Montrail Torre GTX hiking boots review

Montrail Torre GTX hiking boots: This week I bought a pair of full on hiking boots at REI to replace my Garmonts that are worn out. I was going to try to resole my old hiking boots, but I couldn't because they use plastics and foam in the soles to lighten them up. It makes them impossible to replace the Vibram.



I wasn't totally sure I wanted a new hiking boot. I'd read Lightweight Backpacking and Camping a while back and I liked the premise that a full Gore-Tex, leather upper hiking boot wasn't the way to go. According to the book, a short, lighter trail shoe with SuperFeet is a whole lot easier on your legs -- you lose a little support, but you don't put your feet in all the goofy positions that get ankles twisted anyway. And I've got a pair of Merrell trail shoes to prove it.

But I thought I'd give the big boys another shot and I had a dividend and 20% coupon to blow. I got a dual reccomendation from each of the shops I went to -- shoe guys like the Montrails. I had to get wide shoes, size 10.

I wore them today for the first time and found them heavy, clunky and stiff. New boots basically. The main complaint is that the super-stiff soles are like wearing a pair of roller skates. I fell down about three times. We were at Alsea Falls and I just about went down them headfirst. Stay away from streambeds with these things.

Ask me again in a couple weeks. I'm going to keep wearing them and let you know if they get any better. On the other hand, this review is pretty good. And these Montrail Torre GTX reviews are really good too. I found this last review to be the most thorough from BackpackGearTest.org. This reviewer liked the boots a lot but found the same problem with grip.

Crushed under the weight of technology

It's been a few days, hiding out up in the Cascades over the weekend for Valentines Day w/ KP. I've been meaning to blog, but...

Despite holing up in a mountain resort all weekend, I have been busy working on stuff for the Oregon Outdoor Journal.

I'll take this time to do a mini review: First of all, I've nursed my Canon PowerShot back to life and I'm eager to see if I can get decent picture quality out of the formerly soggy camera -- look for some footage later tonight or tomorrow. I've literally dunked this thing 3 or 4 times and it keeps coming back. And I love the pictures it takes. I hope this batch of photos looks ok. They seem ok on the display screen, but there might be some fog on the images. We'll see when I blow them up full size.

Secondly, I've been carrying my Olympus digital voice recorder with me for the last few trips because it's easier to use than writing notes while I'm hiking or fishing. Turns out, some of the recordings are pretty funny, like listening to me huffing up a hill in snowshoes, trying to act all cool about how beautiful it is up there. So I'm planning on setting up an audio component to OOJ.

I've managed to get my laptop to recognize the device, now if I can figure out how to use the free auido software Audacity I'll be in great shape.

Backpacker Gear Guide 2007

After reading the annual Backpacker Gear Guide 2007, I came up with a wish-list of stuff I want. I already had boots and a backpack that I was pretty happy with, so those categories weren’t very interesting. KP and I decided (ok, I decided) to get a “Sew your own” Ray Jardine quilt kit instead of a sleeping bag, so that category is out too.



I was interested in tents, since my Eureka Apex doesn’t vent and is really bulky. I see the Marmot Aeolos 2P won best all-around. But it’s $325 and weighs more than the tent I’ve already got. Then up on the top of the page there is a “Reader Approved” Eureka Pinnacle Pass 2XTA -- which looks more ventilated than my current tent, it’s a pound lighter, and it’s only $150. But at the same time it’s another low-end Eureka tent.



While this is a quandary, the good news is that I’ve been researching tarp camping more, and that might be the way to go in summer. Or make the most of my old tent, opening the doors and draping a mesh over the top. Luckily Backpacker gave me a tip for packing my bulky old tent: Stuff the tent, rainfly, polls and stakes into different stuff sacs.

Other stuff I’m interested in: Outdoor Research ExPed MultiMat.

