what do you carry on trips?

With four calories, sounds like it should be more aptly named five-second energy.

Don't knock it till you try it!

I have the honor of addressing this topic at NSAS this year. It will be from a mountain rescue perspective. And it will be based on personal experience, friends experience, and the experience of people that we have helped out in the backcountry. I will look at what you should be carrying to deal with the situation (as best you can) after an accident has happened in the categories of first aid, communication, shelter, and possible evacuation.

Everything is open to interpretation and personal choice of course, just saying that there is some experience behind the recommendations.

Hope to see a bunch of you there.

www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi...61.msg93566#msg93566

I once got lost and had to spend the night out on what was supposed to be a mellow solo jaunt up Heliotrope on Baker. It was to be a midday to late afternoon/sunset trip and as it was already quite sunny and warm as I was hitting the trail the last thing I did before heading up was reach into my pack, take out my puffy sweater and toss it in the back of my car. This was a mistake. Luckily I did have a jetboil, my plan was to have a nice hot meal at my highpoint before heading down. I decided to ski one of the fingers of snow as far down as I could and then hike over to the trail, in fact I had done this very thing on a previous trip without incident. Pleasant cross country walking slowly morphed into swimming through Devil's Club and navigating fallen log mazes ten feet above the ground, and eventually I just had to stop and wait it out. I was able to boil water with the jetboil which made a huge difference, and I did have a space blanket in my pack. The space blanket certainly was worth the weight that night, although in retrospect I believe the kind that you can get into like a sleeping bag would be much warmer.

All's well that ends well as I managed to get my bearings and hike out in about 3 hours in the morning. There was one funny moment about 10-20 minutes before I got out, at this point I was still thinking I might have 10 hours of climbing back onto the mountain to find the cow path and follow it back home. I, a 20 year vegetarian, came upon a puddle that was full of tadpoles and I spent about 3 minutes staring at them and wondering if I should eat them for energy since I was out of food. I decided against it thankfully and just a few minutes later I stumbled out of the woods right to my car which was parked at that the little pullout 1/4 mile down from the main parking lot.

I guess the point of my ramble is to say that whatever you take, maybe take a little extra clothes/food when you are solo, you just never know!

I always bring my HELMET it is the perfect pillow!
It fits just right, it keeps my hat on, I cant roll off it, it keeps my head off the cold snow or rocks!

For overnight trips, don't forget a light weight cribbage board and cards to pass the time when you're forced to crawl in the tent at 4 p.m. and endure the next 14 hours sucking the oxygen out of your snow encapsulated tent.

Can't handle the weight? Try Pirate Farkel instead.  Pirate Farkel (Need a one-eyed emoticon!)

Saxybrain , sorry for my fellow TAyers condescension and eye rolling just because you are from Texas. I'm afraid you are going to have to get used to that for a while as these young, super smart urban-mountaineers are going to act very superior for a while until you get acclimatized. Only 120 days or so until you come over the pass like some Mormon pushing his hand cart to the promised land with all your boyish enthusiasm I've come to appreciate. Shortly thereafter you'll be skinning up to Muir ( make sure you actually get to Muir..Amar is checking) with your pack overflowing with ibuprofen, iodine tablets, hand-sanitizer and condoms; your pack festooned with Voile straps. A few more months here and you'll be driving at 10 mph below the speed limit in the left lane and pontificating on TAY with the rest of us.

Not all Mormon men push hand carts.