While I’m finalizing my “First Take” review of the Patagonia Lightweight Travel Duffel, I wonder if any of you can offer some camping gear recommendations. I’m contemplating a motorcycle ride that would take me from The Middle of Nowhere (Hint: rhymes with Nebraska) to New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and home again.
A couple of nights would involve camping in mild temperatures. I’m looking for some options for lightweight gear that packs small: a one man tent, and a quality ~40 to 50°F sleeping bag. I really need gear that is light but first and foremost is really small when packed. Using compression straps is certainly acceptable. Complicating things: I rarely go camping (Translation: I don’t want to spend a grand on this stuff!)
If you have anything that you could recommend, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
April 20th, 2009 at 10:09 PM
Lightweight, minimalist super campers are their own type of superhuman. I’m not one but have a lot of respect for them. I don’t own a lot of lightweight camping gear but if I had (when I have) to go light and compact I’ll be checking out the MSR Hubba or Big Agnes Seed house 1 (I’m not ready for a tarp tent). Get a small stove that fits in your one 500ml pot/bowl. Look up pop-can stoves if you are so inclined, but there are commercial versions out there. Down sleeping bags are the lightest and most compact, but are like wet newspaper if they get soaked. Small self-inflating mats (I have a short MEC Kelvin that I love) keep you comfy. If you are drinking sketchy, but clear, water consider chemical treatments like those offered by Pristine instead of a filter – let the chlorine off-gas so that the taste is not ruined.
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April 21st, 2009 at 5:10 AM
Hi Kevin,
I have no recommendations for you other than that you should head over to http://www.backpackinglight.com/ and ask there on the forums. I’m sure they’d all love to help you!
Yvette
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April 21st, 2009 at 2:33 PM
I am assuming you will be camping at a campsite, not parking the motorcycle and hiking in 10 miles – the motorcycle equivalent of “car camping” but with less room for packing stuff. So you need to stay warm in the evening before you crawl into a sleeping bag or under a quilt, stay warm (and dry) at night, and keep warm while having breakfast before you hit the road again.
If that’s the case, the first place to start is with the kind of gear you will be wearing for your ride, since just as with air travel it pays to wear good stuff that can serve double duty – as ride gear AND as camp gear.
I would therefore favor nylon or other synthetic pants over denim pants, because good ones will shed moisture (due to a good DWR treatment) and they dry quickly if they do get wet. The old adage that “cotton kills” (in the outdoors) is based the rapidity with which cotton soaks up water (that’s why they use it for towels!) and the slowness with which it dries out.
I believe for the actual motorcycle riding you’ll need either leather chaps or overpants of some sort and a leather jacket, or an Aerostich style coverall suit with skid pads – but in either case you should be able to select synthetic pants and zipneck base layer top that will be comfortable both on the ride and in camp. Presumably the motorcycle layers come off at camp, leaving you with nylon traveler or hiking pants (Ex Offico makes the best synthetic traveler pants imho, but the Patagonia Gi II pants are also great, they also have the Roving Pants and Dispatch Pants in synthetic).
Assuming you wear a synthetic or wool top – which can vary from a Patagonia Capilene 1 or 2 tee, crew, or zipneck, or a Smart Wool microlite or midweight tee, crew, or zipneck – then once the motorcycle gear comes off, presumably your warm layer goes on.
The warmest, for it’s weight and bulk, fleece that I’ve found is the Patagonia R2, which fits “technically tight” and compresses down surprisingly well. It can double as your motorcycle warm layer under your abrasion-resistant outer layer, and at camp as an early evening jacket and then as a sleeping jacket – which will help keep you warm in a lighter, less bulky sleeping bag.
R2 is pricey, around $170. If you aren’t ready to spend that kind of dough, old-fashioned 200 weight fleece from a variety of sources will keep you almost as warm, cost a lot less, and pack only slightly bulkier. LLBean is my favorite, it is an outstanding value. Avoid the “wind resistant” versions, they are heavier and bulkier and throwing on a windbreaker is a lot better solution to wind or a drizzle.
While fleece won’t compress as well as down to save you space, it handles water much better – in a pinch if you get soaked, just wring it out and put it back on.
You can then start saving some real weight and space with a Marmot Ion thin shelled windbreaker, no lining, ultra light with hood. Put this over the fleece to keep a drizzle off and keep wind from cutting through the fleece. It is less bulky and much lighter than the Marmot Windshirt, which I live for casual wear, but which has it’s own “micro” liner.
If you think one fleece layer isn’t enough, you should probably resort to putting on your extra baselayers (you take a change or two, right?) before throwing on a second fleece or synthetic or down filled jacket. But if it does come to fleece on fleece, I’d throw on a fleece vest first, it may be enough and less constrictive than having double fleece layers.
The key to sleeping warm at night is to think of your clothing as an integral part of your sleeping system. If you are stripping down to undies to sleep in a bag, you are going to be carrying a lot heavier and bulky bag than if you keep your warm gear on when you go to bed. In addition to a fleece piece for my torso, I generally (on hiking trips) also carry synthetic long johns – Patagonia Capilene 1 or 2 are both great – which I can wear around camp under my trail pants, while walking (but only if it is crazy cold) and to bed, once again under my trail pants.
Keep in mind, too, that your sleeping pad probably provides the most critical single piece of insulation you need for comfortably sleeping – the thickest sleeping bag is no match for the ground without a pad. And a pad can insulate so well, a lot of hikers (like me) use a “bottomless sleeping bag,” or quilt, instead of the old-fashioned mummy sacks.
