How To Guide

More about DIY PFDs: 114 grams

You can make a lighter non compliant PFD which you fill with other inflatable items, eg Platypus bottles (I carry a 1 and 2 litre bottle, pillows (I carry the Exped Ultralight), wine bladders (who doesn’t have a few of them lying around?) and etc. Here is the link to Mountain Laurel Designs ‘Thing’ or

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Ultralight Pack Rafting Life Vest:

PFDs are often pretty heavy. Alpacka have this one http://www.alpackaraft.com/product/astral-v-eight-pfd/ at 554 grams which is (I imagine) about as light as they get. I discovered that inflatable PFDs you buy from boating supplies shops have an airline PFD inside them. When I stripped one down it weighed 282 grams as shown and should be adequate

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Gippsland Pack Rafting Routes:

It’s summer already, so time to get out and about and get wet all over. I want to suggest some interesting pack rafting that you can do by public transport (eg from Melbourne). Some of the following you can mix and match a bit, but I hope they give you some ideas. I need to

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Pimping a Gorilla:

You can readily shave around 300 grams off Gossamer Gear’s Gorilla (http://gossamergear.com/gorilla-ultralight-backpack-all-bundle.html or Mariposa, etc) backpack by taking out the aluminium stay, removing the hipbelt and replacing it with an ultralight webbing belt, and replacing the Sitlight pad with an Airbeam pad. The pack will ride just about as well (well, just as well when

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The Rolls Royce of Back Country Trowels: Survival Water Sources

PS: I used to think these doohickies were pretty silly when I had a pair of heels would mostly do the same sort of thing, and had done for decades – then I began thinking of digging for survival water sources, purifying the water found & etc. I decided that it might well be 13

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Powerfilm USB +AA Solar Charger on Pack

With the batteries straight out of the storage drawer (so not quite charged) it happily charged my Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini (1900 mAh battery) in this configuration at 1% a minute in dappled sunlight (cloudy Spring 20C day) yesterday. I have mounted it to my Zpacks Blast (Zero) pack with some Lineloks and Dyneema. The

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