Karrimor Jaguar 2 - gone to a new home

Saturday was a sad day. The top section of my wardrobe was getting out of hand and threatening to tumble out all over me, and it was time to donate my old backpack to a worthy cause.

Now this was a special bag. A Karrimor Jaguar 2, 65 litres, which I bought in December 1985 when I was a 12 year old Scout and just starting to do some real hiking. It cost R127.95 less 15% discount, plus 13% GST (I kept the receipt), money I got from Christmas presents and from a smallish cash prize I won at school. It came from a tiny but outstanding outdoor store called Camp and Climb in the basement of Cavendish Square, sadly long since closed.

Good design? Yes sir. Back then it was a new-generation internal frame bag that was comfortable as heck and seriously impressed the adults and older boys who I hiked with. It came in KS100E material with a lifetime guarantee, in an elegant shade of pale green. You could yank the straps while you wore it, which they called SAS, or the Self Adjusting System. I admit the last 24 years have seen some useful innovations in pack design (although I exclude those ridiculous bladder-water-pipe arrangements from that category), but nothing as revolutionary as the shift from external frames to comfortable, carry-able, packable-and-unpackable, adjustable, internal frame packs like this one. My 24 year old Jaguar 2 was still a match for most of today's packs.

Durable? Oh yes! 24 years later and the only damage was a small worn-through slit in a side pocket, where I once packed two gaz cylinders with metal rims which wore through the material when brushing against passing rocks. I learnt a small lesson about packing from that. The unbreakable hip belt buckle outlasted several buckles on my newer Backpacker bag. And I never did get to try out the lifetime guarantee, although later bags came in a material called Silvaguard with a 10 year guarantee which didn't last nearly as well. (Karrimor, to their credit, honoured that guarantee, but Silvaguard was never a match for KS100E).

Clean? Well, no longer. In 1989 a fellow Rayner Trophy teammate kindly packed a bottle full of cooking oil in my bag without telling me, and it popped open. 750 ml of sunflower oil left some interesting tie-dye patterns on my sleeping bag, and some stains on the bag, but actually seemed to increase the waterproofing. Yes, it was washable, in a big bath of warm water and a few days in the sun to dry out the capacious foam hipbelt, but the cooking oil pattern lived on.

Well used? Absolutely. From my early teens, through my Springbok Scout hike, down the Wit Els three times at least (soaking up most of the river in the foam padding along the way), four 10-day Cederberg Adventures, all over the Cape, in all weather. I used it exclusively for more than 10 years, then decided I needed a larger 75 litre bag, but the Jaguar 2 kept going, either to lend out (it probably did more Cederberg Adventures in that role than I did) or for hikes where a smaller or older bag was more appropriate. The last major outing I can remember taking it on was the Wit Els in 2001.

Why pass it on now? You know, I'm not sure. I could have kept it in reserve and lent it out a few more times, and maybe I'll do the Wit Els again one day. But to be fair, its time had passed, and even the bag I bought as its successor is now a 14-year-old well-worn, well-travelled pack, with more hiking (and more airline miles) behind it than most packs can dream of. I could have kept it another 10 years until the kids are big enough to use it, but to be honest, it would probably not inspire the same reverence in them that I felt it deserved.

I drove around with it in the boot of my car (an Opel Meriva - similarly functional but sadly less durable) for a while, putting off the moment, but eventually I just had to grit my teeth and hand it over as a donation, along with a few other lesser items to reduce the blow.

Miss it already? You bet. Oasis in Claremont - you don't realise that you just got one of your finest gifts yet.

Torches

For a long time I found Petzl headlamps as irritating as red BMWs. Nice, expensive, owned by chops. But that was in the days of halogen bulbs that consumed a pair of batteries in a couple of hours. Then along came LED lamps and changed the night into slightly-bluish day. Now I own two Petzls including a tiny one that seems to run on a watch battery but is still as bright as all heck.

They're still not cheap though. I have a bit of a problem with expensive torces in that they're the most losable item of camping equipment, and I've lost a couple of nice ones in my time, so I don't think it's rational to spend a fortune on them.

