Posts by Sherwood Botsford
The link to the image of your pack is broken, so I'm going to generalize. I still prefer my external frame pack (hard to find nowadays) I will gladly live with the extra pound to have pockets, and...
You blow up your pad every night with hot humid air from your lungs. You deflate it every morning. That water vapour condenses in the pad. Getting the water vapour out requires letting the pad s...
Cause of dew: You have a local surface that is below the dewpoint. It has gotten enough colder than the air, that water condenses on it. Dew is heavy on clear nights (more surface radiation cool...
Edit: A comment pointed out that I didn't answer the question. Dry cotton is a good insulator, and most cotton t-shirts are thicker on average than synthetic shirts. A typical cotton tee in dry ...
Intro: You can get wet from sweat or wet from rain, or a combination. The waterproof breathables depend on the outside surface being not wet. So the outside layer has to shed water. This genera...
I've owned both. I've also used CPVC and Royalex canoes on trips. Aluminum is noisy. You don't have to tell people that you hit a rock. They will hear, even over the roar. It's cold. If you s...
I've had this happen on trips a lot. (You take 20 teenage males into the bush...) There aren't that many pathogens that thrive on people. Your biggest problem is not the lake, but the sleeping b...
In terms of heat loss, they are marginal at best. However.... I had aluminum coated emergency tarp -- silver on one side, bright orange on the other. I found that sleeping under the stars that ...
If you are normal weight,then I would strongly suggest wearing whatever runners you wear day to day. Your feet are happy in them. Your body mechanics are used to them. I would never recommend 5...
If she is easily doing 10 km now, then a one shot of 15 km isn't unreasonable. Yes it will be a challenge. You may have some tears toward the end. Tips: Assuming typical alpine country, -- lots ...
Part of it is the distance from the sun to the horizon. In the tropics the sun path angle is nearly at right angles to the surface. Sunsets are short. The time between 10 degress above the horiz...
As a kid carrying papers in Idaho I had the over the head ear muffs that were acrylic synthetic fur inside and out. They were certainly good to 0F, probably to -10 F. Features I looked for: ...
River crossings: I've done a couple dozen three week trips on the Canadian Shield, most in Northern Saskatchewan, but also northern Alberta and the N.W.T. I think the following will be applicable...
If you can leave your crap there, you can leave the toilet paper too. Both will degrade fairly rapidly. Much of this is aesthetics rather than impact. No one wants to find tufts of toilet paper ...
Your solution isn't a bad one. Adding whatever fleece you have under the raingear would help. Putting your feet in your pack will help keep them warm. Much depends on other factors. How cold is...
The usual place this happens is a finger, ear, occasional other places. If you are close to town, and have good insurance by all means, tape it in place to minimize movement, and go see a doctor. ...
I have not seen this protracted to the scale of weeks. This is a common effect in my experience, but I've never seen an effect beyond a few days. I used to do dog sled expeditions in the Rockie...
The issue: hard gunk on the rope decreases flexibility of the rope. Fibers may break when the gunk spot is flexed. My suspicion: Kernmantle ropes will suffer less than conventional laid ropes. ...
As the elevation increases, the boiling point of water drops. This makes cooking times increase enormously. You may want to essentially ignore cooking, and rely on cold food, and warm drinks. T...
Other jurisdictions: When I was younger I would drive part way from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to Lake Louise. I'd go to 2 o'clock Creek which was on Abraham Lake. There I would pull off the road...
He's on the take. Contact the main office, explain the whole thing. They may wish your help to nab him. In general I don't know any jurisdiction where getting the permit after getting caught a...
GPS's are subject to 'jitter' The GPS signal has several sources of error. Jitter, under good conditions is fairly constant around 2 meters. There is a longer term error of about 7 meters that is ...
While the following won't absolutely prevent it, it will help: Set up a hand washing station in camp. The easiest one of these is a perforated ladle made from a pop bottle. Size the holes so tha...
An epi-pen buys you 15 to 30 minutes. You can follow up with benadryl for other antihistamine. But the patient needs to understand what to do. For a back country activity the patient needs suffic...
Try thick socks and 1 to 1.5 boot sizes larger. In passing: I used to take a 9 or 9.5 Now I take 11. Feet keep growing. Lookup custom boots. For decades the White Boot Company in Spokane ...
