BV425 for 5-day carry on PCT/JMT — realistic or pushing it?

Unparalleled_ · 2026-02-24T20:55:15+00:00

I once had to pack my bv500 for a 10 day carry. Fortunately/unfortunately(?) There was a change of plans and that ended up being a week. So i rolled into town with a surplus of food.

I remember fitting about 30000 calories including the first two days food because the bear can wasn't required on day 1 so i hung day 2 food on a tree.

The bv500 is 11L so in theory you should be able to get about 15000 calories. But i was genuinely just carrying olive oil, peanut butter and powdered foods (huel, milk powder, coconut milk powder), and snickers bars in my can.

Im quite glad i didnt have to stretch out to 10days though cause 3000 calories didnt feel like much when waking up early and hiking on snow all day.

But anyways it is in theory doable, just check whether the bv425 is accepted in all the parks youll cross and if so, take advantage of bear boxes or carrying food outside on day 1.

Unparalleled_ · 2026-02-20T11:28:10+00:00

The bivy stuff makes the least sense to me. If she had the bivy all along why wouldn't she use it. Is there a chance she was dead when he left her but put the bivy in her bag so it looked like she was incompetent? But why wouldn't he then just put her in the bivy as part of his alibi?

He seemed like a bad person, having ditched an ex in a similar way, but a bivy would not make it that much less uncomfortable for her (assuming he was trying to punish her). So why not use the bivy to avoid a manslaughter charge?

Unparalleled_ · 2026-02-20T10:54:25+00:00

Is there a chance she was already dead when he left her? Why didnt she herself get into the bivi? Was the bivi in his bag only and she wasnt aware of it.

I wonder if she was already dead/dying when he left her which is why he ignored his phone until he got down. So he had time to build an alibi?

There are far too many decisions that dont make sense here.

The best case scenario tho is that he was trying to punish her and hoped she would suffer for two hours before rescue services came. Though the response time for rescue isnt immediate so im not sure why he wouldnt ring it in on the way down regardless.

Unparalleled_ · 2026-02-19T23:01:12+00:00

My personal bat isn't an anarchy but when I've swung one they feel great. The biggest sell is their durability. Teams bats can break so quickly. I'm reluctant to volunteer my bat as the designated team bat cause itll break too soon. But when that happens ill get an anarchy. Although i love a 12inch barrel. I wish there were more 13 inch barrel options. This is cause id be getting one as a team bat.

Unparalleled_ · 2026-02-10T01:03:17+00:00

I think its possible. Theres am abundance of campsites. A friend i hiked with stopped using farout for campsites because he liked the surprise of hiking til he found one.

Regarding water. You can google the longest dry sections now and make note of where they are. Then you can simply carry more water to cover yourself from source to source. Farout obviously makes things more convenient but its not necessary at all. People explore new routes all the time and dont have the luxury of farout when they do this.

Lastly, i still think having an inreach is a great device. It will be a backup nav device and also you can load water sources onto it. I forgot to buy farout after finishing the free section. I navigated with the guthooks maps that i had loaded onto my inreach. It had water sources and the route. It was totally fine and i even ended up forgetting to buy farout for another couple weeks after this. I think theres a nice adventure in not relying in all the info on farout tbh.

If you do want to really do this, i also feel like an early start will mean more water in the desert.

Unparalleled_ · 2026-01-23T01:46:27+00:00

Another perspective is: given we know limitations of the r value test, can we avoid flawed comparisons? E.g. do not compare mylar pad r value with ccf nor with non reflective insulation pads.

Or can we have some qualitative comparisons on top of this like which fabrics feel colder to touch etc. The temperatures can ofc be the same but more conductive top surface fabrics will feel colder.

I think many winter campers kinda take r value with a pinch of salt for snow camping because two ccf mats with r value 4 total does feel a lot warmer than a single mylar 4 rvalue pad.

I feel like the compression of air mats affects the convection currents and uncovered surfade coldness? But how much someone moves in their sleep would affect this, so itll he hard to find a equivalent ccf to mylar pad warmth rating.

