We were running back to the church through a heavy thinderstorm. We got inside, I sat down, crossed my legs and **rriiiipppp**. It split all the way up the side. It tore at the back snap sometime ago, but I thought itust have been my fault somehow. Nope. Just now Ipulled the fabric apart gently with my fingers and *rriiippp* again.
I contacted Purple Rain and told them what happened. Rattle’s kilt and the previous one I own are all just fine. They said that they made a limited run of kilts out of a fabric leftover at the workshop just to make space. Sadly, this fabric isn’t holding up at all. They are sending me another kilt, free of charge and made with their standard material, so all is well. Thanks for making it right! This company is awesome, and I was surprised to have this issue.
Meanwhile, with the help of thrift store pants and a headlamp band I found in a hiker box, I am once again clothed and ready to hike the Winds in hiker-trash style.
I had to walk across a city to get it, but here’s my next ULA Ohm. The one I’m retiring (for now) has waaay over 3,000 miles on it, and the shoulder strap padding is almost paper thin and failing. Hope this helps my shoulder pain!
I’ve been meaning to get around to this post for a while. I’m sitting on the Greyhound bus from Grants to Albuquerque and have some down time so here it goes. The pre-hike pack breakdown. I deleted a couple of items so those will be noted.
Here’s the pack in yard sale mode. I’ll go left to right, top to bottom mostly.
Katabatic Flex 15° quilt & pad strings
car wash sponge pillow (deleted for now)
Therm-a-rest Z-Lite Sol
unscented trash compactor bag (pack liner)
Yama Mountain Gear bug net
8.5′ x 10′ Hammock Gear Dyneema Tarp w/ Zing-it guylines
Body Wrappers ripstop warmup pants (wind pants, cheap, great!)
Patagonia down sweater (great! 2nd thru hike!)
clothes stuff sack (as a pillow mostly)
Altra Lone Peaks
I deleted the cold soak jar since we’ve had waterless lunches and / or just don’t want to cold soak food this trip. I’m diggin’ hot meals at night when it gets cold. Many of these items I carried on the AT thru hike but a couple have been replaced. The trek poles are new only because I had an unused spare pair of the exact same type even though the older pair still have thousands more miles left in them. If you have them and the cork handles ever get a gouge, stabilize it with some glue or they’ll crumble a little. The kilt is new since I needed a smaller size, but the AT kilt is still good. The quilt is new because I hiked the AT with one and it had an issue so Katabatic let me keep the old one and sent me a new one. It is just slightly too warm for conditions now, but I may love it soon enough. If I had to do it again, Id bring a 22° until fall, but we’ll see. We’re skipping Colorado for now. Until then, the quilt completely unzips into a trapezoid so I can ventilate.
I absolutely LOVE my ULA backpack. At the moment it is a little larger than I need, so I could downsize and I still may. It was used SOBO on the AT so the space was useful for winter gear. We haven’t hit true cold yet, but we have had long food carries which fills it out a bit. If you’re a thin guy without hips, this pack may not slide down on you. It doesn’t on me.
As for the first aid kit, the only things in it are a few bandaids, blister bandages (hydrocolloid), moleskin, leukotape stweezerstrips, 1 piece of gauze, super glue, diarrhea pills, and prescriptions. Ibuprofen, acetaminophen, benedryl, and vitamins are not pictured but ride in my pocket.
Now the damn headlamp… Black Diamond Storm 500-R. They either dropped the ball on product testing or aren’t listening to this audience. The battery, brightness, beam, and red light are all great (despite being a little heavy) but it has 2 major flaws. First, the blue battery level lights shine BRIGHTLY down into your eyes every time it is turned off and for longer than you want them to. Second but most important, the touch sensor on the side is waaaaay too sensitive. I understand that they were attempting to make the sensor glove-friendly, but if you brush it with an object, your fingernail, hair, or ANYTHING it switches to turbo power mode. This means that any time you reach to turn it down or switch modes you are immediately blinded and drawing attention from anyone around. I’m taking this POS back to REI asap. It is incredibly obnoxious.
As things change or get added / subtracted from this kit, I’ll try to update. I hope this is helpful to someone.
