Tips

Light-hearted Outdoor Tips

  • Lint from your navel makes a handy fire starter.
  • Warning: Remove lint from navel before lighting.
  • You can duplicate the warmth of a down sleeping bag by crawling into a garbage bag with several geese.
  • When camping, always wear a long-sleeve shirt. It gives you something to wipe your nose on.
  • A two-person pup tent does not hold either two people or a pup.
  • The guitar of the noisy teenager in a nearby campsite makes great kindling.
  • Bear bells are a great idea when hiking in grizzly country. The tough part, though, is putting the bells on the bear.
  • In an emergency, the drawstring from a parka or stuffsack can be used to stifle a snoring tent mate.
  • In public campgrounds, a tuba placed in prominent view will keep the adjacent campsites vacant.
  • Damage done by wildlife is often inversely proportional to their size. A few five ounce chipmunks can easily outdo a 200 pound bear.
  • Nature sides with the hidden flaw-so check your gear carefully before each trip.

Cleaning Down Products

You will need a sink or tub large enough to hold the item being washed. This can be a sink or washtub for a jacket or a bathtub for a sleeping bag. You will also need a mild liquid soap like one of the specially-made down soaps (available at the Pack Rat) or you may use Woolite . Do not use a detergent . Detergents are too harsh for down, and can strip off the natural oils in the feathers, causing them to clump together.

First, soak the item in the recommended soap solution for three to four hours, occasionally massaging the soap solution through the down product as it soaks. Be gentle so that you do not tear the internal baffles that hold the down in place. Then begin rinsing by allowing the water to drain out while pressing-down on the coat or sleeping bag. Refill the tub and massage the item to this rinsing procedure until you get every bit of the soap out. Jackets will usually take three to four rinsings to remove all of the soap, while sleeping bags often take twice that. If you don't get all the soap out, it will cause the feathers to clump together. Once all of the soap has been removed, squeeze as much of the water out as possible.

Carefully transfer the wet item to a large towel and let it air dry for a few hours. You must handle wet down products carefully, or you could tear the internal baffles and stitching. Once the item is mostly dry, tumble-dry it in a large dryer on the lowest possible heat setting. Place a clean pair of sneakers in the dryer with the down product to break up the clumps of feathers as it dries. It will usually take two hours to dry a down jacket this way, and about four hours for a sleeping bag. Store all down products loose rather than compressed to ensure that the full loft of the down is retained. Return to top

Zipper Maintenance & Repair

Nylon coil zippers are used on most high quality outdoor gear because they will operate smoothly when curved in complex shapes and because the will not freeze up in cold weather. A little bit of basic maintenance will assure you of years of trouble free use.

Always keep the nylon coils free of dirt. Sand and grit can cause the coils and sliders to wear out prematurely. Occasionally lubricate the coils by rubbing a piece of paraffin wax along the coils, then move the slider back and forth a few times. If the slider fails to join the coils properly, the problem is usually caused by the slider spreading apart slightly. Slide the slider to the base of the zipper and gently squeeze both sides of the slider with two pair of pliers at the same time until the slider joins the coils properly. If all else fails, the slider can be replaced fairly easily. The zipper coil can also be replaced, but it requires some basic sewing skills. Stop by the Pack Rat and ask Carolyn to show you how to do it.

Therm-A-Rest

Few things in hiking can be as traumatic as waking up miles from nowhere and finding that your Therm-A-Rest pad has sprung a leak. While this can be unsettling, it is a remarkably easy problem to fix if you are prepared. Be sure to always carry a pad repair kit and a spare valve, along with a small piece of Handi-Wrap, whenever you are out camping.

First, find the leak by tightly inflating the pad and listening for the telltale hiss. If you are near water, you may submerge the pad and look for bubbles. After finding the leak, mark the spot and put a pot containing about a quart of water on to boil. Cut a patch of suitable size to cover the hole, making sure that the edges are rounded. Partially deflate the pad (this makes it suck the glue in). Warm the glue in the boiling water and put a small dab over the puncture. Allow this to partially set-up for a few minutes, then apply glue to the area around the puncture and to the patch material. Position the patch over the puncture, cover the patch with the Handi-Wrap, and set the pot of hot water on top of the Handi-Wrap. Allow the pot to remain in place until the water reaches ambient temperature. Remove the pot and Handi-Wrap and allow the pad to air-out to remove the last traces of glue odor.

Replacing a leaking valve is just as easy. Remove the old valve by pulling it out. Pliers can be useful for this, or you may tie a short piece of cord around the base of the valve and pull. Place a small amount of warm glue on the threads of the new valve and quickly insert it into the pad. Voila! You're done. Sweet dreams!