Wading gear review: Hodgman Wadelite Wader Support Belt

Best purchase ever: Fact, the best buy I've ever made in my fly fishing career was my Hodgman Wadelite Wader Support Belt. I picked it up a few months ago after fishing the Umpqua River with Wild Bill. I'd fallen a few times on that notoriously slippery streambed while we were annoying the summer steelhead. Bill had watched me fill my waders a few times and suggested I buy the belt he was wearing.

Since then the belt has actually helped me stay upright and has kept the river from filling my waders several times.

The wading belt cinches up tigher than the standard belts you get with your wader purchase. And the extra wide back support eases the lower back. When I first moved here I was wading every day. My back woud be kiling me. This belt actually makes it easier to wade, it doesn't hurt at all -- instant yoga.

Product specs: Features nylon coated high density foam construction, web belt with Velcro cinch, dual accessory D-rings, and PVC "no slip" dots on inside to prevent belt from sliding on waist. Cost: $27.99.

Osprey gear review

Saturday I took my new backpack for a test run on the Cape Lookout trail. It was a nice windy slog on the coast through Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock on a volcanic ridge jutting out into the Pacific Ocean.



When I got to the end of the trail I met a couple of hikers that worked for an agriculture dept in Tillamook and we talked about packs for a bit. I was humping my Osprey Atmos 65, loaded with about 25 pounds of gear. The guys oohed and ahhed about my pack, too polite to make any criticisms, but I’ll lay out a couple here.

First, I don’t like the bottom chamber. I bought it in a bit of a rush (on a lunch break) and hadn’t noticed that the bag wasn’t a single stuff pack. It has a bottom compartment that zips open for you to put your sleeping bag in. I’ve got an old sleeping back and it doesn’t fit. It probably means I need a new sleeping bag, but I still didn’t like it. The bag makes you pack the way it wants you to, and zippers leak.

Second, it rode a little high on my hips, seeming to move up as I walked. I did some adjusting to make it fit better, loosening the shoulder straps, tightening the sternum. There are probably some things I could do with the internal frame. I’ll have to check that out.

The mesh back panel design was meant to keep the pack off of my back, giving my skin some room to breathe, but I was still sweating even stripped down to my base layer. Still, I think it’s a cool idea and it’s really comfortable.

All in all I think it’s a good pack. But maybe that’s because I spent the cash already. Regardless, I did 5 miles with 25 pounds and had zero strain or pain. I need to spend more time learning how to pack it better.

Osprey Atmos 65 Specs

Cubic inches: 4,000

Liter 65

Weight 3lbs 10oz

Max recommended carrying weight 45lbs

Removable Sleeping Pad Straps

Water Resistant Zippers

Cost: $229.

Lightweight Backpacking and Camping book review

I finished reading Lightweight Backpacking and Camping this week and it was definitely worth the price ($25). I wrote about some of the things I learned in a recent post and this is a follow up to include more of the points I took away from the book.



Key things I learned:

Waterproof lining inside of your pack (a trash bag for example) works better than trying to keep your whole pack dry.

Closed cell foam pads are warmer than air mattresses. Use both (air for comfort) and keep them under you by either lashing them together with straps (for couples) or buying a sleeping bag with a pocket to keep pads underneath you.

Tarps are lightweight and open (good ventilation and great views); but they look like a real pain in the ass (my opinion, not theirs).

Vitamin C tabs or electrolyte additives are a good idea, especially if you're treating your water with chemicals.

Purell doubles as hygeine and emergency fire starter.

Passive cooking allows you to boil water and not have to simmer a dish on the stove. This means you can boil water for macaroni or something, put it in a flat-bottom ziploc and avoid dirtying your cook pot. You're looking for items with cook times of less than eight minutes.

Pre-planning should include giving someone detailed trip plans, packing notes on evacuation options and packing A Comprehensive Guide to Wilderness and Travel Medicine.

Pack fiber foods, Imodium and disposal blue shop towels. The runs will hurt you pretty bad out in the bush.

Like I said, great book, one of the most helpful I've ever read on any topic. I highlighted a ton of info and I'll likely become a member of their Web community ($25).