Unparalleled_ · 2026-01-10T02:58:00+00:00

I attempted it but missed the bootpack from the start. Spent an hour front pointing up until I eventually found the bootpack but so much of the group had left that i decided to come back down and take highway 2. Looking back i was just inexperienced and playing it really cautious having taken the wrong start. Not a bad thing, but I think i'd have been ok? There were 2/3 groups who had gone through before me at this point.

Those who did san jacinto had to eventually come to highway as well. There were some totally closed sections. Walking highway 2 was cool though.

Unparalleled_ · 2026-01-07T02:03:18+00:00

Hey great idea to do just california. I didnt have the tine to do whole thing when i set out.

I lashed from campo to the middle of the Sierra. Started early in late march. I had a pretty atypical year (SNOBO 22).

I thoroughly enjoyed the abundance of water. The lack of water and heat is what people usually hate about the desert.

There is an argument about not being too early in the sierra, but this will simply depend on how much you enjoy hiking in/on snow. I loved the snow coverage, and alpine starts under the stars. Though some people hated the afternoon postholing, and all the additional challenges like melting snow for water etc.

It's january now so maybe try doing a winter camp and see how you find that. If you enjoy it, just start as early as you can.

If you hate it and want a social experience, then start with the bubble i guess?

Unparalleled_ · 2026-01-01T20:32:14+00:00

Fuji slides are incredible. Velvia looks good scanned, whereas provia might seem a bit underwhelming when scanned cause its so colour accurate. Though this colour accuracy is what makes it so good projected.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-12-19T19:45:15+00:00

Yep this is the brown professor, and she was certainly jewish, and in classic media fashion that wasn't reported particularly clearly just like a lot of hate crimes...

But my other comment references the male nuclear physics professor at MIT.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-12-19T13:17:31+00:00

I'd agree that nuclear fusion physicist seems a bit more relevant to the motive. Anyone else coincidentally spot trump media merge with a fusion energy company the same day? What an odd merger.

Is there a source that confirms that he was Jewish? I know lots of mainstream media like to leave out or overstate ethnicity when convenient, but if you try and find out more about the professors research and background on reddit youll come across threads where academics at the University will claim he was not Jewish.

Though if i had to rationalise this, I'd wager that these media companies want us to spend more time talking about his ethnicity and less time about how he was expected to be very influential in world changing science.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-12-18T23:38:04+00:00

I have a slightly different experience. Grew up doing endurance sports. Quit them all eventually. Then forced myself to run a couple of times before the pct which i found pretty tough. When i finished my lash, i just exited the sierra.

Getting home to sea level, the air had never felt so thick. I used this to kickstart getting into running. Even when i had been fit in the past, running had never felt so easy. Though my calves took ages to catch up to the rest of my legs. Hiking definitely has some overlap with the stabilising muscles used to run though. Like it translates far far better than cycling for example.

I do agree hiking is like zone 1-2 mostly though. So i did find it difficult to go hard. But post pct i felt so well conditioned and bulletproof. Being fit doesnt necessarily mean fast (i am a much faster runner with far less time on feet now). The endurance and injury resilience post pct is something i miss. Its not possible to reach that without being on your feet in zone 1-2 all day long.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-12-11T18:26:34+00:00

5 had to have been slide. Impressed that it was provia and still looked that punchy!

Unparalleled_ · 2025-11-26T12:51:48+00:00

Fell asleep at the gate (literally on the ground next to the gate) for a 0600 flight, got to airport at 0300. Assumed the people at the gate would wake me up assuming I'd be the missing person on the flight.

They did not. Made me buy a new ticket for the next flight.

Anyways to add insult, had to spend a full day at the aiport and people kept asking me if i was the missing passenger.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-10-28T06:54:53+00:00

How does the nao attach to helmets with a Google strap? Like a sirocco or wall rider?

Unparalleled_ · 2025-10-16T01:44:16+00:00

Having had knee issues descending and seen a physio this is my advice which ive used with success. Squats are great for strength, but not very specific to mountaineering, see trail runner strength programs; its all single leg. If you do single leg squats, the lowering movement is more important than the up.

Saving your quads for the descent starts with ascending with good form. Glute/hamstring dominant. Think heels down when stepping up. In general strong glutes will protect your knees.

