Re: [at-l] bivies

["Thomas McGinnis" <tmcginnis@ucclan.state.in.us>]

Coosa asks
>>> "Coosa" <coosa@alltel.net> 01/24/00 07:37PM >>>
Do you have your journal posted anywhere?
#########Sloetoe muses:
What journal? No, I didn't really keep a journal. I did a log, noting start/stop points, mileage, weather, and maybe how I felt ("firecracker!" "poopy!"), and that was about it. Posting to at-l has been, for me, as close to writing my trip journal as I've been able to do. (Hence, longer posts, eh?)

Coosa Auntie-poses:
I'm curious to know things like how you kept dry.  Did you use a tarp over the bivy or what?  I've decided to go back to using my poncho over the opening of the Salathe' -- being old and not as easily bendable, I like the advantage of being able to sit down and then zip up my bivy.

######Sloetoe recalls:
The "dryness" issue was, eventually, answered easily — I didn't worry about it. No tarpage, eventually. (!!!) But I used my parka shell like you probably use your poncho. 
I carried enough food — and would repack as needed — that I could set up or break camp in the pouring rain without exposing my sleeping bag to wetness for more than perhaps 5 seconds. First, I'd try to have dinner in a leanto, sheltered and out of the way. I'd repack with some attention to the likely camping scenario and/or morning situation, and move on. Making camp involved taking out the bivy, flipping it open on the ground, slipping the sleeping pad thru the opening, and then the sleeping bag. I'd take the sleeping bad out of the stuff sack, secure it into the crook of my arm, puch the foot of the bivy toward the mouth, grab the end of the sleeping bag with the foot of the bivy, and pull it in. It never got out of the shelter of my parka shell.
Into the back ("top") of the bivy, I'd throw my boots (upright, so they'd hold the bivy off my face), spare clothes, peanut butter/granola bars for dry/cold morning breakfast, if needed, and water. Flashlight went into a boot. Nighty-nite! The morning was basically a reversal of the whole process.
Bet it sounds familiar! Just a matter of either decamping quickly (between bursts) OR simply making sure the weather shell stays wider than the bivy mouth.

Mostly warm and dry,
Sloetoe



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