Gearing up for lightweight backpacking

I've been researching backpacking, specifically lightweight backpacking, because I want to try to make it a better couples activity. Also, after almost dropping dead chasing the Trout Unlimited guys (15 years older than me) last summer with my giant boots and cargo pack, I need a better option.

I've been reading up on it in a new book, Lightweight Backpacking and Camping from Beartooth Mountain Press. What have I learned so far?

Taking a pound off of your boots is equivalent to taking five off your pack.

Specialized hiking insoles make a difference.

Wet feet aren't necessarily unhappy feet (as long as it's not winter).

Trail shoes beat high-top, heavy leather stompers.

I've got more to learn -- I'm only halfway through the book -- but so far the pearls of wisdom are worth the $25 cover price.

At the end of the day today I headed out to Spencer's Butte. The park was actually locked down. There were cars lined up all down the road. If I had to guess, they closed the park because it was so icy. It wasn't immediately apparent, but once you got past the point of no return, the trail was so slick, you had to drag yourself up the rest of the way.

From MattStansberry

Once you got to the top though, the view was awesome. The Cascades were lit up bright white in the setting sun. The valleys to the West were covered in fog and shadows. It was amazing. Don't take my word for it. Check the pics.

From MattStansberry

One nasty byproduct of the ice was that people were taking off-trail paths to avoid super slick, packed trail snow and ice. And that resulted in torn up off-trail areas.

Here is a list of the layers I was wearing (since I'm getting more technical about gear):
Fleece lined cap
Lightweight fleece LL Bean vest
Ultra lightweight fleece top White Sierra
Mountain hardware poly T-shirt
Exofficio Nylon shorts
Patagonia Expedition weight Capilene
Wigwam merino wool, lite hiker (seconds $6.50)
Sock liners
Merrell Mesa Ventilator II

Target practice in Marcola, tiny trout in Oakridge

Thursday night I took KP, my .22 and some targets out to some BLM land outside the town of Marcola. The .22 was sighted in about right and I was shooting pretty well. We might have been growled at by something, I want to say it was a cat, but we never saw it.

Friday, I made it out to Salt Creek for the first time since May when it was blown out. It’s a little tributary off the Middle Fork of the Willamette River, just east of Oakridge. The drive is really long. I never noticed. I keep thinking it’s short, but it’s close to an hour outside of Eugene.

The other thing I seem to be misjudging is my ability to catch fish. I mean, I am catching wild trout on every trip [Skinner Butte notwithstanding], but I’ve missed so many fish it’s embarrassing. In fact, I’ve missed/lost so many tiny trout that I’m nervous to imagine what’s going to happen if I catch a real fish.

Salt Creek was nice, full of tiny fish -- still had their adipose fins. I think they were “cutt-bows” a hybrid between native cutthroats and stocked rainbows. But I’m not sure if that’s the case. All of the little fish I caught looked exactly the same, like a generic silvery trout, sort of had spots like a cutt, but still had the feathery band that could mean it was a bow. But some had cuts and some didn’t. So I couldn’t tell you what they were.

When I parked at the pull off, there wasn’t a path heading down to the water. In fact, the place was overrun with those goddamn blackberries. But, hell. I drove an hour. So I stomped through the prickers in my crocs. Didn’t buy new wading shoes yet. Dumb move.

On the list:

Kayak paddle: I could probably get around a lot faster with that.

Wading shoes: Still picking thorns out from under my toenails.

GPS unit: Depending on whether I can download maps for my area and mark up fishing/hunting holes.

Also went to the Caddis Fly yesterday and learned how to tie egg patterns. Got the lowdown on where to catch some steelhead. Moving to catch something bigger than my hand. The guys say you gotta be there before 4am. Not into that. But maybe. I also heard that it’s important to fish higher on the McKenzie.

Saturday we made a run to the coast. Went to Bandon, but wasn’t impressed. It was freaking cold for sure. People crabbing, but we didn’t get into it because it was too cold. We decided to head inland. I’d originally headed for the coast because I was into trying for some sea-run cutthroats -- the Eugene Register Guard said they’re in the Siuslaw River. The river looked a little tough to fish though, shallow, wide silty.

