Why'd you bring that?
The reasoning behind some of my gear choices
Oh yes, I do love to get into the weeds. As you could probably tell if you watched our gear video, in-depth & detailed information is not really Constantine’s thing. And really, who wants to watch an hour of someone painstakingly explaining their rationale? YouTube is for entertainment! It’s much more efficient to just read that sort of information, so that’s what I’m bringing you today.
Tent: Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL2 / solution dye standard version / 992g
Ah, tents. Who doesn’t love a good tent discussion? Our choices here were limited by the availability (or lack thereof) of our various top contenders. As I mentioned, I really, really wanted the Stratospire Li from Tarptent, but just as soon as I had psyched myself up about the price, it went out of stock. There are myriad options when it comes to tents, and you can make yourself dizzy comparing the pros and cons of different design philosophies, but it ultimately comes down to two basic considerations - pitch style and materials. The Tiger Wall UL2 that we went with is a semi-free-standing tent, meaning it relies on its pole structure to keep it taut and can be pitched without staking out all the corners. Semi vs truly free-standing is a distinction that matters less than you’d think - semi-free-standing only means that you need to stake out two corners for a completely stable pitch. Free-standing tents are most often double-wall designs, so it’s possible to pitch just the mesh interior without the fly. These designs are generally more breathable than single-wall shelters, and frequently offer better livability with more usable headroom. They also tend to be heavier than single-wall shelters, and require you to carry a dedicated set of poles. Constantine has always used a free-standing double-wall tent, and this was his strong preference when we began the decision process.
Single-wall shelters have been my choice of backpacking tent throughout my thru-hiking career, and while this style has some drawbacks, I still prefer them for the simple reason that they’re extremely lightweight. Single-wall shelters normally require a staked-out pitch, meaning that the tent relies on the tension created by careful stake placement to remain standing. Ultralight versions of this style use your trekking poles as their main structure, eliminating the need to carry bulky additional poles. However, this means that the design of the tent fly is critical to actually living in one - a poorly conceived design will sag in the middle, drip condensation, or have such a sharp slope to the roof that you can’t actually sit up anywhere except directly under your trekking pole. They can be tricky to pitch on hard ground or in very tight tentsites, as you have to get the tension juuuuust right to not wake up with a wet tent on your face. You also can’t pitch just the mesh - single-wall designs integrate the mesh and the fly fabric into a single panel, so you’ve got to choose between bug protection and a view on clear nights. All that said, a well-crafted single-wall shelter is still very easy to pitch after a little practice, and they can’t be beaten for weight or packability. The Stratospire solves all these problems and more - the catenary-cut roof and offset vertical poles mean that it’s extremely stable even in high winds, it has a clever triangular fly tensioner that makes it easy to adjust the pitch width, and best of all, it’s got a separated mesh body and fly! That’s right, the Stratospire is the rarest of all beasts, a double-wall staked-out shelter! That double-wall feature is what sold Constantine on this specific model, even more than the relative ease of pitching, and it’s much lighter than our free-standing choices.
The Li version of the Stratospire is made from Dyneema, hence the eye-watering price tag, and for most staked-out shelters this is a much better choice than sil-nylon. Dyneema, also known as cuben fiber, DCF, DCH50/150, or DAC, is a synthetic woven material originally developed for high-tech sailboat racing. Created by extruding polyethelene gel through a spinnaret, Dyneema fiber is inherently waterproof and stretch-resistant, so it’s great for applications such as a tent roof, where any stretching will result in a loss of tension and eventual collapse. X-Pac is another material that’s increasingly used in the outdoor industry, and it has similar properties to Dyneema composite fabrics, with the important distinction that it’s laminated rather than woven. This makes it more waterproof and durable but somewhat less breathable, so it’s mainly used in areas where airflow is less important, like in a tent floor. Being waterproof and strong, both Dyneema and X-pac are much lighter than the standard tent material used in the outdoor industry, siliconized or (sil-) nylon. Sil-nylon has been through its own development and refinement process, and remains an excellent choice for shelters that rely on dedicated poles for their shape. In this application, the stretch inherent to sil-nylon’s loose weave is actually an advantage, as it allows the fly to perfectly conform to the tent’s skeleton. That looser weave also allows the tent to “breathe” better than dense composite fabrics, so you get less condensation on the inside of a tent. However, sil-nylon tents must be seam-sealed before use, and waterproof coatings add weight and deteriorate with UV exposure. Sil-nylon can also become saturated in heavy precipitation and “wet out”, meaning the fabric absorbs all the water it can and begins to drip onto your head like a sopping sponge. Wet sil-nylon is heavy, and can even grow mold if it’s not properly dried out, whereas DCF and other composite fabrics can be shaken dry and stashed with no ill-effects.
