Carry Your Weight - Sleeping Systems

The last of the Big 3 Items you have to carry is your sleeping system. My and Roslyn's sleep system is an inflatable sleeping pad. sleeping bag, and extra clothing layers as appropriate, using left over clothes a stuff sack as a pillow. Our system has worked well for us so far. With our current gear we have slept reasonably well down to -3C while wearing a couple extra layers.

When picking out a sleeping system, there are a number of options for each part of it:

1. Sleeping Pad - no pad, self-inflating pad, closed cell foam pad, inflatable pad
2. Top Layer Style - sleeping bag or sleeping quilt (might be others we haven't come across)
3. Top Layer Fill - down or synthetic
4. Pillow - none, scrounged pillow, inflatable pillow, foam pillow
5. Extra Layers - what will you wear while under your Top Layer?

Sleeping Pads

Sleeping pads are a critical part of any sleep system. While some people do go out in the summer without sleeping pads, unless the weather is very warm and the ground very soft we highly recommend taking one. The purpose of the sleeping pad is to keep you elevated off the ground, which will both keep you warmer as an air gap will slow the pace of heat loss into the ground and it will keep you more comfortable since all the lumps on the ground will be smoothed out. Each type of sleeping pad has some different characteristics:

Closed Cell Foam Pads - Solid foam pad that is very rugged, though does not provide as much cushion as the other pad types. Closed cell foam pads tend to be cheaper, more robust, but less comfortable than the other sleeping pad types

Self-Inflating Pad - Self-inflating pads are air inflated pads that have a foam core inside them to force the outer skin of the pad open. Most self inflating pads take about 10 minutes to inflate on their own, and adding a couple breaths if your own gives them some extra plumpness. Self inflating pads generally pack down smaller than closed cell foam pads, though they are not as robust and can be punctured and made unusable.

Inflatable Sleeping Pads - Inflatable sleeping require you to blow them up, usually requiring 10 to 30 breaths depending on the size of the pad. Inflatable sleeping pads tend to pack down the smallest of the pad types. Like self-inflating pads, inflatable sleeping pads can be punctured and made unusable.

Other than size and weight, when picking a sleeping pad you also need to consider the insulation value of the sleeping pad, the R-value. The higher the value the warmer the pad will keep you.

Our recommendation for a sleeping pad is an inflatable sleeping pad with an R-value of 4 or more, and at least one inch thick. A sleeping pad like this will be more than you require for much of the summer, but will also work well in the edge season and help you extend your backpacking season. If you plan on only going out in good weather, you can benefit from getting a sleeping pad with an R-value of 3 or lower due to the smaller size and weight.

Top Layer

Your top layer is the other critical part of your sleep system and there are two major choices to make; Sleeping Bag vs Quilt and Down vs Synthetic. If you pick a sleeping bag you also need to choose between a Rectangular Cut and a Mummy Cut style bag. The choices largely come down to personal preference though there are advantages and disadvantages to each option.

Sleeping Bag - Sleeping bags are essentially a tube of material that you slid into or lay in and close with a zipper that enclose you in insulated material to keep you warm. Due to their construction, sleeping bags restrict movement more than a quilt and tend to be heavier for their temperature rating due to having more insulation and material.

Quilt - A quilt is essentially a blanket that you place over yourself, with the main benefits being less restricted movement and lighter weight for the same temperature rating. Quilts take advantage of the fact that any down or synthetic material you are laying on generally won't provide much warmth since it is compressed, and do away with the material to reduce weight. This does increase the risk of drafts getting in under the quilt compared to a sleeping bag, but many quilts are designed to wrap down around the sleeping pad a bit to help combat this.

Mummy Cut - A mummy cut sleeping bag is shaped in a body silhouette to reduce size and weight. This does restrict your movement even more than a regular sleeping bag would, but also reduced the number and sizes of cold spots inside your bag.

Rectangular Cut - A rectangular cut sleeping bag is shaped in a rectangle and offers less restriction than a mummy cut bag, though they weight more and tend to have more cold spots.

Down Fill - Down fill is a natural feather fill that offers better warmth per size than synthetic fill does. Down tends to be more expensive, does not work as well when wet, and required more care than a synthetic fill does.

Synthetic Fill - Synthetic fill is a manufactured fill that is bulkier than down for the amount of warmth it provides. It does retain some insulating properties when wet, is less expensive, and requires less care than down fill does.

When picking a top layer you also need to determine what temperature rating or fill power you want out to go with. Higher fill powers are warmer and are used for lower temperatures. Many top layers will have either an EN or ISO temperature rating however, so you do not need to determine what you want based purely on the fill power.

We recommend finding a top layer that has an EN/ISO Comfort Level (for women) or Lower Limit (for men) temperature rating about 5C lower than the lowest temperature you expect to go out in. In our experience, the temperature ratings are a bit optimistic. Otherwise, pick the top layer style and fill that best suits your sleeping and budget preferences.

Roslyn and I use a mummy cut sleeping bag rated to about 3C for the majority of the season, with Roslyn's being synthetic and mine being down filled. For edge season we have mummy cut sleeping bags rated to about -5C for the relevant temperature level, and the are both down filled.

Pillow

Pillows are a less critical sleeping item, but are still important for most peoples comfort. For a pillow you can bring an inflatable pillow, a small foam pillow, or a scrounged pillow.

Inflatable pillow - Like an inflatable sleeping pad, this as a small inflatable piece of fabric that you can roll us and store while hiking. They tend to provide the best results as they can be the size and hardness you desire.

Foam pillow - Foam pillows take up a lot of space compared to the other options, but if you can fit them in they can work.

Scrounged pillow - A pillow created from a left over sack of some kind and whatever you have to fill it. Scrounged pillows are usually sufficient, but add absolutely no weight or cost to your system.

