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Post by woodyz on May 24, 2012 16:57:54 GMT -7
Love the sleep system. I used to travel and share rooms with a man who can pop a window out of a hotel room with his snoring. he claimed I did too, but I stayed up one night to see and I didn't. We used to fight to be the first asleep. Finally I figured out if I let myself get close and then brought up a change for the next days presentation he would start thinking about the change and I would go to sleep first. It took him more than six months to figure out what I was doing.
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Post by heysmithy on May 24, 2012 19:06:52 GMT -7
I like the wool blanket for summer camping. I don't know why.. it's not as warm, it's heavier, and it itches... Also that crap they tell you about how it stays warm even when soaking wet... yeah that's not true. It works better than soaked cotton, but it's not what some people seem to think it is.
Still I like it for some reason. Probably the same reason I like wooden canoe paddles over plastic ones, or Zippos over Bics, or leather over Goretex, or bolt action rifles over semi-autos. It just makes me feel good to do things the way people did it before I was around.
But the blanket is no replacement for a sleeping bag, I have to say. It's a completely different thing. You can sleep as warm as anything else, but it's a lot more prep work. Hours of prep for a firebed if its gonna be especially cold.
That reminds me as well, if you're not planning on building a firebed (and who really does that on a regular basis?), bring a ground mat. A ground mat, in my opinion, is just as important as your blanket or bag.
Illustrative story: I went catfishing/camping out at the lake with this guy just about 2-3 months ago. I brought a wool blanket, ground mat, and a few extra bits to keep me warm (sock hat, gloves, etc.). The guy that went with me brought a 20 degree bag (I think) and a tarp to lay on. He was so cold from not being insulated from the ground, he kept getting up and building our fire up just huge! I was actually hot, sweating. I gave him my gloves and stuff, but it didn't seem to help him much. He burned through all our firewood and we had to get up at about 4am to go get more... Lesson: bring a foam ground mat if you plan on laying on the ground. They only weigh like 6 ounces or something anyway, light as a balloon.
I know my Thermarest kind of contradicts what I said about the doing things the old way... whatever, still worth it. And I don't have any deer skin mats to lay on because I'm way more wasteful and less awesome than I should be.
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Post by heysmithy on May 24, 2012 19:26:55 GMT -7
WC the look on your face here cracks me up. Is he terribly lost? Or trying to find a good spot for a poop? Calculating trajectory for a trebuchet? Just daydreaming? Is he looking at something amazing? Is it bigfoot? Maybe somebody just popped out of the woods, told him to "drop it", and he's thinking about going for the quickdraw? Haha, I could write a book about this picture.
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Post by offtrail on May 24, 2012 19:37:28 GMT -7
Summer time blanket with a reflective fire and a tarp. Cold weather sleeping bag.
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