J

jrowejr

jrowejr So this worked for a little bit at a much slower output....

But we ended up scooping water out of the river and letting it sit at night so the sediment would sink to the botom, than poured through a shirt and boiled. It slowed us down a lot, but we got out alive.

jrowejr I have not caved and purchased the Guardian yet... but I did buy the MSR trail shot. I have only brought it on one trip so far ( This one ) so I need more time to put it through its paces before I say yay or ney, but I like it so far.

I hear everyone has a Sawyer Squeeze these days. I really should buy one. I think I would love to drip bag it too, which would make chilling around camp at the end of a long hike much more enjoyable.

I tried to make a couple of bivy sacks but unfortunately starting a large project as your first MYOG project is not the best idea... So I decided to try and make a small crampon bag.

On my Mt Whitney trip, I carried Crampons for the entire trip. I hated placing my crampons in my pack each time I used them because I was afraid their tips would puncture everything in my pack and they also would get everything wet.

Materials Used

• 1.2 oz Gridstop with Dyneema
• YKK Coil Zipper

I had some Gridstop fabric laying around and a zipper that was going to be used to make a bag for my failed bivy sack. I decided to use that and create a bag for my crampons.

If you would like to create your own Crampon bag or just a bag in general with a zipper, I followed this tutorial.

I don’t have the fancy heat cutter he used to cut his fabric but, I did just fine with scissors. I also chose only to use one zipper pull instead of two.

My finished product is by no means a perfectly sewn bag like the one in the video, I definitely rushed it a little and didn’t have pins or chalk, so I only did rough measurements with a ruler, and eyeballed a bunch. I honestly was very skeptical I was going to have a usable bag at all by the time I flipped it inside out, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was ecstatic my Crampons even fit inside the finished product!

Things I learned

• Sewing Straight is not as easy as professionals make it look, even when you have fabric with grid lines on it…

• Cuben Fiber is slippery, and you definitely need to secure two pieces together between each other.

• Not sure if pins are the right answer for Cuben, but will try Cuben fiber double sided tape on my next project to help hold pieces together and help me sew straighter.

• Installing a zipper was not as difficult as I thought it would be.

• Next one of these I make will have a small handle at one end.

• I need more small projects before attempting my bivy sack again.

My favorite piece of gear is one that is often overlooked, costs only a few dollars and serves multiple purposes on the trail. The item? The bandana. My bandana serves the following purposes:
1) A sweat rag
2) A potholder for taking my titanium pot off of my stove after heating water
3) An initial filter when filtering muddy water to reduce the need to backflush my water filter
4) A towel to dry my hands
5) Can be worn as a head cover
6) A handkerchief to blow your nose
7) To help keep you cool if you wet it and tie around your neck
8) To help keep you warm if you tie it around your neck
9) To keep dust out of your nose/mouth

It's also easy to clean with a small amount of water and a couple of drops of Dr. Bronner's soap.