BTW be sure to take a wool or synthetic watch cap, we lose a lot of body heat through our heads, which don’t't have vasocontrictors, so a warm knit cap is often the equivalent to an extra sweater, if you believe the old adage.
REI has an inexpensive conventional sleeping bag, the Travel Sack +55 for only $59. Assuming you wear your warm clothes to bed and really do take a tent (overkill) you should be plenty warm with just this light, cheap bag, unless you had a cold ride and are fighting off exhaustion. (As a rule of thumb, you should subtract 25 degrees from all sleeping bag’s comfort rating for a true comfort rating, but you can come back up to the comfort rating by wearing your warm clothes.) The REI Travel Sack should pack down relatively compactly simply because it doesn’t have a lot of insulation.
If you are willing to spend a lot more money (relatively) but still be way under the typical $200-$250 mark for down bags, the Marmot Pounder might be perfect, only $169 for a 40 degree rated bag, made with Primaloft, perhaps the most preferred synthetic fill, and it is truly lightweight and compressible. I highly recommend this enduring addition to Marmot’s mostly excellent sleeping bag line.
Choose your sleeping pad carefully. The Z-Lite is pretty good, but this is the one item you will need to choose the most carefully. Gossamer Gear makes the most “technical” sleeping pads – light and compact – but their audience is pretty well-conditioned and the pad might not be warm enough or comfortable enough for you. If you are thinking in terms of luxury items and can make room for it, the self-inflating Therma-Lite Prolite Plus is a great starting point – but you should really visit REI (at least on-line) or a good camping store to check out the many sleeping pad variations. There are a ton of them to choose from!
Finally, for a tent, REI has actually done a very good job, according to all reviews I’ve read, on their smaller lighter tents. Take a look at the Quarter Dome series (if you are not claustrophobic) or the Half Dome. (Tents are like sleeping bags, they grossly exaggerate how suitable the space is for real use – if they say “2 persons” think “one average sized person somewhat comforably” – it’s not going to be much fun to have to slither, literally, into a cramped tent.)I think both the Quarter Dome and Half Dome pack down pretty small – there probably won’t be as big a difference in motorcycle camping as in packing it in. For that reason I recommend the Half Dome. A decent tent like this will set you back at least a couple of hundred dollars. You can’t use cheap here, the demands of structural integrity and materials and workmanship are much higher for a tent than a sleeping bag.
A more adventurous approach is to just take along a so-called “space blanket” (run that search on the REI website), not the ultra-thin mylar only type, but the new thicker versions that are more durable. You wrap one of these around your bag and pad and it will keep a drizzle off, the wind off, and increase the warmth of your bag. The Adventure Medical Kits Emergency Bivvy at $16 is a real steal for your contemplated use. It won’t hold up for seasons of camping, but it’s probably just the ticket for some “car camping.” One great advantage is you can wrap it around yourself to protect from a sudden downpour if you have no other shelter available to you. This is a lot better than trying to set up an unfamiliar tent under stress…. You’ll have to decide whether or not your really need the privacy provided by a tent. In terms of comfort, tents are vastly overrated.
I hope these suggestions get you started looking in some useful directions. If you are truly contemplating a long motorcycle trip PLUS back-country hiking – not just roadside camping – you are going to have a vastly greater challenge ahead of you, it’s going to be hard to carry the ultralight gear you need for the backcountry part of your journey and a heck of a lot more expensive. Most people in such a situation would probably mail the hiking gear to themselves at the trail head and then mail it back home after that side-trip, rather than trying to carry it on the cycle. This assumes you know exactly where you are going to embark on a side hike and can find a local post office or recipient (like a trail head general store or cafe) to receive and hold your gear. But like I said, I think you just want to be able to sleep in a campground or by the side of the road one or two nights, and don’t want the necessary over-night gear to squeeze out the road-trip gear.
For more research,
http://www.backpackinglight.com;
http://www.gossamergear.com
http://www.marmot.com
http://www.rei.com
BTW quilts are hard to find. Those who swear by them tend to sew them themselves (there are instructions in the Ray Jardine book). Golite occasionally has them in their line, and there are a few small mom and pop websites that offer them, but it calls for artful Googling to track them down.
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April 21st, 2009 at 4:59 PM
When you can, use a Kamping Kabin. You can have a little more comfort a few nights without the cost of a hotel room.
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April 21st, 2009 at 6:08 PM
All:
Thanks for your ideas and suggestions, they’re all helpful. This definitely would be “car camping” – we’ll probably stay at State Parks or campgrounds.
I’ll do some research and perhaps will post about the gear I use and the trip. We’ll be spending a day or so at the National Club HOG Rally in Oklahoma City, which should certainly be entertaining.
Thx again.
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April 25th, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Forget a one man tent and go with a Hennessey Hammock.
http://hennessyhammock.com/
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May 2nd, 2009 at 8:59 AM
Michael W,
Thanks for the great post! I am planning a motorcycle camping trip this summer and plan to use your advice.
My only addition would be this high-tech cot that I found on the aerostitch.com site (a great source, by the way).
http://www.aerostich.com/catal.....18894.html
I haven’t tried it yet, but have read reviews that indicate that it is much superior to a simple sleeping pad. I will give it a try and let you know what I think.
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