For caving, apart from the headlamp, I take one of those cheap plastic torches you get from Clicks (it's worked for years, so why change it). But in general, cheap torches always break at the least convenient time. So I use the cheap torch and don't mind if it gets scratched, but I carry a better torch as a spare...

In moving this post from its old home to this one, I had to delete a whole lot about halogen bulbs, taking spare batteries, twisting the head of the torch to focus the beam, and maglites, which I compared to being as exciting as wearing a Nike swoosh, i.e. not at all. But as I said before, all that has changed since LED lights came along. So I'll consign that rant to the wayback machine.

For the record

Since I've written a whole lot about hiking gear (with a South African hiking audience in mind), it seems fair enough to supply a list of my personal equipment:

• Backpacker Boulder 75l rucksack (the best bag ever)
• First Ascent Ice Breaker down sleeping bag, in Microtex fabric (what a beauty!) with an outer by Cape Storm
• Karrimor Epic 35l pack for day trips
• Petzl Tikka headlamp
  
• Lumogaz gas light by Camping Gaz- used a lot less since Petzl came out with LED lights
  
• First Ascent rainjacket
• North Face down jacket
  
• Heavy fleece top from First Ascent
  
• A couple of wick-dry T-shirts from Cape Storm and First Ascent, and a long-sleeve Nike ACG top perfect for kloofing. And a few cotton/polyester T-shirts that make good vests for winter hiking but get too hot in summer.
  
• Closed-cell foam rollmat for sleeping - a much cheaper option than those inflatable things, but not as nice
• Miscellaneous Hi-Tech boots, originally waterproof but now less so
  
• Big wide-brimmed safari hat and several cotton long-sleeve collar shirts from Cape Union Mart
  

Other gear that I've used:

• Coleman Apex II stove (benzene fueled, broken, whatever you do don't buy Coleman)
• Camping Gaz Bleuet stove (replacing the Coleman, until I decide to splash out and buy a better one)
• Dachstein boots (bought in 1995 and lasted about 10 years on their second soles)
• Ventex/Hollowfibre jacket by Drimac, warm and once waterproof.
• Karrimor Jaguar 2 65l rucksack (bought in 1985 and still in occasional use when I need a smaller pack or one to lend out)
• Two Backpacker Benedorm 3 Seasons sleeping bags (each of which lasted about 3 years of heavy use before needing to be replaced. One is now a very nice duvet.)
• Backpacker Kranz 40l pack for day trips (damn! it got stolen.)
• Backpacker Fellman 20l which was too small for most day trips but was a great varsity bag
• Two pairs of Trailbuster T3 boots (they died after 3 years heavy use.)

Boots

There are many alternatives, but the main choice (after price) seems to be leather vs. synthetic. There are many leather options, ranging from velskoen to some pretty hardcore bonded-sole, last-you-a-lifetime boots. The market moves pretty fast so I'm a bit out-of-date with what's now available. In reasonably-priced synthetic boots, the choice of brand seems to be Hitec or nothing, but there are more expensive options in GoreTex.

Jim Green boots are a top quality leather product, or so I'm told - I haven't owned a pair yet. They're made in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, and can even be ordered online. And of course there's K-Way, the Cape Union Mart brand.

Hitec has a wide range of boots. Their synthetic boots are typically very comfortable (more so than leather boots) and don't require much wearing-in. Synthetic boots definitely aren't as durable as leather, though, and unless they specifically say waterproof, they're certainly not, although even leather boots or synthetic "waterproof" boots are seldom really waterproof after extended wetting. I would recommend Hitecs over leather boots for the novice or occasional hiker. Avoid the Hitech Utah, though. I had a pair for casual use, but they were definitely not tough enough for real hiking.

For the pro hiker with tough feet, consider going for a leather boot. Various options are available, some imported and some made locally. I'm not familiar with the brands at present - for a while I had a pair of Dachsteins. They done a lot of distance in all sorts of conditions. At the moment I'm using a more mundane pair of Hitec boots.

Stoves

For the new hiker with limited budget, there really is only one alternative here: the Camping Gaz range with butane or butane/propane cylinders. Their newer range includes resealable cylinders, and there are sometimes other brands of butane stoves on the market as well.

