Puffies have been my friend lately. With ambitious sufferfest mountain days, I often find myself hitting the trail early in the morning and slowly trudging out late at night when the sun is long gone. For days like these, I need insulation that moves with me but also doesn’t take up much space. The Adidas Outdoor Flyloft Jacket fits that bill.
When I met with Mammut during Summer OR 2015, little did they know that they were going to blow my mind. Why deal with a pack to carry your things when you could have a chalk bag to eliminate most of your carry needs? Internally, Mammut has debuted prototypes of this carry all chalk bag, but this summer 2014 was when they put the idea to fruition. The Mammut Multipitch Chalk Bag, now known as the Mammut Alpine Chalk Bag, is a brilliant piece of gear for when you’re way off the deck.
When packing for the #UintasHike16, I wanted to shave as much weight off as possible. More weight and stuff means more of a chance I’d need to check a bag. And I hate checking bags because it’s so inefficient. I want to be on and off a plane, lickety split. I explored a few options to not bring a true water filter… LifeStraw Go, Vapur MicroFilter, and eventually settled on the Platypus Hydration Meta Bottle with filter.
We came from North Peak
Wow! Lots of exposed climbing
I need to poop bad
That’s the haiku I would have written if Conness had a summit register. After I got back from OR and #UintasHike16 craziness, Josh asked if I wanted to go solo the northwest ridge of North Peak and the north ridge of Mt. Conness in preparation for Matthes Crest. Not one to turn down a climbing adventure, I enthusiastically said yes. I was a little nervous because I’m one, a fraidy cat and two, our Matterhorn trip still loomed high and mighty on my mind.
It was the last day of our little trek. After a night of little sleep and lots of Kovas’ snoring, we all woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to pack up. I was psyched. It was crappy diner food time. Day one had been an ordeal. Day two was less so. Day three was our shortest day. Nothing could go wrong on this day where we were retracing our steps from Wilder Lake to the Highline Trailhead, right?
Wrong.