Roslyn and I use scrounged pillows. We take whatever clothing we are not using and fill out sleeping bag stuff sacks with it to act as a pillow. We've found that this works well enough for us and recommend it if you are not a picky sleeper.

Extra Layers

Your sleep system also needs to take into account any extra layers you are going to be wearing. Base layers, socks, puffy jackets, and extra pants all come into play to help keep weight down by wearing them instead of taking a warmer sleeping bag. Lower temperature sleeping bags in the 5C and lower range also expect you to be wearing some kind of base layer to be comfortable in their expected temperature ratings.

A normal set of extra layers for us is a light top and bottom base layer to help with any drafts and to help wick moisture away. In colder weather, we also wear 1-2 pairs of socks, toques/hats, gloves, a puffy jacket and extra pants. With our warmer sleeping bags (comfortable to around 3C) and out cold weather outfits we have been able to sleep okay in temperatures down to about -4C.

Your sleep system is going to be one of the most expensive and bulky parts of your backpacking gear and should be well thought out. It will also impact your comfort levels and recovery a lot, so you should make sure it is adequate for your needs.

If you liked this or found it helpful, leave a comment or share this around so that we can reach more people to help them out too.

Back in the Saddle... err the Canoe - Lamprey Rapids Trip

Last weekend we headed out on another adventure, a canoe trip to Lamprey Falls. Depending on the route you take, it is between 12 and 14 km to get there. We had the pleasure of getting there in 16 km due to some detours!

The route we took on Day 2, wind was coming from the west.

Focusing on the route for a moment, you can easily spend the morning weaving through the islands and looking at the scenery on your way in to Lamprey Falls like we did. The water, pine trees, rock, and terrain is pretty classic Canadian Shield. There were plenty of bald eagles as well as other birds to look at while we paddled, and some of our friends saw a giant turtle in the water.

The campsite at Lamprey Falls is quite wonderful as well. There is a wooden shelter with a wood stove in it (presumably for winter use) as well as two picnic tables, a fire pit, and an outhouse. There's also room for 5-8 tents comfortably, but you could squeeze more in. On the north side of the campsite there's a great rock out crop for swimming and staying cool when its hot out.

In total we spent about 5 hours, 45 minutes  paddling, 3 hours 15 minutes on the Saturday in and 2 hours 30 minutes out on the Sunday. The winds were pretty calm both days around 8 km to 12 km. If the wind was coming from either the West, South West, East, or North East at 15 to 20 km/h it would add some time to the trip. You can shelter from the wind in the islands and along the shore, but the long channels north and south of the strip of islands in the middle funnel the wind and waves pretty well if the wind is blowing in the correct direction.

This was our first trip on the water since our mishap on Crowduck Lake and we were pretty nervous about Sunday as the wind was supposed to pick up to 25 km/h in the afternoon. Luckily, everyone with us was on board and we cruised out early enough in the morning to dodge it. Passing some other lakes on the drive home after the wind had picked up, everyone was glad we were not out on the waves we were seeing.

Roslyn and I think it was a good first step back into doing trips out on Manitoba's lakes and we are looking for a couple other trips to do this year still. We also want to do some practice on a day where there are  20 to 25 km/h winds just to get a feel for what its like so we are (potentially) more comfortable with some of the weather we get out here.

2020 Goals Update - The Summer We Cancelled All The Trips!

In February we published a post about our adventure goals for 2020. Now that the year is half over, here is a check in on where we are at how we feel about the changes.

Goal #1 - Travel 600 Adventure Kilometers.

This is a pretty straight forward goal, and we aren't doing too bad. Currently we are sitting at 271.9 km for the year, broken down as Skiing 30 km, Hiking 190.4 km, and Canoeing 51.5 km. 

The biggest thing getting in our way is trip cancellations. So far we have cancelled 3 trips worth of plans (9 days total), which meant that we were unable to do about 120 km of canoeing and backpacking that we had intended to do by this point. And honestly, while we really want to hit the new distance goal, the real heartache over it is just not being able to get outside.

The most ironic trip cancellation was needing to cancel our 5 day trip in Banff due to to much snow and avalanche issues, then cancelling the backup trip here in Spruce Woods Provincial Park due to a heat wave!

Right now we still have 4 more trips planned, which should get us around another 45 km of canoeing, and 75ish km of backpacking. The backpacking number may be much lower as part of it is a mountaineering course we want to take and exact travel distances are given. That would get us up to around 392 km, so packing in another 200 km somewhere between here and Christmas is doable, but might involve more snowshoeing and skiing than expected.

Goal #2 - Plan a Trip with a Resupply Point

Right now it looks like we are not going to have any good length trips to do this on this year. The mountaineering course we want to take provides all the food, and while we could force a resupply on a 3-4 day trip it just doesn't feel legitimate.

Goal #3 - Take a Class 1 Rapids Canoe Course

Cancelled as well! Due to Covid-19 we were unable to take this course so we will be doing this next summer. In place of it, we are going to try and take a mountaineering course and get out on a lake with the canoe to try out some YouTube tutorials on recovering from a flipped canoe and similar situations.

Goal #4 - Get More Involved with the Community

While the goal is a bit nebulous, we have been making sure to respond to as many comments on Facebook and our YouTube Channel as possible. We have shared our video about the Mantario Trail campsites with some backpacking specific pages to help others in their trip planning.

We are also planning on doing some more gear review videos to help people get a look at what is out there and how it all works.

All in all, we think we are doing pretty good given the challenges that are popping up with trying to coordinate any plans this summer. Dealing with the actual trip cancellations has been... a bit of a downer that we had to get over, but other than that the rest of the summer is looking good so far still.

Embrace the Suck! - It's Your Perspective the Counts

Something you hear a lot in the backpacking community is 'embrace the suck' or 'become comfortable being uncomfortable'. When we first heard these sayings, Roslyn and I figured that it was all about having a large amount of will power and overcoming difficult situations. That we would be able to power through the truly miserable moments and come out successful on the other side having suffered through it. And that is partially true. Over the last couple weeks though we have realized it's more than that.