For all these reasons, I strongly prefer Dyneema in a tent, and the Stratospire’s double-wall design neatly solves the condensation issue. I wanted it! I wanted it so bad! The only issue was the price - Dyneema fabric is hella expensive, and so I flinched and missed my chance. The Tiger Wall UL2 is a nice second choice, and I can’t really knock it. A free-standing pitch is more practical for the kind of surfaces we’ll likely encounter on the NCT, we can bring a groundsheet to mitigate the known durability issues with UL sil-nylon floors, and it’s a perfectly fine and wonderful tent. I’m just not in love with it. Still, a second-choice tent is better than no tent at all.
Shared Sleep System: Zpacks Twin Quilt/20°F medium length / 790g,
Big Agnes Insulated Q-Core SLX with pumpsack/40”x 72” version / 1100g
“But Magpie,” you say, “you’re complaining about an additional 200g of sil-nylon when your sleeping pad weighs more than your tent!” Why yes, I am. We can put some of that down to my mercurial nature and incorrigible gear-sluttery, but mostly it just comes down to a void in the outdoor industry’s offerings. It’s really hard to find a lightweight double sleeping pad! I suppose ultralight power-couples are few and far between, so we’re not specifically catered to. Most folks solve this issue by using a strap system like the Big Agnes Pad Coupler to join to UL pads together, but these were unavailable when I was looking to buy a sleeping pad and Constantine doesn’t use a single-size inflatable pad anyway. Using our single mats side by side didn’t appeal - we don’t want any cold gaps opening up between us in the night, and the whole point of a double sleep system is to cuddle. Ultimately, the Q-Core SLX met our requirements for weight, availability and price, and we decided to go with an ultra-comfy option rather than try to finesse an inconvenient UL setup. By splitting the weight of our tent and pad between us, our packs are lighter overall than if we were each carrying a seperate sleep system and tent. At only 1100g including the pumpsack (necessary for inflation with a giant double-pad!), I’d be hard-pressed to find a combo of sleeping pad and single tent that was very much lighter.
The Twin Quilt from Zpacks was a similar choice - there’s not much in the ultralight category for two people, although here at least the offerings are truly lightweight and designed with thru-hikers in mind. I considered models from Enlightened Equipment, Feathered Friends, and Nunatak before deciding to pull the trigger on the Zpacks Twin. Why? Well, the double quilts I looked at were so similar that it mainly came down to price. The Twin quilt, while not the cheapest, was the best value in terms of the insulation-to-weight ratio. Zpacks being a slightly larger and more established cottage gear manufacturer, I was also able to find positive reviews of the Twin on third-party review sites, which made the decision even easier. The 20°F/-7°C rating is the sweet spot for three-season use, keeping in mind that quilts often feel colder than their advertised rating due to potential draftiness. I think that we’ll be nice and toasty in our double sleep system; I’m only worried that we won’t want to get out of bed!
