Primitive and modern outdoor skills

Gear Review: Soft-star Runamoc Moccasins

2017-09-20

I've been wearing Softstar Runamoc Moccasins as my primary shoes for about five years now. I use them for everything, going to town, visiting friends, hiking, backpacking, trail running, approach shoes while climbing, canoe trips, etc. I'm currently wearing my 4'th or 5'th pair (I lost count).


These are truly a minimalist shoe. They come in a number of versions, but the ones I get are made of vegetable tanned leather, and have 5mm thick rubber soles. On my most recent pair I also requested they leave out the elastic they put in the back of the heal. In the most literal way you can imagine, they are a thin sole glued to a little leather.

They have NO support at all, and that's exactly why I buy them. The sole is completely flat, and as I mentioned only a few mm thick. If you want a shoe with support, of any kind, these are not for you.



A little background on why I like this type of shoe. Here are my reasons for wearing a minimal shoe:
These are one of my 4 pairs of shoes. I also own a pair of huaraches, a pair of winter hiking boots for snowshoeing and the like, and a pair of pack-boots for extreme weather.
Everyone is different, and knowing yourself is a huge part of  deciding what gear is right for you. The more minimal or lightweight the gear, the more this is true. Everyone can slap on a supportive boot and walk 10 miles, making your body do the work instead means letting your body adjust, which takes time. A 25 mile day of rough trail with bad sharp rocks the whole way bruises the heck out of your feet in shoes like this. My feet are used to it, so it hurts, but not overly much. It took time to get there going barefoot and wearing similarly minimal shoes for less intense activities.


The good:
The bad:
Overall, I love them. I started wearing minimal shoes for running, and it just kept expanding until I couldn't stand to wear anything else even for long backpacking trips. They are not for everyone, but if you've been looking for something that keeps your feet from getting cut, stabbed, and chafed and that's it... this is your shoe.

Grounding: I have a hard time not scoffing at the concept, but someone once asked me if these shoes are "grounded". No, they are not normally "grounded" shoes, but you can pay softstar extra to modify the shoes to comply with the "grounded" idea.

Gear Review: Patagonia stand-up shorts

2017-09-20

In my pursuit of non-synthetic clothing, it's been surprisingly hard to find really good robust clothes that fit my needs. For years I've bought various types of synthetic shorts, because they last so long, but I finally found shorts that last a long time without being synthetic.

I'm currently wearing my second pair, which are my town shorts. My first pair are starting to look a little long in the tooth but are still what I wear in warm weather the rest of the time. The core of the fabric is still solid, but the pockets and cuffs are ragged and unraveling.

If you read this blog, you know that I expect a lot from my clothes. I beat them up hard, and own very few pieces.


The good:
The bad:
As mentioned, I like them enough that I bought another identical pair. I hope they keep making them so I can keep buying them.

New tarp poles... cutting poles responsibly

2017-09-20

If you recall, a while back I rolled the truck in a blizzard in North Dakota. We got a towtruck to come out in the blizzard and roll it over, and pull it out. I was then rushing around trying to get the stuff on the roof-rack (which had been cracked off) stuffed in to the truck in some manor or other in the dark in temperatures well below zero.

Suffice to say that the wooden poles I'd cut a while back didn't make the cut, and were left on the side of the road.

In the west we didn't miss them much, since it doesn't rain much out west we could use lazier pitches that use fewer poles. We're up in Minnesota now and the rain is picking up. Additionally, the forest around here is heavily logged, and thus there's a lot of "dog-hair". So, it seemed a good time to cut some new poles.



By "dog-hair" I mean extremely dense stands of very young trees. When I went to harvest I poked around looking for the densest stands I could find. Here those dense stands are ash. The stand I took these from had trees ~2 feet apart. Such a stand is *too* dense, and will actually be healthier with a little thinning. The trees cannot grow larger without some being removed. Removing the competition early (rather than letting some die) will reduce competition and let those that survive grow faster and healthier... much like thinning carrots in a garden.

I carefully picked trees that were actively crossing others. The trees I cut were within 6 inches of another tree, and in some cases nearly wrapping around them. The rubbing of the trunk on the other tree will tend to sicken both trees, so these are particularly helpful to remove.