For some background, we have been trying to plan out a trip for some of the weekends over the summer. One of the most consistent comments we've heard when talking about the weather is that it looks like we shouldn't go, or that its pretty poor weather to be outdoors. Roslyn and I were very confused about this at first. To us the weather looked okay, not good but more than reasonable for going outdoors in. The only thing that we would've wanted changed was the light rain that was in the forecast, about 3-5 mm per day.

It honestly took us 5-6 times to realize that to others, that level of rain made the trips we were planning cancellable. And looking back on it, we might have avoided doing some of our trips if the weather had come up like that in the past as well.

Roslyn and I talked about it a bit and we realized that to us 3-5 mm a day was not a big deal. We figured we were also willing to hike through small amounts of snow and sleet without really caring. It's not so much that we could bear down and will our way through the bad parts of a trip, but that those parts didn't seem all that bad anymore due to our accumulated experiences. Now we could easily get through the 5 mm of rain or sleet days and use our will power on the even worse days.

Anyone can do this. It will take time and practice, but you can slowly ease yourself into building up more confidence and a different perspective if you want to. We have realized that it's not much different than physical conditioning, you just need to go at your own pace and you can slowly expand your comfort zone.

Carry Your Weight - Shelter Systems

As one of the Big 3 items, your shelter system will be a significant portion of the weight you carry. The main shelter systems that you will come across are tents, hammocks, bivys, tarps, and cowboy camping. Each of these systems comes with a number of trade offs, but trying to keep them as light as possible is always one of the goals you should be trying for. This article is about a process you can use to help figure out which shelter system to use, and goes through how Roslyn and I went about deciding to use a tent.

The first thing you need to pick a shelter system is the following information about your backpacking habits: expected weather conditions, expected camping terrain, ease of setup required, and space requirements

The above pieces of information will drive what type of shelter you choose in the first place, the types of materials you will choose from, and help guide you when deciding between small differences in shelters. Here is how Roslyn and I addressed needing that information.

Expected weather conditions - Anything except for snow/sleet

Expected camping terrain - Anything from grassy fields, to thick forests, to beaches

Ease of setup required - We want something easy to use and setup.

Space requirements - We need room for two people and their gear. Gear can go in vestibules

Once you have the answers, you need to figure out which shelter types will not let you meet those expectations so that you can rule them out:

Expected weather conditions - With pretty poor weather conditions expected combined with the desire to always be able to dry out, tarps and cowboy camping were not possible as potential shelters.

Ease of setup - Given that trees are not a guarantee, hammocks were out.

Expected camping terrain - Due to expecting to use the shelter in varied and potentially damaging terrain we need something that can avoid damage (hammock, tarp, cowboy camping) or is strong enough to not care (thick floored tents, bivy's).

Space requirements - since we need room for two people and gear, hammocks and bivy's were out. We wanted to share the shelter weight so having individual shelters was not an option.

From the above hammock's, bivys, tarps, and cowboy camping were out, leaving us with just a tent as a possibility. We did revisit this a couple times, but in the end we always leaned back towards a tent. Once you've settled on a type of shelter system, you then need to research the different sub-types. In general though you will be comparing four criteria: cost, weight, durability, and comfort.

Knowing where you sit with each of the above four criteria is important, and you should figure it out before sitting down to compare different shelter systems (you can even figure it out before picking a type of shelter system if it helps). Here is how Roslyn and I viewed each of the criteria.

Cost - we were willing to spend more money for a better product

Weight - we wanted the tent to be as light as possible

Durability - It needed to be fairly durable, but we were willing to be more careful with the tent if it meant either a lower cost or lighter weight

Comfort - we wanted a tent that would keep us dry no matter what, had plenty of space, didn't have condensation issues, and where the fly would be able to flip up to expose more of the mesh for either airflow or star gazing.

This gave us the following hierarchy: Comfort > Weight > Durability > Cost

We then compared a few dozen tents, looked at hammocks and bivys, decided we still wanted a tent, and then looked at more tents. You should definitely take all the time you need to figure out what you are comfortable with buying, and going back and reevaluating your needs is always a good idea if you find yourself stumped after looking at a lot of options.

That's how Roslyn and I went about picking a tent, specifically the Marmot Tungsten Ultralight 2 Person, and hopefully the process will help you with figuring out what you want to buy as well.

Lessons Learned - Wind and Water Safety

Last weekend Roslyn and I went on a canoe trip. We saw that there was going to be some rain and heard that it was going to be windy, but decided that we had endured much worse while hiking and it wasn't going to be a big deal. The first day of our canoe trip was a blast, we dealt with the wind and waves, but it wasn't too bad and the challenge was enjoyable on the few 1.5 to 2 km stretches across open water. We had heard the wind was going to be worse on our second day, but didn't think it would be all that bad.

Day 2 of the trip we experienced 30 km (18.75 mile) per hour winds with gusts up to around 40 km (25 mile) per hour. We started out going into 2-3 foot waves, which were doable, but left us worried for the large open stretches of water. When we hit the open stretches the waves grew to 3-4 feet. The waves were at the very upper end of manageable, but the wind in the canoe was something we had never experienced before.

What we found out, and honestly what shouldn't have been a surprise, is that our bodies and the canoe act like a giant sail. When the wind catches the canoe it pivots the canoe, making it move so that the length of the canoe is perpendicular to the wind direction. This also makes the canoe perpendicular to the wave direction and the combination of the two makes it very difficult to keep your canoe properly pointed into the waves so that it does not roll.

We also had waves crest the top of our canoe a few times. As we were dropping down the backside of a wave, the next wave came along faster than our canoe could rise up and the wave washed over Roslyn in the front. The waves were still small enough that not a lot of water got in and there wasn't enough power to push Roslyn at all.

