Author: cmiller

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AquaQuest Riparia Backpack Review

For a frameless pack this carries weight quite well. The hip strap does an adequate job of keeping the pack on the hips and minimizes shoulder strain. I haven’t tested it for waterproofness, but considering it’s construction I’m not worried. The pack closes like a dry bag and the top can be clipped together or you can roll the top and clip to straps on the side of the pack. The pack weighs about a kilogram which is excellent considering the strength of the material. The front pocket is a little hard to use, Don’t load it up with bulky items, I’m going to use it for first aid gear.


There are two things that would make the pack perfect. The first is a useable water bottle pouch that can be accessed with the pack on. The side pockets are elastic and hold quite a bit and there is a compression strap that goes around them, but they are not accessible while wearing the pack. Consider buying a pouch that clips to the shoulder or hip strap. The second thing is small pouches (or even just one pouch) on the hip strap for snacks. Not a big deal, consider adding a thigh pouch or fanny pack. One thing that makes up for most of the downsides in the price. This pack is excellent value.

Riparia Backpack 45L
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Haliburton Highland Water Trails in the Winter

I spent a couple of nights on Bentshoe Lake in the Haliburton Highlands. It’s a nice easy hike from the car to do some gear testing. I got to test some gear I wasn’t planning on too.

I had a major stove malfunction just before going to sleep the second night. I used a compressed sawdust log and it expanded and pushed the baffle up to block the stove pipe. The tent was billowing with smoke and there was nothing I could do stop it or remove it from the tent.

Luckily I had the military surplus extreme artic sleeping kit that includes a waterproof bivy and two nested down bags. I normally just use the nested bags inside the tent and brought the bivy to keep the bags dry just in case. It’s a good thing I did, because with no way to stay in tent I moved my sleeping pad outside and slept under the stars. It went down to -6C and snowed a bit but I was comfortable and actually slept better without waking every time the stove went out. I may switch to a tarp system and leave the stove and tent at home next time.

Also, if it looks like you don’t need snowshoes… bring them anyway! I had to leave the sled in the middle of the lake and walk back to the car to get them.

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Haliburton Highlands Water Trails Trip Report – June 2020

My Friend and I did the Nunikani Lake Loop last weekend. I don’t have many pictures, but I picked a few just so this post is worth looking at, if not worth reading 🙂

We did the loop counter-clockwise starting at Big Hawk Marina. We headed North East to Clear Lake, which is named that for a good reason. Then into Red Pine Lake which is beautiful except there are a lot of cottages on it. The water was nice and high, so the portage at the damn into Nunikani was barely 40m. There is a tree down in the river but we could pass over it on the right (west) side without getting out of the canoe. We paddled to site 28 near the east end of the lake and stayed for two nights. This site is not level, and most of the places level enough for tents we in low spots with soft damp ground. The key feature of this site is the rock peer into the lake. Perfect for swimming. It’s also easy to fetch water. The paddle home was grueling. We had a head wind the whole distance. I could barely stop to drink water without having the canoe stop and change direction. The paddle from site 28 to the marina is only 7km, and it took 4 hours.

I was testing out of bunch of new gear this trip.

1. New Canoe! Souris River Canoes Quetico 16. I paddled it solo with my pack up front. The canoe is an absolute joy to paddle, even in a head wind. I’m not an experienced solo paddler (although I’m much better after this weekend) so the wind was a challenge for me, but I can’t fault the canoe for that. On Saturday we paddled tandem while fishing, the canoe was fast, stable and tracked well.

2. Kelty Coyote 80 Backpack. I got this pack on clearance, it was a fraction of the cost of my Osprey Aether 85AG, but it was comfortable and I had no problem doing single carries.

3. River Country Products Trekker 1A. I don’t carry trekking poles, so I used a ridge line to put the tent up. I like the awning and the ability to flip it open giving me a gorgeous view while lying down. I did not get to test the water resistance of the tent (which is a known weak point for River Country) but with the ridge line, I could have put a tarp over in seconds. It’s 7.5′ long, so my head and feet were far from the tent walls, which is nice because I normally have issues with that. The tent is a little short, so sitting up was an issue, but I made due. The other thing I like is because the door is on a angle, I can stand up out the door, with my feet still in the tent, and then walk into my shoes. Over all, I’m happy with the tent especially for $40USD and weighing in at a touch over 2lbs.

4. Merrell Choprock Water Shoes. I got these right from the Canadian Merrell site for $144 incl. tax and shipping. They grip slippery rocks, and are comfortable during portages.