Boozey Fruit

This is an interesting trail dessert that virtually prepares itself and tastes mighty good at the end of a tiring day.

Ingredients:
Dried Fruit - anything that you like, singly or in combination
Sugar
Booze - you may pick a liqueur similar to the flavor of the fruit, or try something unusual. Some combinations that we have found to be tasty are shown below:

  • Peaches with Peach Schnapps
  • Apples with Spiced Rum
  • Apricots with Apricot Brandy
  • Cherries with Kirsch
  • Raisins with Cognac
  • Cranberries with Chambord
  • Almost anything with Grand Mariner
Directions:
Mix equal parts of dried fruit, sugar and booze in a leak proof container about six hours before dinner. By supper time you will have a most heavenly concoction eaten by itself or served over pound cake. If you are in a hurry you may speed up the process by warming the ingredients over your camp stove. This produces a warm dessert that is especially nice in the wintertime.

PIZZA! PIZZA!

If you ask most hikers what food they crave the most when hiking, you'll most often hear "Pizza". We have two solutions for this craving.

First, the Traveling Light Outback Oven makes a truly outstanding pizza using one of Traveling Light's special pizza mixes. There is quite a bit of weight involved in this setup, and it takes about 30 minutes to prepare everything, but it makes a pizza so good that it would make your hiking companions sell their soul for a piece.

If this seems to be too much weight and trouble, there is a second solution that is simple, quick and surprisingly tasty.

On half of an English muffin, spread one of those packages of ketchup that you can get from fast-food restaurants. Sprinkle a little oregano and garlic salt on this. Add the toppings of your choice - they can be all sorts of re-hydrated veggies and meats, or just about anything else that you can come up with. Top this with a slice (or about an ounce of grated) mozzarella cheese. Place the mini-pizzas in a buttered, covered frying pan and heat slowly over your stove or campfire until everything is hot enough for the cheese to begin to melt. Be sure to make more than you think you can eat, because these babies will go fast!

Leaking Gore-Tex

"My Gore-Tex jacket leaks!" Sometimes we hear this from customers who have spent a lot of money on a Gore-Tex jacket and, after a few years, are surprised to find moisture inside their jacket.

Although a couple of bad batches of Gore-Tex slipped out a few years ago, modern Gore-Tex almost never leaks. There is a reason for this moisture inside the jacket, but it is almost always caused by something other than leaking.

Gore-Tex is a very thing film of Teflon sandwiched between layers of other material, usually polyester or nylon. The pores of Gore-Tex are too small to allow water droplets to penetrate, but large enough to allow water vapor molecules to dissipate out of the jacket. As in the case of any thin membrane, condensation can occur when there is an extreme temperature gradient and a lot of moisture involved. This usually only occurs with Gore-Tex when a person is involved in strenuous exercise at very cold conditions.

Almost always, we have found that most apparent leaks in Gore-Tex are due to the fact that the Durable Waterproof Finish (DWF) has been worn off the outer part of the fabric allowing the moisture on the outside of the fabric to soak in. When this moisture evaporates, it chills the underlying fabric and causes condensation to occur. It feels just like the jacket leaks, but it has a different cause and it is fixable.

The first thing to try is to iron your jacket on low heat. The heat will draw the remaining DWR finish to the surface, and often will be the only treatment needed to make your jacket waterproof again. If this doesn't work, you will need to wash your jacket carefully using a soap suitable for use on Gore-Tex fabrics, and then re-apply the DWR finish. W. L. Gore recommends Tectron as the preferred DWR finish on their fabrics. With just a little effort your Gore-Tex jacket will perform just like it did when you first purchased it.

Cleaning a Mildewed Tent

More important than anything else is preventative maintenance. Never put a tent away wet except for brief periods in emergencies. If your tent gets wet, hang it up to dry for a couple of days as soon as you return from your trip.

If your tent does get mildew on it (mildew looks like a black, splotchy stain), there are some things that you can do to improve the smell and prevent damage to the tent but it is unlikely that you will be able to get all of the stain out.

First, set up the tent on a sunny day and thoroughly wash it with a solution of one cup of Lysol, and one cup of liquid detergent, in a gallon of warm water. Use a soft brush to scrub the mildew off. Rinse the tent thoroughly. Allow the tent to totally dry while in the sun.

Next, wash the tent with a solution of one cup of lemon juice and one cup of salt in one-half gallon of warm water. Again, rinse the tent and allow it to thoroughly dry while in the sun.

If both the tent and rainfly have mildew, wash them using the above procedure, but expose them to the sun separately.

The above procedure can turn a messy, smelly catastrophe into something that you can live with for many years.