The Grey Nato - Ep 15 - "Peak Bag"

Published on Tue, 16 Aug 2016 09:02:51 -0400

Synopsis

This episode of The Grey Nado discusses various types of bags for different activities like travel, photography, and outdoor adventures. James and Jason share their experiences with different backpacks, camera bags, and totes they've used for events like Baselworld and SIHH, as well as for activities like hiking Mount Baker and scuba diving. They also mention upcoming adventures like Jason's flight with the Breitling jet team and review a new watch from Oak & Oscar.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hello and welcome to episode 15 of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. I'm James Stacy.
Jason Heaton And I'm Jason Heaton. So James and I haven't talked much since I left Vancouver after our TGN summit, which we talked about in our last episode. And that really doesn't have anything to do with a preponderance of proximity during my visit to Vancouver. We've just both been kind of busy in the past couple of weeks. I need a full download from you, James, on your successful ascent of Mount Baker, which we'll get to. Yep. But first, today's topic, we're going to talk about bags. Backpacks, totes, camera bags, basically the way we haul our stuff around. It's something that's a bit of an obsession for you and I, James. Not a week goes by that we don't really lament the existence of a perfect bag. I think we discuss it all the time. You know, James, I think for me there are some distinctive categories and some that certainly overlap of bags that I find myself using. And that is, you know, bags that are kind of specific to carrying camera gear, day packs that you use for, you know, a short hike or, or some travel, uh, or, or even like a more of a dedicated travel pack that maybe you want to use when a backpack isn't maybe as suitable, like when you're wearing a sport coat or something like that. But it's really tough, as we've discussed, to really find a bag that overlaps all of these categories. And frankly, it's been kind of frustrating. It's almost like a unicorn that I think we've both been hunting. And I think the best example or the best sort of fit that we've been trying to find is the elusive, what I call a Basel bag, which is the bag that you take to a trade show. And you and I and the other hundreds of watch writers and bloggers and journalists that show up at SIHH in Basel every year. You know, we've got a lot of us that carry our laptops with us. We've got, you know, a camera body and maybe a lens, a notebook and pen, business cards. Um, but then, you know, you get stuff from brands, you get catalogs and you get USB drives and you get some schwag and you got to carry the stuff around. And, and like I said, a backpack doesn't work very well with a sport coat and I just, I've really had a hard time finding a shoulder bag that, that, that works. What are you using? Uh, you know, what do you use at these shows?
James Stacey Well, I've done, um, I've done Basel four times. I've done SIHH once and actually my first year at Basel, I was using, um, a Kata 465, what they call a digital rucksack. It's a backpack that has like a separated lower container for camera gear and then an upper element for just kind of random bits. Mm-hmm. And the first year I didn't take as much gear as I take now. We, uh, with the blog to watch, we carry a litany of gear. Typically we have our own bags and then a bag in each hand and you know, you have a lot to manage. And, and actually the, the first year we were there, the, the Hublot sort of promotional gift was a, um, a tote that came in its own little bag. And then you took it out of that and it kind of unfold into this, uh, nearly two foot long, uh, 18 inch deep tote with a zippered top and no pockets. I think, well, sorry, I think there's one tiny pocket on the inside and one on the outside. Like you could put a wallet or a phone in them, but otherwise there's not much structure to it. It had like a fold out card that sat in the bottom for a little bit of rigidity. Oh yeah. And it would stand upright. And I found that if I took the, um, kind of camera insert out of my kata, and drop that in the bag, I could get most of my camera gear in that bag. And you know, this bag is probably something that Hublot bought like 10,000 of for $3 a piece or something like that. Like it's not fancy, but it has survived quite a few Basels. Yeah. And it's big enough that when you get some of the promotional items or all the USB keys, and you know, they all come in those boutique bags. You know, like when you buy nice shoes or something. So you always want to kind of collapse as much of that as possible. Sometimes you get this giant bag that has like three sheets of paper with a USB key kind of taped to it. And then like a little box that'll be like a money clip or a loop or something like that as their like press gift. And you look at it and you think like, well, I could use this bag to hold a bunch of stuff. And that's usually where you start. But eventually that bag's full and you've got more and then I can, so there's enough room left over in that, in that