Yep, you heard that right. We'll call this outing "Return of the Shadow". Not to be confused with a later installment of the History-of-Middle-Earth series...
BOOM! Pics.
If you stare at this one long and hard, something will magically appear...
SURPRISE BEDROLL WRITE-UP!
And you were thinking "This doesn't belong in the Hard Kit forum..."
So what we have here, is a bedroll system that has solved several key issues for me.
1) Canvas tarps are REALLY heavy, and aren't perfect water barriers.
2) Strapping bedrolls to quivers works...but isn't as comfortable/modular as it could be. Can't carry enough for 10-14 solid days on the go.
3) A short, tight bedroll as seen in one of my last articles is REALLY stiff...bounces a little bit, and the weight isn't distributed well.
4) Haversacks get in the way a lot for me, and aren't removable without taking off everything that's on top of them, etc. Not simple, not easy, not quick.
5) CAPACITY. The yukon pack had it, but it just didn't feel right, or work well with my new quiver. Haversack gave it to me, plus all the above problems.
So what the crap do we do?
Let's break it down from complete camp setup, into a bedroll.
This is a 5'x7' oilcloth tarp purchased from JBook and his dad's sutler business. I snagged 4 yards @$12 a yard. Best deal on this stuff I've ever seen, and it is BY FAR the most superior of the material I've ever come across. Get this: IT DOESN'T IGNITE. It burns, but it doesn't roar up in flames. More like a candle wick. May not be 100% period in oil content, but I'll trade that for not burning to death in my sleep. Moving on:
What I've done with it is the smallest shelter option. We've got a 2 1/4-foot wide groundcloth section, folded under a 4 3/4-foot (ish) shelter section. This means that not only will falling rain be wicked away and sheltered from, but downhill-draining rainwater will then run under the tarp, and not soak my stuff. The tarp can, of course, also be spread out to make a spacious 5x7 lean-to, which I would use primarily when I have a log downed that can be used to prevent water from running under me, etc. Lots of options, including modified diamond flys, a-frames, or simply folding it over me in a pinch, etc. are also possible, despite its small size, which is for one main purpose: Weight.
Huzzah for Ye Olde Tautline hitch!
So that's the shelter portion. Let's move on to sleeping arrangements. I wear a wool melton cloak, which is a modular part of this; it can be additional insulation from the ground, additional all-around wrapping, or a pillow in particularly warm weather. That being said, the real workhorse here is my new Italian Military Surplus blanket, seen in the photo of Shadow taking over my sleeping space. This sucker is huge, dense, and super-warm. It's a vintage 60's-ish blanket...they're fairly common on ebay, for around $55-60, but well worth it. Here, I have it folded, so there's a layer over me, and a layer under me, plus the wool cloak under all of that for insulation. Lastly, of course, I have my wool-lined linen fitted hood, which serves essentially as a cinched mummy bag. No air leaks here.
If shadow would cooperate, you'd be able to see that I, all of my gear, AND my personal fuzzy heating appliance can all fit under the tarp quite cozily...but the dog doesn't like to settle down and cuddle until after dusk. Just ask Straelbora.
We interrupt this write-up to take a sit and have a pipe.
*Cough* Ahem.
Next on the list: Food capacity. Now, in a standard bedroll, the only way to carry things inside is to increase the diameter of the bedroll...often awkwardly and exponentially. To keep it as narrow as possible, I've decided to start rolling it MUCH wider than I used to, which keeps it more flexible, and lets it wrap naturally around my body, so it rides closer...you know, like I said in my last bit on these: "High and tight to the body." In addition, I've come up with this cute little invention for dry goods that I like to call a "bean sock", made just for being rolled into the central core of a bedroll.
Here, you see the bean sock containing red lentils (ignore the technicolored-ness...they turn oatmeal brown when cooked. I'd stick with the green ones, except the red ones cook nearly 2 1/2 times faster, so red wins.) We also have my bean boiler from backwoods tin, some hardtack, and small golden potatoes, which are NOT rolled into the bedroll. Instead, they go in the part of this setup I'm probably most proud of:
This is the bean sock, fully loaded, on top of a hand-stitched small linen snapsack, which contains my boiler, about twenty hardtack, ten days' worth of small potatoes, and still has room to spare. Now, a snapsack alone wouldn't solve the issues the haversack has...it'd essentially be in the same place, which is why THIS snapsack is instead an integral part of the bedroll itself. Take off the bedroll, the snapsack comes right along. Here's how it's all put together:
Here, I've pulled the lower end of the snapsack INTO the bedroll:
...and the upper end attaches to my strap buckle. I'll replace tying it on with a loop-and-toggle on each end when I have some time. Right now, two of my four tarp ties are used to secure the ends. When the dedicated loop-and-toggles are finished, I can set up my shelter, leave my bedroll there, and attach the snapsack to one of my Quiver's straps in a similar way, and continue carrying the whole shebang if I so chose.
So that's that...
...buckle your strap...
...and Voila!
I feel it fits period reasonably well enough, though the setup itself doubtfully exists in actual history, but it REALLY fits the look and feel of middle-earth. Far more important, though, is that having a loaded snapsack on the front of a load-bearing strap evens out the weight a little, so I'm not constantly being tugged on from the back. The whole thing weighs about 15 pounds (the blanket alone is 5.5 pounds, and there's a pound and a half of lentils in that bean sock...) which is quite manageable. In my modern frame pack I can easily double that for a weekend, and this is designed for a fortnight, so a major win there, for sure.
So all in all, I'm very pleased, and can happily say that after WAY too many revisions, I'm actually gonna stick with this one for a good long while. It plays nicely with my quiver, though I'm currently arrow-less and my bow is sitting stripped of grip, etc., in the kitchen, so for this outing I went a la aragorn, armed with Sword alone.
well done and documented! How far did you hike? Now, have you ever given the thought to caches? I don't know if where you regularly hike would be considered safe to leave rations or allow some sort of digging, but it would be interesting to see more long term storage and some sort of Ranger trace for others to find as they travel along the Road.