From MattStansberry

Instead, we made our way up the Umpqua. It’s the most beautiful river I’ve ever seen. Katie and I pulled off the road on 138 and pitched a big purple wooly bugger sucking on a pink egg. That was pretty beat. I’m still not sold on the big nasty fly technique for West Coast fishing. But the river was gorgeous, big water roiling into giant pools. No fish.

We moved upstream after about 30 mins, and I switched over to a small, black wooly bugger. And I don’t think I’m ever going to switch back. It’s a great fly. In fact, 3 casts after switching up I pulled my first fish out of the Umpqua, a respectable redband trout.

Maybe early steelhead tomorrow. On another note, I should probably take a notebook with me on the stream. I can’t catch all the details here sitting in the house, hours or days later.

Mazama's sporting goods; stranded on the McKenzie

Lots happening the past few days. We’ll start with Wed.

Wed night I made it out to Mazama’s Sporting Goods in Valley River Center and picked up some Leupold binoculars and some information. The binocs were pretty slick, there was a nice view of the Coburg hills, several miles off, that made for a cool place to test the view from the shop.

The guys at Mazama’s were great. They had a couple local hunters in there hanging out, one was a local legend from what I understand. He told me a story about shooting a cougar at arms length that was trying to get at his dog, just last year.

From MattStansberry

The guys at the Caddis Fly highly recommended Mazama’s, but said they might be standoffish. And I could see that the guy that runs the place probably doesn’t have a lot of patience for morons. But luckily he hadn’t figured me for one, so we got on great.

In fact, they sent me right down to the Bureau of Land Management to pick up a map and then they marked it up for me. I’ve got more hunting spots than I can even cover this year now.

The main thing I took away from that day was that if I can find deer now, they’ll likely be right back where I found them when it’s hunting season. So I’m headed out scouting tonight. I’m also going to site in my .22.

Yesterday was sweet. Headed out on the McKenzie, following the path I took with Jeff (guide from Caddis Fly) and my brother when we camped here in April. Katie dropped me off around 3:30 at Hayden Bridge. I rowed out and immediately stopped just on the other side of the ramp at a spit of gravel I’d fished the first time. The water was a bit lower, but not too far down that it changed everything. I had a couple taps but didn’t hook up. Unfortunately, in my rush to catch fish, I forgot to stow my phone and completely drowned it. My only method to call Katie (who I was supposed to call when/where I needed picked up), and I don’t know her new Oregon phone number.

From MattStansberry

I didn’t let that daunt me though. I fished the area for about 25 minutes and moved on to a bend in the river that was a real honey hole last trip. The spot was recognizable, but significantly lower as well. A sharp bend in the river and a place where another waterway dumped into the McKenzie. It formed some weird eddies and a big hole, just on the protected side of the bend. I was fishing my nymph-partridge system and picked up two small cutthroats, one small one on the partridge and a bigger fish on the nymph.

Just about then a couple guys rafted by and told me that I was about two and a half hours from where I’d planned to pull out, Armitage. So with no phone, and hours away from where I needed to be, I moved on, but not before I dumped my digital camera in the drink trying to take a picture of one of the trout. Two for two with the electronics.

Despite the anxiety I was feeling about the lack of a phone and long-haul, it was one of the more pleasant river floats I’ve ever been on. I saw a blacktail deer fawn, half a dozen osprey (I can’t see how there are any trout left with that many around), a red-tailed hawk (guessing) and a bunch of college chicks in bikinis on a raft. Sadly, I left the binoculars at home.

I closed the distance to Armitage in under two hours. Borrowed a phone and made a series of calls until I reached Katie. She came and picked me up, and then I busted ass to get to the Trout Unlimited meeting I was supposed to attend.

Irony: Man misses trout club meeting because he’s stranded while chasing trout.