bag. And then if you go back to our Baselworld episode from this year, I spoke about a Lowepro viewpoint case that was designed to carry like a series of GoPro cameras. Oh yeah. But it's just a case with all of these little accessory dividers. And I bought one of those. It was very cheap. It was like $30 or something. It's kind of like a small lunch pail. If you imagine what basically the space that three GoPros with their various attachments would take. Yeah. And that's what I was using. So I would put the camera insert with my camera, a lens, flash, a ton of batteries. And then this one, which would hold all the little bits, all the little cables, all of the card readers, all of the spare memory cards, a gray card for white balance, all those sorts of things. And that's been my kit pretty much as far as we go to today through five of these shows or so. And then, uh, I know that you, you, when I saw you in SIHH, you had like a topo briefcase.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that, that, that, that was my latest. So last year at SIHH, I guess it would be SIHH 2015 in January. Um, I had a different bag. I had, I had gotten a gift from, from Tudor watch company and it was a Jack Spade They called it a dipped canvas tote is how Jack Spade had branded it. And it was a big, really heavy duty cotton canvas with a zipper on the top. It was a tote with the two sort of looped handles at the top. And then the bottom half of the bag looked like it had been dipped in a bucket of red paint. So it was a black bag dipped in like red on the bottom, like a rubberized or heavy sort of rubber red sort of paint or something that protected the bottom of the bag. And I'm just not a tote guy. I just, I've never really liked the way you carry them. You know, it's either kind of awkward over the shoulder. The opening isn't quite big enough to get your arm through and then your arm gets tired from sort of hanging at low. Um, so I don't know. I've just never warmed up to totes and I always felt like they were a little feminine, so I just never warmed up to them. But I had that, I had that bag at SIHH and It was an excellent bag. It was perfect for a show because it was just like a black hole. You open it up, you could drop all of that gifty stuff in there. USB drives could just kind of disappear in the bottom.
James Stacey It just sounds like a better version of that Hublot bag. Yeah. One giant bag with big handles.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And the cotton canvas was heavy enough that I think it provided a bit of protection, so I was able to put a camera in the bottom. miss out with a bag like that is any sense of organization. I mean, it literally is just a black hole. There might've been a small zipper pocket inside, but I don't remember. So I got rid of that bag, but you're right at this past Basel. Um, I'm a big fan of Topo designs. They're a Colorado based company that makes a sort of retro style backpacks, um, and bags and clothing. And they've got a bag that's called the mountain briefcase and it's, you know, roughly briefcase shaped. It's rectangular and sort of slightly expands as you kind of add stuff to it. There's two separate zipper compartments and there's some internal storage. There's a laptop sleeve that's padded and then there's smaller pockets inside that you can put cables or business cards or, you know.
James Stacey It's kind of like a, like an, like a modern, a somewhat more modern or maybe less like willfully rustic expression of like the Filson, the 257, the thicker one. Yeah, right. I like it better than the Filson. You know, I have a Filson, a 256 and I, you know, the bag itself is quite heavy and they're quite stiff. Yeah. And once they're broken in, so you don't get a lot of flexibility as far as like for laptops and things like that. So the Topo looked really good. Yeah.
Jason Heaton And the Topo is light because it's, it's, it's Cordura. So it's a cotton, well not cotton, but it's, you know, it's Cordura. So it's, it's heavy duty enough to avoid you know, abrasions or fend off abrasions and things like that. But what's really cool about it is, so it has a shoulder strap. It has two, you know, shorter grab handles that you can just carry and then tucked into a sleeve on one side are hidden padded backpack straps. So you can slide those out of the sleeve and clip them and turn the bag, you know, 90 degrees. So it's sitting vertically and then you can carry it that way as well. So, you know, so far that's kind of my, my best solution. And certainly I just want to make clear to people out there that when we're talking about Basel bags and SIHH, this isn't necessarily a really specific use case. I mean, it is in our case, but this is a bag that could just be a work bag for anybody that's going to an office or traveling or a journalist or anything like that. It's a great way to carry something that doesn't look so techie like a day pack does. So yeah, I'd say that the tote from Tudor was It was good. I think the Topo Mountain briefcase is probably my, kind of my go-to now, but I still feel like there's, there's a market out there for something.
