Spent all of September and October guiding in western Wyoming and came away with a lot of revelations regarding my gear. Spetember got very cold, very fast this year in Wyoming and was much different than the usual September archery hunting that I'm used to in Oregon. As such, most of my warm weather archery gear got left in the wall tent pretty early on and the cold weather gear got put to a pretty extreme test.
The Good;
Sitka Stormfront Gaiter
I put these on the first day we had snow on the ground, and I wore them every single day after regardless of the weather. They were absolutely awesome. Totally bombproof, I wore them through knee deep mud, snow up to your waist, crossing countless streams, waded in them across the Greys River, you name it and they held up to it. The one piece of gear that no matter what the conditions or the plan was for the day, I would not leave my tent without them.
Kuiu Icon Pro 3200
I started out the season with both the 5200 and 3200 bags and an Icon Pro frame. I used the 5200 for the first couple days and then pared my kit down a little bit and swapped the bags out in favor of the 3200. It was great, plenty of room to spike out for a few days if you wanted to and more than enough room for a daypack. It is lightweight, tough, quiet, and had more than enough pockets to organize all my gear. There were a few days when the weather was very extreme that I had it filled up, but admittedly I was really loading up with extra warm gear in anticipation of long glassing sessions in bad conditions. I had a couple long, heavy packouts and it handled the load very well.
Sitka Kelvin Down Hoody and Kelvin Lite Pant
These were awesome! They compress down into a small stuff sack that Sitka sends with them. I literally crammed both of them in the same stuff sack and just kept it down in the bottom of my pack for most all of October. Weight wise, you dont even know they are there in your pack. When you get to a glassing spot where you know you are going to be for a bit, I would pull them out and slip them on over all my other gear. The pants have full leg zips which make them easy to put on over your outerwear and boots very quickly. It could be 15 degrees out with wind blasting you, and these incredible pieces keep you toasty and warm. They are spendy pieces of gear, but they are worth it. With them on, you are better able to focus on the job at hand of glassing up some bucks and bulls instead of fighting the weather and trying to stay warm.
The Meh;
Lowa Tibet Pro Boots
I hate to put these boots in the Meh category. They are uninsulated which is what I usually prefer. In the warm weather these boots are great. I put a shit ton of miles on these boots and they held up great, provided excellent traction in super snotty slick conditons and never leaked, even when fording the Greys River. That all sounds awesome, and I do love these boots! The problem was once the weather turned cold, my feet absolutely froze. No matter whether wearing sock liners and heavy merino wool socks, etc... my feet froze in these boots once it got chilly. These boots just provided zero in the way of warmth. Next year I will use these only on warm days and get another pair with heavy insulation for the cold days.
Schonfeld Sportsmans Aluminum Tripod
First, the build quality on this tripod is very nice. It is lightweight at just over 2lbs, which is nice for strapping it to your pack and not feeling too loaded down. It has the twist tensioners which makes deployment very quick for when you need to get a fast closer look at that fleeting buck. The problem with it is that it's just a bit too short. When fully setup with the spotter on top, a 6 foot tall dude has to slightly crouch or bend over just a little to get a full view through the spotter. That doesn't sound like too big of a deal, and many times you are sitting or kneeling while glassing, so in those cases this fault doesn't even come into play. That said, I dealt with this every single day for 2 months straight, and when you are trying to put exact tine lengths on a buck at 1000 yards out, it makes it very difficult when you are slightly hunched over. It is hard to be very still when you are slightly hunched or have your legs slightly bent. Just not optimal for the job and I want gear that makes my job easier. The tripod is still very nice, but I think I'll be handing it down to my wife for her to use.
The Bad;
Kuiu Bino Harness
I did not like these at all. I had the Sitka Bino Bivy and used them for most of the season, but another guide and I traded optics for about a week and we also traded bino harnesses just to simplify the tradeoff. These were not comfortable, and made accessing my bino's a pain in the ass. Almost to the point where I felt like I didn't even want to pull out my binos and glass many times. Seriously, I'd be riding my horse and pop over a ridge see what may be a stump or an elk and mentally didn't even want to pull the binos out to look. Obviously I would, but this piece of gear just made accessing my optics a chore. The next week I was super happy to have my Sitka Bino Bivy back!
I'll try to revisit this thread when I have more time as I used a ton of different gear over the course of two straight months in the mountains and some of it performed great, and some not so much.
Good hunting guys!