Shared Cook System: Sea-to-Summit Alpha Pot 1.2L/ 187g, MSR Pocket Rocket 2/ 73g
We’re gonna cook on this trail. It’s not super UL of me, but personally, it’s a no-brainer. We’ll be hiking hard for 4,600 miles and five months, so I want a hot meal at the end of the day. I pretty much always cook on trail - I’ve got a fussy little princess of a stomach, and that means I’ve got fewer options when it comes to processed foods. If I don’t have variety in my diet, I don’t eat enough and lose weight dangerously fast. I need those fancy mashed potatoes and mac n’ cheese! The calories in cooked food are more bioavailable than those in cold meals because your body doesn’t have to expend as much energy to digest them, and that’s also important for someone with a lightning metabolism like me. Plus, it just tastes good and makes me happy. Honestly, buying an S2S Alpha Pot was not an extensively researched decision on my part. We had it in the store I work at, I thought it looked cool, it wasn’t very heavy, and since I have a good employee discount, I bought it just for funsies. It’s been a good choice for us - the larger capacity means we only have to bring one stove along, as I can boil enough water for two meals. I think aluminum is a better choice than titanium for cooking cheesy or carby meals, since aluminum has greater heating efficiency and therefore cooks more evenly. Titanium is great for just boiling, but if I was going to be limited to boil-only meals then I’d just go no-cook and save the hassle.
The choice of a Pocket Rocket 2 was just as easy - it’s what I’ve always used, and it’s the classic backpacking stove for a reason. It’s simple, it’s lightweight, it’s reliable, and unlike an integrated system like a JetBoil, you can use it with whatever pot you want. Why mess with perfection?
Pack: ULA Ohm 2.0 / size small with roll-top closure / 930g
Packs are a problem area for me, I admit it. As I mentioned in the video, every single time I buy a new pack, I’m sure it’s the last one I’ll ever have to buy. Then, without fail, something goes wrong - the proportions are off, or the hipbelt attachment chafes my back, or I mess up when ordering and have to kludge it together with a pocket knife and dental floss. Hopefully I’ve gotten it right this go-around. I considered going back to the ULA CDT (with the sewn-in hipbelt this time!), but I already have a 45L frameless pack in my closet, so I decided I’d rather get something that filled different niche. The ULA Ohm is a nice compromise between carrying capacity and weight. At 930g, it’s not the lightest pack on the market, but it can haul an impressive amount with a 60L volume and a 30lb max recommended load. I deliberately exceeded that rating when I tried it out at home, and the pack was comfortable to carry even after I filled it with heavy art books and canned beans. I don’t love how high the carbon-fiber frame pokes up over my shoulders, but the frame is removable so I can send it home if I hate it. I also like that ULA makes their packs out of Robic nylon. For all I bashed it in the section on tents, I really like rip-stop nylon as a pack material. Yes, it does eventually absorb water and get heavy in the rain, but the high-denier fabric used in packs is more water resistant and resists soaking through. Where a nylon pack really shines is in durability and ease of use. Dyneema, for all its virtues, doesn’t perform very well when it needs to be mated with other materials - you can’t sew through Dyneema without unravelling the weave, so pack straps and other components are held on with super-strong glue. This glue has an unfortunate tendency to separate in the field, because Dyneema doesn’t stretch. If you overstuff your pack, it can only flex at the joins and seams, and all that flexing weakens the adhesive and ultimately causes it to fall apart. Dyneema will shred much like a nylon stocking wherever there’s a flaw in the weave - any tiny rip travels all the way across the panel and ends up destroying your expensive pack. Packs take a lot more abuse than tents do, so abrasion-resistance is a key factor for longevity. Dyneema is also loud. For lack of a better word, it’s squeaky. With each step you take, the stiff fabric creaks and groans as it rubs against your pack’s contents, and that noise drives me completely nuts. X-Pac is laminated and therefore sewable, so it solves some of the problems with Dyneema, but it’s still a squeaky material with zero stretch so it doesn’t do the trick for me.
