Category: Gear & Skills

Gear notes Norway 2022

In Gear & Skills, Trips, Europe, Gear, Skills, Norway

A few details about gear and skills in my 2022 Norway trip that I’ve found worth mentioning.

Locus Gear Khufu DCF tent

I got this tent in the months prior to the trip with the intention of making it my main, 3 season thru-hiking shelter, lightweight enough to take it anywhere, solid enough to take it to places like Norway. I had the chance to use the tent and play with the different setups before the Norway trip, if only to learn about pitching and know what to expect. I didn’t have the chance to use it under challenging conditions. What follows is about the Khufu in the Norway trip.

Anker PowerPort Solar Lite 2 review

In Gear & Skills

I used solar power for the first time in a backpacking trip (or anytime) on my hike of the Iberia Empty Quarter. As discussed in the trip report, I had previewed this need, then I did an extensive search for the best solar panel for my needs and settled with the PowerPort Solar Lite 2 from Anker. This is a review of the product based on this single trip use.

Tour du Mont Blanc Guidebook Review

In Gear & Skills, Gear

Disclosure: I was provided with the items reviewed here free of charge by the publisher in exchange for this review. I keep full editorial control and all content and opinions below are entirely my own. I have no other relation with the publisher.

The Tour du Mont Blanc is a 169 km / 105 m circular mountain route around the Mont Blanc massif in the Alps. It’s one of the most popular treks of its kind or any kind. It goes across borders between France, Italy and Switzerland and it takes about a week to complete for an average hiker.

I haven’t hiked the TMB except for a 43 km section where it meets the GR5 trail in the French trail system, which I hiked in 2009.

The case for convertible trousers

In Gear & Skills, Gear

Zip-off convertibles are often disregarded as touristy items rather than serious hiking trousers. This is mostly a factor of the available designs more than the idea. Finding a well designed pair of convertibles may be a tough, frustrating shopping job but if you do find them they’re a very interesting item, particularly for thru-hiking, where you’ll need both shorts and full pants at different times along the way.

Rugged, thru-hiking worthy convertibles

There are other ways of having shorts and full lengthies but convertibles are best at minimizing the carried weight, which amounts to nothing when worn full and it’s very low when worn as shorts. Convertibles are also reasonably good at the transition either way. Fiddling with zips is often unwelcome but the alternatives -tights underneath, wind trousers on top- are not really any better.

And the case for non-stretchy fabrics

I miss the old fashioned, non-stretchy fabrics for trousers, so common around the turn of the century. It seems all meaningful fabrics nowadays have got some elastic built-in. Such fabrics may feel more comfortable to the movement but I don’t like how they wear and I particularly dislike how they cling to your legs. I like the breathing room of non-stretch fabrics. Such stuff seems difficult to find nowadays but this applies to both regular, long trousers and zip-offs.

In 2019 I’m thru-hiking big time and I’ve made an effort to find the best gear for my hiking style. I went shopping and I was too happy that I found a pair of properly designed convertibles in bi-component fabric with barely any stretch built into it. The bi-component fabric is great for a do-it-all garment, it may get uncomfortably warm in hot weather but that’s a price for a do-it-all that the forgiving legs can pay and you’d be wearing them as shorts anyway. The bi-component is great for cold or damp weather thanks to the excellent moisture transfer, the nice touch against the skin and the very limited stretch that tends to leave a gap and not feel suffocating.

I’ll be wearing them for 3000 miles so they better work well.

Navigation New Order

In Gear & Skills

My trip in Newfoundland was heavily impacted by the loss of all my checked-in luggage, i.e. most of my stuff. One of the things I lost was my paper maps and one of the things I saved was my smartphone.

Navigation set, 20th & 21st centuries

I could have worked hard to get new (paper) maps before I started hiking but I had so many things to replace that this one was not high on the scales: there was a valid alternative.

The Outdoor Smartphone

In Gear & Skills

You know the story: smartphones became mini-computers with a wireless connection to several networks, GPS among them and this is when things got interesting for outdoor route finding. Smartphones became a valid alternative to the dedicated GPS devices.

