Packin light

[John Deere]

For a five day trip I strongly recommend not doing the Bivvy thing.....for one night or two it is ok, but would get very old very quickly after that, especially if you had to wait out a storm!

Macpac Cocoon are a good bivvy!

[AllAboutTheTele]

SA: Did you get your Jaks here in Australia? I haven't found any one who sells Karhus in Oz, at least online. With the exchange rate as it is and the cost of international shipping for skies as ridiculous as it is on most American online stores, I thought I would try a local distributor even though skies are notoriously expensive here at home.

John: Hahahaha no not looking to do the whole trip in a bivy bag! I was thinking for the food drop I might save a bit of weight, and get in a bit extra skiing, if I headed out for a single overnighter to drop off the food and get some good skiing in and check out the conditions.

[SA]

See if Paul can get them in; he is surprisingly resourceful with special orders



[size="1"][ 18. April 2009, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: SA ][/size]

[John Deere]

Down V Synthetic.....Down for the snow.....lighter and warmer!

Narrow skins will work fine as SA says. In theory you wont be able to skin as steep, and ideally the more skin the better, but they will still be more than serviceable!

[AllAboutTheTele]

John do you use your down bag in combo with a bivy? No issues of condensation or water leaking through in a snow cave?

I just wanted to make sure that having a significant gap between the edge and the skin wouldn't mean snow or water gets in under the skin detrimentally. Last season my skins provided me with more then enough traction in the backcountry, by which I mean they could go straight up anything I be bothered to walk straight up and not take an easier zig zag line.

[SA]

What kind of a significant gap are you talking about here?

My skins are cut to about a 2mm gap between edge and skin at the waist; the gap widens out to probably 5mm at the tail and even more than that at the tip. I haven't experienced snow getting under the skin.

If you can walk straight up anything it sounds like your technique is good enough to get the best out of the skins, in which case you might appreciate and use the additional grip from a shape cut the whole way along...

[John Deere]

I dont use a bivvy, I have never bothered to build a snow cave, just a tent and a down bag.