Post a Comment On: Adventures in the Air

Jeff and I pulled together a last minute vol biv trip for this weekend.  We don't have any big goals, just to get out in the wild for a couple days, mainly as a shake down for his trip to New Zealand next month.   We are both on the west coast for work this week so the plan will be to huck off Laguna, east of San Diego and head north for a couple days.

Here's my kit for the weekend - all up weight less food and water is 30.6lbs.  Adding 2.5 lbs of food and 2.5 liters of water brings the total to 38.8 lbs.


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Sleeping
1) Sleeping bag - Z-packs 30 degree, 15 oz
2) Silk sleeping bag liner - adds a few degrees and keeps the bag clean
3) Tarp - Zpacks Hexamid Tarp w/ cuben fibre ground sheet. 
4) Polycro groundsheet - since we will bivy in harsh desert terrain, a bit more added abrasion protection
5) Thermarest Neo Air sleeping mat, small size (42 inches).  I will also use my gilder as extra insulation for my lower body when sleeping
6) Patagonia neopuff synthetic hoody - mainly for added warmth when sleeping

Camp / Hike
7) first aid and emergency survival kit - standard stuff, bandages, whistle, signal mirror, etc
8) snake bite kit - threw this in there but the more I look at the weather (cold), I think I will leave it behind.
9 personal care kit - lite towel, wipes, toilet paper, sun block, advil, lip balm
10) misc ditty bag - 2 light weight headlamps, repair tape (gilder & camp stuff), extra lines (glider & tent), 2 spare pegs, fire steel, tender, butane lighter, digital thermometer, zip ties
11) Black Diamond Z-poles - carbon fiber walking poles.
12) spare clothes - extra merino wool base layer (top & bottom), Patagonia Cap 4 sweater, spare merino socks, fluffy sleeping socks.

Eat/ Drink
13) hydration kit - 2L, 1L and .5L platypus bottles.
14) mess set - meal hydration coozy bag.  Container has spices (salt, pepper, sugar, olive oil), tea bags, bouillon cubes, crystal lite packs, & titanium spork for eating
15) cook set - Snow Peak 700ml titanium pot, vargo stove, 4oz fuel, fire steel & butane lighter
16) food for 2-3 days - mix of pro bars, nuts, jerky, oatmeal, homemade freeze dried meals & meals from Packit Gourmet

Flying
17) Paraglider - Ozone Swift 2, size small
18)  Reserve parachute - Nevures Plum, medium
19) Harness - Advance Lightness, small
20) Rucksack - Advance Lightpack
21) Helmet - Smith Varient Snow helmet
22)Gloves & flight attire - 2 Buff's, 1 merino beanie, 1 pair merino liner gloves, 1 park Manzella goretex wind breaker over gloves.

Electronics (overkill)
23) Electronics - from top left:
Garmin GPS Map 60 Spot 3 GPS locator RescueLink  406 PLB (personal locator beacon) Gopro3 Black iPad Mini (in Alocksak) Anker 10k mAh spare battery Yaesu Vx-150 radio charging cables for phone/ipad/gopro & vario not shown - iphone 5 & FlytePark mini audio vario Yes, It's over kill.  iPad is for checking maps and reading at night.  Gopro to document the trip &  radio for in air communications - we want to stay together.   There is also a bit of redundancy with both the Spot and the PLB.  For emergency help, nothing beats the PLB and but the Spot lets our wives track us (piece of mind) as well as allows easy coordination of a retrieve.  I could likely ditch the Garmin, but I've been using it as a backup nav for flying and hiking for years and I'm comfortable with it.
What you don't see:

What I'm wearing  - We will be starting off with a flight so I will have plenty of layers on for cold air at altitude:
Exped expedition boxer briefs REI silk base layer (top & bottom) Smartwool hiking socks REI softshell pants Icebreaker merino t-shirt Mountain Hardwear fleece pull over Sierra Designs DriDown puffy jacket (no hood) Hard or soft shell, depending on temps - either a windshirt, a Mountain HW light weigh Softshell or a OR Helium 2. Depends on temps and chance of precipitation Salomon Goretex 4d Boots
Next, the items you might have expect but don't see:
Rain gear - we are not expecting rain and a few spinkles or a dusting of snow won't bother us. If it looks like a downpore, the chances for flying are nil so we will scrap the trip and go ride dirt bikes. Water Filter - we will be in the high desert and will be packing in all our water  The only water I expect to find would be snow and we can boil that for cooking.  There should be some accumulation in the shade at the higher elevations. Packing:
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So where does all this fit?  Well, most of it goes into the harness for both flying and hiking.  The sleeping bag & clothes fit into the harness in the back protection pouch (after removing the foam back protector).  The sleeping bag is in a dry sack and partially inflated so it would provide a bit of protection in the event of a crash.

[Image]The tarp, sleeping pad, repair kit & ditty bag fit in the ballast pocket of the harness.  The electronics are mounted on the harness during flight or stowed in the helmet for hiking.  For hiking, the glider goes into rucksack first, with the harness, with its contents goes on top.  Then I can put the cook set bag in the rucksack, wedged between the two.  The first aid kit lived in small top pocket on the rucksack.   Water is stowed in the side pockets of the rucksack and I put the food in a Zpacks chest pack, attached either the top or front of the rucksack.

Should be a fun weekend.  I will post a trip report once we are back in civilization. Also gotta pre-thank Ron for the eventual retrieve we will be imposing om him.  :)