With all of the above in mind, here are the key Lessons Learned that we took away from the weekend:

1 - We do NOT know enough about safe canoe recovery. We do not know how to unflip a canoe, how to get back in a canoe after having fallen out, and we have never practiced anything like it.

2 - Wind is a separate issue from waves. Even in areas with manageable waves, the wind pushed us around an uncomfortable amount, at one point we could not maintain our course simply because the wind was pushing us sideways along otherwise manageable waves.

3 - Route planning is critical. While we did okay with this, we still learned that proper route planning can make or break canoeing across a lake.

From the above points we have formulated an action plan to make sure we are never in a situation where we are out of our depth. The following steps/rules will help us, and anyone else who is new to canoeing, avoid these types of situations.

1 - We are going to take a white water canoe safety course. We had already planned on doing this, but we are now 200% making sure it happens.

2 - We are putting strict limits on the amount of wind we will canoe in. For us, we have decided that if the wind speed is above 18 km (11.25 miles) per hour we won't go out on large bodies of water. We will still go out on either narrow lakes or rivers that don't have enough space for large waves to form,

3 - All route planning will be done with the wind direction in mind. We are going to make sure that if the wind is close to our 18 kph limit (about 12 mph) there will be a way for us to travel our entire route within 200-300 feet of the shore line/an island that will block the wind.

4 - We are going to plan an extra day into every trip. We can canoe about 25 km per day without many issues in decent weather. For a 100 km trip we would plan for 5 days instead of 4 days and then still stick to going about 25 km per day. This gives us some extra breathing room in case we need to stop due to the weather.

5 - For 2 day trips we are going to limit ourselves to about 10-15 km distances. Having a shorter distance means we can either take lots of breaks, take a longer shore line route, or get the riskier parts of a route done during breaks in the weather.

6 - We are going to be more willing to call off a trip. Having gotten used to hiking in pretty much all conditions we rarely want to cancel a trip, but being out on the water is still new to us and potentially a lot more dangerous.

We are going to try out the above rules for the rest of the summer and then adjust them as we become more comfortable and competent.

Rockwall Trail - Helmet Falls Loop

Date: June 28, 29, 30, 2019

Length: 11.9 km, 13.7 km, 15.2 km - 40.8 km total

Time: 6 hours, 9 hours, 7 hours

Elevation: 758m, 620 m, 438m

River near Paint Pots Trailhead

July long weekend 2019 we took advantage of the extra time off work and headed out to Kootenay National Park for a three day trip. Roslyn and I hiked the Tumbling Creek-Helmet Falls-Ochre River loop, which contains a portion of the Rockwall Trail. To get to the trail, we flew into Calgary with our gear, rented a car, and stayed at an AirBnB for the night. The next day we drove into Banff to pick up ice axes and bear spray, which you can rent there for a reasonable price from the outfitters. Finally, we drove off to the Paint Pots trailhead to start our hike.

Map of the Route, at the junction we went counter clockwise around the loop

Starting out at the Paint Pots Trailhead, we started hiking up the main valley. The Paint Pots is an area full of different clays used for pottery, and the bright colors shown in many of the soils was pretty interesting to see. The trail between the parking lot and the Paint Pots was pretty busy with people out for the day, but as we moved into the forest past the Paint Pots other people disappeared until we reached camp for the night.

Creek tumbling down the clay at the Paint Pots

One of the ponds at the Paint Pots

After getting into the forest past the Paint Pots, we had a wonderful morning climbing the mountain. A few mountain side glades opened up for us to get a great view through the trees, and there were a lot of different flowers to looks at in them as well.

Further up the mountain side, the trail started following a river. At times we were right beside it and then we would climb a couple hundred feet above it before it rose up to meet us again. The further up the mountain we ascended, the more waterfalls we could see as well. Most of them were only a couple feet across, with their streams flowing down into the larger river, but a few of the waterfalls were part of the river itself and were quite large and powerful.

One of the more powerful waterfalls we saw on the hike

Looking down on another waterfall from a bridge over it

About halfway through the first day it began to hail on us while we tried to eat lunch, and then hailed on and off for the rest of the day. During our second attempt at lunch, we also realized that we had forgotten our camp fuel... So cold food for three days for us!

We arrived at the campsite a bit before 5 pm and setup our sent and set about making supper. The camping pads along the trail are very well maintained, and the bear boxes, cooking area, and outhouses are well laid out. After supper we talked to a couple of other people around camp, and pretty much everyone was headed in the same direction as us; over Helmet Pass.

Day 2 we were up early to give ourselves as much time as possible to get through the snow we were expecting. We started up the mountain side early, starting to hit snow about halfway up. Once we arrived at the top, we stopped for a look out over the valley we had slept in and it was an amazing view. By the time we finished ascending near the approach to Wolverine Pass (which we didn't go through) we had been above the tree line on and off for a half hour and it was a crazy feeling to be up there.

View from halfway up the mountain side

Near the base of Wolverine Pass, we had our only moment of uncertainty. The trail went across a sheer snow slope with a fifty or so foot drop to a creek. We had seen another group forge the trail ahead of us, but it was still a bit nerve-wracking crossing the section. Making it across felt like a pretty big accomplishment though and the experience was pretty awesome.

The rest of Day 2 was basically spent grinding through a snowfield. For about half the day it snowed or hailed on and off while we walked. Fortunately a couple groups had gone before us, so the trail was easy to follow and we didn't post-hole too much.

Roslyn looking out at the Rockwall

Crossing one of the nicer bridges

Looking back on our travels of the day

Our favorite picture from the trip is the one just above. We stopped near the top of Helmet Pass to look back over what we had traversed through out the day. Our day started a few hundred meters below where the snow makes a white 'V' far off in the distance. We then walked through all the snow in the middle of the picture before entering the trees on the left and making our way down to a lake that is obscured by the trees in the center.

