[pct-l] Was UL Tents, now Cowboy Camping

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

That was an awesome story about the Geology trip and the rattlesnake.  
I did all the Santa Barbara City College Geology trips. I did the  
whole geology program!

As for cowboy camping, I can count on one hand the number of times I  
cowboy camped on the PCT. I just didn't like it that much. In So Cal  
it's often windy and I couldn't sleep worrying my stuff was going to  
blow away. I also couldn't sleep with all the dust blowing in my eyes  
and teeth. In So Cal there are a lot of big giant curious ants and I  
didn't enjoy them crawling all over me. I feared the velvet ants,  
although they never bothered me. So I rarely cowboy camped.

I didn't much like always being inside a tent, so I found a good  
compromise by using a poncho and a bug net some of the way (Santa  
Barbara/Hikertown to Lone Pine). The bug net (A16 Bug bivy) kept some  
of the bugs out (but not all) and the poncho gave me a wall for wind  
to break against or my stuff to blow towards.

In the Sierras and beyond, the mosquitoes would have driven me nuts  
without a tent. My Gossamer Gear One was pretty much the best piece  
of gear I had. I was pretty disappointed with the Squall Classic when  
I had to make a trade halfway through my trip, too. The One has the  
best roominess of any tarptent I've ever been inside.


On Jan 4, 2011, at 10:00 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

> Was UL Tents, now Cowboy Camping