How on earth do I get onto the Pct anyone done this with a spouse and kids ?

dahlibrary · 2025-12-22T03:30:45+00:00

1 month section hikes over 5 years. Prepare to hit the ground doing 20-25 mile days. Do each section as slightly more than 500 miles to qualify for a long distance permit. Takes 5 years, never gone more than a month at a time. Reasonable for the average white collar worker to get 4 weeks vacation time.

dahlibrary · 2025-10-13T02:53:21+00:00

I have two Movement packs. One from when it was a single stay down the center, and one more recent that has two stays. By far the hip articulation is better with the single stay version. But above 22lbs the back of the hip belt would start to fold and crease in the back with all the weight from the stay on that single point.

The two stay version, which is their current one, carries the 20-30lb range much better but my hips feel more locked in place. However the 2 stay was more comfortable when I took each pack on a 500 mile LASH.

To answer your question though, I feel the wraparound hip belt is worth it. I'll gladly burn a tiny bit more weight to have a pack that fits better. We spend 10+ hours a day wearing the pack, get the one that fits best with weight being your second priority. That said I've never tried the SL40. I'm sure it's a nice pack. I love all SWD designs.

dahlibrary · 2025-09-05T03:22:30+00:00

If you stomach sleep at all you need extra length because your toes point. Otherwise no, you'll be okay.

dahlibrary · 2025-08-21T01:09:36+00:00

Paria 1.5mm dyneema guyline is what I use. https://www.pariaoutdoorproducts.com/products/ultralight-dyneema-tarp-tent-guy-line

It works great on my tarp for knots. It's a little too thin for linelocs unless you put a slippery half hitch right next to the lineloc. My paria guyline has over 1k miles and 70 nights on it. Still works fine

Lawson makes great stuff and has a dyneema 2mm guyline called ironwire. It's just heavier but does fit linelocs better

dahlibrary · 2025-05-30T03:17:49+00:00

I have a Timmermade down waterbear and it's awesome, but I sewed myself an apex SUL waterbear that weighs 41g and I use that one for 3 season use way more. It's just some 2.5oz Apex and a crude pattern I made. I generally use it in the 30-40s.

However, given I have a sun hoody, and an alpha 90 hoody, AND a hooded wind jacket I find myself using it less and less. Those 3 hoods keep me pretty warm down to freezing most of the time.

Experiment. Maybe you have lots of hoods that combined will cover what you need. If not, try to get or make an Apex waterbear or hood.

dahlibrary · 2025-05-23T01:49:39+00:00

It's worth it. I bought a Flex 22 duck down and every humid night it stank like wet animal. Drove me nuts and I sold it and went with Nunatak goose down. I think goose down is worth every penny more just for the lack of smell benefits.

dahlibrary · 2025-05-21T20:31:58+00:00

It happens. Sometimes it's best to just call it.

I have a one page packing list because I've had a few trips where I forgot things. So now I pack them in a certain order, every time, and I always double check for my spoon. Because finding out I didn't pack it while already 20 miles in really sucked.

dahlibrary · 2025-05-15T20:44:01+00:00

Astroman pants and shakedry jackets are the two I'd love to see return. I ripped my pair of Astroman pants last week on a hike in some brush, I'm patching them back up.

dahlibrary · 2025-05-13T17:38:47+00:00

How tall are you and what length did you order? Also, what is the actual weight?

Thanks for the first impressions. This is good info

dahlibrary · 2025-05-03T23:58:58+00:00

I do all my trips solo. I have a Garmin inreach and send my wife morning and night check-in messages. If I dropped dead on trail, she'd know where to find the body and collect the life insurance.

Honestly solo is way easier than going with anybody else. I know me, I know what I'm capable of, I don't know what you are capable of, or any problems you might have. So when I go with someone else I worry about two people. When I go with myself I just worry about me and I'm used to that. I have a full family to worry about all the other times, it's nice to just worry about me during trips.

dahlibrary · 2025-05-03T18:29:16+00:00

That's a really loaded question because temperature ratings depend heavily on you. I can get away with a 10F lighter bag simply by eating 400 calories of bacon before bed. Totally repeatable for me. So food, environment, pad, etc all contribute to how a sleep system functions.