After taking the picture above, we finished out ascent of Helmet Pass and then began climbing down the mountain to the campground. The top of the pass was full of snow, but it was a great feeling to keep looking ahead as seeing less snow, then some clear patches of trail, and then all of a sudden there was no snow left at all and it was easy going from then on.

We arrived at camp at a decent time again, setup our tent, then walked over closer to the base of Helmet Falls. Watching the water fall 1000 ft to the base of the rock wall and just relaxing to the sound of it was one of the best moments of the trip.

Most of the way down Helmet Pass we could see Helmet Falls and took a picture

Day 3 we woke up bright and early to try and get to the car as soon as possible so we could spend some time in Banff before driving to our AirBnB in Calgary. Unfortunately, bright and early in the mountains means cold. It likely dropped to at least -3C overnight and when we woke up our tent poles were frozen together. Roslyn gathered our food and put most of our stuff away while I did my best to thaw everything out so we could actually take the tent down.

Once we were all packed up the day went pretty quickly from there. Descending was definitely faster than the climb up, and just as enjoyable. A couple hours into the day we started looking back more and more as the trees started obscuring our view of the snow capped peaks behind us. Around lunch we got our last glimpse of the glorious snow covered mountains before the trees cut our view off for good.

One of the many beautiful streams we came across

Roslyn looking out at whats ahead of us

The weather was great all day, no snow or rain, and it became steadily warmer as we approached the parking lot. The trip down along Ochre River was very nice and we met quite a few people going in and out around the Ochre Junction campsite.

Once we arrived back at the parking lot, we quickly put our gear away and headed into Banff. Once we arrived we got to experience walking through a packed townsite with tourists everywhere while carried out bear spray and ice axes. We received a lot of weird looks. After dropping the rentals off we went to the hot springs, spent some time walking around, and ate supper before starting the trip home.

If you want to see more of this trip, check out our videos about it on YouTube: Banff and Kootenay Hike - July Long 2019, Part 1

Pre-Season Preparations, Part 2

In Pre-Season Preparations, Part 1, we covered how to start getting physically prepared for the season. Unfortunately, getting physically prepared is only half the battle and you also need to make sure that your gear is ready to go as well. Doing a pre-season gear check means that there won't be as many surprises once you get out onto the trail.

To do the pre-season gear check, Roslyn and I put together a list of what we have, a list of what we need, and a list of what we want. We don't personally write the lists down, but for some people that might be a good idea. After creating the lists, we go through our actual gear and make sure it is still usable and that we can find it. Turns out a pot lid can hide in a really small spot and it can take you 3 weeks to find it.

Once we know what functioning gear we have, the hard part begins. Trying to split the remaining gear into what we need and what we want is the most annoying part, but since gear is expensive we have to prioritize it. This year we both needed new rain jackets since the West Coast Trail ruined our last ones. We also both want some new shoes, a new 3 person tent for canoeing and car camping, a new set of tent stakes, a new head lamp, and a lighter trowel.

Having split things into needs and wants we set out to buy what we needed. This was pretty easily done online after comparing a dozen or so rain jackets each. Next we figured out what we wanted to buy and picked up another tent. We got lucky and had the head lamp, tent stakes, and trowel gifted to us!

Once we have all the gear, we will try it out around the house. Setting the tent up to make sure all the parts are there and there is no major damage. Making sure the jackets are comfortable. Just a basic review of all of it to make sure it is in functioning order.

With that done we pack it all away and wait for a chance to use it! We also keep adding items to the want to buy list... because trying out different gear is fun!

Simply Stuff - The Ten Essentials

In the last Simply Stuff post we reviewed the Big 3 pieces of backpacking equipment: Shelter System, Sleep System, Backpack. Another group gear you will hear a lot about are the Ten Essentials. The Ten Essentials are 10 categories of gear you should bring on any hike or backpacking trip to help stay prepared for emergencies or the unknown.

Here are the Ten Essentials, what some options are for each, and why each of them are important:

1 - Navigation System

A navigation system is important to help prevent or correct getting away from the trail. You can use map and compass or GPS on either a dedicated device or a phone. One thing to note here is that if you do happen to get lost, one of the best things you can do is to stop moving and make your self visible.

2 - Light Source

If an emergency has happened then you need to be ready for it to get dark. A light source such as a headlamp or flash light will help people locate you at night or help you see while doing small tasks. Unless you are sure you know the way out, travelling at night can lead to getting more lost and increases the risk of injury even with a light source, so be careful if you are contemplating that option.

3 - Sun Protection

The sun is an issue year round if you are outdoors enough, but especially during the summer and winter. You should always have adequate sun protection on to ensure both your comfort and safety. Sun burns can become very severe and cause a large amount of difficulty in leaving the back country. Sunscreen, sun umbrellas, and long covering clothes are all good ways to help keep the sun off.

4 - First Aid

A first aid kit should always be carried to help deal with minor injuries such a small cuts, blisters, heat rashes, and bug bites before they become big issues. There are many adequate personal first aid kits out there for a reasonable price that you can choose from for backpacking.

5 - Knife and Gear Repair

A knife will help you prepare food, fix gear, and a dozen other things. The repair kit may be as simple as duct tape, floss, a needle, and some patches. For backpacking trips, being able to keep your gear in usable condition until is can be replaced is very important, so you need to have the tool required to keep it going.

6 - Fire

Fire provides heat, and a way to signal others you are around. If you happen to get lost being able to responsibly make and maintain a fire will help you stay healthy and safe while people come looking for you. A properly prepared fire can also help people find you, either by being a beacon of light or a column of smoke depending on the conditions. Always make sure to light and maintain a fire responsibly so that it does not get out of control.

7 - Shelter

Even if you are going on a day hike, you should have a simple shelter in case of poor weather suddenly happening or if you become lost. A small tarp or safety blanket with some cord will go a long way to keeping the rain off of you and help prevent hypothermia or other exposure related issues.

