New backpack: REI Stoke 19 Ultra Light pack

I've loved and used my REI Venturi 30 backpack with great success so far, and I plan to continue to use it for many hikes to come. It's a great backpack, with plenty of pockets for big and little gear, bottles and hydration packs. It's truly a comfortable backpack, and I am very happy with it.

Below: My Venturi 30 pack:


BUT--(you could tell a 'but' was coming, no?)--for summer hikes, I've often felt that the Venturi was just a little too much pack for the hike--a little too much room, a little too much weight.

My latest purchase, therefore, is a lighter ultra-light REI Stoke 19 backpack for the warmer hikes when I don't have to worry so much about where to put the layers and layers that inevitably get peeled off as the day warms up.

The Stoke pack is the perfect size for the ten essentials, a fleece, a snack, a rain jacket, and your water (either in bottles or in a hydration pack). I haven't tried the pack with a hydration pack [UPDATE: see below], and logically, using a hydration pouch will cut back on the storage room within the pack.

Still, the point of the pack is to store stuff for summer hikes, when you just don't need the necessary room for several layers, so the room taken up by the hydration pack is likely to be somewhat 'spare' anyway.

The pack has a decent-sized nicely organized front pocket for your keys etc; this small secure pocket has two little mesh pockets for little items like chapstick, id cards, and your phone, and it's surprisingly deep and holds a remarkable number of items. You could probably fit most of your ten essentials in there, actually.

The pack also has an outside open storage flap for your fleece, rain jacket, map etc--things that you need to access quickly. This pocket has cinch straps that allow you to adjust the storage flap pocket to meet the needs of the contents, and the cinch straps also allow you to condense the pack when it doesn't have too much in it.

The pack also has a dedicated hydration pocket inside, with a hook for your camelback bottle (although any two liter pouch will work probably). The hose fits through a little slit at the top back of the pack, and then it comes out on either side shoulder strap. These straps also have an stretchy band under which you can thread the hose to take it on the hike.

The main compartment is plenty big enough for a fleece, a rain jacket, some snacks, a first aid kit, and even some flip-flops or water shoes if you have a water crossing. Anything that doesn't fit into the big compartment (which is surprisingly big--you just keep putting stuff in, and it all seems to fit), can go into the storage flap pocket on the front or be tied on with ties.

If you're using the pack for water and it's otherwise mostly empty, you can cinch it further closed by using an internal cinch elastic, accessible by a pull at the very top of the pack. I haven't had to use this yet, but when I do need it, it's there, which is cool.

Finally, pocket-wise, the pack has some slanted side net pockets for maps, bandannas, what-have-you. They're fairly accessible, but as always, some flexibility (or a friend) is good to help you reach back and get whatever you need out from any side pockets. The pockets are a useful size, and they would seem to hold most smallish items pretty securely.

The shoulder pads are remarkably comfortable, I've found. They include porous sponge pad under a net cover, both of which work well in terms of light weight and breathability. The efficacy of the shoulder pads allow you to hike along with nary a care about the weight of a full hydration pouch and the pack. I can't get over how light this thing is, even when packed.

The Stoke's shoulder straps also have a sternum strap (with a surprisingly loud orange safety whistle attached as the sternum clip). The pack also has a waist strap with small zipped pouches big enough for cameras/compasses/binoculars, GORP etc. Pretty ingenious.

I used the Stoke 19 on my recent Smittle Creek hike, and the pack worked out very well. It was very light and comfortable and could easily accommodate all my gear for the day. I didn't use a hydration pouch with this hike, so I just had a bottle in the pack, and it worked out fine.

One feature the pack doesn't have are the pole loops at the bottom of the pack that allow you to attach your poles easily to the pack. This feature isn't essential by any means, and perhaps they would just add weight and complexity to an otherwise fairly simple and highly effective pack. It does have a small loop in the center of the bottom of the pack, upon which you could perhaps rest the poles and then use a tie to attach them to the pack if you needed to do so.

I also don't think it's going to be as waterproof/resistant as the Venturi; the Venturi has sealed zips, for example, and the Stoke appears not to have that feature.

In terms of the Stoke's water-resistance, I think that, if I wanted to use it on a pretty rainy hike, I would just put the contents into ziplock bags and solve the problem that way. For me, this water-resistant question is not a deal-breaker; the weight and capacity far outweigh that minor inconvenience.

Since the Stoke is an ultra-light pack too, I also think that the material is likely not as tear-resistant as the Venturi; to be light-weight, a pack necessarily has to be made of thinner material than a more resistant pack. I'll be watching this part of the pack with interest to see how it lasts, but again--the point of the Stoke backpack is to travel lightly, and you really can't have 100% features of both heavy and light weight packs in a light weight pack. They're just different beasts.

