$5 two FlexAir Inflatable pillows .9 oz each
$9 two sit pads .98 oz each
$3 LiteSmith shipping
$28 two 2 liter Platy bottles 1.3 oz each (for camp water at the end of the day)
$33 SUUNTO M-3 NH compass 1.6 oz
$16 Aquamira drops $9 Velcro (last ditch attempt to strap our pads together)
Not counting these in running expenses total:
$58 two off-brand “lightweight” camp chairs 2 lbs each (meant for camping and our deck at home)
$80 OR Helium II Mens jacket 6.4 oz (sale - $14 dividend) (bought for home and travel)
$75 OR Helium II Women’s jacket 5.5 oz (sale - $17 Coupon Cabin cashback deal)
$$ otherwise spent upgrading/replacing old clothes since these would have happened regardless. We’re now trying to make sure new clothes pull double or triple duty to also work for backpacking, but the cost was the same.
Thing we dropped:
Kelty Tempest tent 5 lb 4 oz
MSR alpine 775 ml pot - 16 oz
ALPS Mountaineering compressible pillows - 8 oz each
DIY sleeping pad sheet/liner 10.6 oz
15 oz rain jackets (one each)
(Plus we traded our old tent and DH sleeping bag for a used grill, so minus $50 from running expense)
The new tent was the big upgrade. We were a little leery of the scrape marks on the bottom of the old tent in terms of rain, since they weren’t holes but looked like thin spots. Fine for shorter overnight trips close to home, but we didn’t want to risk it on a longer trip. We also decided if we were going to be doing this more we wanted two doors/vestibules and larger vestibules. We ruled out non-freestanding tents because we have enough to learn as is.
I spent too much time researching tents. We consider cheaper $100-150 tents on Amazon (like naturehike etc) but they all had flaws for us. They were either as heavy as the Kelty or they were in the weight range of the Nemo Dagger but cut weight by being shorter (too short for what we wanted), one door, two door but with tiny vestibules, or two door but with only one real vestibule. So that pushed us to say f it and just spend the money on one that had everything we wanted. If it was a matter of we actually can’t afford to spend more versus let’s not spend a shit ton of money on a new hobby that might only last a year, we would have picked one of the look-a-likes on Amazon or just put some plastic inside the Kelty floor.
We almost got the MSR Hubba Hubba for $260 but waited too long and the price went back up to a wash with the Nemo Dagger, which is longer and has bigger vestibules. At the time the Copper Spur 2 HV also was $300, but we weren’t fans of the taper...these tents are already small enough and we like to put things at the foot of ours. The three person tent wasn’t much more price wise, but we taped it out and it seemed too big. (Yes, we’re acting like goldielocks over here.) Also, DH couldn’t get over the images on REI reviews of water bubbling up through the Copper Spur tent floors. Counter reviews said there’s no problem if you’re smart and pick your campsite appropriately. But that’s not reassuring for newbies who have only *read* about how to pick good sites and are frequently camping in campgrounds where your choices are limited. The slightly thicker floor on the Nemo was more reassuring. And it worked out great; we’re happy with this purchase.
 |
| Old and new tent. Pay no mind to the camp chairs... |
We don’t really need the Ursack until our trip to Colorado (if that still happens w/ Covid), but we wanted time to practice using it. As mentioned before, we started learning to backpack to take a trip this August that includes 5 days in RMNP. They just recently started allowing Ursack with liners. We can’t rent a bear can there because our trip is one way. We decided to go with the Ursack since it’s lighter and we can use it on more “local” trips to northern WI/MI/MN even though a canister isn’t required. Then we don’t need to learn how to do a bear hang on those trips. We watched some YouTube videos on how to tie the Ursack and tie it to a tree, which were helpful.
We also watched some videos on how to use a compass and I read a wilderness navigation book, did some practice questions, etc. We need to practice with the compass in the field, but we forgot to do so on our Kettle Moraine trip since navigating the trail was so easy.
A bunch of the little stuff from LiteSmith was mostly for convenience. I think I wanted everything thing they had on their site. Ohhhh that would be so useful! I found them in my search for smaller pillows. To recap, we tried stuffing cases with extra clothes, which was terrible. Then we tried the Alps Mountaineering pillows which were comfy, but they took up way to much space in our packs. The FlexAir inflatable pillow was surprisingly comfortable, if not somewhat crinkly, and I loved how little space it consumes.
Excluding expensive rain jackets from our running costs might seem like cheating, but here’s the rationale for that. Our Columbia rain jackets are old and not even close to water proof. We consider them more of a quick drying jacket and wind layer. They were the lightest weight jackets we’ve ever had, but they still take up an annoying amount of space on trips and in our daypacks at home (walking to work and on our errand and leisure walks). Reading random forum posts, I came across frog togs and thought that would be a great, cheap way to save space on our backpacking/camping trips. But yeah, I’m not wearing those things around home or on my city travel trips.
Then I read that Skurka gear book and other forum posts, and I realized the reason why our rain jackets suck so much is because after 5 years the DWR is kaput. Aha! Okay, so then I thought, in general, we should replace our jackets and maybe we can get some even lighter ones so they don’t take up quite as much space in our daypacks. After further research, I was amazed at all the compact ones out there. Down a rabbit hole of tiny detail syndrome I went, dreaming of how nice it would be to have extra room in our daypacks when bringing a jacket “just in case” and on our travel trips. The Helium certainly was a luxury purchase, since it is too minimalist to work as our everyday cold weather layer. We will eventually need to buy another jacket for that purpose (probably something like the Marmot PreCip Eco during a sale). But having toted it around for a few months now, the Helium’s made me so happy. We can fit both of them in DH’s daypack and still have room for picking up stuff on our walks. That means I get to skip out on bringing my pack. :) Water actually beads off the jacket, amazing.
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