[pct-l] Legs of the PCT (Lint and Anish)

[Scott Williams]

I'm with Diane.  I always wash my legs and feet before getting under my
quilt or bag at night.  If I'm anywhere near a stream I use ample water,
and if not,  I use a tiny bit of water I've carried and a dedicated small
scrap of backpacker towel.  Having clean feet and legs and always sleeping
in my regular hiking clothes keeps enough of my body oil out of my bag that
after hiking the CDT in 2012 and then re-hiking the Winds and Glacier NP
this year, my ZPacks 20 deg quilt is clean enough to use on a thru hike
next year without a wash.

The only extra sleeping clothes I ever use, and only in really cold
weather, are my WM down pants which add considerable warmth to whatever bag
I'm sleeping in.  I used them during a very snowy traverse of the High
Sierra in 2010 and for the San Juans in 2012.  What I like about adding
them to the "gear" arsenal is that when things warm up, and that's most of
either hike, I just send them home and don't have to carry a heavier bag
all summer, or have two bags to trade out.  They're just plain comfy and
one of my favorite pieces of gear!

Other than a few really cold nights in the New Mexican desert and a few
weeks in the snowy San Juans where I zipped up the quilt into its bag
formation, most of the time I was able to use it as a quilt just loosely
draped over me.  Not squeezing into a bag and laying heavily on a good
part, which is underneath, goes a long way toward keeping the bag cleaner
than if always used as a closed sleeping bag.

And for what it's worth, I used the 2lb WM 20 degree bag on the PCT and the
1lb ZPacks 20 degree quilt/bag on the CDT and there is no comparison.
 Joe's 1lb bag still looks like new (even though the CDT was a longer hike
and I used it again for a month this year) and the WM 2lb bag looks very
much used.  The loft of the ZPacks makes it look like a new bag, and I had
a number of people comment on this during the past summer, and the WM just
looks kind of dead.  Both were used hard, though mostly as a quilt, and the
ZPacks stood the test much better.

Shroomer


On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 5:26 AM, Diane Soini <dianesoini at gmail.com> wrote:

> I know, huh! I guess when you can solve a problem with gear people
> are happy. Fortunately the trail beats that nonsense out of you.
>
> On Oct 27, 2013, at 9:33 PM, Carol wrote:
>
> > I thought about that too, Diane. Water weighs too much but the
> > weight of a bag liner is fine? Makes no sense, especially
> > considering the benefits of comfort, skin health, and extended gear
> > longevity derived from scrubbing off the grime.
> >
> > Carol
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> >> On Oct 27, 2013, at 4:26 PM, Diane Soini <dianesoini at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> Weighs a lot less than a
> >> useless bag liner that you're not going to need most of the time on a
> >> thru-hike, too.
>
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