James Stacey Yeah, I would totally agree. I've been, I've been hunting for a couple of years for something a touch smaller than the, that Hublot bag, but also something that wouldn't require, like that Hublot bag is basically like, I pack it in its little zippered case. It goes in my luggage. I get to Basel and I set up a very specific, I never touch that bag for the rest of the year. Oh yeah. It's, it's not a very good bag. Like it's a, um, it's just a big pocket of like very thin nylon. And, uh, it's not good for much else, but because of its few strengths as a big zipper, a huge opening, nice long straps, and it holds a bunch of stuff.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Uh, besides my tendency to develop tendonitis in my shoulder or my elbow by the end of the week from carrying that bag kind of straight armed by the end of the day. Yeah. It's been a great bag, but I would really like something that's kind of the full evolution of that idea. And I think I might've found it, at least I think I might've found it enough that I shelled out for a Kickstarter project. Oh, wow. From Peak Design, who I think we've spoken about before. They're a camera accessories designer manufacturer. Really cool company. Yeah, they make these camera clips where you put kind of a mounting plate on the bottom of the camera, and they make these like speed clips that you can mount on the strap of a backpack or on your belt. And it's a really awesome way to carry anything from a GoPro all the way up to a 5D, you know, a D810, whatever you've got. But last year they launched, I think it was a backpack. I don't remember. They launched a messenger bag, their everyday bag. And then in response to that bag's popularity, they started this Kickstarter for the everyday backpack tote and sling. So it's three bags in the Kickstarter and you basically pick the one that you want. And I'll put the link in the show notes. The fast route is they've been running for maybe 20 days, I think, somewhere around 20 days. They've got a little over 10,000 backers and of a $500,000 goal, they're at 2.378 million. That's incredible. So the bags are really interesting designs. If I needed a backpack, I probably would have gone the backpack route, but like you mentioned, it's a real bummer to wear a backpack with a blazer.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey or even a backpack with like a sweater and a collared shirt. Yeah. I just, I just don't want to look like a guy that just got back from private school with, you know, with his lunch bag and a couple of books in there. Like I like having the tote and I like having one that's self-standing. So when you stop to chat with somebody, you can just set it on the ground between your feet and not have the weight on your body. Cause that's what a lot of Basel and S.I.T.H. is, is, you know, you go from a meeting to a meeting, But you cross paths with friends and colleagues on the way. So there's a lot of stopping and talking. Right. And standing on elevators or things like that. So the tote in the everyday backpack tote sling option is compelling enough that I've backed the project. We won't see these items until around December, they say. So I hope it's here in time for SIHH. But it's this really clever kind of nerdy tote in a kind of a medium gray color, which of course I like. And it has adaptable straps so you can actually extend one strap to make it more of a messenger bag. You can put the straps through a channel and use it as a backpack. So if my arm's really tired and I just have to walk across Basel to get from my apartment to wherever my team is working, I can throw it on as a backpack. It carries a pretty considerable amount of stuff. It has a really interesting interior design.
Jason Heaton I love those padded sort of pouches that are collapsible.
James Stacey It's such a cool idea. Yeah, they're like a hard-formed but yes, padded channel that you can push to the side or you can push into the center and have kind of three pockets or none. And it's got panels on both sides for access and the really clever strap design. It'll hold a 15-inch MacBook as well as a ton of accessories. a camera, multiple lenses. And you know, the pricing seemed very reasonable. I think I paid about 145 US for it. So I'm excited. I mean, it'll be in the final notes. I'm sure I'll bring it up again, because I'm pretty pumped for the project and to have kind of a nice solution. And if it carries the laptop and the camera really well, then it could be my kind of my go to bag for these sorts of press environments. Sure. Where normally I pack one bag for getting from my house to the hotel. and then switch to something designed for the day, whether you're in a car or you're at a show or whatever. And this might be a way to just have the one bag through the whole trip, or at least that's what I'm hoping.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it looks really cool. I checked it out. It's a tempting proposition. I just feel like I have way too many bags now, but yet I'm still lacking that one perfect bag. And if that's the one, I'd probably just shed the rest of my inventory of bags that just aren't quite cutting it.
James Stacey Yeah, that's the phase that I'm at now. I'm trying to institute a one-in, two-out policy. So I've got a couple bags on Craigslist in Vancouver and I'll see if I can move a couple out of here because otherwise I'm basically just my office is just becoming a storeroom for backpacks and Various bags and stuff.
Jason Heaton I think the the crux of finding the right bag comes down at least for me an ability to carry sensitive equipment ie camera gear along with everything else a lot of bags have laptop sleeves. But a lot of bags, a lot of those same bags don't have the ability to protect the loose bits, you know, like a SLR body or a loose lens or another lens or a flash unit or whatever you've got in the same bag. You know, you might have a laptop sleeve, but then the rest is just sort of floppy and loose. And you and I were sort of chatting recently about, you know, making if you could make any bag into a camera bag by by getting some sort of a little pouch, you know, padded pouch or a sleeve of some sort that you could slide into any other bag. And that, that might be my angle. That might be my solution is to hunt down something like that.