Straps and hipbelts are another important consideration. Ultralight packs are generally not designed with a female body in mind, or really with anyone in mind except an average-sized man. If you’re tall, or short, or skinny, or heavy, or wide-hipped, or short-torsoed, or have a prominent chest, good luck finding a pack that fits you! I’m the same height as the average man but I’m 90% legs and shoulders, so it’s a challenge finding a pack that suits my short, hippy torso without the straps being too short for my boobs and shoulders to fit. Most manufacturers now offer an S-curved strap in addition to the standard J-curve, which they say accomodates women’s bodies better. In fact, I think the S-strap fits most hiker’s bodies better, especially men with big pectoral muscles and anyone with a larger or fatter bod. I love ULA because they offer a ton of custom fit options, so you can build out any pack to suit your particular needs. I love their hipbelt too, and even before I was using their packs regularly I would always swap out the included hipbelt with a ULA one in extra-small. I’m super skinny but I have hipbones, and their extra-small is actually padded properly - the padding stays where need it without going all the way across my belly. The ULA hipbelt’s main advantage, other than smart sizing, is the adjustment mechanism. Unlike most minimalist hipbelts, the ULA belt adjusts in two places, so you can cinch either the bottom or the top of the hipbelt tigher to accomodate curves. It really cuts down on chafing, and my pack doesn’t ride up when I walk.
Food Bag: Superior Wilderness Designs Lunchbox/ 12L white X-Pac / 100g
How much could there possibly be to say about a food bag? Oh man. I love this thing. This is the perfect item to illustrate my overall point, which is that small design choices can make a huge difference in your experience on trail. First of all, it’s X-Pac, which as we know by now will naturally hold its shape. Unlike a standard cylindrical stuffsack, the Lunchbox doesn’t create any dead space around it in your pack, so it has an even weight distribution when it’s heavy and pancakes down to nothing when it’s light. It’s waterproof, so your food stays dry even if you go for a swim, and I’ve even shoved my puffy and electronics in it before river crossings. The 12L volume combined with its rectangular profile makes it unbelievably capacious - you can absolutely stuff this thing full and it will still slide it easily into your pack. I’ve managed to fit eight days of food in here and still had room to fit my pot and smellables, which made a proper bear hang a cinch. It’s tall enough to take a Backpacker’s Panty meal without folding, and it’s sturdy enough to keep ramen from being crushed. As a bonus, it’s white, so you can see what you’re looking for while rooting around inside. This might be the best $35 + shipping I’ve ever spent in my life.
Water Treatment: Sawyer Squeeze original/ 85g, CNOC Outdoors Vecto 2L/ 76g,
two sizes of SmartWater bottles with a sportcap
Blah blah blah Sawyer Squeeze whatever, you know why I picked this. Everyone uses the Sawyer, and that’s cause it doesn’t suck. It’s not, like, good. No water filter I’ve tried has been actually good, only good-enough. The alternative, the Katadyn BeFree, works fabulously for about three days and then succumbs to unshakable clogs. I’m super curious about the HydroBlu Versa Flow filter, which CNOC actually recommends on their website, but at this point it’s far too close to my start date to start swapping out gear. According to reviews I’ve read, the Versa Flow improves on the basic Sawyer design by adding a window so you can see how dirty the filter is getting, and the threading on both the clean and dirty ends of the filter allow you to backflush it in the field without any additional equipment. You just screw a bottle of clean water onto the dirty side and squeeze the clean water through! This seems like a smart, simple design tweak to me, and I’d love to hear from you if you’ve used one - the BeFree looked great on paper too.
The CNOC Outdoors Vecto bladder is probably my second-favourite piece of gear after the Lunchbox. It’s another clever invention, a soft silicone water bladder that combines the best of a SmartWater bottle (durable & easy to fill) with the best of a Platypus water bladder (packable & easy to squeeze), and adds even more functionality with the wide-mouth slider. You just slide the plastic rail off the back of the bladder and the bag opens up completely, allowing you to scoop up water from shallow sources. You never need to open up the bladder to “burp” it (equalize the air pressure) as you do with a SmartWater bottle, and it rolls up into a neat little bundle when you’re done filtering. The soft silicone material won’t crack like a crinkly Platypus, and you can turn it inside out to clean it. I love it, I use it every day, and I think you should use it too.
