Letter of the month

A good night’s sleep on a budget

I can relate to ‘What’s a good night’s sleep worth’ (December 2022). Without decent sleep, I become irritable at best and at risk of poor decision-making at worst.

After years of wrangling the night away with clothes in a stuff sack and, later, air pillows, I arrived at a simple innovation: an inexpensive pillow made just the way I like it. I spent $14 on a 23cm square offcut of 4cm thick memory foam from Para Rubber. This goes inside a ‘pillowcase’ made from an old Buff. It’s sewn shut at one end and has a thin velcro strip at the other. Four centimetres of memory foam is pretty cushy on its own but I go all out and stuff in a few clothes, too. The dry touch and stretchiness of the Buff holds everything together securely and feels pleasant against skin. It weighs just 100g for a genuinely comfortable night with enjoyable, clear-thinking the next day.

– Karen Vaughan

– Karen receives a $100 voucher from www.realmeals.co.nz. Readers, send your letter to editor@lifestylepublishing.co.nz for a chance to win.

Gas stoves on notice

With moves against gas-powered anything (hot water and cooking in homes) due to the climate impact, be aware that the same is true for fossil fuel-powered stoves. It is only a matter of time before butane/propane gas canisters and stoves are climate taxed.

Alternatives are the Esbit and Trangia-style alcohol-powered stoves, which within a decade may replace our favourite MSR.

I own stoves of all types and have bulk purchased enough gas to last about seven years of tramping. But it will be interesting to see if these are eventually banned from the DOC  estate in the next decade or so.

– Brett Smith

One of the best (featured image)

I walked from Aspiring Hut to Dart Hut in Mt Aspiring National Park on December 29 and returned on the 31st, scoring a stunning day. It is one of the best walks I’ve done, but both days were pretty heavy days with the climbing, descending and length considered. I got over in 6hr40min and took an hour longer on the way back.

It was good to see several Wilderness magazines in Dart Hut.

– Michael Scott

Hunting versus tramping pants

I have a pair of Hunters Element Spur Pants, which seem well-designed and feature-rich with air vents and other neat stuff. However, when the pants get wet the fabric becomes abrasive, especially around the internal seams. I wore them recently for four hours in the rain and my legs were rubbed raw. Not good really.

The pants are not tight on me. They are made from recycled plastic bottles and

I wonder if this could be the cause of such irritation? Have any Wilderness readers experienced anything similar?

I’d like to know what options are available for tramping pants, as these hunting pants seem to have more features than do tramping ones and cost less. Maybe it comes down to ‘you get what you pay for’?

– Marc Krisjanous

– Looks very painful and I hope your legs recover soon, Marc. Each January we run a gear guide on hiking pants which allows readers to compare tramping options, many of which are feature-rich. I’ve never seen or heard of this kind or reaction to wearing tramping pants before. -AH

Silver linings

There is a cliche that says health scares are ‘wake up calls’. It’s true.

I’ve always been healthy, but nearly two years ago I had a medical event that required five weeks of radiation treatment in Christchurch. I put this down to two separate things.

Before living in Christchurch, I worked for an unpleasant individual (a real bully) for five years. This led to a lot of stress.

Secondly, having been nomadic all my life my tramping career has been on-and-off. The first few years in our Christchurch home were full-on with urgent work needed doing, so no camping or tramping for way too long.

A year ago, my tramping was rekindled with a hike to Ces Clark hut and then home via the Mt Watson route.

Since then, I’ve been out on various tracks bagging huts and loving it and I’ve finally joined Walk1200km, which I can highly recommend. These wake-up calls really do have silver linings.

– Heather Pascoe