Our Weekend!

It's that time of the year again. Each year we find 1 piece of backpacking equipment that we would like to upgrade and purchase. This year we chose sleeping bags. After 1 week worth of research Jay and I headed out to Campmor over in NJ and to EMS (right next door) to pickout our bags. We left the house around 10:00 and arrived a little after noon. First stop was EMS. Both of us was not impressed at all with their store, so we walked over to Campmor. Campmor is our favorite backpacking store.

We spent about 2 1/2 hours going through all their bags. Jason narrowed his choice down to the Sierra Designs Nitro 30, which is a 800 down bag. I checked it out as well but did not like how confined I felt when inside.

The Sierra Designs Nitro 30

I decided on the Epexd Wallcreeper. I am still debating and will probably purchase my second choice as well and just return the one I end up liking the most. My second choice was the MontBell Super Stretch Hugger 2. I chose the Epexd first because of it's versitility. We normally hike in the spring, summer and fall months so the lowest we have ran into was 40 deg or so. I love to armholes. I hate being confined in my sleeping bag. This one unzips fully, had zippers for the arms and also hand warmers. The bottom opens up using a draw string and you can cinch it up to your waist if you want to walk around camp with your bag on. Although it's rating is for 35 deg I've read numerous reports that the bag is only good for 40 deg. That does create a concern with me but overall this bag is really cool. I'm still deciding so check back soon for an update. I ordered the MontBell last night so once it arrives I'll experiement with both bags and return the one I do not want.

The Wallcreeper

We also purchased Stabilicers so we could hike Ricketts in the winter time. They worked really well this weekend. We hiked about 4 miles in 4inch deep snow and ice (some was packed due to others hiking as well). Walking up the icy steps was no problem at all. See the Stabilicers below along with Ricketts photos.

Ganoga, the tallest fall at Ricketts at 94'

Jason acting out Dumb and Dumber