James Stacey Yeah. That's what I've been doing for a little while with, um, I take that, uh, it's that, you know, those like a camera insert, like a three, three section camera insert from the Kata bag. And I don't actually use the Kata bag very often, but I use the insert every time I travel with my camera because it roughly fits right into the base of my main travel backpack, which is a 5'11 Rush 24. Yeah. And, uh, that works really well. But when you had mentioned on Slack that you were interested in finding like essentially a camera management system that could just drop into any bag, um, I started Googling and, uh, I came across that one from Crumpler that looked pretty interesting. It was called the Crumpler Haven. It came in a few different sizes. And then I came across the ApeCase options and they make four or five in different sizes and depths. And I bought, because it wasn't very expensive, it was about $30 Canadian. I bought the ApeCase QB35. And it is like essentially a padded camera management system, like an insert that you would see in a camera bag. It's a little thinner, it's about four and a half inches thick. And then the top has like a sleeve that you drawstring shut. So you get, you get the protection on three sides. Yeah. Or five sides, I suppose, if we're thinking in terms of cube. And, uh, and then the top is closed from any other things coming in or out of the space. And I picked it up on Amazon. It'll show up sometime next week. I'm pretty excited to see how it fits into the bag. I have some, I have some travel coming up to Germany at the end of the month, and I'm hoping that I can just do the whole trip with one bag. Oh, yeah. And a key element of that is like, do I just wrap my camera in a sweatshirt or a spare pair of pants or something and drop it at the bottom of the bag and hope for the best? I mean, our cameras these days are really tough. Yeah. But I still think you've got to respect that gear if you want it to work every time you pull it out of your bag.
Jason Heaton Speaking of camera gear and camera bags, there's this other category. So, you know, moving on from like the Basel bag category to talk about sort of a more of a camera style bag or a camera specific pack. One bag that I like, and yet one that I don't use very often, I have one of the Filson, I think it was last year, Filson came out with a line of camera bags that they partnered with David Allen Harvey and Steve McCurry, who are two Magnum photographers that work for the Magnum photo agency. And they did sort of a series. I think there was a tote and a backpack and then sort of a bonafide sort of shoulder camera bag. And I've got the Steve McCurry version of the Filson shoulder camera bag. And what it's good for, so it's just sort of a big box, you know, big rectangle with a U-shaped zipper on top, heavy duty zipper. It's waxed canvas. It has sort of bellows pockets on each end and then sleeve pockets on the front and the back that zip or button shut. And then inside it has these removable padded cubes that you can velcro around in different ways to slide your gear in. It's awkward to carry for any long distance, so I certainly wouldn't want to be hauling it around Basel. But it's great if it's a really camera-intensive outing where you're not running around, but you're kind of based in one or two places and you just need to have everything organized and sorted. on the ground or in the backseat of a car or whatever. And that type of bag, it's almost sort of the classic, when you think of a camera bag, that's what you think of. Like a field bag. Like a field bag, yeah. Yeah. You know, so that, I think that was kind of the model for camera bags for a long time. And I do like that bag, but to be, if I'm honest, it sits in my office at home 90% of the time. And if we have an outing Like I said, in the car or something where it's more of a stationary trip, it works just great. And that kind of serves as my storage for the camera gear at home, actually. And it works quite well for that.
James Stacey Yeah, I could see that bag being pretty popular if you were a working photographer.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So you would pick up some clients and take, you know, for engagement photos or something and go to a location. Sure. Take this big bag out, set it on the ground, pop up your tripod and kind of have like a home base. Yeah. For all your gear. But I mean, a lot of what you and I do is transitional. Right. So you, you take as little gear as you really need for coverage and you're moving the whole time, whether you're moving around a show hall or up and down a mountain or in and out of a, you know, big body of water, it's not always handy to have the weight and the protection as much as it is to have just the right carry solution, which is, I think the conundrum is that we're just going to keep buying bags until we die. That's the end of it. I don't think I'm ever going to find a bag where I'm like this, I guess I'm done guys.
