The world of the ultralight...

I'm still trip-dreaming, and realizing that my desired credit-card tour seems to be morphing into a partial camping trip, I've started looking into ultralight gear. I took a wander down to REI in Boston to check out a lightweight one-woman tent. (OK, it's billed as a 1-person or solo tent, but I'll call it a one-woman tent.)

When I was on my cross-country adventure I spent some time talking to Gerald at Yellowstone National Park, and he started filling me in on the world of ultra-lightweight hiking. When I was younger and more foolish I thought that I could buy one of everything and that would be enough. Well, the backpacking tent I bought back in the late 70's probably weighted 7 pounds. It was state-of-the-art back then, but no more. I replaced it before my first solo bike tour with a Sierra Designs Clip-Flashlight 2-person tent. It's still a good tent, it's easy to pitch, and it's a comfy home. The current version of the tent is listed with a minimum weight of 3 pounds 15 ounces and an average packed weight of 4 pounds 8 ounces. What's the difference? I think the minium weight it someone's idea of a joke - and the average packed weight is probably more realistic. It's good for comparison purposes if nothing else... So the tent I wanted to check out is the Mountain Hardware Waypoint 1. It's a solo tent, with a minimum weight of 2 pounds 2 ounces and an average packed weight of 2 pounds 8 ounces. Wow! It surprisingly didn't feel claustrophobic at all. My one big concern is condensation since it's a single-walled tent. I've seen some reviews on the web complaining of condensation, but then I ran across a mention of the tent in a backpacker's journal. I signed his guestbook and asked what he thought, and his response was that he hadn't had any condensation problems - his thought was that the mesh along the bottom of the tent wall along with vent holes on the peak took care of the condensation issues. The other option is to go with a tarp, or more correctly a tarptent. They have more mesh and less privacy, but weigh a whole lot less.

Then there's the sleeping bag. My current bag - a North Face Blue Kazoo is rated to 20 degrees and weighs 3 pounds. For the summer trip I'm planning I think a 32 degree bag is good enough - and I've found 2 that weigh 1 pound 5 ounces. I know that some of you probably think I'm nuts - but all of the weight adds up when you're hauling it aroung on your bike!

Hmmm... I have more thinking to do.