Awhile back famous mountaineering Mr. Know-it-All, Yvon Chounaird noticed indigenous people using tumplines to bring different musclegroups into play forestalling fatigue. He bacame a true believer when this gave him relief for a longtime neck injury and brought these out in his retail catalog complete with a concise logical explanation.
Boy did we need these suckers - a veritable army of us marching up Sierra trails with our tumpline supported packs. [well at least a dozen or so]
The part we missed in the explanation was where the indigenous peoples had a lifetime of retraining certain musclegroups and they really didn't need to see where the were going. I'm relatively sure I did the Sierra Haute Route that summer but actually can't prove it. It mostly looked like the tops of size 10 1/2 Lowa boots.
My diary has this entry - "day 2 with tumpline, everything going swimmingly, all of Camp 4 paralyzed with neck strains and homemade hard cider...."

Edited by pyeyo on 01/02/2010 11:31:45 MST.

Nice story -- I like that. Made me chuckle.

Good point about getting used to a tump line -- they do use different muscles. Best setup is when you have both shoulder straps and tump line, with both adjustable. Then you trade back and forth, much like a waist belt and shoulder straps.

When I tumped canoes, I found that I took weight mostly on my shoulders (i.e. paddle blades) at the start of the summer with the tump just giving a break on long portages. By later in the summer, I took the weight mostly on my tump, with the blades on my shoulders mostly giving a little bit of stability. Definitely something to work into.

-- Bob

Roger: Like this?

Yup!

Here's two:
No bladders, hoses, etc. Still use two Nalgene quart widemouth bottles (the translucent, not the Lexan). MYOG pack has a sleeve on each side about half way up into which each bottle fits snugly. Stiffeners sewn in at top so bottle goes in easily. Easy to clean. Easy to carry from the water source with cap retainer looped over a finger. They last around ten years, but I replace them before that. My loaded pack weighs around 20#, so taking it off to have a drink is no big deal.

Another one: Leave the GPS at home. Use a swiss DP-6 Box compass and either Trails Illustrated map, or scanned portions of NGS Quads on both sides with new trails and routes drawn in and then laminated between the thinnest plastic laminating sheets could find. At my age, decided carrying a McMurdo PLB had to be a must, so something else in the gizmo dept. had to go. Sometimes even leave the camera out (gasp), and still have just as much fun.
Sam F. at Mt. Chocorua

I second the fishnet underwear warm when wore under wind proof clothing and instanly dried when got wet.

But where do you find it now?

Colin,
Searched the web and found plenty of fishnet undies using the term, "mesh."
What I could not find were the mesh polo shirts I used to wear that were not just a loose weave, but real see- through mesh weave that was very elastic and too thick for the bugs to bite through. (All the polyester polos I have now are easily pierced by skeeters) It was also quite warm under a shell or sweater. Unfortunately, it was all or mostly cotton, and eventually rotted out and tore itself apart. Miss it.
Sam F.

Google for "fishnet long underwear". Most of the hits are for brief-and-sexy -- perhaps not what you are looking for, but a few hits look good. Wiggy's, Fox Ridge (selling Wiggy's), Canadian Wintersports,

Wiggy's is nylon. Canadian WinterSports is polypropylene.

Helly Hansen sells their 'Odin' line of baselayers which is partially mesh. The long sleeve top has a mesh torso and then fabric sleeves. The pants are mesh in the thigh area. The sleeves are merino wool if I recall correctly (I used to work for HH) so the whole garment is pretty light. I think it's ~4-5oz for a medium but I could be wrong. It would be a very light top if you chopped it into a t-shirt and lopped off the turtle neck.

Edited by dandydan on 01/04/2010 23:08:36 MST.

Aclima of Norway make 100% merino ('Woolnet') and polypro ('Coolnet') garments.

www.aclima.no

Brynje of Norway also make fishnet underwear in various styles. Details HERE