Now... a few of you forestry/environmental/basketry types are waiting for me to address the fact that I said "ash"... yes, I said ash.

Currently we have a serious problem in the U.S. with "Emerald Ash Borer", a beetle who's young burrow through the tree and kill it. For more information look here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_ash_borer . It's invasive, so the trees have poor defenses and it's wiping out ash across the U.S. Of course the beetle can fly, but it seems they are often introduced to new areas by humans moving wood around, particularly firewood. I just cut ash, so how am I going to avoid this?

2 things. First, all the ash in the area looked very healthy, I do not believe the ash borer is in the area where I cut. Second, I carefully stripped the bark off each pole, additionally checking for any bug damage anywhere along each pole as I did so, and looking at the bark flakes I removed. The article I linked above notes that they stay in the inner-bark region ( phloem , cambium , and outer xylem ), so stripping the bark should get rid of them, or at a minimum show their tracks through the wood, even if one did deep-dive for some reason.

non-synthetic mosquito headnet

2017-08-17

As part of my non-synthetic backpacking kit I wanted a non-synthetic bug-headnet. Usually I don't need it (in fact, it's pretty rare)... but the Sierra in the wrong season can get pretty bad, as a couple of my friends I took up there one year can attest. Similarly there are spots on the east coast where it's just not optional.

So, I set about it. My first idea was to find a veil, but failing that I picked up some cheese cloth.




I then stitched across the top with cotton button-thread, and then using the thread like a drawcord I cinched the top up. Next I bound around that top bundle with the thread and tied it off.




Lastly I cut off the extra and sewed down the back to close it up so I could slide it over my hat.

It's not going to work for no-seeums, and I don't think it'll even work for black-flies, but for mosquitos it should do the trick. I'll update this post when I find out!

howto: Waxing cotton 2

2017-08-17


A while back I wrote this article on waxing cotton:
http://www.blog.smalladventures.net/2017/02/waterproofing-cotton-poncho-experiment-2.html

I'm not actually using that poncho, I decided it was okay, but a little bit heavy. After doing extensive calculations and agonizing about it I've decided on what I think will be the lightest solution.

Instead I'm using:
  1. A cotton canvas overshirt, which I treated with wax as a raincoat
  2. 3x5 800 threadcount sheet, which I've treated with wax as a groundcloth, and to surround my gear when it's tied to my pack, to keep it dry
  3. 5x8 800 threadcount sheet, untreated, as a shelter while sleeping



The reason this works out well is a little complicated. A poncho needs to be worn while hiking, so it cannot double as the waterproof layer for gear while hiking, as a result I would *also* need fabric for that. Additionally it's so large that it's a waste to use it for a groundcloth, so I'd need to have a treated ground-cloth that I also use to keep my pack dry *anyway*. The poncho is so heavy that compared to an untreated tarp of the same size + a treated canvas raincoat is only a bit heavier. But, the treated canvas raincoat is useful as a windbreaker too, where the poncho is not.

Yeah... this is why it took me a long time to figure it out. I had to actually calculate theoretical weights for a number of different gear combinations to decide in the end.

Anyway, end result is that I've treated yet more fabric, and in the process I've figured out a few more things with respect to treating cotton, including a somewhat simpler/faster process.

In making the new tarps I wanted to try turpentine, as mineral spirits is made from petroleum, while turpentine is made from tree sap. This treatment worked extremely well, penetrating the fabric with wax in just one coat, I applied a second coat for good measure. This is a far cry from the last treatment I used that seemed to work well, and I believe the reason is that terpentine seems to dissolve beeswax better than mineral spirits does. Here's the recipe:

Note that I'm using the linseed oil just to help fight mildew, rather than as a major component to help with flexibility as most recipe's do. So far flexibility hasn't proven to be a major issue though, and the smell takes months to fade, so I keep using less each time I treat something.

This worked so well that I re-coated my jacket as well, hoping to get more waterproofness out of it. I'll report back on how well it actually works in the rain, but initial results are that the wax filled the gaps in the fabric well, and don't appear to be sitting on the surface such as to flake off.