Mariposa Stashbag
Remember that picture I posted a while ago? Myself and two friends went to check it out this weekend, and unfortunately it turned out to be unjumpable. There was a series of staircased ledges starting 160 feet below the exit point, as well as a nasty butress on the right side that turned a 90 left into imminent death. Several other exit-point were equally unpromising. We found one exit point that provided a 180 feet static-line or PCA jump but because of the winds I decided not to jump it.
Of all unjumpable exit-points I have ever seen in my life, this one has to be the most beautiful one. It's a real shame. If the diving board was sticking out thirty feet further, we would have had 2000 feet to play with.
The trip was incredible nonetheless. We did a two day hike and camped on the summit. The hike itself turned into a 6 hour to and 5 hour return scramble, climb and bushwack. We had to use the rope a few times, do some very steep climbing and bushwack through forest so thick that we were walking on the branches instead of the ground. This gave me an excellent chance to try out a new backpack I bought earlier that week.
After doing a five hour hike with my regular stashbag two weeks earlier, I had realized that BASE stashbags are not useful for anything longer than two hours because they start digging into your shoulders too much, nor do they allow for easy carrying of extra gear. So I started looking around for something more useful and somebody recommended the Golite Jam Pack to me. I tried ordering one, but they couldn't ship it on time for my next trip. I figured my local outdoor stores would carry some useful backpacks, but all of them were too big and solid and none had detachable frames.
Through the Golite pack, I learned about this thing called ultra-light backpacking which apparently has an entire community dedicated to it. These people get multiple uses out of anything. They wrap shoulder-straps with socks instead of using padding. They use a sleeping-mat as the back-frame of their backpack. Some even cut off the border of their maps and bring a lightweight energy drink because Gatorade is too heavy. Crazy!
Reading up on this world I didn't know existed (my idea of backpacking involved a humongous backpack with a metal frame, and bad-ass mountaineering boots) I ran into a company called Gossamer. They sell a backpack called the Mariposa. It has a carbon fiber frame that you can remove and it's completely compressible.
I send the company an email on Tuesday night at 9 PM. Five minutes later, I got a phone-call from the founder of the company. Turns out the company isn't very big and that he was just sitting at his desk checking his email. So we talk for a while, and he agreed that the Mariposa might be suitable for my needs. I told him that I planned a trip this weekend and I asked him if he could do overnight shipping. He said he would do his best. Incredible service! Two days later I received an envelop on my desk. That's right, an envelope! It goes to show how stashable this bag is. It weighs next to nothing, has a hip and sternum strap and extra wide shoulder straps. The chest-strap comes with an emergency whistle built into the clip. How neat!
Of course the stashability wouldn't be very useful if the bag wasn't durable. So this trip would be a great test. I brought all my BASE gear (rig, body-armour, knee-pads, full-face helmet), a bivy-sack, a sleeping-bag, emergency gear (radios, first-aid, GPS, yadda yadda), food, three liters of water and took it on this total of 10 hours of scrambling through thick forest and on steep rocks. I overloaded the pack a little beyond it's limits and scraped it many times over sharp rock edges and tree barks. Miraculously, it totally held up and came out completely unscatched.
I have not yet been able to take the bag on a jump, but I have geared up completely wearing the stashed pack, body armour, my gear, etcetera. It works great! You can't fold the pack into the rig-pocket, but you can wear it across your chest, stash it down your pants, or wrap it up and wear it fanny pack style.
All in all, the Mariposa is a highly recommend pack if you are looking for something to carry your gear in for longer hikes. I'll still be using my old stashbag for anything less than two hours, but for those longer hikes I'm counting on the Mariposa.
Cheers,
Jaap