Jason Heaton Watches, shoes, and bags. We've talked about watches a lot. We're talking about bags. I'm sure we'll do a shoe episode at some point. But yeah, it's crazy. You know, camera bags have sort of evolved from this classic sort of field bag style to, of course, camera backpacks. And I've tried a few of that style as well, which we've already discussed do not work well with a sport jacket or anything like that at a show or anything where you need to look fairly crisp. But one of them that I tried that was sort of a miserable failure was from a small company called Mindshift. And it was a bag called the 360. And it was a technical backpack that had a nice suspension, internal frame, a pack. It had a lot of adjustments. And the concept of the bag was it sort of had this hidden lumbar pack that doubled as the pack's waist strap. And you kept your camera, like your body with a lens on it, maybe a spare lens, in this hidden sort of fanny pack. And then when you were ready to shoot, you would reach back, like with your right hand, and unclip something. And you'd swivel the whole waist belt around so that the fanny pack was now sitting in front of you. And you could zip it open and pull out your camera. And so I still have this bag. I literally have used it, I think, once or twice. Sounds really complicated. It's kind of a cool design. It's like, but it feels very designy, but in real world application, my biggest problem with it was is that if, if you want to use it other than wearing it on your back with the waist belt clipped, it's really hard to get your camera gear out because if like, let's say you set the bag on the ground, you know, then you're, it's really fiddly and you're like swiveling around this floppy waist strap on, on the grass or on a bench or something like that. So it just, right. It felt very specific. And the, you know, the promo videos, you know, showed a guy kind of photographing Kodiak bears or something, and he's in the tall grass and he's hiking with this thing on. Now that would be a perfect application. I'm sure there are people out there that could get good use out of that, but it just didn't, it didn't quite cut it for me. The one that has worked really well for me, um, in that sort of category is the, the F-stop Kenti, which they actually don't make anymore. Uh, the Kenti is, it's a small camera backpack, you know, really sort of very minimalist with a sort of a dry bag style roll top and some waterproof abilities. But what's really cool about it is on each side of the pack there are these u-shaped zipper pockets that allow you to take the pack off of one shoulder and just kind of bring the bag up with either your left or right arm and sort of just hold it alongside of you while you zip the pocket open you can reach in grab the camera and shoot put it back you know whatever you need to do and that that that's proved to be a A really versatile bag. I brought it to the Sochi Olympics when I went there. I've just, I've done a lot of trips with it. The biggest issue with it is it's quite tiny. I mean, once you get your camera gear on those two side U-shaped pockets, there's very little space in the top for, you know, you might fit like an algene bottle and maybe a rain jacket and maybe a couple of energy bars, but it doesn't hold a lot else.
James Stacey Yeah. I think that one was replaced by the Lotus maybe in their new mountain series. I don't know. F-stop is basically like one of the most premium makers of adventure backpacks designed for use with camera systems. Yeah. And they recently renewed their lineup. So I have an F-stop bag that Jason gave me, and Jason has the bag that he's speaking about now. And I'm not actually sure what their direct replacement is, but if you go to their Mountain series, whatever the replacement is, they now have five in that line. And I'm sure you could find one that would suit your need. But they are designed for use with an internal system called an ICU. And the ICUs come in different sizes, depending on how much gear you want to carry. But once you have the bag and the ICU, you really have to trim your gear from there, because they are designed for camera use, essentially.
Jason Heaton Right, right. So moving on from camera packs, let's talk a little bit about sort of a day pack. Do you have, you know, you mentioned the 5.11, is that your Is that kind of your go-to day pack? Like if you were going to go for a, let's say a hike, like, like what you and I did in Vancouver, you weren't using that bag. You use something different for that trip.
