Trial Hike: Learning From Mistakes

18 July, 2022 7 April, 2024

Simeon Finch

I've been busy working through resupply and fine tuning my loadout over the last few weeks, trying to find the magical balance point between weight, comfort and preparedness. I'll post on resupply soon, I've been able to merge the itinerary into a spreadsheet with food availability which has given us the foundations for building resupply boxes for each section.

For gear evaluation, I've found the Ultralight subreddit is a great place for seeing what others do. It's a place where people post their gear lists for generally constructive and well thought out critique. I'm very happy with my weight in most categories, but my shelter stood out as having major opportunity for improvement. The MSR Hubba NX 2P is a glorious freestanding tent with ample room to spare, but it weighs in at 1.92kg with footprint. When I bought it I was a bit disillusioned that none of the more exotic US brands are stocked in Australia and thought it was the best locally available option, but in hindsight I should've had something shipped out.

I joined a surprisingly active Facebook group selling second hand ultralight gear in Australia which I wish I found earlier. A Tarptent Notch Li came up with a base weight (no pegs) under 600 grams which would give me an enormous weight saving. I jumped on it and the seller was kind enough to cover express postage so I could get it in time for the weekend. I took it for a test spin at the park and my first impressions were excellent! There's no stretch in the DCF material so you can pitch it up super taut and it's amazingly fast to setup. My hiking poles are far sturdier than any tentpoles will be and might be good to hang things from. The downside is I've sacrificed a lot of interior room, the sleeping compartment is big enough for my sleeping gear and a few odds only, everything else will need to live under the vestibules on either side.

I was colder than I wanted on the Yorkes trial hike and bought some new clothing - a Macpac Nitro fleece and a Macpac Prothermal long sleeve shirt which I was eager to test in the field.

Overnight camp

I had time for one last overnight camp before the big trip. I was glad for the company of Guy, who is going to join us for a stint in the Flinders Ranges and wanted to test his loadout.

We started in Montacute and mostly followed the Heysen Trail through the Adelaide hills, with a few detours to try and hit 50kms over 2 days. It was a beautiful start, sunny and following a fast flowing creek. We hit an surprisingly intense and long climb which I'll have to remember if I ever get back to serious running. Once we were on the hills line, the weather started to turn, with moderate rain and a gradual pickup of wind. This is where I realised mistake #1, I forgot to pack my rain shell! I couldn't believe it - it's my single most important and expensive piece of clothing, protection against both the rain and wind. I was going to get a much more comprehensive test of my new warm gear than intended.

I wore my new Macpac Nitro over a long sleeve merino shirt, and had a down puffer vest over my middle. It didn't take long for these to be soaked through, and while I suspect I lost most of the insulating benefit of the down, at least its polyester outer was a good wind break for my chest. I was pleased that although I was wet to my skin I was still comfortably warm.

The rain really kicked up as we approached Norton Summit which added extra appeal to grabbing a sneaky beer. The Scenic Hotel was clearly a trap and we happily walked into it! They offered us to camp in the lane with firewood which was tempting, but I wanted to use the tent in more rugged conditions, so we left the warmth and got back on the trail. There was a small clear patch of sunset as we descended the valley, still warm from a whisky and optimistic for a camp feed and rest.

When we hit the valley floor, the rain really set in. It was my first time setting up this tent in the wild, and Guy was borrowing my MSR so was also a first timer on that. This meant we took a while and let far more water into both tent inners than necessary with more experience. I didn't appreciate how heavy the rain was until I was pitched and could see the amount of water in the bathtub. Doing all this in the dark made that second beer seem not as brilliant an idea!

It was a major effort to get the tent interior dry enough to be ready to cook, everything not in dry bags was soaked at this point. Despite all that, I was never cold. We were lucky it wasn't a super low temperature evening, and I'm sure the dense fog over the valley helped.

