Some folks did not find my instructions quite clear enough about this (here: http://www.theultralighthiker.com/sambar-deer-stalking-102/). These pictures may help. You can pitch a 5’ x 7’ nylon poncho as quite a good dry shelter (with a fire out the front). Tie the centre of one of the 7’ sides to a tree (or stick) about […]
Pitching the Poncho: Warning: This may save your life: Read More »
Most everyone carries too much gear (whether multi-day hiking, or just as a day pack). After my first solo hike of the Dusky Track Fiordland in 2006 (http://www.theultralighthiker.com/dusky-track-adventures-1/), the first thing I did when I came home was throw mout my old expensive hunting daypack. I had spent some time working out how to carry
I have completed this design today. I know it will make a wonderfully comfy shelter for 2-3 people. The photos are of the prototype. The tent is 6’ (1.8m) high at the front. Some finishing work and bush-testing is needed, but if you are keen to make your own and try it out, here goes:
I guess I started doing this over 50 years ago before I was 13 (or so). One of my first projects was (what is now called – there was no name, or thing then) a bivy bag (or swag) which I sewed out of PU coated 2oz green ripstop nylon as I didn’t have a
Weigh less than half what snap-lock bags do (and beat everything else hands down), eg a camera pouch weighs 1.6 grams! Given that you need to sort your pack gear some way, you probably have a dozen or more bags which could be replaced with these beauties – probably saving you the equivalent of ½
Short of water: Suck a Pebble. This was my dad’s advice when I was a youngster. I thought at the time it was just a trick to prevent a dry mouth; something like chewing gum, but it has a more important feature: it prevents you breathing out through your mouth, THUS enormously reducing respiration water
Surprisingly perhaps that’s where the world’s largest rivers are. Extracting this humidity from the atmosphere is not necessarily that difficult. In the Atacama Desert in South America there are whole towns which garner their water supply from dew/fog screens which harvest humidity http://www.windows2universe.org/vocals/water_clouds.html . Pliny the Elder wrote of desert island (Hiero in the Canaries)
HIKING FOOD: We are always working on this: one thing is pretty certain: those dehydrated meals sold in hiking shops & etc are almost universally inedible. We did a survey of them, cooking them up and sampling them at lunchtime at home, rating them: edible, palatable, inedible, disgusting etc. Then we fed them to our
I have camped out in hammocks a lot. I have tried Hennessy’s, but find it almost impossible to keep my back warm in them, or to keep a sleeping mat under me for that purpose. Della can do it though. A conventional hammock with an inflatable mat is just fine for me. The original rectangular Thermarest
PACKS: A comfy pack will certainly make the difference between a hiking experience being enjoyable and its being a nightmare you are not going to want to repeat. When I was a young teenager I started out with an old ex-army framed pack which was hideously uncomfortable as soon as you put any weight in