5. Katadyn BeFree 1L. Super lightweight, and compact. This is a life saver on long paddles. No need to transport water, or stop to use the gravity filter. Just scoop and drink.

6. Kayadyn Basecamp 6L. While at camp this was great! It runs at about 2L a minute and it filtered 18L over the weekend with no noticeable slow down in rate of flow.

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Water Filtration

I’d like to share some experiences on water filtration from my last trip. I’ve often recommended the Katadyn Basecamp and have some new information. I’ve also seen some posts on this, so I figured I’d put it in an actual post instead of the all the comments I’ve left.My tripping partner and I have 3 main tools for filtering water. (The backups are Aquatabs, and in freezing temps a Steripen)

  1. Katadyn Basecamp. This is a great filter and comes with a huge bag that is easy to fill. When the water is clear is filters fast by just gravity. This is our main filter while at camp. We recently learned that if the water is not clear it slows to a drip and is very hard to clean. I also suspect the filter is prone to hydro-lock… I think air can get stuck in the filter and it’s difficult to get going again. I do need to do more testing.
  2. Sawyer Squeeze/Mini. This is usually the backup because the bag is hard to fill if the water isn’t flowing or is shallow. It’s much easier to fill in deep water, so we usually fill it with a quick canoe ride. When the Basecamp stopped working we switched, and the Sawyer handled the dark dirty water very well. It back-washes quickly and easily. If the water has any color in it, the Sawyer is our primary filter now.
  3. Katadyn BeFree: This is great for drinking on the go. Especially in a canoe, just open, scoop, close and drink. This filter is also prone to hydro-lock. I was filtering rain water and the flow was terrible, I was squeezing the bag hard, and one liter took more than 2 minutes. When I got home I was cleaning it, and let the filter soak first, and the flow was back to normal. I would caution against filtering dirty water with this filter. The exposed filter strands concern me too, so I take very good care of it.

For future trips I’m seriously considering bringing 2 Sawyers, one for the gravity bag, and one on a Smart Water bottle. It’s the only filter that has never failed me. When low temperatures are a threat, I keep the filter(s) in a pocket close to my body, and sleep with it in my sleeping bag to prevent freezing.Disclaimer: I’m not sponsored by Sawyer or Katadyn, and I purchased all my filters.

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Haliburton Highlands June 2020

I’ve done many trips in the last two years, but this will be the first that I am documenting.

This trip will be the famous Nunikani Lake Loop in the Haliburton Highlands. I am going to co-solo this trip with good friend. There will be very little shared gear. In fact, the shared gear will be Beer batter fish crisp, an iron skillet and half a litre of vegetable oil along with a Eureka No Bug Zone screened tarp. The weight of the skillet matches the weight of the tarp and oil to make things fair.

I’ll create another post with a full gear list, but there are a few items I’m taking on this trip that are new.

First is a Souris River Quetico 16. I purchased it brand new, and this will be my first trip with it. It is a tandem canoe that I plan on using solo most of the time, with the occasional trip with a second person. I probably should have bought a solo pack boat, but I wanted a proper tandem boat. At 40lbs I should be able to single carry most portages.

The second is a new tent. For the last couple of years I’ve used a Kelty Salida 2p. It’s a free standing double wall tent and is just under 5lbs. It works great, but is a little short, I’ve only got 3 or 4 inches clearance from my head/feet to the tent. I’ve had several mornings where my feet are touching the tent, and are wet. The new tent is a River Country Products Trekker 1A. It’s very inexpensive and requires trekking poles, or a ridge line to stand up. It only weights 2.5lbs and unlike like Kelty, and I can set it up in the rain without getting the inside wet. I can add a lightweight tarp over the ridge line for nasty weather too. It’s 7.5 feet long which means lots of head/foot room. My only complaint is that it’s not quite tall enough to sit up in, but I’ll take that over wet feet any day.

Since this is my first documented trip, I’ll be bringing a camera, batteries, and a solar panel for charging. This trip is only 3 days, so battery packs would work, but I’d like to test the panel for extended trips. The camera is waterproof, so hopefully the water is warm enough for some underwater footage.

I’m not a videographer or a famous YouTube star, so the footage is going barely watchable… unless something fun/cool/horrible/catastrophic happens. Let’s hope for the first two.

The posts over the next couple of days will document the route and some of the other gear I like to bring. Most of my gear is tested and I’m comfortable with it. Hopefully you get something out of this. Feel free to add your comments or email me.

Chris
sales@surviveoutdoors.ca