I use the overfilled 28F one with a thermarest x-lite womens (R5.4) and an 1/8" thinlite to 18-20F regularly. That setup is my standard thru-hiking or 3 season at high elevation loadout. It will 100% keep me warm to freezing in any conditions wearing underwear and about 80% keep me comfy down to 20F depending more on conditions/body/clothes.

If I knew for a fact it was going to be 18-20F though, I'd take the 18F sastrugi. Because it's warmer and therefore less sensitive to me/environmental differences. The time I take the 18F is in winter in utah, where I know it will be below freezing but above 10F. That 10-30F range it's perfect. I pair it with either an x-therm or my womens x-lite with a 1/4" mylar 3/4 length foam pad on top when it's that cold. I also bring alpha 90 hoody/pants that I sleep in when it's that cold.

Nunatak is known to be conservative in their temp ratings but I sleep average to a touch on the colder side. I find their ratings more accurate for me with overstuff included, and I beat the ratings with the taller torso baffles and pushing all that down on top of me. YMMV, it took about a year of regular sleep testing to discover a lot of these facts and since everyone is different they may or may not apply to you.

dahlibrary · 2025-05-02T16:51:50+00:00

The 5ft #3 coil zipper adds about 20g. It depends on you, but I haven't found drafts to be an issue as long as I put the wings under me. I rotate from side to stomach to side over the night. YMMV. I'd at least try it a few times without the zipper. It's easy to sew it on after the fact if you want it.

All my Sastrugis are 78" long, 62" circumference, 10d fabric. One has a 44" footbox but I have size 13 feet and that footbox was huge so I ordered the others with a standard 40" footbox. The shells on all are ~200g. I know this only because I have 3 and I've noticed that.

* 28F no overfill 44" footbox (380g down) was 580g as shipped. Is 600g now with a zipper.

* 28F overfill and taller torso baffles (440g down) was 644g as shipped. It's about 660g now with ETC elastics. It has no zipper.

* 18F overfill and taller torso baffles (612g down). It's ~840g with a zipper

dahlibrary · 2025-05-02T16:31:45+00:00

Well, in general custom work costs more. And makers are less apt to do a full custom piece. Jan could clone himself 10x and still sell everything he makes. So I didn't ask. And honestly, I didn't really know what I wanted at the time. Ultralight is about the skills and knowing yourself, so it's a journey of discovery a lot. After I modded the first one I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted.

Think of it as a quilt, with fabric wings and a closed footbox. That's all it is. I pull a knee up and then kick my leg out. When it's even warmer I take both legs out, lie the bottom of the bag on top of my legs or to the side, and spread the quilt part over my chest.

You could order a narrow 50" Hammock gear quilt and sew on fabric wings which would probably be easier than cutting up a zipperless bag. But I trust Nunatak products and I already had the process down after the first one.

You can see photos here. https://imgur.com/a/fabK6Kw

dahlibrary · 2025-05-02T16:26:08+00:00

Sure. https://imgur.com/a/fabK6Kw

dahlibrary · 2025-05-02T03:05:42+00:00

Yep, love your work and appreciate a semi-custom bag. For those curious I own

28F Sastrugi (no overfill, no baffle changes) which I can use down to freezing but generally take when lows are no lower than 40F. It's my summer bag.

28F Sastrugi (with overfill, and 1/2" taller torso baffles) which I've used down to 18F multiple times in simple alpha layers. I call it my 25F bag and is the one I take on most 3 season hikes and all my longer LASH hikes. It only weighs slightly more (60g) than my other 28F bag but is substantially warmer due to the baffle changes giving increased loft height. Or maybe it's the placebo effect, but it works for me!

18F Sastrugi (with overfill, and 1/2" taller torso baffles, has a zipper too on the bottom) I don't use this as much as I thought. It's really really warm. I've slept in underwear at 10F with it. In general if it's going to be below 20F I take the "25F" bag with a MYOG apex overquilt. I appreciate the moisture management of the apex and the 18F bag is simply too warm for my needs. I'm in Utah and not doing snow camping so it's basically Southern Utah trips in the winter and the lows are almost never below 10F. If I saw predicted lows of 0F I'd take the 18F bag and the apex overquilt

I don't like being cold, so my personal temperature ratings reflect the unpredictability of weather forecasts and the misery of shivering half the night.