Still, with decent care and realistic expectations, I think the Stoke will serve me well out on the trail for several years.

Overall--it's nice to have a choice in packs, and I'm happy I've chosen these two packs to accompany me on my journeys.

Update: I've used the Stoke pack now on several 8-12 mile hikes, both with and without hydration packs (2 liter), and in both situations (with/without hydration pack), I'm happy to report that the pack feels completely invisible to your back. You really don't notice you have it on at all. Quite an amazing little bag; I really highly recommend it. I can't believe how great it is.

Sugarbowl Snowshoeing

I finally went snow-shoeing up at Tahoe; the stars aligned, the weather was good, the roads were clear, as was my schedule, and off we went.

We had originally determined that we would drop off my son at Sugarbowl for a back-country training class and then we would go to Royal Gorge, which is right next to Sugarbowl, for snowshoes and trails.

At Sugarbowl, however, we learned that we could rent snowshoes from the resort and use their trails without a trail pass. Since they have about seven kilometers of trails, and since we did Smittle Creek yesterday, and since I'm kind of resting my knees, we decided to go low-key today and just stick at Sugarbowl for snow-shoeing.


We were walkig on a groomed trail for the most part, and we probably didn't actually need snow-shoes on that area since the snow was pretty compacted.

We explored off-trail, however, and then we understood well the benefits of spreading weight distribution as we floated along on the surface of what was actually feet deep snow. It was a great experience to see how it all worked so well.



Another cool part of snow-hiking is the easy visibility of animal tracks--coyotes, mice, other critters. It was neat to see the animal highways that are there year-round yet only visible during snow-time. I had my animal track identifer card with me, so that helped us get a feel for the critter tracks.

Below: Our tracks on the meadow near Royal Gorge trails:


On the groomed trails, we were walking on crunchy snow, so our steps were surprisingly noisy as we crunched along. I think, as with all snow sports, the snowshoeing experience is pretty snow-dependent. Powder would probably have been quite different in terms of sound, I think.

I did notice that the snowshoes, while not exactly heavy, did add some additional weight to each step, and so the guideline that four miles of snowshoeing is like five miles of hiking is pretty accurate. I found the snowshoes worked the front of my ankles in a very different way to hiking; I didn't realize I could get stiff there. :)

Additionally, the weight of the snowshoes can impact the fit of your hiking boots--or at least they pulled the back of my boots back and forth creating a heretofore never experienced hot spot on my heel. Still, a Compeed bandaid solved that problem.


Would I snow-shoe again at Sugarbowl?
Pros:

• The groomed trails worked well for the trip; I was with another novice, and we hadn't snow-shoed before, and we wanted to experiment before going futher afield.
• Easy access to trails and rentals (which were reasonable--$15 and no trail pass costs)
  

Cons:

• The trail is right next to a well-used freight railroad for the most part (or at least the trail we were on), so you didn't get a feeling of isolation which is, for me, part of the hiking/being outside experience.
• The snowshoes seemed rather heavy, but it's possible it may just have been that brand (Tubbs); I need to try a different brand to be sure about this part.
  

So--while I would snowshoe again, I think, I would instead I would try a different brand by renting from REI or somewhere and then perhaps go to a trail such as Castle Pass or Echo Lakes instead of a resort, and get a more isolated experience.

All in all, however, a great beginning to the snowshoe experience.

Weather: bluebird--bright sun, low 50s, little wind.

Stats:
Sugarbowl Trailhead--Tramway--Summer Road---Lincoln Highway--Castle Creek (out and back): 8 kilometers--about 4 miles?

Smitttle Creek Trail, Lake Berryessa

It's Spring Break 2010, at long last, and we went for a hard-earned hike over to Smittle Creek again, over by Lake Berryessa. I hadn't been there at this time of year, and it was good to see the lake full, the flowers in bloom, and the eagles in flight.

Weather was stunning--mid-60's, bright sunshine, little wind. All around a great hike.

Below The lupines were in full bloom--fields of blue amazing to see.



Below: One of the several interesting tiny bridges over the feeder creeks into the lake:



Below: The grass really was that green.



Below: Many trees starting their leaves--a true sign of spring:



Below: Intriguing letter shapes on this tree bark:




Stats:
Hike: 6.5 miles
Time: lots of looking around, exploring animal tracks, and bird-watching. Not a fast hike, therefore, but definitely a restorative one.

More about Lake Berryessa's trails and paddling: http://berryessatrails.org/guide/index.htm