MYOG Supplex Hiking Pants with Zippered Vents

Hello folks. Got another MYOG (Make Your Own Gear)  post for you all to enjoy.

I always get hot and sweaty while hiking, and have recently been wearing trail running shorts with an ExOfficio mesh ventilated longsleeve button up hiking shirt. However, with warm weather comes the 'skeeters and ticks, so, rather than slathering on the DEET on my calves (clothes are Permethrin treated.... highly recommend it), I decided to go with full length pants but with zippered vents backed by mesh/netting down the leg.

I used Supplex/Taslan as the material, which is a 100% nylon fabric that dries quickly and has a soft, cottony feel. The particular color I chose also happened to have a UPF rating of 50+, which is great for summer use. It also had a great DWR treatment, but that's no more, as I just treated the pants with Permethrin, which keeps mosquitoes, ticks, flies, etc from biting, but degrades any DWR treatment.

My inspiration came from Railriders Eco-Mesh Pants which has zippered vents on the outseam. Mine is zippered on the inseam for simplicity, since the method I use only has seams on the inseam and crotch/butt crack. The added benefit of having the vent on the inside is that the vent/mesh is less likely to get snagged on brush while hiking. I only added a single pocket to the right leg, as that's all I ever really use.

They're very comfortable (the bug netting doesn't scratch or anything and I don't even notice the zips).

Total weight: 175.2g / 6.18oz
Materials:
-3.4-3.7 oz/yd2 Supplex/Taslan - Ash Gray UPF50+ from Rockywoods (2 yards is plenty)
-gray noseeum netting also from Rockywoods
-#3 YKK zipper from DIY Gear Supply,
-3/8" no-twist elastic and random lanyard for waist drawcord.

Elastic for most of the waist except the front, which I've sewn the lanyard pieces into to have a partial drawcord.

Closeup of the vents from the outside.

This is what it looks like inside. All seams that weren't captured by the zipper (crotch, butt, ankle) were felled to increase strength/durability.

These are currently the only pictures I have of wearing the "pant."

This part took the longest. Sewed an inch of the crotch first, then the zippers, then each side of the netting to each section of zipper/pant, then folded and sewed the zipper down to the leg again from the outside, capturing the cut edge of the netting in the supplex and the supplex edge caught by the netting.

Seriously, I could have sewn another pair or two of pants in the time it took me to do the vents, but the second leg I did went by much faster/cleanly.

Much thanks goes to Roger Caffin and Jerry Adams of Backpacking Light for their great tutorials on how to make Supplex/taslan pants.

Rampart Lakes Day Hike with Friends

July 26, 2014

I forgot how awesome the potholes are on the drive to the trail head. Slurmz made it up there with no problem. If you drive fast enough you can coast over them ;) Plenty of parking in the lower lot and you can pay for a permit at the TH.

The eight of us met up at 10 am on a beautiful Saturday morning. I've never hiked with so many people before! It was fun and there was so much conversation to keep my mind off the elevation gain during the last leg up to Rachel Lake. All the elevation gain is in the last half of the hike. It's great.

The Group at the beginning of the hike

Waterfall

This was Andy and my third time on this hike. We carried 26 and 23 pounds, respectively, because this is what we are expecting to carry at Rainier.

Lunch break at Rachel Lake

The gals

There are plenty of mosquitoes. Be prepared and bring your bug spray and clothing. Bleh. With some of us feeling good and not giving a choice to the others we climbed another 0.5 miles up to Rampart Lakes where we took naps, got eaten by more mosquitoes, ate some candy and took more pictures.

Rampart Lakes

Andy's nap spot

There were only a few patches of snow going up to Rampart Lakes. We had a few slips, but nothing to worry about. It's snow free around the lakes once you get there. So worth it for just a little extra effort.

On the way down letting others pass us

A good experience was had by all - way to push yourselves through the hurt. Let's do another one!

Quick Update and Surprise Lake Day Hike

July 13, 2014

Wedding festivities are over and now Andy and I can be married which means free weekends for hiking!