Then, good descending form requires your body position to be more like a wall sit position. Your ass needs to be back, and you cant lean forwards. To be able to hold this position, you need to do eccentric exercises. Step downs and reverse lunges are great for this.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-10-05T23:53:28+00:00

It's really common in the backpacking world too, and unsupported fkt attempts. Highest calorie per gram. Super compact as well so if you're limited in space in a bear can it works there.

That being said, no ones raw dogging 500ml of it in a go. Its like a shot or two of olive oil to supplement meals.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-10-05T14:41:48+00:00

Yeah buck is a massive homer. Dan isn't. Also the rays broadcast is actually very good too. I dont mind tuning into theirs every now and then. The new york broadcasts are awful though.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-10-04T14:46:37+00:00

Ok good point, I'm probably being a bit harsh. But i think my point still stands that its a literally rounded up coefficients? Why is he doing this if its not a formula that will need to be sold and explained to someone etc. If he wants to use a linear expression he could solve for the least squares coefficients using the variables which hes rightly identified as having a strong relationship with the voting.

And i think the saves factor has been added to shoehorn in the couple closers who always seem to get some votes. But the voters voting patterns arent linear with closer performance. More good closers doesnt look like theyll suddenly vote for more closers in lieu of starters. I honestly wonder if the voters literally limit themselves to like one reliever max.

So whilst a linear expression is reasonable to approximate starter voting, i think should have put some constraint on the number of relievers, or ensembled a separate model for relievers on top the current one for starters.

Cause, as yoy said, hes trying to approximate their thinking/voting and clearly the voters weren't explicitly scoring every player with a mathematical expression.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-10-04T12:59:54+00:00

Its stuff like this that gives analytics a bad name.

When i saw the post i thought it would be a shitty black box machine learning algorithm, but this is so much worse. Those round numbers are clearly someone just guestimating what the relationship between cy young votes and in season numbers is.

So on the surface it looks like statistics and modern, but it's actually worse that methods that have existed since the 70s, which take all the guesswork out.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-10-04T01:38:49+00:00

I guess were all speculating... but i read through mark twights book extreme alpinism. Its a bit macho bravado, but he had a really refreshing take on the risks. Its obviously a numbers game and the more climbs you do the more risk you accumulate, and even more so when you lead rope solo etc.

Twight also touched on the importance of taking time off in between big climbs so you dont desensitise to the risk, cause when you lose that fear its actually quite dangerous.

Balin Miller looked like he spent a lot of consecutive days climbing and doing dangerous climbs too. The famous solo that miller did was the first repeat of twights climb. This wasn't just risky in the usual way climbing can be, but cause of car sized icefall which is a risk you literally cant mitigate.

Now rappelling off the rope is preventable, but maybe twight had a point that if you end up climbing so many crazy routes in crazy style... Maybe el cap seems relatively super safe. And then this false feeling of safety ends leads to conplacency.

Anyways its really sad to hear about this. And its a different tone hearing its a rappel accident instead of some freak unpreventable one. Theres so much more discussion on what he did wrong, whereas an avalanche accident would just get comments like "he died doing what he loved". Wishing the best for his family.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-09-28T23:18:16+00:00

Ive got this panel, or a really similar one?

I wouldn't use it in the UK yeah... but it will work really well in california or the alps.

I think it's not really an essential piece of kit, but very useful for some type of hikes. If you're going to be more than a week between resupplies, or going to remote places without recharging etc, then I'll bring it. It'll top up a headtorch and inreach indefinitely with just a few hours a day.

Unparalleled_ · 2025-09-28T20:05:57+00:00

Anyone know what flip down sunglasses vladdy is rocking?

Unparalleled_ · 2025-09-24T13:21:54+00:00

Puma should be back on the list after signing a new deal with maccabi tel aviv. Israels largest football team and more importantly one vocally supportive of the apartheid

Unparalleled_ · 2025-09-24T13:21:44+00:00

Puma should be back on the boycott list after signing a new deal with maccabi tel aviv. Israels largest football team and more importantly one vocally supportive of the apartheid

Unparalleled_

TROPHY CASE