Testing Backpacking Gear In Michigan

Testing Backpacking Gear In Michigan I was backpacking in the Sleeping Bear Dunes. It was March, so if I have through the woods and the dunes, I miles beach. It 'been over-night, an opportunity, the new ultralight backpacking equipment. I hiked the wooded hills quickly, enjoying the cold air.Halfway through the woods, I stopped to cook pasta. The convenient 3-oz pot was a U. S. Dollar store, and it works. I was happy, because from the catalog descriptions, the expensive titanium pots are all heavy, probably because they are too thick and too many gadgets.I branch had a small fire, when my home-made alcohol stove is not enough heat. I have since leaed that the isopropyl alcohol does not bu as hot as the alcohol for a gas additive, but the classes in each case.Backpacking on the beach after eating, I hiked to Lake Michigan, and sat on a big dune sand. I watched the waves push ice to the empty beach. Coyote started to scream in the distance and the clouds rolled in. I was on the beach in search Petoskey stones when the snow began. Backpackers in March risks.I he was running, and it would be below freezing at night. In northe Michigan, March is definitely part of winter. My feet stay warm while I hiked, but I had not expected, are wet. At least I had a couple of warm, dry socks for backpacking EquipmentIt was sleeping.Ultralight the first time that my GoLite Breeze backpack, which weighs only 13 ounces. I was hiking with about nine pounds on my back, and this only because I have a box. I went easy, but I knew the forests here and felt good abilities.My my sleeping bag was a 17 oz Weste Mountaineering HighLite. It was the first time that I would use it below freezing (It hit 25 degrees Celsius during the night). Fortunately it was not too windy.At edge of the forest behind the dunes, my small tarp. I have accumulated pine needles and dead bracken fes under, ending as it was dark. This made a warm mattress, and I slept well, listening to the coyotes, and the waves pushing ice around lake.In in the moing, I was happy to see just a sprinkling of snow. My one-lbs bag was warmer than my three-pound - and I thought that was the light. I poured alcohol in the cut-off of a fund may Pepsi (my 1/2-ounce backpacking stove) and tea. After a couple of crackers I was soon standing over my shoes dry, on Lake Michigan shoreline.Backpacking teaching Leaed end of my jouey in the afteoon with a walk in the village of Empire, seven kilometers away. I was particularly pleased. Only two problems: my towel was too small, and alcohol, I was wrong type.After backpacking in Michigan for years, I know too. I know where the dead grass and bracken fes, for example, of a warm mattress in minutes. Knowledge, of course, can be valuable as expensive backpacking gear.Steve Gillman is a long time Backpacker, and advocate of ultralight backpacking. His advice and stories can be found at