The
Dirtbagger's Deluxe
Home What's New? E-Mail the Guys
|
The
Dirtbagger's Deluxe Home What's New? E-Mail the Guys
|
|
Lightweight Hiking Food Hiking Techniques Trip Journals Links NEW! Where To Go NEW! A Lesson From the Trail |
Clothes "For he said, If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole." Mark 5:28
I'm like most people that get into hiking. I didn't give much thought to clothing at first. I wore blue jeans my first time out and quickly realized what we all come to find...clothes do matter. I now where only synthetic clothes. No cotton, even in the summer. I don't go out of my way to dress in the latest trail fashions but just use what works for me. I've come to some surprising discoveries about clothes. One of the not so amazing discoveries was that you get what you pay for most time. If you can wear trail clothes from Walmart, more power to you. It also doesn't mean that you have to pay $60 for a Patagonia Capaline shirt either. It all depends on what works for you. I can't stress how important free thinking is not only to how you do things but what items you buy. Never let the manufacturers make you feel like you HAVE to have something. The person who stands to gain the most from the sale is the last person you want to take advice from. Footwear Whatever footwear you choose it should be light. If you want to wear boots that's fine. Just find the lightest ones one can afford and feel safe and comfortable in. I personally hate boots and will only wear them in snow. I, like most people, was afraid of not having enough ankle support. I had a terrible ankle sprain that kept me on crutches for a month. I became very afraid that I would have "bad wheels" for the rest of my life. At that time I was hiking in heavy Asolos that were full leather and very supportive of my ankles. I tried day hiking in running shoes and found it to be fine but I wasn't ready for backpacking in them. Then something happened that changed the entire way I hike. I was about 2 hours away from home on my way to the trailhead when I realized I forgot my boots! CRAP! No way was I going back for them. I spent the whole weekend in a pair of Vans suede skateboarding low tops. It was great! My feet never felt better. No ankle problems. No blisters. No pain at all. I never looked back and I have only worn my boots maybe twice in the last three years.
The greatest thing I find about running shoes is the fact that they dry so fast. Once my boots would get wet on a trip they stayed that way. No amount of water proofing will keep your boots dry, and neither will Gore-Tex. All that Gore does is postpone the inevitable and make your feet stick to high heaven. I can ford streams in my Nikes and 30 minutes later they are dry. Even if it is cold I can take the insoles out and open the shoes up a bit and they will be dry by morning. I like to drive sticks in the ground under the tarp or something and put the shoes on the sticks upside down to dry. There are so many options when it comes to shoes that you just have to see what works for you. If you are edgy about plunging into running shoes as hikers just take a pair of them on your next hike and switch off and on with your boots. I guarantee you'll see the difference. As for socks I like a lot of padding. I like thin wool socks for most seasons but for summer I have found a pair of Nike running/cycling socks that are shear heaven. They have a thin padded bottom, a nearly mesh top and a band of heavy elastic that goes right around the instep of the foot for support. they are about $6.50 but are worth it. They dry in about 5 minutes. I like the fact that they are very shear and I don't need liners with them. When I wear wool I like a liner sock for extra protection but I doubt that it is necessary. I also have some of the fancy wicking socks but find they are cold in winter and they wear out fast. Pants/Shorts I've found that the best system for me is to wear a pair of polypro Wickers boxer/briefs under a pair of light polypro long underwear and then some lightweight nylon shorts on top of it all. The long underwear protect my legs and they deter ticks. If it warms up and I'm uncomfortable I just stop and lose the longies and continue in the shorts. If it is colder I wear mid-weight longies. If it's winter I just lose the shorts and go with heavy fleece pants. Pants and underwear are one place I don't skimp when it comes to quality. I used to wear any old K Mart shorts and found that I chafed to the point that it prohibited my movement. I then got a good pair of REI shorts and have little problems now. I just carry a small bottle of Gold Bond Medicated Powder with me and powder up for relief. Yeah, I know, TMI! TMI! NEW! Royal Robbins 2-in-1 Travel Pants It was time for me to buy a good pair of zip off pants. The kind that the legs zip off and you can have shorts. I found these pants at Sierra Tradingpost for $39.00! They were usually $75.00 so the price was verrrry right. There are few pieces of clothing that I would actually say that I would pay the full price for them. This is one of those things! The material these are made from is very shear and soft. But they dry just about as fast as they can get wet. The first outing I wore these for was a day of kayaking in the rain. It poured all day long and I stayed fairly warm and the pants wicked well. One of the best things about the material used is that there is very little chaffing in the crouch and none in the legs where the zippers are. This is a big plus for me as I sweat a lot. I am anxious to see how these perform in the cold. These pants weigh only 12 oz. and don't have a lot of extra stuff I don't need like cargo pockets and a bunch of extra elastic. One thing I do wish they had is a built-in belt but this is very little consequence. Bottom line: I'd pay the full $75 if I had to in order to keep my butt in these pants for ever! Shirts I started in regular cotton t shirts and was miserable. Once they got wet they stayed wet all weekend long. I have woken up to find the shirt I had hung on a tree to dry for the night with holes chewed through them from critters thirsting after the salt in the sweat. BTW- the shirt was still wet and now very cold. I would chafe very bad under the shoulder straps too. I just refused to pay $30 for a synthetic t shirt! I then found some Wickers t shirts on sale at Sierra Trading Post for about $10 so bought them. they are very good shirts and are very soft. The only negative is they get the eternal stench easily and it is imposable to get out short of a vinegar/baking soda soak. A great trick I've learned to prevent chaffing is to turn all your clothes inside out. Sounds silly but it works. Especially if you turn you underwear and t shirt over. if I had a nickel for every time I've heard, "Hey, your