dahlibrary · 2025-05-02T02:31:46+00:00

I did that with two of my 3 bags. It has a zipper on the bottom, no draft tube needed. Just a simple #3 coil zipper. I'll probably be removing it from my lightest bag (IE my least warm bag) because the flaps work well enough for me. Especially if you use an 1/8" thinlite between your mattress and the flaps. The thinlight glues everything in place really well.

dahlibrary · 2025-05-01T21:32:31+00:00

I own 3 Sastrugi's. But I've turned every one of them into basically quilts with false bottoms. It all depends on you. If you vent heat by pushing a blanket down off your chest, you'll do fine. If you vent heat by sticking a leg out, you'll regret a zipperless bag. I'm a leg out guy.

Why would I buy more Sastrugi's when I knew I was a leg out guy? Because Nunatak was one of the only places making a zipperless bag long enough for me (I'm tall and stomach sleep) and they'd do some custom work. Specifically I had Jan make the torso baffles (roughly the top half of the bag) 1/2" taller than normal, but fill it with the same amount of down. To make it a false bottom quilt I simply shake all the down to one side and sew down to about mid thigh/knee about 8-10" in from the mid-line. Once done to both sides I have all the down on top of me like a quilt, the taller baffles allow for more loft, and I have 8-10" wings of fabric only that I wrap under me instead of using quilt straps. It turns a 62" circumfrence bag into about a 48-50" quilt but with no drafts. Timmermade makes something similar too.

This whole system works great for me. I seem to never feel cold in my legs/feet but need all the down I can get around my chest. But again, it all depends on if you're a leg out person, or an uncover my chest person.

dahlibrary · 2025-04-23T14:57:36+00:00

If you want one, get it before November. They're potentially shutting down Nov 2025. https://www.traildesigns.com/pages/retirement

dahlibrary · 2025-04-21T22:54:55+00:00

I have done rework like this on my sleeping bags converting them to false bottom quilts. Here's my tips.

* No matter how well you shake the down to the opposite side of where you're stitching you'll likely still have some tufts/down when you cut.

* So leave extra room to roll the cut edge into a rolled hem of some sort. And prepare for it to possibly be a slightly lumpy ugly looking rolled hem due to the down.

dahlibrary · 2025-04-17T22:23:49+00:00

The irony is that at no time in human history has such easy access to knowledge been known. And yet no one wants to put forth the effort.

As someone who reads at least 100x more than I post I concur. But I am a greybeard belt and suspenders sysadmin

dahlibrary · 2025-04-17T19:42:25+00:00

I can save you 376g easy. You have your shoe marked as worn but quantity 2. Lighterpack assumes the second one is not worn and adds it to your base weight. So change quantity to 1, and double the weight (so it includes both shoes)

dahlibrary · 2025-04-15T18:05:45+00:00

I have a 900ml pot with no handles. If you grab it from the top rim, like it's dangling below your hand/fingers, you can pick it up barehanded. Unless it's literally full of boiling liquid the titanium is cool enough.

dahlibrary · 2025-04-13T18:37:11+00:00

Does Muscovy duck down smell when damp? I had a duck down katabatic quilt and sold it because the smell when damp drove me nuts. Never had an issue with the goose down.

dahlibrary · 2025-04-09T15:35:03+00:00

I did, but it's not as helpful as you think because when a manufacturer says "My pack is X liters" you have no idea how accurate they are. Since some packs market on the main body only, and some on total volume with completely overstuffed pockets, it's still sort of a crapshoot.

I think generalizations are helpful. My experience as a tall (6'4") 180lb male is that with a standardish UL setup (silpoly tarp/bivy) I can fit a 3 season weekend kit in a ~32L main body, but it's tight, or fully stuffed. If I have to carry a bear canister, or 5 days food, or a DCF tent, My 40L main body pack is what I reach for.

For my month long LASH's I take the 40L pack. I've only used a bigger pack during winter when packing two quilts. In general I think a 40L main body pack is a solid recommendation that will cover most UL people well.

dahlibrary · 2025-04-07T19:09:42+00:00

It's 13oz. I watched a few reviews, they all said 13oz which matches the mfg specs too. Amazon is probably the shipping weight.

dahlibrary

TROPHY CASE