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[pct-l] threrma-rest with a leak and MSR



I've looked at the cost and weight of the therma-rests for a long time now 
and just can't seem to come to justify either.  I am shocked beyond belief 
that all of you "ultra-lighters" carry such a heavy thing just for the sheer 
leasure of it!

I have particularly boney hips and shoulders that seem to find the thinnest 
spot of any pad system.  So on my last short hike I came up with a 
semi-double closed cell pad idea.  I took my normal, inadequate, full size 
closed cell pad and added a half section of another old pad to allign with my 
shoulders to my hips and laminated the two with a few spots of hot glue.  
Sewing them together might work better.   Regardless, the pad performed well, 
provided me with a comfortable sleep, cost me nothing (because I used my old 
pads) and weighs a lot less than any of the therma-rests that I have seen.  . 
  .   .  food for thought.

A stove fireball story from 1977 (that I have recounted here before and I 
think gets better every time I tell it ;-):

"The Unfortunates" (so named for several incidents similar to the following) 
had a four man tent and, I think, a Svea stove.  One evening in high winds 
they found the only protection from the wind for cooking was to be found in 
the tent and so one guy was priming the stove as another was sitting behind 
him in the tent preparing food.  All of their backpacks and the other two 
were outside.  The stove suddenly fireballed into the guy priming it, burning 
his eye lashes, brows and the front of his hair, and igniting the roof of the 
tent.  He instinctively rolled back and out of the door of the tent.  The 
other guy in the tent sat in astonishment as the tent roof rolled into fire 
toward him with no apparent escape.  He quickly looked around surveying his 
options to suddenly recall an open Swiss Army knife on the floor at his side. 
 He snatched it up, sliced the wall of the tent open and rolled out before 
the fire reached him.  All four watched in silent horror as their tent was 
rapidly consumed by the fire into several small puddles of flaming nylon.  
The moral of the story is: the weakest link can KILL you!

Happy Holidays,

Greg "Strider" Hummel