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Reviews by sixleggedinsect (33)

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PocketRocket Stove (Manufacturer link) Average Rating = 4.00/5 Average Rating : 4.00/5

In: Gear: Hiking and Camping: Stoves: Canister Mounted

Review 3 out of 5 stars

Review by: sixleggedinsect, 2006-01-04


A nice stove for backpacking in friendly conditions, but too specialized for general use, i find. it sure is light, and the simmer ablility is nice for us whisperlite dorks, but i have more cons and pros. it is pretty flimsy and unstable, particularly when set on dirt, and requires a truly flat surface where you can get away with something featured or slightly tilted with a legged stove. it is expensive. using those weeny little canisters saves weight if all you need is one tiny bit of gas, but id be surprised if it saved weight if you needed more than a week or two of gas, and white gas is so unbelievably cheap compared to canister gas. last, it is fine for wind-protected warm weather cooking, but as soon as the temps drop frigid, or a breeze kicks up, your cooking time skyrockets and you start dreaming of a burlier stove. there are some modifications some folks will do to help with this, and you coudl always cook in your tent if you know what you're doing, but out of the box this is no expedition stove.


WhisperLite Stove (Manufacturer link) Average Rating = 4.10/5 Average Rating : 4.10/5

In: Gear: Hiking and Camping: Stoves: Backpacking Stoves

Review 5 out of 5 stars

Review by: sixleggedinsect, 2006-01-04


This stove is a workhorse. I live on the road, cook two meals a day on it for months at a time. I clean it once in a blue moon, throw it around, fill it with sand and dust, drop it and drop things on it. I use the heck out of it, and yes, i have had problems with it, but they've never shut me down in the field if you keep an o-ring on hand (comes with the stove). all considered, given the abuse ive dished out, i think this thing is rock solid. frying is high maintenance with things you dont want to burn, but its all doable. white gas is dirt cheap and easily to find all over the country in big department and camping stores. i can cook for a month on four dollars of gas with no trouble. when clean it boils water with the best of them, and it works (with windscreen, of course) in frigid temps and wind unlike the pricey/prissy canister and propane stoves. there are better stoves in terms of features, but for backpacking where you're mostly boiling, not frying, this is still a top contender. and for the dirtbag roadtripper, it still works fine. just requires more finesse than a proper simmer stove.


XLC 490 Hyperlight Crampons (Manufacturer link) Average Rating = 4.00/5 Average Rating : 4.00/5

In: Gear: Alpine & Ice Climbing: Crampons

Review 4 out of 5 stars

Review by: sixleggedinsect, 2006-01-03


First off- take this with a grain of salt. I have no experience with any other lightweight crampons. I bought these for their weight/price/feature package, and have been very happy with them. But- i can make no comparisons with other (aluminum) products. so- they work great. ive done plenty of glacier travel with them from miles of walking to heinous steep stuff. i woudlnt buy them as a frontpointing intensive set, because youd probably want to sharpen them to get into hard ice and they'll die an early death, but thats probably not what you wanted in a ultralight crampon, right? i used for a season this year, mostly strapped onto approach shoes, and have no problem with the strap system. the metal is durable enough. i did, actually, do a fair bit of walking on rock. no marathons, but sometimes you just have to if you want to make good time between stretches of snow. however, it doesnt matter much if you're not particularly aggressive. it is a problem if you want to keep your points sharp, but that sort of thing shouldnt matter if youre using lightweight crampons. ie: the terrain should be mellow enough that you dont need razors on your feet. i never sharpened my points, and they look pretty mcuh the same as when i bought them, but i digress. I do have some concerns about their durability. my partner and i both were using the lightweight strap on model over tennis shoes, and he broke the bar joining the front and rear plates and we had to spend a little while jerry-rigging it with a scrap of parachute cord. it wasnt catastrophic, but woudl have been a real downer on a bigger expedition or where the stakes were higher. camp is sending him a new one for free, but still. i also wonder about the rivets that hold the plastic strap-on pieces on. never trusted rivets that move around completely, but then- neither of us had problems with them, so perhaps im being paranoid.

they would be perfect crampons for me if the middle bar was made of thin steel or titanium instead of aluminum. much more durable in terms of the wear crampons get.

all in all, i like them though. have no plans to replace them. i jsut havnt used anything else and couldnt make any comparisons with other products. if you're in terrain where you'd be f*ed if they broke, consider wearing them with stiff shoes where they wont flex all the time, or pack along a bit of good accessory cord to tie the plates together in the (unlikely) event of a bar break.


EOS Average Rating = 5.00/5 Average Rating : 5.00/5

In: Gear: Archive

Review 5 out of 5 stars

Review by: sixleggedinsect, 2006-01-03


I bought this headlamp about a year ago and I love it. I've used a ton of different lamps from a handful of different companies and im still pleased with my choice, a year later. the EOS is as bright as i need it to be for routefinding at night in technical terrain. the bright mode is just that- really bright. the beam is very collimated, ie: spotlight, so its good for distance in a way that some other lamps aren't. for some things, like reading, this can be a little bothersome, but it certainly isnt a problem. the three brightness settings are fine. i wish there was a slightly less bright 'low' setting, as i coudl read with a lot less light, but i suppose it doesnt matter much. you still get gobs of hours of light out of a set of batteries. speaking of which- you get markedly less burn time out of NiMH rechargeables than alkaline batteries, which i hadnt noticed with some other lamps, but its still plenty of burn so it hasnt been a problem. other notes- i really really love that it is a single forehead-mount unit. it has all the firepower of the BD zenix or similar lamps, without the fuss and tangling and weight and constant breaking in packs of the wires and battery packs. when i cinch it to my forehead it does not bounce around when running, although if you specifically want a running lamp it still feels a little weird. might want one a little less heavy up front. the price is right, the product quality and warranty are better than the 'name brands', and it works a charm. it burns through batteries pretty quickly if you actually use it in the highest setting (i very very rarely ever do), but then a few extra AAAs in the pack weigh next to nothing. id choose this over the zenix for all situations.


Copperheads (Brass Nuts) (Manufacturer link) Average Rating = 4.80/5 Average Rating : 4.80/5

In: Gear: Archive

Review 5 out of 5 stars

Review by: sixleggedinsect, 2006-01-03


these tiny nuts are the same nuts as the trango 'brassies'. see the brassies reviews for more info.

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