Rethinking my Pack - Bear Baggin'

Fifty feet of parachute shroud and a biner weighed 104 grams in my pack. I played with thiner line, but it seemed it was cutting right into branches. I had a lighter biner, but lost it on the trail, and could only find this 37g beast in a trail town. Clearly this was an area rife with opportunity!

More after the jump ...

Sometime after I got back from my sobo section last fall, my old hiking partner, Darkage started talking about some fancy flat-weave spectra line he was playing with. Under intense interrogation it turned out he had ordered an AntiGravitygear TreeLine 40' Spectra 725 Line system. This is a small, cord-locked silnylon stuff (rock) sack, with 40' of 725# test, flat weave, Spectra cord. Advertised at $18.95, and at 1 oz, I ordered one immediately.

On my scale, it came in at 28g - Right at 1 oz. To that I added one of Black Diamond's small 6g, plastic "Fun Biners" for a total of 34g. Less than the weight of the old biner alone.

Darkage has started his nobo AT thru-hike. I asked if he's had any problems. He reports that the flat spectra slides right over branches, and that he's had no problem with snags. He did say the line could be hard on the hands, especially if trying to lift more than one bag.

(I put my parachute shroud in my bounce box just in case ...)

So, that's a 2.47 oz weight reduction. 'Course this wouldn't be a "Rethinking My Pack" entry if I didn't compute the cost/oz ... This came in at $7.67/oz - well below that of my "Big Four" purchases ...

Follow Darkage on his AT thru-hike at "Darkage, fights with rainwater."