Friday evening. Find backpack. Empty out smelly clothes
from last time. And swollen ancient food packet. And burst
coffee sachets, soggy matches, plastic bags, empty fuel
bottle, plastic teaspoon and a used plaster.
Find sleeping bag. Shake out vigorously. Turn inside out to
check for spiders.
Spend 20 mins trying to stuff it back into
it’s cover.
Find Tent. Assume that it still has all relevant parts in the
bag. Then find “peg bag” and one pole, not in the bag.
Worry about what that means, but can’t quite summon the
effort to get the whole thing out and shake it out.
Find roll-mat.
Try and fit all the above into/onto backpack. Sleeping-bag
entirely fills main cavity. Tent can only fit on the outside,
same with sleeping mat. Bugger.
No space to get food, stove, or clothes in.
Know that this is packing at home, in the warm-and-dry,
and that doing the same after hiking is going to be ten-
times sh**er.
Vow to design something better.
A backpack/sleeping-bag - tent(bivvi-bag)/sleeping mat
(cos
I’m old) combination. With a poncho too.
Most of these things use the same materials to deliver (at
least) an overlapping set of functions. Waterproof, wind
proof, thermal insulation, and carry-able.
I’m not an extreme minimal, low-weight (titanium spoons)
kind of hiker. But it annoys me to carry extra kilos of
poorly-packed fabric.
So, I’m hoping to design a lightweight tent/backpack with
a compression-roll for a sleeping-bag/mat thing, and a
waterproof poncho to cover me as I walk.