Backpackin'

(Joe Valesko runs Zpacks, a very cool cottage business building incredibly light backpacking gear. His site is at http://www.zpacks.com/)

Dear Joe,

Granite Gear is supposed to debut these incredibly light dry sacks in February. They’re made of Cuben Fiber and will be about ½ the weight they would be if they were silnylon. You can see them here http://www.trailspace.com/blog/2009/07/24/outdoor-retailer-granite-gear-uberlight-ctf3-drysacks.html.
 

Granite gear already has these nifty very light silnylon dry sacks that are also airvented – they’ve got some eVent fabric on the bottom - so you can really compress these babies and have a teeny tiny waterproof package. Very cool for a down sleeping bag, for example.

They also sell a heavy duty model, similar to the Sea to Summit ventable dry sacks (http://www.seatosummit.com/products/display/64) we bought a couple of years ago at Mountain Crossings in Georgia that have worked very well for us.

Here’s the weight comparisons for a 13 liter bag, the size we’re using for our down bags.

Sea to Summit                    2.4 oz

Granite Gear heavy duty    1.9 oz

Granite Gear Silnylon        1.5 oz

And the Uberlight 13 liter dry sack weighs .67 oz – but it doesn’t vent air like the other three.

Now it seems obvious to even a dufus like me that having a sub-one oz ventable dry sack would be extra super cool so I wrote to Granite Gear and told them so.

You know what they said? They sent me a very nice email explaining that they don’t use ideas from customers because of legal issues.

I understand the point. You know, law suits. Some guy sends in a quick note with an idea, the company uses it and makes a gazillion dollars, then the guy sues for a chunk of the loot and some jury awards it to him – plus pain and suffering – even though he clearly offered the idea for free.

So I’m writing to see what you think of the idea.  I probably should have done that first, since you began innovating with Cuben Fiber long before Granite Gear, but the idea just sort of sprang up while I was reading about their new dry sacks.

Anyway, I think they’d sell like Snickers bars. What could be better? Ultra-light, ultra-compressible, completely waterproof.  I’d really like to have several for our eventual AT SOBO.

And I promise I won’t sue.

Thanks for your time.

Richard Brownkatz