I did make it to the meeting, though a half hour late. I caught Mike Beagle, TU’s Oregon Field Coordinator, who was giving a presentation on the Copper-Salmon project on Oregon’s Elk River, in the southwestern portion of the state. He also turned the meeting on to a couple other outdoors groups that band together to support issues that TU cares about, like the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and the Oregon Hunters Association. Both of which I’ll likely join.

A guy isolated on the West Coast needs hobbies. I’ll stop at four clubs. I promise.

Lastly, I met Al Avey, president of the McKenzie/Willamette chapter of TU. They have some really cool projects going on, including fish/water assessments with the state and a project to improve habitat on the upper region of the Middle Fork of the Willamette for Bull Trout. Al and I may be working on a Web site for the chapter this week. Stay tuned.

That’s it for now though. It’s time to go scout for deer and shoot these guns. Good riddance Boston.

PS: Thursday is still the new Friday.

Moving to Eugene, Oregon

It's day two, on the heels of a 7-day saga from Boston to Eugene, OR -- and I've hit the ground running. Since leaving Boston I've signed up for the local Oregon chapters of Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited, bought my hunting licenses for the year, bought a watercraft and caught my first wild Oregon trout unassisted.

From MattStansberry

The first DU banquet is coming up -- it's August 19 in Eugene. The first TU event isn't as clear, the TU site is hard to navigate so I'm going to have to get back to you on that one. There is a Willamette/McKenzie chapter though, so I've got a home.

From MattStansberry

When I bought my hunting licenses yesterday, the girl ringing me out said she'd never seen such a high license charge before. I had to buy non-resident tags since I haven't been here six months yet. A general license, a deer tag, upland bird, migratory bird and federal stamp -- totaling $400.

From MattStansberry

I headed out to the Middle Fork of the Willamette River this afternoon around 1pm, pulled off just east of the Shady Dell campground and put my boat in. The water was warm enough to wet-wade, so tried the bank with a Parachute Adams before shoving off into the river. No fish in close, I slid into my kayak for the first time. I was in about 8 inches of water, but had plenty of clearance. I moved downstream a lot faster than I thought I would, couldn't seem to keep it straight. I'm using a canoe paddle and not a kayak paddle.

I noticed a lot of nymph activity, but nothing coming off the water. There were a lot of big rock-cased caddis nymphs and even bigger stonefly nymph cases all over the rocks. I also saw some deer sign on the second pull out.

There were some different birds in the area: an osprey, something that might have been a grouse, a vulture. I'm going to need some binoculars and a field guide so I don't shoot something endangered this fall.

The water was moving suprisingly fast, but there were productive pockets. I was looking for a certain flow, that fishy spot between the banks and the current. And I worked my way down about a mile to a bend below a riffle. I'd switched over from a dry to a prince nymph with a soft-hackle trailer. That's when I started picking up fish. I caught a couple small rainbows on the soft hackle. Nothing on the prince.

A little later I switched over to a coachman stimulator dry, just to see what happened, and I got a couple rises at it, but didn't hook up. Such a weird fly. Eventually I brought my boat around to the road side of the bank, deflated it and stuffed it in my bag. The walk back to the car with the pack over my shoulders wasn't bad. But the trucks were coming a lot closer than I'd have wanted them too. Nice blackberries on the way back.

Review of the boat: It's a 97" Sevylor Rio. It has three chambers, one on the bottom and one on each side. It's very sturdy in the water, you could cast, shoot or do almost anything while rolling down the river and not worry about falling out. On the downside, it's pretty tough to control. In fast water, you can generally get where you need to go, but don't count on accuracy or boat control.

Review of my wading shoes: So, I've been an advocate of Crocs as an all purpose outdoors shoe for a some time, at the risk of ridicule from my friends. I've always said they are a great general summer shoe, perfect for surf fishing and wet wading. But I'm giving up on that. Crocs suck for fishing. Bottom line. I'm buying wading shoes next chance I get. I slipped off of every rock, twisted my ankle every five seconds and got more sand between my toes than you could imagine. Forget Crocs.