For the pro hiker, avoid the Gaz stove - for a rather higher price you can get a benzene stove which is hotter, more robust, cheaper to fuel, less unstable and less susceptible to wind, cold and high altitude. I bought a Coleman Apex II, which looks like a moon landing unit and is hot as hell and a great talking point. BUT... read on to find out why I stopped being a Coleman fan.

Well, only 4 years into it's supposed 10-year lifespan, my Coleman stove decided to spring a leak in the fuel line, letting loose a gentle arc of benzene - very fortunately not spraying over the flame itself. As far as I'm concerned that doesn't consitute "fair wear and tear" - it's either a basic design flaw, poor materials, or poor workmanship. Nor can I recommend Coleman aftersale service in Cape Town, which is 100% non-existant, or in South Africa as a whole. Meantime, I no longer recommend Coleman products. Anything so expensive that (a) breaks and (b) can't be fixed at all is not a decent hiking product. If anyone from Coleman wants to convince me otherwise, I'm open to offers.

The top range of imported stoves comes from MSR, and includes the Whisperlite and XGK (what would we do without American outdoor technology? But that's another debate). They're even hotter than the Coleman range: my Coleman Apex II was once convincingly beaten by a Whisperlite in a time trial, boiling 1 litre of water at 800m altitude in a light breeze. The Gaz stove didn't even reach boiling point. But temperature control is not an option with MSR: if you want to get one to simmer, there's a complicated mantra and a chicken-slaughtering ritual you need to learn first. The only thing hotter than an MSR or Coleman stove is the debate over which of the two is better.

GETAWAY magazine once rated butane stoves as better than the Coleman / MSR ranges - but they did their tests at sea level, with no wind, and at 20 Celsius. Heck, no-one uses a stove in those conditions, and butane stoves hardly work in wind, altitude or cold. And when they say butane stoves are safer, I've seen several gas accidents on Gaz stoves when novice users don't know how to change a cylinder, so beware...

Backpacks

When buying a pack, size is the main consideration - 75 litres is big enough for most purposes. There is not much to choose in this market - the current generation of internal frame packs all seem well designed and durable. Locally, Karrimor and is the best known brand with a well-proven record, but other brands are available - some local, some imported.

Apart from plenty of hiking, my Backpacker Boulder has also done excellent service on several overseas trips. A friend of mine modified his pack so he can padlock it, but with a few knots in the straps and putting discouraging things like dirty underwear in the outside pockets, I reckon you can discourage most luggage tamperers.

Final comment - young hikers should not go for a small pack "until they get bigger". Packs are so pricy that they will be stuck with a small pack which becomes increasingly frustrating after a year or two. Go for a "real" pack as soon as you can, or borrow until you can afford to buy one of your own.

Day packs

There are several schools of thought here - some people prefer to cram everything into some sort of tiny hipbelt, others like to carry a full overnight bag, sometimes even stuffing it full of bricks "for training", others like a camel pack, or is it a bladder, or a camel bladder. Well, each to their own taste.

The usual compromise is to get something like a 20l day pack, which is big enough for your basic day kit and also doubles as a handy school or varsity book bag. Not a bad option, but not very individual.

On day hikes I prefer to eat well, carry lots of water, a bulky camera, map, 1st aid kit, and a few warm and waterproof alternatives in case the Cape mountains pull a fast one and it ends up snowing in mid summer. I gave up trying to fit all this kit into a traditional 20l day pack, mainly because I don't like carrying something that feels like a lead soccerball on straps.

My current day pack is an aged Karrimor Epic 35, which is a comfortable teardrop-shaped bag with plenty of space and some handy features like exterior mesh pockets. I use the Epic as hand baggage on overseas trips. It's big enough to fit a laptop inside, in the laptop briefcase, nogal.

My current favourite daypack is the K-Way Kilimanjaro, which my wife uses. It's a medium size daypack with a light frame to allow air to circulate between the pack and your back.

