Know your gear PSA

[Floorguy]

It should go without saying but... make sure you at least have some idea how to use your gear.

So my church's district (all the denominations churches in Alaska) have a teen hike of Resurrection trail on the Kenai peninsula. Its roughly 39 miles dedicated trail with no road access except the beginning and ending trail heads so its remote. I couldn't make it this year because of work. One of the other youth pastors is from a southern state and has never done any hiking or camping before. I told him we should meet up before hand to go over gear but it never worked out. This morning was the last section of trail and I drove down and hiked in with them and hiked back out. I went up and down the line talking to the teens I knew and asked them about the trip highs and lows etc. Got to the youth pastor and he said aside from one blister on his foot he was ok. I asked about how hos gear worked out and his response was his gear worked out just fine...it was awfully cold the first two nights with temps in the low 30's until one of the other adults showed him how his sleeping bag was supposed to work...

I never did ask how he was misusing his sleeping bag.


thought you guys might find it entertaining.

 

[mtnrunner260]

Color me intrigued. I'd like to hear how he was misusing it.

 

[Gorp2007]

I woke up one morning next to my wife and she was complaining about being cold in the night. She was in bag rated to zero and it never dropped below 40, so I was a bit confused. Upon further investigation, she didn't zip it up the side because it felt cramped.

 

[Gunnersdad49]

Very cool trail! I had a tense standoff with a bear near Juneau Falls on the Resurrection Trail for about 20 minutes. Just big brown hackles above the bushes, swaying back and forth. That bear miraculously turned into a pissed off cow moose after a while. We backtracked and gave her some space, but for our high school brains, we knew for sure we had a big brown bear coming to eat us until she came out of the bushes.