Back in April we received confirmation that our Wonderland Trail itinerary was approved. We'll be hiking it in six days with no resupply starting from Longmire and heading clockwise. I'm nervous, but we will be doing some conditioning hikes before the big trip starting with Surprise Lake.

Andy made me a cool, new, safety-orange backpack and he made himself a nice new one, too. Yeah, 100% custom-made (Andy's MYOG post here). My husband is awesome. We loaded our packs with just under 20 lbs of gear and they held up wonderfully during the hike. My new pack shaves off a pound from my Osprey pack which means I'll be using it for Rainier.

The last time we were here Surprise Lake was frozen over and there was so much snow! On Sunday, the weather was warm/perfect and the lake was all thawed out. There were bugs, of course, and only patches of snow on the trail, but no big deal. It's a pretty gentle climb up to the lake until the last half mile. The trail is mostly in the forest and shaded by trees so it is a good hike for such warm weather. Feeling good about our energy levels we headed to Glacier Lake but due to a lost water bottle incident and not remembering how much farther the lake was (only 0.5 miles, doh!), we decided to turn around and head home. We will make it up there one of these days.

At Surprise Lake. Pardon the frown - I was chewing my Cliff Bar and didn't want to stop eating for pictures.

Shortly after he lost his water bottle. Always has a positive attitude!

Looking back up the trail. I still can't get over how awesome the staircases are here.

A Little Slice of Paradise - An Overnight Snowshoe trip to Paradise , Mt. Rainier

March 1-2, 2014

AN here writing my first trip report for the blog! Hopefully I can keep this as entertaining as AL does!

We were just itching to spend the night outdoor, especially after I finished making my first backpack! With storms and heavy snowfall in the forecast for most of the Cascades, we drove down to Mt. Rainier to snowshoe around Paradise, where the weather was supposed to be 27/18 and 4-8" of snow. The park employees keep the roads and grounds well maintained so the drive was a breeze (chained up a couple miles from the visitor center.

We snowshoed around the center, heading up the Edith Creek Basin route for awhile, but turned back not long after as visibility was getting worse the higher we went up. The snow and the low clouds made it hard to see more than a couple hundred feet.  

Where's the mountain?

Backpack was the most comfortable one Ive worn, and it should be, since I made it custom fitted for my use. 

My BPL post with details on making my backpack.

There were a bunch of people building some awesome snowcaves all around the park to hunker down in for the night. I think it'd be something fun to try out, especially near the visitor center, where there's a sense of security in case things do not go according to plan (Bathroom/payphone building open 24/7) .

Snowboard tracks.

We continued to snowshoe around the park and made our way to the west most trail (of the two) that goes to Glacier Vista. We staked out a nice camp site near some trees on a bluff, but decided we'd make our camp closer to civilization, since I wasn't comfortable being too far out with our first snow overnight in the Tarptent Double Rainbow with that much snow expected to fall at night.

Stomping down the snow to make camp!

 

We made camp near some trees again, had our meal and headed into the tent when it got dark around 1900. Lows hit 22* F, and we only got about 2-3" of snow during the night. Our Double Rainbow held up wonderfully. 

My karo step baffled down quilt I made was super toasty, and I didn't even have to cinch it up all the way. Pretty much just used it like a blanket. I didn't even get a chance to use the down hood I made because I was so warm. Here are the details on my down quilt on Backpacking Light.

Angela Finally got to use her Marmot Women's Helium 15* down sleeping bag in cold weather, and it looks like the temperature rating is pretty accurate as it actually kept her warm!

Packing up. So sad.

A much clearer morning!

We got up around 7 and broke down camp and took a morning stroll up towards Alta Vista/Glacier Vista but turned around when the wind picked up. We didn't have any goggles on, so the snow/ice pelting our face stung and kept getting in our eyes.

After making it down off the mountain, we hung around the Jackson Visitor Center at Paradise, waiting for it to open so we could grab some hot cocoa before leaving. Talked to a nice guy named Josh, who owns and operates a gear store, Peak Outdoors, in Texas, who was visiting Rainier for a week. While there, the rangers gave us an awesome sled! Angela and I booked it up the Snow Play Area and took it down for a ride. The screams of pure joy coming from Angela was wonderful. We're definitely bringing friends back here to go sledding/tubing!