8 - Extra Food

Having enough food for an extra day is always a good idea in case you happen to get lost. We tend to just take a few extra energy bars on our day trips, but on a multi-day trip we make sure to take an extra day of food. The extra food will help keep energy levels and morale up if your trip gets extended unexpectedly.

9 - Extra Water

More important than food is extra water. Getting caught out without the ability to find or filter water can mean that you run into problems very quickly. In our last post about water weight, I explained that we always carry enough to try out several water refill locations to make sure we don't run out. This is a good practice even on day hikes just in case something goes wrong.

10 - Extra Clothes

Extra clothes help with quick weather changes. If it suddenly gets cold, or wet you can add another layer to keep warm and dry. Keeping your body temperature up and avoiding hypothermia is important and it can happen in temperatures of 10C if it is wet and windy out. You should always have a protective rain layer just in case, as well as a layer to help keep you warm.

Carry Your Weight - Water Weight

Water is an incredibly important part of long distance backpacking to make sure you stay hydrated and healthy. Unfortunately, water is heavy so minimizing the amount you carry is always helpful as long as you can access enough of it along the trail. To figure out how much to carry you need know; how much you drink, how easy it is for you to filter water, and how frequent water sources are.

How much water do you drink in a day of backpacking? Roslyn and I have figured out that we use 5 to 6 litres of water each per day if its about 20C out and we are doing moderate hiking. 6 litres of water weighs just over 13 lbs, which us about half of the 'safe' weight maximum of 30 lbs we try to stay at. If we are doing strenuous hiking or the temperature is higher we pretty quickly hit 9 to 10 litres of water each. 10 litres of water comes in at 22 lbs, which is just a back breaking amount to add on top of everything else if you are trying to cover 20 km.

I also want to point out that a large portion of the water is used in the morning when we wake up, and at night for supper and before bed. We use about 2 litres of water at camp per day, so on a moderate hiking day only 3 litres is used on trail.

Now that we know how much we need in a moderate day (5 litres), how easy is it for us to get that water filtered? Roslyn and I use the Sawyer Mini, which is a very simple and quick filtering system. We can filter about 3 litres of water in 10 to 15 minutes if we get to a water source. Other systems like gravity feed systems or tablets required more time or at least more care to make sure you don't run out of water before having more ready to go.

With our setup, we can filter quickly and easily so down time is not a large issue. If you are using a water purification method that takes longer though you might want to consider timing water filtration with larger breaks (lunch or another 30+ minutes break) in order to minimize unnecessary downtime. Unfortunately, filtering less often means carrying more between filtering periods.

The last piece of information you need to figure out is how frequent water sources are on the trail. Whatever source of navigation you are using should have water sources on it, and you can then figure out what the distances between all of them are. Roslyn and I try to make sure we have enough water to travel between 2 to 4 water sources with out refilling and then aim to refill at source number 2 or 3 depending on how they are looking and how much we are drinking. This means that we are likely to get to a source before running out even if our first planned stop is dry.

Now to bring it all together with an example. For a moderate day of hiking we each need 5 litres of water to cover about 20 km, 3 litres while hiking and 2 litres at camp. With these numbers we are drinking about 0.15 litres per km. If the water sources are spaced every 3 to 4 km then we can easily carry 2 litres of water each to get about 10 to 13 km with out needing to refill and have plenty of opportunities to do so before running out.

If its a hot day on strenuous terrain and we need 10 litres of water (2 litres at camp and 8 litre while hiking), for a 20 km day we are drinking about 0.4 litres per km. On 2 litres of water we can get about 5 km. If water sources are still every 3 to 4 km we need to carry at least 3 litres cover two water sources in case the first one is dry. To easily cover 10 to 13 km without worries like in the first example we would need a bit over 5 litres. That's a difference of about 7 lbs of water, and something we would like to avoid. In this situation, instead of taking enough to get 10 to 13 km we would only bring about 3 litres each so we can get to two water sources and then plan on filling up at every water source.

The second example shows how quickly you can go from 2 litres is okay and only needing to refill once or twice in a day, to 2 litres gets us to the next water source I hope its not dry. Making sure to plan out your water is one of the most important parts of a backpacking trip to make sure you don't injure yourself, especially in hot and strenuous conditions.

Pre-Season Preparations, Part 1

As the backpacking season fast approaches, Roslyn and I have identified some ways to improve our backpacking trips. We want to improve our distance, reduce injury and fatigue, and become more efficient in what we do around camp.

The first thing to do is get back into shape for the backpacking season. We have slowly been adding more winter activities to remain in shape, but hauling a backpack up and down hills for 10+ hours a day puts a lot of stress on your feet an knees. Proper conditioning is one of the things we have decided to focus on to help reduce injury and fatigue issues.

Our plan has 3 main parts to it, each helping build towards a goal of doing repeated 20 km days with minimal soreness at the end.

Part 1 - Frequent Use

Part one of our plan is to get frequent use out of our feet and knees. We have been doing this by heading out for about 30 to 60 minutes every day after work in the city. We have been making sure to keep the pace fairly high and to do about 2 to 4 km every day. Since pretty much all the walking in the city is on pavement/concrete this has been helping keep our bodies in a lightly used state.

Part 2 - A Weekly Push

Once per week we have been going out for a longer walk in the 8 to 12 km range.Our goal for these has been to keep a brisk 5 to 6 km per hour pace up the entire time. We've managed to get out for the last three weeks now early on a Sunday, which has been nice. Our plan is to keep these up and potentially push out to a 15 km in 3 to 3.5 hours by the end of the summer. Since this is without any weight and usually on fairly easy trail its a good work out and helps with some of the cardio side of things.

Part 3 - Sprints!

