"wet moss is quite soothing, and it exfoliates!"

Never thought about that. I have LOTS of wet moss. MILES of it! It even comes on a stick :)

CLELLAND! Do you see what you have reduced us to? [Colonel Kurtz] The horror......

Edited by dwambaugh on 07/08/2011 22:00:17 MDT.

I love this tip. I do this all the time when I'm backcountry skiing and want to shed a layer without stopping. You have really mastered this tip when you can do it while riding a bike...

"I love this tip. I do this all the time when I'm backcountry skiing and want to shed a layer without stopping. You have really mastered this tip when you can do it while riding a bike..."

And not wearing a helmet :) Make sure your organ donor card is filled out completely, eh?

Right on! Just so y'know - I can do it on a bike, and using trekking poles.

rich man, poor man
beggar man, theif
dropped a yam?
wipe with a leaf




P.S.

The book is fantastic and very inspiring
GET IT if you haven't yet
It will change your life

All I will add to this particular discussion is that Mr. Paladino should keep his eyes on the road while biking.

Hey Daniel: Got a cool scar yet?

Haha yes I do Addie. I also have a nice little bald spot on my chin.

I picked up your book while I was across the country and read through the entire thing while still on the plane back to the East Coast. I'm in the process of reading it through a second time and all I can say is wow. This is probably the most comprehensive and definitely the most fun UL book I've read. It's given me tons of ideas to try and I'm urging my girlfriend to read it and subscribe to the UL mindset. I just wanted to thank you for such a great book. Also, I used this current shirt tip yesterday as I was walking back from work. I felt pretty cool about it.

Evan

Thanks, Mike, for the very clearly illustrated directions on removing the child-proof thingy from the mini-Bic! I've been doing it wrong, and ruined a couple of them. The illustration is very clear even for a non-mechanical klutz like me!

I don't know how long these have been around, but I just got some "Thumb-Friendly" Bic lighters. They're 2.5 inches tall and weigh .6 ounces, but I can accept that weight penalty for fire-starting ease and comfort, even with gloves on.

Great book, BTW. Second only to the Golden Book of Camping and Craft Crafts in my pantheon.

Edited by theDanarchist on 07/16/2011 16:05:31 MDT.

By prying off the metal top when the bic mini is out of juice, you can turn the thing into a pretty good firestarter/ sparker. As I always say, the best backup firestarter to a Bic Mini is the bic Mini itself (and another Bic mini).

+1 on the great, well illustrated instructions, Mike. What a great book you've written.

Stargazer

I also have these, 1 in cook kit & 1 in first aide kit. I also like that if you keep it lit for any extended period of time, you don't burn your thumb when you try to relight it. Have read the book 3 times and have lost a lot of weight. We owe many thanks to Mike.

Scott

Mike,

I have a question regarding your recipes in the book. I cannot find where the number of servings is indicated. Could you enlighten me as to how to determine how many servings are made as per your instructions. I can't wait to try these recipes. A great book!

Blessings,
Rodney Mruk

All my mini bics get the extreme version of Mike's tip which I posted here:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=43084&skip_to_post=366504#366504

You can save another 2 grams with the same needle nose pliers.

Another really good one, Mike! This is what I try to do for more privacy and to avoid dusty, trodden down, often garbage-strewn overused camp sites. Also, in many wilderness areas, it is required that you camp 200 feet (at least 2/3 of the distance you recommend) from the trail and from water sources. I take it a step further by not camping at popular lakes, often following the inlet or outlet for a quarter mile or more to a more secluded area and then getting well away from the stream.

One thing I hate to see is a meadow full of bright-colored tents! I love "silnylon gray" because it is hardly visible in most places. I dearly wish that shelter makers (even some "cottage" ones) would stop using bright yellow, bright orange, bright green, bright blue.

It's a bit harder to stealth camp in areas where the bark beetles have run rampant. Sometimes the only place that's safe from "widow-makers" is out in a meadow! In those cases, I don't set up my shelter until almost dark, even when I've camped early, and strike camp as soon as I wake up, so my shelter is on the vegetation only during the time I'm sleeping.

There was a recent thread here (I'm pretty sure it was here and not on another site) that tried to equate stealth camping with illegal camping. I always thought that stealth camping was what you illustrate here, being secluded and unobtrusive for others' sakes as well as our own. Nothing illegal about it; in fact it's in line with both wilderness regulations and common courtesy!

Besides, this style of camping really cuts down the problem of snoring neighbors! :-)

Thanks again for promoting a camping style that all too many people ignore!

Edited by hikinggranny on 07/21/2011 18:24:25 MDT.

I agree fundamentally with this advice about stealth camping -- except during hunting season. Then, I want every off-trail gun or bow hunter to know that I'm there. If I could set up, spinning lights and fog horns, I would (having been aimed at a few times too many. ;-)

Stargazer -- the guy with the bull's eye painted on his chest, apparently

Edited by nerdboy52 on 07/22/2011 04:34:37 MDT.

Usually it's the hunters who are camped in those dusty, overused spots next to the trail! That being said, I hang a good-sized hunk of blaze orange cloth on my silnylon gray shelter if I backpack during hunting season. I still get well away from the trail, but I camp more out in the open!

One nice thing about living in the Northwest is that Washington state has a 2-3 week break between "high buck" season in mid-September and the opening of general firearm hunting season in mid-October. This gives those of us seeking the elusive Alpine Larch a chance to get out and see it in all its golden glory!

This is great tip as long as the rules of the area allow it - but why whoud the pack size or cooking make a difference?

I've done stealth camping as long as I remember, even 20 years ago with very heavy backpack and I have never felt the need to start the day without a good breakfast either. I mean, if you don't find a space to cook, it's likely that you don't find a spot big enough for sleeping either.

Waterless campsite could be a problem if you do not prepare yourself at all, but waterless areas can be seen on the map beforehand so you can take the water from the previous source.

Thomas, judging by your pic, it isn't hard to see why you have been aimed at!

Hi Antti, in the book Mike has other tips that tie in and explain his cooking-on-the-trail bit. Don't worry, he isn't advocating skipping breakfast!!! From what I've read I'd say Mike is passionate about good food and eats some hearty & delicious stuff on the trail.

As for pack size making a difference, where I live almost all the big-old growth trees have been logged, so the forest here is relatively young and densely packed with trees. This makes moving off trail a real challenge (and sometimes down-right miserable), especially with a big traditional pack on my back. I have been working on shrinking my pack size, and this is already making off-trail travel noticeably easier.

And lastly, traveling light allows you to sleep in some pretty small spaces. All you need is level earth in roughly your body shape. And as I recently discovered with hammock camping, now I don't even need level ground...

Anyway, hope that helped make the tip a little clearer! Alanna