Phantom Canyon 2008 – Notes & Misc
This page contains miscellaneous notes and other stuff useful for future
reference. Perhaps it is useful for you too.
Consumable use
- White gas: 44oz, or 0.9oz per person per day, not
including unknown quantity of canister gas used by Sara & Kev. I think
the strong majority of cooking was on white gas.
- Hand sanitizer: 4oz, or 0.08oz pppd, or 0.17oz pppd
assuming three people were using it regularly.
- Soap (Dr. Bronner’s): 10ml, or 0.4ml pppd
assuming three people using it.
- Batteries (AA): 7 pairs for two cameras (A530 and A570)
and one GPS (Garmin Legend Cx), or 1.8 batteries per day.
General thoughts
- Cheap “Reliance” foldable water carriers really suck.
- Canister stoves are lighter, smaller, quicker to start, and easier to
use than white gas, but they don’t put out as much heat by a large
margin.
- Rat Sacks: The Rat Sacks worked flawlessly; no problems at all
with critters in the food. We followed the directions and hung them up when
we were gone from camp or asleep. Strongly recommended. Get the large size,
as it’s the best amortization of the weight vs. volume. Sadly,
it’s hard to get one these days because the supplier (a guy in his
garage, as far as we can tell) is unreliable. [1/24/10: The Rat Sack guy
is out of business; see my gear page for notes
on replacements.]
- Instep
crampons vs. Yaktrax: The consensus seems to be that instep crampons
grip more securely on hard ice, but they make walking over exposed patches
difficult (as the crampons contacting dirt and rock causes extreme and very
rapid wear). Yaktrax do OK on all but the hardest ice, which is uncommon on
GC trails, and they’re reasonable to walk on for exposed patches.
Therefore, the Yaktrax are probably better for cold-season GC hiking. Do not
buy the chintzy little pseudo-crampons
you can find at the Grand Canyon Village store; they’re the worst of
both worlds.
Poop scoop
Some options for a trowel:
Frankly, I think an inexpensive garden trowel is your best bet. The cheap
ones are easy to get, easy to use, only an ounce heaver than those horrible
ubiquitous orange plastic trowels, and plenty tough.