This is evolution

Gear & Skills

Gear notes Norway 2022
Field notes and gear reviews for some items and the associated skills that were key during my summer 2022 trip in the Norwegian mountains
Anker PowerPort Solar Lite 2 review
One-trip review for the Anker PowerPort Solar Lite 2 portable solar panel with the background of solar power in the context of long-distance backpacking.
Tour du Mont Blanc Guidebook Review
Guidebook review: Tour du Mont Blanc guidebook and map from Vertebrate Publishing.
The case for convertible trousers
Convertible trousers may be the best option for thru-hiking.
Navigation New Order
This is the little story behind a dramatic shift in my navigation standards: for the first time ever, I'd be going on a long distance route with just a smartphone in my pocket.
The Outdoor Smartphone
Smartphones may be great navigators but they're not built for the backcountry. Instead of reusing your urban device, it might be interesting to have a dedicated, backcountry specific one. I've tried one.
Pack Smart: Sunglasses
This is one of those small things that matter from a packing efficiency perspective. It is actually a very silly, common sense little topic but where market trends may easily lead us to the dark side.
Ski-Packing
Packing for a ski trip is not the same as packing for hiking on dirt and the differences are well beyond the obvious. It's a packing style of its own.
Owning a PLB
First it was GSM. Then it was GPS. Then I got PLB. Everytime defines a milestone from which hiking will never be the same again.
Sierra Designs Elite Cagoule
One of the problems with rain jackets is what happens at their lower edge: water drips down over a sensitive area. It may make sense to move the drip line further down.
Everything inside the pack
I had this revelation moment once during the early days of my hiking career. It was a very silly thing but it was symbolic. It opened a big door.
Hyperlight Mountain Gear 3400 Southwest mid-term review
I’ve put the HMG 3400 Southwest to a serious test now: a non-supported, 8 day trek where my max load (with 8 days worth of food) was above 34 lbs.
HMG 3400 Southwest pack short-term review
A weekend out in mild, post-summer conditions for an initial trial of my new toy.
Hyperlight Mountain Gear 3400 Southwest: my new pack
I got this pack as my new thru-hiking pack. I researched the market for a pack that would meet my requirements and the Southwest won.
Travelling in the winter
Travel in the winter mountains when the goal is the trip, not the summit.
Pyramids
A pyramid may be the most versatile shelter geometry and the best compromise for the long distance hiker. This is an analysis of the reasons why.
Understanding layers
Layering is intuitive, most people do it regularly without thinking about it but the best performance requires some deeper analysis. This is it.
Keep hands comfortable in sustained cold & damp conditions
Understanding why hands get cold and what we can do to avoid it is very important for a general well-being in the outdoors. It's about comfort and it's also about safety.

Pack Smart: Sunglasses

In Gear & Skills

This is one of those small things that matter from a packing efficiency perspective. It is actually a very silly, common sense little topic but where market trends may easily lead us to the dark side.

Ski-Packing

In Winter, Gear & Skills

Just when you thought you were done with any new flavor of “packing”, let me add another one…

Owning a PLB

In Gear & Skills

First it was GSM. Then it was GPS. Then I got PLB.

Sierra Designs Elite Cagoule

In Gear & Skills

Must not care about aesthetics

One of the problems with rain jackets is what happens at their lower edge: water drips down over a sensitive area where it soaks your pants at pocket height. It then soaks your underwear. It there’s enough water, capillary action may soak the lower section of your tops too.

Everything inside the pack

In Gear & Skills

I had this revelation moment once during the early days of my hiking career. It was a very silly thing but it was symbolic. It opened a big door.

Hyperlight Mountain Gear 3400 Southwest mid-term review

In Gear & Skills

At maximum load

I got this pack as my new thru-hiking pack. No frivolity, I really needed a new one. My old thru-hiking pack was worn out beyond usability after more than 10 years. Not bad. I researched the market for a pack that would meet my requirements and the Southwest won.

HMG 3400 Southwest pack short-term review

In Gear & Skills

A weekend (2 days and 2 nights) out in mild, post-summer conditions is not the most demanding use case for a pack this size. The Southwest was not fully loaded with only two days worth of food and minimal spare clothing, base weight below 4 kg. Yet it was my new toy and I was eager to try it. This is how it turned out.

Hyperlight Mountain Gear 3400 Southwest: my new pack

In Gear & Skills

I have a white pack

My previous long-distance-backpacking pack is more than 10 years and thousands of miles old. That’s a lot for a lightweight pack. I’ve used it until it’s so worn out that it’s not usable anymore.

Travelling in the winter

In Winter, Gear & Skills

Where “winter” stands for mountain weather in the mid latitudes for that half of the year

Looks like black&white except for the tent

General belief about winter conditions in the mid latitudes relates to highly technical activities where the activity itself is the goal and not the means to get somewhere: climb the mountain for the sake of climbing it, not to cross onto the other side.

Pyramids

In Gear & Skills

Pyramid in the land of the yurts

Pyramids fascinate me. And it’s nothing mystical.

Understanding layers

In Gear & Skills

There’s nothing really fancy in the layering paradigm. In essence, it’s what many of us already do in the urban environment as a daily routine in response to changing conditions like getting into the office block: layer down one coat.

In the backcountry, there are additional factors though:

Keep hands comfortable in sustained cold & damp conditions

In Gear & Skills

Warming up cold hands, armpit technique

Hands usually have a problem when working in sustained cold and wet conditions. Mine surely do. I say “working”: it should be fine if you can keep the expected activity level with hands in pockets but this is often not the case.

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