Bags of room

So there it is. Finished. One do it yourself waist pack.

I tackled the last stages after work which turned out to be a bad move as I grappled with fitting the bits together inside out. Aka. I made a few mistakes along the way, including some I will have to live with - but it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.  It fits comfortably, even with weight in and has that tardis quality. It doesn't look so big on but seems to take a lot of stuff.  Case in point my water bottles. I designed it to take two Platypus soft bottles thinking that would fill it, but one bottle disappears into the bottom with lots of room for more. 

The bottles are actually longer than the bag, but the sides bow out to accommodate :). 

The front flap is longer than it maybe needs to be, but the pocket is just right to take a map... Swedish topo maps and UK OS maps drop right in with just a tad showing. I think the French maps I need for the Pyrenees are just a bit smaller. 

As bumbag go it's not small - and seems to sit more comfortably at the front than as a lumbar pack. It does sit nicely as a satchel too, though the compromise there is extra length on the straps when it's around the waist. 

Dimensions... 300 x 155 x 75.  

Weight... Circa 100g.

MYOG waist pack project under way

Planning ahead for the summer I want to have a waist pack I can use while hiking - both as easy to hand storage but also to take water or food. My pack's comfy as long as it is not too heavy so I thought it would be handy to offload weight direct to my hips when I have extra stuff on board. That's the plan.... 

And then I can use it off trail and touristing when I don't want to have my full pack on :) 

I have a bumbag I used for this in the summer but I figured I could make something lighter.

So, having bought in ripstop, straps and buckles, me and my trusty Elna 'Grasshopper' are halfway through doing just that.

I've designed it around a satchel style, with a fold over flap instead of a zip.  I like the old style gas mask bags, and I have no experience with putting in zips! 

Size-wise it's wide enough to fit my platypus 1L soft bottles, with a mesh pocket at the back inside and side straps to keep things packed close. There will be a pocket on the front face big enough for a map. The front flap buckles closed which leaves plenty of scope for expansion if needed.

The nominal volume is about 3l but it will probably take 5l with the sides let out. 

Side panel with adjustment strap

As always getting from a design to finished article needs a bit of thought on what sequence to do things in and how stuff will fit together. It's useful to be able to reinvent stuff on the fly... 

.. but, so far so good! 

Straps on the inside of the front flap with stiffener.

The silk road.

My latest investment.  For two years my silk liner has been ripping apart. Theconversation.com fabric is just tired and old and giving up.

So looking ahead to staying in hostels in the summer I've shelled out for a new one. After looking about I plumped for one from Treksilk - a Vietnamese firm you can readily find on Amazon. The spec says 110g for a rectangular  profile which seems par for the course. It's not been on the scale yet to see what reality says. 

My last liner was mummy shaped but I thought the squarer s ha pe would've be better for hostels and work well with the quilt in camping in warm weather. We'll see!

Postscript.  Full weight including the bag... 101g. :) 

The burning question

So, I've tried a bit of cold soak, but for a longer trip or for colder nights it's nice to be able to cook up something warm.  So that brings the perennial question of what stove?

In the past for trips I've always used a Trangia most recently variants on the one man mini version. But I have a collection of old Meta stoves as well.  That's small stoves that burn meta tablets - or Esbit tablets these days. So my plan is to use one of those together with a Vargo Triad burner. 

The burner is titanium and a lot lighter than the traditional Trangia brass one. Yes. It's more than a soda can stove but so far I've been to lazy to make one of those. :) 

The stove uses alcohol, or you can turn it over and use it with Esbit tablets or gel. 

There's always a first time for everything so yesterday I fired it up with 3dl of water in a Meta 71 pot. The stove took a long time getting going (the alcohol needs to gas off to get a full burn). Once it did it was 6 minutes twenty to get a boil. Slow...  But to be honest I don't mind. What else am I going to do out on a bare mountain? 

More interesting is how much fuel does it use?  As best I could measure all up 8g. If we say 20 that gives 20 burns off a 250ml bottle with circa 200g of fuel.   That's not bad. 

The weight.. 24g for the stove and 65g for the pot. I may swap the lid for just foil dropping it to 50g. And it needs  a windshield. 14g. 

So 88g in total plus fuel.  And for that I get coffee, tea, soup, porridge and a variety of warm cold soak meals. Not bad I reckon. 

Reading afterwards slow starting is a known problem, most easily solved by burning a few drops of fuel under the stove in e.g. a bottle top or the base from a soda can. That'll be my next test! :)