UKC

Elephant's Foot - advice for budding alpinist

With the quarantine, I'm spending lots of time planning climbing trips. I want to have a go at multi-day alpine trips. To cut weight, I'm wondering whether an elephant's foot is a good investment?

As I'll have a good insulating jacket anyway, is a full sleeping bag necessary? Harder to get into on a bivie ledge making the 'foot' more attractive?

Thoughts anyone?

Stay safe, regards, julian

AK's reply....

https://www.andy-kirkpatrick.com/blog/view/pied-delephant

I tried one I borrowed from a mate in the European Alps some years ago. It gave almost no benefit to insulation. A lightweight sleeping bag was much warmer. Assuming reasonable conditions I would often have a light to mid weight jacket rather than heavy weight and in the evenings would wear the sleeping bag like a jacket ( head poking out of foot end, feet out of head end ) until it was time for bed. 

    Then there are all the other tricks such as metal water bottle filled with hot water, doing sit ups, fatty food before sleeping, keeping moving until later in the day. Depending on the routes you are after you can go even lighter by using huts - wallet will be especially light!

Am I imagining things or did there used to be a zip-on PD for one of the popular down jackets? I'm going back to the '80s...

Thanks folks for your thoughts.

I'd read most of AK's site - can't believe I missed that article.

Stay safe, julian

As someone who prefers sleeping in slightly more conventional places excuse my ignorance but how about a Blizzard bag - granted it's never going to be as snuggly as a sleeping bag but they seem popular with MRTs....

Yes, made by Peter Hutchinson (ME founder, later PHD). The pied d'elephant press-studded onto the duvet. I and others used this system for Alpine bivvies in the late 60s/early 70s. The duvet needed to be big and well filled to be anything like as warm as a separate light sleeping bag, which I think would be a better solution these days.

Rob F

Cheers Rob

My own solution is a PHD Minim with all my togs on. Zipless bag is a faff to get into, but keeps the weight and pack size to a minim - um. These days I might try one of the quilt type bags.

I bought the lighter version oft their bag, abt 260g, when attempting the Cuillin Ridge recently. Didn't have to use it because it was amazingly warm that night and a trusty Buffalo shirt sufficed (legs chilly). I didn't deploy it unnecessarily because its apparently hard to pack down really small again unless one takes a vacuum cleaner along. A plus is that the outer is waterproof. I'd watched a couple of YouTubes with survivalist types who liked it. I imagine it must have some disadvantages in the Alps compared to down, as its price and weight are attractive otherwise. Has anyone on UKC used it for planned bivouacs?

Blizzard bags are incredibly warm. But, and it is a big but, they aren't that easy to pack away after use, and in any wind they tend to get shredded. So, really well suited for MR use where they do a job and can then get carefully repacked back at base, but not so good for alpinism. I have heard that they are better if used with a bivvy bag to stop being trashed in the wind, but overall it sounds like a more conventional bag is better for normal use, and keep the Blizzard for what it excels at, which is emergency/MR use.