Settled In For A Cold Winter's Night! Anyone with access to a television or the internet (or even those lucky enough to live here) knows it's been snowing non-stop in the New England region for a while now. Feet of snow have been accompanied by bone-chilling temps, with the above-freezing line having been cross maybe once or twice in the past month. Most people hunker down in their houses with the heat cranked, and await the arrival of spring...
I test out my sleeping gear!
On a warm day, of about 28 degrees, I took some time in the back yard shoveling out an area to stake my tent. As mentioned before, I've got the MSR Hubba NX single-man tent. This was the first time I've set it up outside (the first being in the living room, as I've mentioned before) and I wanted to get a grasp on setting it up with the fly. I wasn't exactly fast at doing it, nor the most intelligent person. Upon completing the set-up, I went to get inside of it and realized that the tent was backwards, with the fly opening to a solid wall instead of the tent opening. So I had to undo the fly, remove it, un-stake the tent, flip it 180 degrees, and re-attach all aforementioned points. Words cannot describe how foolish I felt.
Anyway... As the evening approached, I bundled up in my layers of fleece, and headed out to my humble abode. Spatially, it's quite roomy. Air mattress- Thermarest NeoAir Trekker- is comfortable (I've used this before on a hiking trip last August) and weighs less than a pound. It collapses to the size of a tupperware container, and while it isn't self inflating, it allows for a solid 20-breath cardio workout to inflate it. The 20 degree bag did fine until about 4 AM when I woke up and was unable to fall back asleep. Checking temps, it was below 10 degrees outside. Instead of pointlessly shivering for another hour before getting up for work, I went inside and slept by the fire. Hopefully it won't be getting that cold on the trail, but in the event that it does, I'll have a few more layers of clothing available to me than I had ready while at home.
The tent's going to be used a few more times before I leave, and I'll be ordering a ground cloth and some new tent stakes just to have extras. Other than that it seems to be a great (and comparably light) piece of gear.
I test out my sleeping gear!
On a warm day, of about 28 degrees, I took some time in the back yard shoveling out an area to stake my tent. As mentioned before, I've got the MSR Hubba NX single-man tent. This was the first time I've set it up outside (the first being in the living room, as I've mentioned before) and I wanted to get a grasp on setting it up with the fly. I wasn't exactly fast at doing it, nor the most intelligent person. Upon completing the set-up, I went to get inside of it and realized that the tent was backwards, with the fly opening to a solid wall instead of the tent opening. So I had to undo the fly, remove it, un-stake the tent, flip it 180 degrees, and re-attach all aforementioned points. Words cannot describe how foolish I felt.
Anyway... As the evening approached, I bundled up in my layers of fleece, and headed out to my humble abode. Spatially, it's quite roomy. Air mattress- Thermarest NeoAir Trekker- is comfortable (I've used this before on a hiking trip last August) and weighs less than a pound. It collapses to the size of a tupperware container, and while it isn't self inflating, it allows for a solid 20-breath cardio workout to inflate it. The 20 degree bag did fine until about 4 AM when I woke up and was unable to fall back asleep. Checking temps, it was below 10 degrees outside. Instead of pointlessly shivering for another hour before getting up for work, I went inside and slept by the fire. Hopefully it won't be getting that cold on the trail, but in the event that it does, I'll have a few more layers of clothing available to me than I had ready while at home.
The tent's going to be used a few more times before I leave, and I'll be ordering a ground cloth and some new tent stakes just to have extras. Other than that it seems to be a great (and comparably light) piece of gear.
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