shirts on inside out." I'd be a very rich man. Over the years I've also gotten a few lightweight and mid-weight Patagonia Capaline shirts. Not worth the money in my opinion. they stink nearly as bad as the Wickers, don't dry as fast, and leave me cold when wet. If you want a fancy name by all means buy as much as you like. It doesn't work for me though. Jackets/Coats I like to layer my outerwear. I like a fleece jacket alone for all but the coldest trips. Any fleece will work as long as it's light. When it gets colder I also throw in my shell jacket. I also have a fleece vest that I take when the weather is borderline on cold. I like having the option of hiking in just long sleeves and a vest instead of sweating it out under a full blown jacket. In the mild months I have a water repellent wind jacket that weighs just a few ounces that I take for cool evenings. NEW! LL Bean Mountain Pass Jacket This jacket is made for cross country skiing so I knew it would be good for hiking in the winter and be a bit more breathable than Gore Tex. It is very light too but there is the trade off of being not as warm when it really gets cold. I had contemplated getting a Gore Tex jacket but realized that it would make me sweat like a hog and wouldn't work as a rain coat anyhow because they still wet out after a time in the rain. So I went for light and breathable. It doesn't fend off the wind as well as I had hoped but it is still a good parka for $100. If the wind is so bad that I need further wind protection I can always put my poncho on too. This jacket is quite water repellant too. NEW! The North Face Cerro Torre Insulated Jacket
Anyone who knows me even a little knows my distain for this company. I'll come right out and say it, "I hate The North Face!". I always swore I'd never own a TNF product. I don't like their bright colors. I don't like there forced advertising practices (big gaudy labels that can't be removed). I don't like their prices which are, frankly, twice as much as they're worth. Basically, they are the Tommy Hilfiger of the outdoor world. Now, having said this you can imagine my surprise when I found in my search for an insulated jacket to replace my fleece jacket a TNF jacket that fit all my criteria for a jacket. It was black, had a tiny label on the front and only on the front, and it was half price (just what they're worth). I'll not lie to you gentle reader, I had a big problem swallowing my pride enough to spit out the numbers on my credit card to the Campmor operator! I figured that if I was ever going to have a TNF product and see what all the hub-bub was about this was the best time and item. The jacket is nice, I'll admit. Considering quality, workmanship and function I will still say it is no better than REI, LL Bean or any of the other imports. This is not so bad because I love REI and LLBean. The insulation used is Polarguard 3-D and is very light and thin. I needed something thin to layer under my LL Bean shell and this fits the bill. It is not as warm as a comparable down jacket but a down jacket would not have fit well under my shell. It has nice long arms which I like and it never seems to ride up and cause drafts anywhere. I was attracted to this jacket because it's stripped down. It has two big pockets and that's about it. Nothing I don't need. It has a few things that will be stripped like the little snap loops on the sleeves that connect it to the TNF shell it zips into, and the draw string around the bottom hem. I don't need these. Of course any tags I can remove will come off too. I wish I could get the TNF embroidering off the front of the jacket but I fear I may harm the shell material in the process. I will color it with a black marker in stead and live with the shame. This jacket weighs in at 1 pound, 8 ounces. which is comparable to my fleece jacket but the winning factor is that it compacts down smaller than fleece. One of the best things about this jacket is that I got it for $80 instead of $160 it normally goes for. Never pay full price! Rain Gear I love the rain. I love hiking in it and I love sleeping in it. the one thing I hate are the clothes you have to wear for it. I have hiked in PVC jackets, anoraks and found both made me sweat so and that I ended up wetter than the rain would have made me. After I read Ray Jardine's book I bought a cheap folding umbrella to try on the trail. I wore my light wind breaker with it for incidental water with the umbrella. It worked just fine. I found many secondary uses for the umbrella too like a wind screen for cooking in the wind, a wind block at one end of the tarp, or just to keep the sun off my head. It was a bit of a pain in heavier brush but that was far and few between. I did get some funny looks though. After I started using trekking poles I couldn't use the umbrella. Just on a chance I bought a nice $25 poncho. I never liked ponchos but was willing to try one. I fell in love with it. It has as many uses as the umbrella. I use it for a trap shelter, a ground cloth, to catch rain water for filtering in the morning...the possibilities are endless. the best thing about it was that I didn't sweat and I stayed dry. I did find it hard to put on over my pack but was able to figure it out. I also put a couple of the toy carabineers on the very bottom loops to hold the two sides together and give a little weight to the bottom in wind. I went through a heck of a summer storm in the high Sierras with a group of friends that all had gore jackets and I stayed just as dry as they did if not more so. Yes, they called me the Watermelon Prophet the rest of the day but it was worth it. The poncho makes a good windbreaker in heavy wind too. In very heavy wind I would tie a piece of rope around my waste to keep the thing from blowing off me. I also carry a lightweight pair of Lowe Alpine wind pants as my shell pants and for in the rain. they aren't 100% waterproof but it would take a lot of water to make it through them. Hats
The right way... the wrong way! For me there can be only one proper hiking hat. And that
is my Cleveland Indians hat. No I'm not a Cleveland fan (GO REDS!) but it
is the only hat I could find that fits my fat head. this hat has seen many
miles from the top of my head. In the summer I put a bandana on my head
before putting the hat on to protect my ears and neck from sun burn but also to
keep the darn mosquitoes out of my ears. It works very well. I also
have a Ultimate Boonie hat that is a pain in the butt. The thing is cotton
and once it gets wet it stays wet...and heavy...and cold. Besides when I
saw that was the same kind of hat that Dirtbag Darrel wears I knew I could never
wear it again. If it gets chilly I just put my neck gator on my head and
ears like so...
|
Dirtbag Hikin' Gear Food Hikin' Techniques Trips N' Stuff Linxs |