Dinner was excellent, a miso soup starter followed by an Outdoor Gourmet double meal. They've all been really tasty so far and I'm looking forward to going through all their flavours on the big trip. Guy crashed out after dinner and I set to work to try and deal with my wet stuff. I changed into my spare clothes from a dry bag, and they quickly absorbed a lot more damp than I wanted. I hung some clothes from the tent poles to gravity dry and after a few hours of this and occasionally squeezing the water out, I was able to fully dry them out in the warmth of my sleeping bag.

My sleeping bag held up brilliantly despite all the moisture, and made me glad for buying one rated well over the expected temperatures. I could see the down bunching in a few wet places, but it was overall still super effective. I settled down to try and get some sleep.

I was woken early in the am by mistake #2. The wind had picked up and the pressure on my side walls was enough to fling the pegs out of the sodden ground! Both poles had collapsed and I was in a mess. My headlamp was in reach and my earlier efforts to dry my clothes paid off - I put on everything dry I had and went barefoot in my wet shoes to try and sort it out. I was extremely lucky that this happening during a rain break, without a shell I was at risk of getting seriously cold. I collected my pegs, some of which were well away from their starting locations. I tried them on an angle and found not enough purchase in the wet ground, so I pushed them in vertically to maximise the depth and hope for some better soil. I considered going down to the creek and getting some stones, but it would have meant getting colder dealing with the water. It was surreal being out working in the fog and low light - visibility was only around 20 metres.

With the tent back up, I settled back in nervously to warm up and get more sleep. The night wasn't done with me, I was woken again in a few hours with water hitting my face, the wind exposed side had again collapsed and rain was getting through over the bathtub edge. Mistake #3 was not grabbing the rocks and engineering it better when I had the chance earlier. It was now raining heavily and I couldn't risk getting my remaining clothes wet. I found the pegs and reinserted them from within the tent, and lay back down hoping it would hold until morning. My next fallback was to hold on to the fly and see if I could wait it out.

Morning came and I woke, fortunate that the tent had held. I felt more rested than I deserved. I was grateful with our judgement to set up on higher ground - a nearby temptingly flat spot that was dry the previous night was now about 2 inches underwater! My cooker and my backup lighter ignition both failed due to the damp, luckily Guy had a lighter packed away in a ziploc bag for a coffee and some hot porridge.

We breakfasted, packed up our soggy gear and tramped out of the valley, ready to face another day. We had steady moderate rain and it was colder as always near Mt Lofty summit, but lovely walking. We saw a few brave trail runners, had a mini interview with someone who seemed to be giving some people a Heysen Trail tour. We came across multiple kangaroos unusually closeup, I guess they were too soggy to hop away. The weather gods had one last treat for us - as we crossed the exposed top of Brown Hill we got a little hail!

It was a tough couple of days, with the worst of the difficulties completely avoidable. We had a great time nonetheless and finished with a beer at the Ed in excellent spirits.

Lessons learnt:

The Tarptent Notch Li (and I suspect all tents that use hiking poles for structure) put far more strain on tent pegs. Stock lightweight nail style pegs are not enough in wet soil. I had already ordered a set of titanium pegs with more surface area and I'll potentially get a couple of heavy duty stakes to use on a wild day
If the weather is wild and we're unsheltered, use any break to find some good rocks for extra support
My lighter needs to go in a dry bag rather than mesh ditty, or it's no good as a backup
Zinc stick for sunscreen was great. No oily residue at end of the day
The Soto cooker piezo doesn't work if it gets damp. I left it set up overnight and it would've been splashed - I need to be disciplined and pack it away in ziploc overnight
I need more random cordage to hang really wet clothes. The poles outside the tent are great for gravity drying sopping things, and a clotheslines loop inside for mostly dry things overnight would be perfect
Managing wet gear when you're tired isn't fun, but it's really important
The prothermal and nitro fleece combo were far warmer than they deserve to be for the weight. I was ok despite being soaked to the skin, which is great to know for an emergency situation
I'm going to ditch the down puffer vest - for the weight the other thermal gear is so much more efficient and doesn't get compromised by wet
Having an overspecced sleeping bag gave me the wiggle room to recover from these mistakes without getting dangerously cold
Don't forget your raincoat kids!