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Rave About Your Rack Please do not post retail SPAM.

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Winter Gear 25-Feb-2011 At 11:29:50 PM Gavo

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Dromedary bags = super good but heavy.

Towel: check out the MSR ultralight packtowels. Around 25-50% the cost and they get rave reviews.

Bottles: Im a fan of Nalgene wide-mouth bottles. Standard no-nonsense tough bottle, and if you want a water filter like an MSR miniworks in the future (probably not a concern for you in Western Europe) you can attach it straight to it. Bulky though.

Thermarest neo-air: This is ONLY good in a cold environment if you absolutely need a superlightweight pad and you HAVE a foam pad to go below it. The insulation value of this pad is negligible. Ive done my research on this. If your going to be using it in alpine areas, you need at least foam underneath, or a warmer pad. Its just air. On top of that, they pop easily and they sound quite loud apparently, at least on the videos. Thermarest released a new version called the "neoair trekker". Its twice the weight, around 600g and its got a tougher material on the bottom, isnt as noisy, and somehow loses even more insulation value! So, all of that convinced me to look elsewhere. For the packsize being twice as large (slightly bigger than a 1LT nalgene bottle) you can get a standard Thermarest Prolite Plus. Weight is around 680g from memory, and its a genuine 4season mattress with some foam inside. Theyre comfortable, and they are better on snow or cold ground. Any insulation is better than none underneath but these are still way warmer than a neoair. Also, if your hiking all the time for however long, remember the neoair is to be inflated by mouth EVERY night. Prolite plus self inflates to about 80% of full or so you only need to top it up by mouth. Packs slightly larger, weighs slightly more, but better bang for buck IMO which I why I bought one. If your dead keen on inflatables though, check out the Big Agnes Insulated AirCore. better insulation value than even the Prolite Plus, light weight, good reviews. Pure inflatables scare me though. They are for people who are concerned with every single gram or people who find them more comfortable. I dont know, Im comfy on a self inflater so Im sorted on my end, I just think that you could do better than the neoair with some of the other options.

You ordered the same jacket as me so I cant argue it :)

Now finally, the worst part. Clarky is right. Most of the items you listed are NOT shipped overseas by most of the providers including backcountry. There are ways around it though. Google shipito. They are a forwarding service so for $8.50US they receive your package then forward it to you at your choice of method (usps, ups, fedex, DHL) and usually good rates. In a week or so Ill let you know how I found them! You get free postage in the US as well so the only postage you will pay is the overseas one still.

Otherwise, if you want backcountry to ship directly to you, pick brands they do ship. Ones I know they dont include platypus, thermarest, msr (all under cascade designs umbrella), north face, arc'teryx, black diamond, and a few more.

Hope that makes sense. Hope its useful. Its just advice thats applicable to me but I have done a hell of a lot of research (when I want something, I usually invest a lot of time getting info on it, though not really with my stove unfortunately) but this is all advice thats relevant to me. Perhaps its not to you. I would think hard about the stove though. Im tempted by that model too but I wont touch something if it only goes flatout or not at all.

Also, any gear questions you have, or things your not sure on... ask them. They have a chat service, and its BRILLIANT. You get a real person on the other end. Ive not asked them gear specific questions, as I think I can usually find the proper info myself rather than trusting a single sales person (always a bad idea), but they really do make it easy to organise things. They even held an order for me for 4 days so I could get the jacket I wanted since there were practically none left. Brilliant.

Good luck, feel free to shoot out any more questions.