I was very happy to get a night out in the woods this weekend - I hear they're calling it S24O these days - we just call it a quick overnighter.
We had three main goals for this trip - one, to get our first cool night camping in for the season. Two, to do some awesome rock climbing (no pictures of that, unfortunately). And three, to PLAY WITH GEAR!!! And play we did.
First, the knives...
The Scrap Yard Scrapper 5 LE and Son of Dogfather were put hard to work splitting some wet and green wood to try to find something that would actually burn...
The little lady striking a UST Sparkie one-handed firesteel. Cool little gadget. For tinder, it's dryer lint with a little bit of fuel from my alcohol stove. Our lint doesn't light particularly well because it's mostly animal hair :doh:
and the fire a-roarin!
Tools of the trade near the fire
And some other toys we brought along... some high quality flashlights. That's my Black Diamond headlamp, a Fenix L0D AAA light, a Fenix TK20 2xAA light, and an Olight T10 CR123A light. All three were awesome, but the Olight really threw some light.
It was a beautiful brisk night, lows dropped a few degrees below 40. Not too cold but cool enough to test some winter gear...
All meals were cooked with a Trangia burner in a Clikstand and Evernew titanium pot. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the clikstand without the windscreen.
As usual, we slept in our hammocks, testing out some new gear setups, like a winter pitch of my OES 12x10 winter tarp... I've used this one a few times, but always in two-hammocks-under-one-tarp hangs, and this was the first time using it in a winter pitch.
Inside the tarp, with the doors closed up, it's mighty toasty...
And with the "snakeski...." I mean "tarp tubes" pulled up around the tarp, you can see my Warbonnet Blackbird hammock with a Hangnout modular underquilt for bottom insulation. This quilt can be separated into a 3/4 if I'm feeling adventurous. I haven't used it in the 3/4 configuration yet, but it was pretty warm.
And finally my fiance made her own underquilt, a ridiculous winter version, differentially cut, with massive amounts of loft to keep nice and warm.
All in all, not a half bad night in the woods....
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