SmartWater/LifeWater bottles are standard for thru-hikers at this point, but it’s not just because they’re trendy (although it is that too). They’re made from a different plastic than other disposable bottles and stand up to a lot more squeezing. The tall slim profile fits nicely in the water bottle pockets of most packs, and they don’t have nooks and crannies where mold can grow. I’m choosing to take one 1.5L SmartWater bottle with a standard cap as my main water storage and a 1L bottle with a sportcap to drink out of. I don’t know why, but you can only get the sportcaps on the 700ml size bottles, so I just bought one at the airport and transferred it to my main bottle after I drank the water. The sportcap means I don’t have to stop to drink - I can just flip the cap open with one hand and keep on walking. Depending on how the water availability shakes out in real life, I may also add a wide-mouth Gatorade bottle to my lineup for more capacity, and so that I can have both plain water and drink mix in my pack at the same time.
Trekking Poles: Black Diamond Distance FLZ Women’s/ 105-125cm / 445g
I hate conventional trekking poles. I specifically hate carrying them, because they’re awkward to manuver when you’re scrambling and they’re awkward to stash when you don’t need them. I tried hiking without poles, I tried hiking with a single pole, and it turns out that I actually do need to hike with two poles to get my best athletic performance. Fortunately for me, the Distance FLZ poles have come into existence, and I’m really stoked to try them out! You used to have to choose between a fixed-length folding z-pole that made shelter set-up a pain, or an adjustable length pole that was bulky when stored. With these, you get the best of both worlds - they completely collapse to fit into a water bottle pocket, but you can still adjust the length at the top, albeit in a limited 15cm range. I’m pretty sure that’s all I need! Anyway, I got a discount on these so I have nothing to lose by giving them a try.
Clothing
I’ll just cover this whole category as a group, since I didn’t go through a detailed research process for most of these items and my technical choices are fairly obvious. The Ghost Whisperer puffy is the jacket for thru-hiking, and I’ll admit that I partly went for this jacket over others because I wanted to be cool. It’s a status item, but it got popular because it works really well. 800-fill down is always going to be a great choice - basically, the higher the number, the more warmth you get for the same amount of weight. 850-plus fill power down does exist, but it’s really expensive for not much benefit, so 800 is the sweet spot for me. The Helium II jacket is also standard thru-hiking kit, and that’s cause they’re really lightweight and cheap. I kinda want to upgrade to proper Gore-Tex Paclite at some point, but yikes that shit’s expensive, even with my outdoor industry pro-deals. The Helium II keeps me dry enough, and my wallet can only handle one premium jacket at a time. Merino baselayer tops are another no-brainer - merino’s super warm for the weight, and it resists body odour better than synthetic materials. You do need to spend the money on good-quality merino, and Icebreaker makes some of the best. If the sheep are treated well, the quality of the wool is that much better, and keeping sheep happy costs money. I went cheap with both my midlayer and my baselayer pants because it doesn’t really matter - my legs don’t get that cold, and the midlayer only comes out on truly frigid days, so it doesn’t get that smelly. I don’t bring a midlayer on most adventures, but we’ll be finishing this hike in October and I think I’m probably going to need it. Darn Tough socks are another thru-hiker staple, being extremely durable and unlikely to cause blisters, and it’s what I’ve already got. Everything else just comes down to preference and availability.
I think that’s everything I wanted to talk to you about today! I’ll go into my repair items and first aid kit in detail in another post, this is long enough as it is. Thanks for nerding out with me! This gave me all the excuse I needed to go deep on material science and engineering, and I don’t know a better way to spend a quarantine afteroon.
Talk soon,
Magpie