Sleeping Bags

Down bags are the warmest, most durable and lightest - but beware of getting them wet, and be prepared for a shock when it comes to price. A few years ago I invested in a First Ascent Ice Breaker in microtex fabric. It's been an excellent choice, and is one of the most popular bags on the market. Cape Storm makes some excellent down bags as well. Treat yourself to an inner sheet 'cos you shouldn't wash down if you can avoid it.
In the synthetic range (ignoring the cheap supermarket sleeping bags), there are good bags from First Ascent, K-Way and others. Synthetic has three advantages over down - price, washability and the ability to remain warm when wet (yes, I've been there). It has the serious disadvantages of bulk and lifespan - my hollowfibre bag lost its loft and hence its warmth after about 3 years of heavy use, even though I stored it unstuffed. Basically, avoid hollowfibre if you can afford the excessive price of a good down bag.

Whatever happened to...

Here's the bit where I show my age and reminisce about hiking equipment from the late eighties / early nineties. I get a few emails about the equipment mentioned on this page, so it seems I'm not the only one with fond memories of equipment I've used in the past. If you have any information to update what appears below, leave a comment.

Trailbusters

I grew up as a hiker with two pairs of Trailbusters T3s by AP Lubbe in Stellenbosch - you know, the classic hiking-boot-meets-velskoen approach, complete with red laces.. I found them comfortable and easy to wear in, and I've got fond memories of both pairs, although they were a bit lightweight and only lasted 3 years per pair. T5's were a heavier duty boot, but I never owned those. Trailbuster seems to have faded, although in 2005 they still had a website running.

Dachstein

When I was a lightie, Dachsteins were the serious boots the older guys were wearing, imported from Austria. In 1995 I bought a pair of leather Dachstein Semmering boots from Camp & Climb in Claremont (Camp & Climb vanished in about 2003). The boots lived up to expectations and, with the help of new soles from Rocksole, managed 10 years of hiking.

The Dachstein brand (named after the Dachstein region in Austria) was owned by ski-manufacturer Kneissl-Dachstein. In 2003 Kneissl-Dachstein filed for bankruptcy and sold off a lot of its brands: Dachstein was sold to DeeLuxe, and Raichle to Mammut, but it seems the brands are all still functioning and closely related.

After a lot of searching, I finally found pictures of current Dachstein boots under "Hiking Classics" on the website www.kneisslandfriends.com/english/outdoor in late 2004. They seem to be panelled boots, part leather and part synthetic. However on the same website I found leather Raichle trekking boots. Raichle operates in Switzerland and some of their boots (like the Raichle Mountain Trekker) look a lot like the great Dachstein boots that were sold in South Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s. I don't know if you can find Raichle boots in South Africa in 2005 - if you can, let us know.

Backpacker

The superb Backpacker range was best known for their packs and their Benedorm hollow fibre sleeping bag. My pack is a Boulder 75l, which I've used since 1996, still going strong despite several overseas plane trips which have taken their toll on the straps. Backpacker also made a great pack called the Thar (a cylindrical pocketless pack) which was a popular serious bag. (Some day, I'll figure out what I mean by "serious" hiking equipment, and let you know. I hope I'm not just being a snob...)

My favourite daypack was the Backbacker Kranz, a 40l rock climber's bag. The Kranz was similar to the Thar or Krakadouw pack, but smaller, expandable with expedition pockets. Two problems - some burglars liked my Kranz even more than I did, and Backpacker stopped making them.

In the 1990s the Backpacker factory moved to Botswana, and they gradually faded from view. In 2004, BackPacker was bought by Scavenger and is still in business with a postal address in Centurion and allegedly something in Duncan Street, Pretoria, and hopefully they'll regain their status as a major player in the local market.

Coleman

Coleman used to be a contender in the market for serious outdoor equipment - their stoves were a competitor (and in some - but not all - ways superior to MSR). However, when my expensive Coleman stove packed up through a blatant design flaw (I've ranted about it elsewhere on this site), nearly causing a nasty blaze, I contacted Coleman's local agents. How naive. It turned out Coleman wasn't remotely interested in repairing it - not free, not for money, nada, niks. So Coleman is no longer a serious player in the outdoor equipment market either. Good riddance.