Camping and Backpacking GEAR thread

Close on the CO2 thing! It is kind of round about...

According to Wikipedia:

In the treatment of mountain sickness, acetazolamide forces the kidneys to excrete bicarbonate, the conjugate baseof carbonic acid. By increasing the amount of bicarbonate excreted in the urine, the blood becomes more acidic.[12]As the body equates acidity of the blood to its CO2 concentration, artificially acidifying the blood fools the body into thinking it has an excess of CO2, and it excretes this imaginary excess CO2 by deeper and faster breathing, which in turn increases the amount of oxygen in the blood.

So it isn’t actually doing anything with CO2 really but it is fooling your body into thinking there is. The body’s breathing response is a bit convoluted and in an usual environment can get confused. Rather than monitoring oxygen your breathing is actually triggered by CO2 concentrations. “Shallow water blackout” is something that kills free divers and is down to their breathing techniques drastically reducing CO2 concentrations causing the body to not realize it is running out of oxygen and needs to breathe! Kind of the opposite of what Diamox is doing.

 

I've carried Diamox on a few trips since the (Alaska, Himal) since the mid-70's. I've never used it myself, since I'm usually above 10,00' every week and I've been lucky even in my old age. It's not a substitute for altitude training, since it shouldn't be used for an extended period, but if you're looking at a day or two of symptom reduction, its probably a good idea.

 

@DVexile
Thanks for the bright light.

 

Used my jetboil in the wind plenty of times. Over the weekend I used it in pretty windy conditions. It worked fine but I could tell the wind was affecting the burn time a little. Something the wind burner might have been better at.

 

Scored the new inReach Mini at the Garmin booth at Overland Expo West before it even hit the market. It's so tiny! Half the weight of the full-size model, but less than half of the size. Field testing coming soon...

 

Hahaha here's my new set up.
Kidding but in a pinch it could work. I've been wanting a new 2 person tent for a while and when this one came down in price with the current sale I picked it up. I'm trying not to spend my money at are-E-aye but this tent checked most of the boxes.

 

Very interested in your field testing! I’ve been eyeing this since it’s recent announcement and might swap to it over my current Spot.

What I’ve been wanting is a reliable Iridium pager with a connection to SAR at a reasonable subscription price. As @DoorDing put it without the damn Delorme drek on it. This thing looks like it could finally be it! My enthusiasm is however tempered by my experience with many consumer outdoor electronics being saddled with useless shit that gets in the way of the primary function of the device. Here’s hoping you find Garmin got it right with this one.

 

What Delorme 'Drek' are you referring to?
@DoorDing
@DVexile

 

For me the “drek” is essentially all their navigation crap on a tiny low resolution screen. I’ve got better navigation solutions and don’t have any interest in my emergency communications device trying to be a navigator at the same time. After all if the shit hits the fan I want a full battery for communications and not something run down after having been used to navigate. So I would never use it for navigation in the first place.

Worse (and this may have been resolved over the years) the devices were notorious for having software crashes. More complicated applications of course have more bugs. So again, keep my emergency comms separate from everything else please!

Now one person’s drek may be another’s treasure and I’m sure some folks like an integrated device including emergency comms.

I very much don’t. My integrated device is my phone. It does everything navigation related a thousand times better than any Delorme or Garmin product. At least for how I like to navigate. I’m sure others do things differently than me. And if it breaks, hangs or runs out of power I have a separate device for emergency comms (two actually).

 

The new inReach Explorer+ has been a fantastic unit. In all honesty, I preferred the old Delorme software because it was so much more robust for custom mapping after you finally figure out all of the software features. These new units that Garmin as put out since the purchase are solid. I've already set up the Mini and played around with it. The Earthmate app makes it really easy to use the Mini, so I don't think I'll miss the on-screen GPS color mapping of the Explorer+ when it's so easy to pair the Mini to my phone and use the same functionality that the Explorer has.

Take it all with a grain of salt though. These inReach units are primarily a COMMUNICATION device with some GPS functionality. The communication is 95% of what I'm looking for in these units anyways. Fortunately I've had no issues with the mapping. So far.

 

I bought one of the Nemo Cosmo air mattresses to use this weekend. Have to admit I was skeptical about the air mattresses all the times I had looked at them. Well this has completely changed my mind on these small air mattresses. I slept great all night on it and woke up this morning rested. I really like that it had a foot pump integrated into the mattress to inflate it. I also had a Klymit insulated V my son used. Both served their purpose but I liked the pump built into the Nemo better. He said he slept well on the Klymit also. Anyway figured since I finally got one I figured I'd give a review here for anyone else that may be looking.

Here's a link to the one I bought (I bought mine locally at a dealer).

https://www.rei.com/product/112193/nemo-cosmo-air-sleeping-pad-with-pump


Here's the Klymit one my son used.

https://www.klymit.com/insulated-ultralite-sl-sleeping-pad.html

Pic of them in action last night.

 

@DoorDing
@DVexile
Thanks. Mine is a Delorme inreach before Garmin.
It works well enough for what I do. Two way communication.

 

FIFY

 

Did you camp inside that cavern? That would be a unique experience I'd think.

 

Yup. It was pretty cool! First time I ever got to do that.

 

Very cool! May I ask where this is?

 

I have gone caving to the point where we had to crawl into the cavern that was our campsite! Great experience for those in the South East Racoon Mountain is really cool. Also there is a place called the Lost Sea in Tennessee I believe.

 

Sure, it's in Alabama.

https://www.desotocavernspark.com

 

@Toyotacrawler we need a status report. Looks to be a turd floater coming in.

@stronghammer

 

Lots of wet stuff out there for sure!