Thanks all...very helpful.
And yes, Tom, it was a canoe trip, and your observation was on my mind as I read all the "pack outside the pack" suggestions.
Thanks all...very helpful.
And yes, Tom, it was a canoe trip, and your observation was on my mind as I read all the "pack outside the pack" suggestions.
And I smiled when I watched Shug's vid about his canoe trip. A backpacker comes at it in an entirely different way. I could probably take to heart some ideas about lightening my load but my mindset is totally different when I plan and pack for a canoe trip. I'm primarily a canoeist and my backpacking experience makes me more than a bit outdated. Backpackers were either tougher or dumber then!
Something I've always wondered, why snake skins and a stuff sack? It seems redundant to me.
I like having tarp sleeves, aka snake skins, on my tarp for ease of pitching and take down as well as being able to keep it furled until needed. I use the stuff sack as a way to keep the tarp packed up in a neat, manageable bundle. The stuffsack weighs almost nothing and can segregate a wet tarp. I mostly do canoe trips and there are no outside mesh pockets to stuff a tarp (in sleeves) into.Originally Posted by MoeTCrow
I can see it being redundant with a backpack though.
tarp in a stuff sack on the outside of my pack. Tarp ridg line in a hip belt pocket of my pack. stakes and tree straps in a small sack on an outside pocket. Hammock, quilts, and suspension in an eVent in bottom of pack.
I do this whether wet or dry as a matter of habit so my set up routine is the same every time. Set up my tarp with minimal exposeure to wetness and then pull out my sleep system while under the tarp. Do this in reverse order for take down.
When I used snakeskins I never packed my tarp inside the skins. Furling a wet tarp and a dry hammock up in a sock seemed like a very bad idea. In fact putting a wet tarp in anything that doesn't have air flow seems like a good way to get a little mildew to start building up over time of putting a wet tarp in it even for a few hours each day. After hiking the where it rained every night for 5 nights straight I imagine the saturation level on your gear would be very high. I've kept my tarp in a mesh pocket on my pack for years, and with my cuben tarp I added a very light mesh sack made from tulle to keep abrasion down.
I figure that people that put their tarp and hammock in the same skins must hike where it very rarely rains or vary rarely hike when rain is possible.
There are degrees of wetness. I use a small cuben stuff sack to isolate dry garments for sleeping inside my pack, which has a built in drysack liner. There's sometimes another cuben stuff sack for topquilt, and usually another for warm clothing. All three have less weight and bulk than a single nylon stuff sack. These have drawcord closures, not roll tops, so they don't seal and risk popping under pressure. The drybag for my main pack connects with velcro at the roll top of the outer pack bag, so I can separate the front or back edge and put wet things between the inner drybag and the outer bag. Generally my tarp goes in the back half (away from my body). I can put things that are damp, but not soaked, in the front half - that is, outside the drybag, but inside the pack next to my back and on the opposite side of the drybag from the potentially wetter tarp. Old Aarn Tate put a lot of thought into the design of this pack. In addition to the three zones of the main bag (dry, damp, wet), there's a bottom pack compartment with a separate roll closure and a separate built in dry bag. This gives another dry zone and another wet or damp zone. Sometimes my tarp gets packed there. Next there are the two front balance pockets, and each of them has an inner roll top dry bag. That's a lot of options for different degrees of wetness. I'm not suggesting that everyone rush out and get an Aarn pack (HYOH), but it does help to think about where you put things that start out dry and take on moisture during a trip. The thing I like most about the Aarn design is that things can be moved from the dry zone to damp or wet, and everything still fits in the pack because the zones expand and contract as items are moved. I expect people that use trash bag liners and other dry bags inside their packs get much of the same utility with them.
For me, all of the dry items go into a large cuben fiber dry bag (Zpacks) that lines my entire pack. Anything wet or that I want easy access to goes into the pack, but outside the dry bag, or in the mesh pocket outside the pack.
I used to use a contractor trash bag, which worked well for years, I just wanted to upgrade to a bag a closure. Give the trash bag a try and see if you like it before you spend the money for a cuben fiber bag.
Tarp in snake skins in a silnylon bag. If my tarp is wet i will put that in one of my compactor bags or I hang it on the outside of my bag. My underquilt in a compressions sack and hammock/suspension in its own stuff sack. Overquilt I stuff in and around all the rest of the things in my bag (I got about 25% more room when I took it out of its own compression sack).
Tarp, stakes and suspension get packed in a mesh stuff sack. When wet it goes outside on top of the bike rack or roll top dry bag that houses my hammock and quilts. I just leave the topquilt inside the hammock, the underquilt attached, and the bugnet on when needed, disconnect from the suspension and stuff into the dry bag or pannier as one unit.
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