UPDATED: Colchuck Lake (almost!)

October 5, 2013

Andy and I were lucky to have our engagement photos taken by the lovely and talented Miss Jen Au (check out her blogs here and here). I am a huge fan of her photography not only because we're friends, but because they make me want to cry - so beautiful.

It turned out to be an ordeal picking the location. Somewhere with larches? Okay, Lake Ingalls. On Thursday night a trip report appeared warning of waist deep snow and snowshoes recommended. Dang it! Change of plans - Colchuck and Stuart Lake. Jen suggested pictures at sunset, so we left Mill Creek around 12:45pm and arrived at the trailhead around 3:00pm. Wow, late start. We decided to head to Colchuck only. For some reason, I didn't think we'd be taking pictures during the hike. Luckily I wore a cute hiking shirt. We encountered only a little bit of snow and it ended up being a very nice day. Because we stopped several times to take pictures along the trail, at 5:45 pm we still had about an hour of hiking left to get to the lake. The sun was setting quickly so we backtracked to a nice spot and took pictures with the sunset in our fancy clothes. Andy dearest set up the tent for me to change in <3. It was a fun experience. I found out I have very poor posture. I'm also very awkward, but hey, I already knew this. We've also never hiked at night before. Although Jen took a pretty hard fall (damn roots) and we ended up having to backtrack out of the horse trail, it wasn't horrible and it's totally worth pictures at sunset. Just need to make sure the hike down isn't too difficult. We got our pictures in about a month ago. Take a look-see:

Rainier - Glacier Vista Snowshoe

January 4, 2014

Happy New Year, Everyone!

I cannot believe we have not been on a hike since late October. Lame-o.

I'm quite certain all us hiker folk checked the weather forecast for this past weekend and thought "I must get to the great outdoors". Seriously, could we have asked for better weather?? We left Mill Creek at 7:30 am and arrived at the Mount Rainier National Park gate/toll booth where we were able to purchase an interagency annual pass. Due to icy conditions, chains were required for all 2WD vehicles. All 4WD vehicles just needed to have chains in the car. The drive up to the lot was well paved and slightly icy with a light dusting of snow. Watch out for those snow plows, though. They are wide and are not afraid to come barreling down the hill right at you. We arrived at the Paradise Lodge parking area at 10:45 am. The lot was about half to 3/4 full with staff directing parking.

As we were strapping on our snowshoes, the nice ranger lady advised us to reconsider going up to Panorama Point due to moderate avalanche danger. Okay, we would evaluate once we got there. Did I mention this was our first time snowshoeing EVER? Well, it was. And it was so freakin' fun!!! Loved it. Andy and I are thinking of a snowshoe overnight in the near future. If you're wondering, you cannot camp at Paradise in the winter until there is at least 5 feet of snow. There was, however, plenty of snow for snowshoeing and some people were even skiing. Others were wearing sneakers (which I would not recommend).

Needless to say, we saw and met many people. Andy, Crystal and I ended up stopping for lunch along Alta Vista (?). Glacier Vista was quite crowded, but along Alta Vista you could see both Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens on this clear and sunny day.

I wanted to go up there for lunch.

Andy snowshoeing along Alta Vista (I believe). It was icy, but not a problem with our shoes. Also, don't forget your sunglasses. Also, look at the cool cloud! It was so flat and round and barely moved the whole time we were up there. It was like a spaceship (because I know what spaceships look like)!

View of Rainier from our lunch spot.
During lunch, there were several powerful gusts of wind. You could see the snow flying off of Rainier and showering the people climbing up to Panorama Point. In the photo below, I was able to count about 33 people attempting the climb up. Apparently you are able to see down to Oregon and spot Mt. Hood from there. Awesome!

Sadly, we did not make the climb up to Panorama Point :( No worries, I had a wonderful first time snowshoeing. This is us in front of Mt. Rainier:

Hello! I know, I got my hair chopped off. Ya dig?

The Mountain.

Until next time~