I've changed the background of the blog so an image that's a little less warm to reflect my feelings about what happened last night, when I got all of my gear together to do my first outdoor sleeping gear test. I know a lot of other potential hikers would balk at the idea of 3 months to go and only just now testing the winter sleeping gear, but I've been so busy lately with crew and school I really haven't had the time. So in the next three months I plan on getting a lot of preparation done, which includes testing and updating all of my gear, doing some shakedown hikes, and continuing to save up a boatload of money.
Anyway, it's safe to say I didn't freeze to death last night, but I was mostly uncomfortable and I didn't really get a lot of sleep. My light and thermal polyester and wool clothing layers worked wonderfully. My tent (MSR Hubba) sets up fast and it kept the frost off of me. The sleeping bag (Northface Alutien women's 20 degree mummy bag), while keeping me mostly thawed, just didn't meet my expectations.. I guess I got what I payed for. It was only an 80 dollar bag. I'm sure it would be fine for spring camping, but it's only going to be colder in the mountains in March. The ground pad (Thermarest trail) kept me off of the cold ground which is good, but it deflated during the night and wasn't very comfortable for me because I'm mostly a side sleeper.
So today after I get my paycheck and pay my rent, I'm going to the outdoor outfitter and hopefully returning the bag (I still have the tags but no reciept) and purchasing a zero degree down bag, then I want to get a Zlite thermarest, mostly because it'll be firmer for my side sleeping and it's significantly lighter than my current ground pad, although it isn't as compact. I'll just have to strap it to the bottom of my pack. Maybe there will be room within the pack for it if I upgrade to a more compressed sleeping bag.
Butters is romping around in my gear, which is warming up in a pile on the floor. He wants to go camping so bad. Hopefully after my upgrades today I'll go out tonight and camp out in a shelter, then head up to McAffee's knob for sunrise oatmeal breakfast! Ugh. Just kidding. I checked the weather and it's supposed to start raining tonight/tomorrow morning, and I'm not really ready to be testing out those kinds of extremes at this point. I'll have to settle for baby steps.
Today starts my conditioning regime as well. I'd like to get into better physical condition and drop most of my college weight before I go (about 30 lbs) so I'm starting to eat healthy and move around more. I'm at a cool 180 right now, I'd like to get back into the 150s by the time I leave.
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