Now that the snow and ice are gone (for the most part) we are going to add intervals into three of our daily walking trips. To start we are going to do a 10 to 15 second sprint every two minutes. This will help get our cardio and heart rate up, but also help by putting more force onto our feet and joints during the sprint. The extra load will help with conditioning over time.

That's our current plan to get back into shape for the backpacking season. Our main concerns are avoiding any injuries on the way there, as repeated stress injuries are fairly common when hiking/backpacking with lots of weight for long periods of time. Slowly conditioning ourselves back into shape should both help reduce the chance of injury and help us go further.

Simply Stuff - The Big Three

Every backpacker must bring a shelter, sleeping system, and backpack on a backpacking trip. These three items are commonly referred to as the 'Big Three', and they can make or break a hiking trip depending on how well they perform. The Big Three come in as the three most important items for comfort, weight, and cost as need to be chosen with all of that in mind.

While I will talk about the weight aspect in the Carry Your Weight series, here is what each of the Big Three need to accomplish to meet your goals when out backpacking, and a couple different methods of meeting those goals.

Shelter

Your shelter needs to keep you dry, out of the wind, and help keep you warm at night. Storing all of your gear is a nice bonus, but a lot of your stuff will be kept outside; food should be in an appropriate storage location, footwear/wet gear/trekking poles should remain outside, and you likely won't actually have much else.

There are a couple different ways to provide yourself with shelter on the trail. The most popular is a tent. Tent's allow for fairly easy setup anywhere and provide the largest amount of protection from the elements for yourself and your gear. Next are hammocks. Many people prefer hammocks over tents as they sleep better in them, though they are more limited since you need trees. Third are bivy sacks. Bivy sacks are essentially a coffin shaped tent that you can slide a sleeping bag into. The last two common shelter setups are tarps and cowboy camping. Tarping is just like it sounds, you just make a canopy from a tarp to sleep under, though the lack of a bottom means location is important to keep the water out. Cowboy camping is going without a shelter, simply sleeping in your sleeping bag under the stars.

There are a lot of trade offs between each of the above shelter systems. Roslyn and I have chosen to use a tent because we plan on going to a large variety of terrain and weather types, and a tent makes us feel most comfortable with our shelter setup. We are currently using the Marmot Tungsten UL 2P tent for backpacking trips, which is just over 3 lbs for two people.

Sleeping System

The sleeping systems goal is keep you comfortable while you sleep. Depending on conditions you might need different gear for different temperatures or different shelters. The basic sleeping system setup is a sleeping bag with a sleeping pad. Sleeping pads come in a couple different varieties, closed cell foam, self-inflating foam, or air inflated, each with it's own pros and cons. There are also a large variety of sleeping bags with down vs synthetic being the main choice to make. Down quilts are also a popular choice and are usually a bit lighter than sleeping bags.

Roslyn and I are currently using inflatable air pads with sleeping bags as our sleep system. the sleeping bags are usable down to around -5C, but it's not the most comfortable night ever.

Backpack

The backpacks goal is to keep all your stuff together and comfortably supported on your back while hiking.There are a lot of different ways backpacks do this. The main choices come down to internal vs external frame, roll down vs non-roll down top, uses a brain vs does not use a brain, size of the bag, the number of extra pockets and straps, and the material. I think that choosing a backpack is harder than choosing a shelter or sleeping system because of all the little details that can help or hinder your trip.

Right now Roslyn and I each have 3 backpacks for different types of trips. I have a small 18L pack for day hiking, a 30L pack for warm weather trips in the 3-4 days length, and a 55L backpack for trips that are either 5+ days long or where I need to bring extra clothing or rain gear. Roslyn has a 28L pack for day hikes, a 33L pack for 3-4 day warm weather trips, and a 65L pack for longer excursions. Both of us want to try out some backpacks in the 40L to 45L range as the 55/65L packs are a bit large for us at the moment and we would like to cut some weight.

I'll have some more posts up about each of these eventually, but if you have any specific questions about the Big Three let me know.

Carry Your Weight - Food, Glorious Food!

After your base weight, food, water, and fuel make up the rest of the weight in your pack. Food weight is likely to be the heaviest of the three, at least for the first day or two out. Properly managing food weight will help the most out of the three consumables to keep your top pack weight to a minimum. However, you need to make sure you eat enough, otherwise you will fatigue too quickly and the day will be a lot harder.

The general rule of thumb used for food is 2 lbs of food per day. This includes all meals and snacks for the day. The trick is to pack as many calories as possible into that two pounds as you can, while still eating enough vitamins and minerals to remain healthy. And enough calories to fuel your body.

First up, here's two things to avoid while preparing meals for a backpacking trip.

1 - Avoid food with a lot of water in it. Water is dense at 2.2 lbs per litre, and has no nutritional value and zero calories. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and canned goods are heavy for what you get and should be avoided as the main part of your food supply. Roslyn and I bring some fresh food on day 1 when it will keep but after that everything should be as low water content as possible to keep weight down.

Leaving water out means using dehydrated or dried foods, and adding water to them on trail. This method works best if you can camp near water sources so that you don't need to carry water with you to make your meals at camp. If you do need to dry camp you can plan to have a supper that doesn't require water that night to minimize your water weight.

2 - Avoid eating just sugars. While candy, chocolate bars, and sweets can be low in water weight and high in calories they lack other nutrients and sugar is technically a toxin. Your body does not want to consume an all sugar diet, and even though you're getting a lot of calories you will not feel good or energetic. Sugar also acts as a minor diuretic due to your body trying to flush it out of your system, this means you will have to consume more water than normal to remain hydrated. Take some candy as a snack or morale booster, but don't make it your main source of food.

With those out of the way, here's some examples of what Roslyn and I typically bring for food.

Breakfasts

In a lot of cases we don’t bring breakfast. We find it slows us down and I don't lie eating in the morning. When we do bring breakfasts, they are usually 2 instant oatmeal packets each, or about 1/2 cup of dry oatmeal. We have also brought breakfast bars, and usually 2 of those is enough for breakfast.

