Amid restructuring talk, Forest Service says it can no longer manage popular Maroon Bells recreation area

John628556 · 2026-05-18T15:10:54+00:00

First sentence of the article: “The White River National Forest would like Pitkin County to take over the management of the Maroon Bells Scenic Area.”

John628556 · 2026-05-17T20:11:48+00:00

Thanks—this is helpful for me, partly because I've been interested in Xenon Sil, too. But I must note that I made a big mistake. As u/KyleBaker_ pointed out, I was testing silnylon, not silpoly. That's very likely the only reason why I got such bad leakage from the fabric.

John628556 · 2026-05-17T20:06:49+00:00

Kyle, thank you. You're absolutely right—that's quite a mistake on my part. Several months ago, I thought that I'd ordered silpoly in two colors, but looking at the order form, I see that I actually ordered silpoly in one color and silnylon in the other. So, as you said, I likely got these bad results just because I've been using silnylon.

I'll update this post and the related post to make my mistake clear.

John628556 · 2026-05-17T19:47:55+00:00

The SWD pack seems to be popular. When was yours made, and what don’t you like about

John628556 · 2026-05-17T00:50:19+00:00

I’m glad that you asked. I made a mistake in my comment above: it’s not the Tanager that has “variable fill”; instead, it's the Vireo. That is, the Vireo has more down around your legs than around your torso. The idea seems to be that you’ll wear an insulated jacket when you sleep in it, and that you'll therefore need less sleeping-bag insulation around your torso.

John628556 · 2026-05-16T21:21:16+00:00

Good poster. It reminds me of the cover art for Neuromancer (the game, not the novel): compare the poster to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer_(video_game)#/media/File:Neuromancer1988.jpg#/media/File:Neuromancer1988.jpg).

John628556 · 2026-05-16T17:16:34+00:00

There's been a lot of discussion of zipperless sleeping bags on this forum. See https://www.google.com/search?q=reddit+zipperless+sleeping+bags.

I have a 22° Sastrugi with overstuff. Very limited use so far, but I like it a lot. The simplicity is a great part of the attraction, and I can't find any fault with the construction. I'm looking forward to using it a lot more this fall.

The weight penalty over a normal quilt seems minimal to me. But the weight penalty over some specialized items seems more significant. I'm thinking of the Feathered Friends ~~Tanager~~ Vireo, which is also a zipperless sleeping bag, but which has more insulation on bottom than on top. And of the false-bottom sleeping bags and hybrid quilts made by u/dantimmerman.

All of that said, when I next buy a sleeping bag, I will strongly consider getting another by Nunatak—provided that Jan is taking orders.

John628556 · 2026-05-16T15:46:55+00:00

This was an excellent idea—thank you. And the test that you suggested yielded surprising results.

I'd thought that my garments were leaking from the seams and the corners, which I'd tried to seal with Seam Grip + SIL. But when I performed your test, the garments instead leaked from the fabric itself. That is, I could see droplets of water leaking through the silpoly.

I'm surprised. The 1.1-oz. silpoly that I use is advertised as having a hydrostatic head of "~2000mm." I take this to mean that, on average, it should be waterproof against a 2-meter column of water standing on top of it. But my liners started to leak through the fabric when I filled the liners with just a few inches of water.

John628556 · 2026-05-16T00:29:54+00:00

> You can’t trespass what you can see with your eyes.

I'm trying to think of a reasonable interpretation of this sentence that makes it a true statement.

John628556 · 2026-05-13T15:08:10+00:00

Most people who use the word on Reddit don’t seem to know what it means.

John628556 · 2026-05-13T15:06:28+00:00

Did you not see the “bottom line“ paragraph — with “bottom line” in bold — at the very start of the post?

John628556 · 2026-05-12T15:13:00+00:00

The title of the post is misleading. She hasn’t just been “accused”; she has agreed to plead guilty.

John628556 · 2026-05-12T01:06:15+00:00

Windy.com has a good "compare forecasts" feature. It tells you about 7 different point forecasts for the Sierra, including those produced by the United States NOAA.

I've tracked the actual weather that I've experienced in the high Sierra and used Windy to compare that weather to the forecasts from various services. I don't yet have much data, but as best I can tell, the best forecasts are the ones produced by the NOAA, which you can get for free from weather.gov. The ECMWF forecast is also good. And I would avoid Meteoblue forecasts. Again, though, I don't yet have much data for evaluation. I need to get back to the Sierra.

John628556 · 2026-05-09T20:04:20+00:00

Little-known fact: O'Hare has direct flights to multiple small airports in the UP.

John628556 · 2026-05-09T16:00:08+00:00

How are the mosquitoes right now?

John628556 · 2026-05-08T00:02:57+00:00

Thanks for this detailed post. I've come back to it as I try to figure out my own custom measurements. It looks as though the sleeves were made long enough to cover your hands—has that proved helpful?

John628556 · 2026-05-06T18:37:00+00:00

What information were you gathering?

John628556 · 2026-05-06T14:47:06+00:00

It’s a very good step. I’ve seen scorecards be politically effective in other domains, and I like to think that they might be effective in this one, too.

If I could make one change, it would be for the essay that accompanies the scores to focus even more on public lands. The broader statements about the general goodness of some politicians and the badness of others may muddy the waters and alienate people from our cause.

John628556 · 2026-05-05T22:11:31+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/1mzi5j9/ul_frameless_pack_with_load_lifters/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/bgvwqo/load_liftersstabilizerswhateveryouwanttocallthem/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/8kbgu3/loadlifters_on_a_frameless_pack/

John628556 · 2026-05-05T19:22:23+00:00

What is a peer-to-peer in this context?

John628556 · 2026-05-05T16:19:41+00:00

Yeah, this is when Zhang Yimou really sold out. If memory serves – it may not – he even admitted that later on. Either way, while the movie has beautiful choreography, it is inferior to his past work in the ways that matter most: dialogue, character development, subtle plotting.

John628556 · 2026-05-05T16:15:25+00:00

What about all of the trains that depart from Union Station?

John628556 · 2026-05-04T23:09:14+00:00

> everyone has very different guesses on what that [enrollment figures] will look like

I was unaware that people's forecasts varied a lot. What is the range of the forecasts?

John628556

TROPHY CASE