DIY Camping gear - stuff sacks

So far I have made trail running sandals, an alcohol stove from beer cans, and a pot cozy. Today I continued my DIY adventures with the Yama Mountain Gear stuff sack kit. This year I will be going on my first backpacking trip and realized that I needed to pick up a few more stuff sacks of various sizes in order to pack for it. Instead of buying more ultraSil packs I decided to give the DIY cuben fiber sacks a try. In general I really liked the experience and results from this kit. I enjoyed making them, and after the first couple the process really started to work itself out for me. I think that the building was fairly straight forward, however the execution takes a bit of practice to do well. I used the first layout that they provide to mark out the sacks to make. In the end I found that they were all a bit smaller in size than I was imagining due to comparing the sizes to the commercially available ones. I think that a more useful first set of sacks would be provided with the third layout that they suggest. While they are easy to put together with the instructions online, the important thing is how they compare to other stuff sacks in design and price. First, being cuben fiber they are light, really light. I do not have a scale, but a bunch of them feel lighter than my standard silnylon sack. The lack of stitching and natural hydrophobicity of cuben is nice to keep water out of my gear, however the design of the DIY ones leaves an opening where the drawstrings enter their channel which is larger than the commercial offerings. This is likely not to be a major issue since my gear will go into a trash bag in inclement weather, it is still nice to have that extra security. The other major difference to the ultraSil sacks is the DIY ones are flat bottom instead of having a round bottom. Other than that the resultant bags seem really nice. As a quick price comparison I was able to make the 6 suggested stuff sacks plus a micro pocket sized one with the kit materials. The kit price was $35, and in comparison small cuben fiber stuff sacks range from $10-18 each, and ultraSil is $10. So from that stand point this was a clear win (I disregard the cost of my time here as I enjoy the process of making stuff). The real test will be this summer when I find out how long they last. I look forward to wearing them out and knowing that I can easily replace with more homemade stuff sacks.

Intro and climbing conditioning

I decided to start capturing some of my thoughts and observations about outdoor related activities such as hiking, snowshoeing, and climbing. The catalyst for this is that I have spent some time reflecting on having a more focused routine for climbing. In thinking about this I realized that it would be valuable to myself to reflect on these things more, and writing seems a very good way to gather my thoughts. I have been climbing for less than two years, with the first year being one marked by rapid progress and the last at somewhat a plateau. This has lead to a self limiting routine where I tend to mostly climb problems that I think I can finish and not push myself in a way that I was when I was new. One limiting factor I was starting to notice on some problems and routes was that even if I could figure out what to do I wasn't always able to actually perform some moves. This was a combination of grip strength as well as climbing endurance. While just climbing more probably would help I also know that a lot is known about climbing training. While there is a ton of good information online about specific things it is fairly confusing when it comes to developing an actual plan. t In light of that I ended up picking up "Conditioning for climbers" by Eric Horst. There is a lot of good information in there, as well as some general conditioning stuff that I am very familiar with already. But this isn't a book review, but instead my thoughts on a specific technique from the book. One of the training cycles that is mentioned is the 4-3-2-1 where you spend 4 weeks training endurance and general climbing technique, 3 weeks on power, 2 weeks for power endurance, and then the toughest week of all... rest. I used this framework to help structure my climbing. Before I would pick one of the many drills from the internet, or just project at random without any real big picture plan. This made picking drills or deciding what to do at the gym much easier. One big thing I got out of it right away was taking a step back from constantly bouldering hard and spending some time on toprope or doing repeats on easy boulder problems. I think this helped my hands recover more from all those hard bouldering sessions in a way that would not have happened otherwise. This last week has really helped me realize what difference following a training regiment has had. In general I am climbing harder for longer, with better technique throughout the climbing session. THis has allowed me to work harder boulder problems again, and learn new things. I am not sure how many cycles to do in a year. It seems that this is best reserved for times when I want to be at peak performance for a bit to overcome some barrier in my climbing. I doubt it will be useful to repeatedly perform this sort of training throughout the year.