Both oatmeal and breakfast bars tend to have a good blend of calories, vitamins, and sugar. They also don't have much water. The oatmeal will need to be either cooked with water or cold soaked, and most backpacking bars are pretty dry.

Lunch

Lunch on day 1 is almost always some cheese and 1/3 of a garlic sausage each (2/3 of a sausage is used). Lunch on day 2 and 3 is either beef jerky and cheese, maybe a bagel and cheese, or some bars and cheese. Cheese keeps well on trail for 2 to 3 days depending on temperature. The garlic sausage gets completely eaten day 1 between lunch and supper each trip because its heavy, but it's one of our luxury items.

Supper

For supper we either eat instant ramen noodles, instant mashed potatoes, or side kicks packages with dehydrated veggies flakes. On day 1 we treat ourselves and dice up the remaining 1/3 of the garlic sausage and throw it in too. We either eat 1 ramen or side kicks each or split 1 package of instant mashed potatoes. All of these meals need water added to them and are okay cold soaked if you don't want to bring any fuel (or if you forget it!).

Snacks

Since we generally skip breakfast and our meals are on the ‘light’ side, we usually bring at least 3 snacks per day each. We will have 2 cliff bars, 15 to 20 pieces of gummy candy, and some trail mix/nut mix/muchies mix each per day. We eat a cliff bar about an hour into the day, and then snack of the candy and trail mix as we go. If we are really hungry we eat the extra cliff bar at the end of the day.

Flavoring

To help make the food more interesting, we also bring some ways to flavour them. Spices packets and flavoured tuna packets work wonders on making 20 cent ramen packets taste amazing, and they are usually either inexpensive or easy to make yourself. We also try to bring either Mio or some water crystals to flavour our water occasionally as well as tea and hot chocolate powder for a nice evening drink.

So that's a break down of how plan our meals, with an eye on keeping weight down. We find that the 2 lbs of food per day rule of thumb is a pretty accurate metric to go by as long as you are taking low water weight foods. Unfortunately, this means that a 4 day trip adds 8 lbs of weight to your pack, putting Roslyn and I up to around 26 lbs, 18 lb base weight and 8 lbs of food. Once water and fuel are added in we start getting pretty close to the 30 lb limit we want to stay under.

Caddy Lake to North Cross Lake - June 2019

Date: June 15 and 16, 2019

Length: 34.3 km

Time: 6 hours, 43 minutes (Day 1), 2 hours 54 minutes (Day 2)

Caddy Lake to North Cross Lake

Caddy Lake to North Cross Lake is an iconic Whiteshell canoe route that passes through two tunnels under train lines on the way. From Caddy Lake Resort where we rented canoes to the north end of North Cross Lake is about 14 km if you take a fairly straight path like we did on Day 2.

On Day 1 we arrived at Caddy Lake Resort later than expected, and didn't get onto the water until about 10:30 am. Roslyn and I were in an aluminum rental, Tyler and Steve had rented an aluminum canoe, and Joel and Kyle were sharing Joel's parents fibreglass canoe.

About 3 km into the trip you get to the first cave. When you pass through one of the tunnels you need to blow a whistle and make sure there is no response before entering. This is to help prevent accidents and injuries due to the low ceiling and narrow walls.

First Tunnel Entrance

First Tunnel Exit

After the first tunnel, the route opens up again to South Cross Lake, which is a long narrow lake. About half way up the lake it becomes about the same as a slow moving river. The west side has a fair amount of overhanging bedrock cliffs, while the east side has a thin strip of march building into a dense pine forest.

The narrow end of South Cross Lake

The cutest flower on the water

Entrance to the Second Tunnel

The second tunnel passes from South Cross Lake into North Cross lake. Right at the exit of the second tunnel is a bit of a slalom. There four sets of poles that you needs to navigate between due to a lot of sharp rocks being in the water. This is likely more of an issue for motor boats, but we didn't feel like getting one of the aluminum canoes hung up on a sharp rock either.

After getting out of the second tunnel, we paddled on for another kilometer before breaking for lunch. We tied on at a campsite and pulled out our food and laid back enjoying the sun. We also watched about 6 or 7 groups cruise right by us, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake on our part.

After lunch we started looking for a campsite. As we came across them they were all full. We started getting worried and split up to each search one arm of the lake for a spot. Well, Roslyn and I did and Kyle and Joel did. Steve and Tyler had a very wide, very slow canoe so they stayed in a central location. After about 2 hours and another 5 km of canoeing up and down the lake, we stopped at a pretty crappy spot for another break. Not wanting to camp there, Roslyn, Joel and I jumped in the lightest canoe and took off to the end of the lake hoping to find a free spot. 

It took us about 20 minutes, but we got to the end of the lake and took a look around. There was a pretty great campsite with a privy, as well a small dam to explore another couple hundred feet away. We went back and got everyone moving to the new site where we had a nice evening relaxing and fishing.

Near the bottom of the dam

Past the dam, more adventure awaits!

Very brave frog

Dragonfly close up

The next morning I woke up in time to catch the sun rising and spent some time just watching it come up. No one else was awake and the bay between our site and the dam was almost perfectly still and quiet. Definitely worth being up at 5:30 am to see something like that.

Phenomenal Sunrise

Once everyone started getting up, we had breakfast and packed up camp. We decided to try and get out as fast as possible to get back to Winnipeg for supper. With that goal in mind we managed to get back in only 3 hours of paddling with out any real breaks. Compared to the almost 7 hour trip in from the day before we were pretty happy. We also shaved 6 km off the route by knowing where we going.

All in all, this trip set us on another path of adventure. We now own our own canoe and are looking into completing some tandem moving water courses to get comfortable with canoeing through rapids.

If you want to see a video of this trip, check out out YouTube Channel here: Caddy Lake Canoe Trip - June 2019