James Stacey Yeah. For the, uh, for a day hike where I'm not necessarily training. Um, so I'm not carrying extra weight in the bag. Um, so I'm just going out. I carry two bags. This will sound hilarious to people who hike, but I carry two bags. My day bag is a Duder. I think they call it a flash, but it's, they're like ultra lightweight. It's maybe a. 15 liter bag and it'll hold a three liter bladder, extra water, a spare layer. It's got a couple like mesh pockets on the side. You can put some food in. It was actually a gift from Zen at Basel two years ago. And it's seen the top of every peak in Vancouver since then. And a great bag. I really like Duder's stuff a lot. This, this one looks a little small, like I've kind of a tall lanky frame. So the bag itself doesn't take up much of my back. Yeah. But you can, um, it's, it's been really tough, uh, uh, a hard wearing bag. I've had a couple of good falls in it and I haven't destroyed it. I had to modify it ever so slightly for the tube from the, the hydration bladder, but, uh, that hasn't been an issue for it either. I made a small cut in the side of the bag and, uh, you know, treated it with ripstop tape. And that's been a really, really reliable, simple, bright red bags is, and it's kind of fun that way. And then outside of that, the second bag I carry is one that I've spoken about for a little while. I guess it's kind of hard to even call it a bag. It's the Amigo Agua. It's kind of a large triangular piece of neoprene with a zipper that kind of runs U-shaped around the majority of its body, and it holds just my camera. And the bag's quite rigid. It's a nice level of protection against bumps and scrapes and such, but the idea is that the bag is stormproof. It has a IPX rating that's essentially like walk into anything except actually dunking it in water. So around here the weather can change fairly quickly. You can get caught in the rain or you might want to cross a stream near a waterfall and you could stop and put your camera in your bag and probably be okay. But this way the camera lives in this bag and the only thing I do is in a bad situation I'll zip the bag up. But otherwise it's fairly well covered even from dust and such. And then all you do is reach in and grab the camera which is tethered to the inside of the bag Which is of course around my shoulder and then you can shoot and just tuck the camera back in kind of with one hand and it's a solution that I absolutely adore and I just like it's a perfect level of Protection and placement on my body for when I'm hiking.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I was a little skeptical when you You know when you were first talking about this bag, I had kind of a hard time picturing it I looked at photos of it But when I was in Vancouver for the summit, we you know, we we did that hike and I saw he carried it And it's pretty slick. You kind of just open up that flap and the camera's right there. It was super, super easy to use, it looked like. When you're actually carrying it, I didn't notice, but do you carry, which bag do you put on top?
James Stacey I put the backpack on first and then the Migo on over. And then I clip the, because the Migo you wear kind of like a messenger bag, like across one shoulder, like a sling. Yeah. And then I, when I'm moving around, when I'm on moving from one place to another and don't plan to stop to take a photo, I use a carabiner on the strap of the backpack to hold the strap of the Migo in the same place. Yeah. And that keeps it from rotating forward. And then all you have to do is with one hand is just release that carabiner and the bag rotates to in front of you and you can take your shots. So, you know, I can wade out into water, take my shots. And even if I drop the camera, it doesn't really fall past the length of the bag.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And then if you want to take everything off, there's a D clips. on all of it that are locking and you just untab, like unlock the D clip and just pop it off. Cool. I really like it. And they're about 60 bucks. And I'm like, it's a no brainer. If you take the camera into rougher scenarios, or you want to be able to say you can actually take the, uh, the shoulder strap off of the bag and then clip the two corners of the bag together. So like on there. website, they show people like clipping it to the handlebars of their bike. Oh, yeah. Or to the outside of a big bag, and it just kind of hangs there. Yeah, that might work with a lighter camera than mine, it would work fine on a bike, but on the outside of a bag, I think it would flop around a bit, the 5D is kind of heavy.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey But it's a really great bag, it's worth every penny. And I really like the Amigo stuff. And if you want to just be able to kind of take the camera out into less than ideal conditions, as far as dust or water, I think that's probably a pretty good way to go with it.
Jason Heaton So, you know, beyond camera stuff, uh, when it comes to day packs, um, you know, I have two go-to bags that I use for, for both hiking and for travel. So if it's travel that, you know, again, you know, no sport coat, which is most of my travel, it's just adventure trips or, you know, going to visit the in-laws in Sri Lanka or wherever, uh, I kind of have two bags that I use almost interchangeably. And one is, Again, it's from Topo Designs and it's their Klettersack. And it's probably their most recognizable bag because it's kind of the one that is, I would say, represents the ethos of the brand, which is this sort of retro mountain sports sort of vibe. It's Klettersack, kind of literally in German, I think means something like climbing pack. And it's that minimalist sort of tube style top loading pack that cinches up with a drawstring at the top and then you fold over a top flat pocket that clips shut. And this one, what I like, it has two side pockets that you can slip some, not full on Nalgene liter bottles, but kind of more of the taller, narrower steel bottles that you're getting more and more of these days. And then the inside actually has a little sleeve, which you could put a, you know, I've carried a laptop in it and it works quite well for that. And then the top flap over pocket has a zipper and it It's surprisingly big. It holds, like when I travel, I'll put like a passport in there, wallet, energy bars, you know, whatever I need to grab, you know, quickly on the trip. And then the inside is, it's quite big once you just sort of open it out. You can kind of stuff it with a sweater and extra clothes and you could actually make it into kind of a weekend bag. It doesn't have a waist strap. But, you know, I found, I used to be kind of hardcore about day packs needing, you know, a lot of support and suspension with waist straps and things. This one's just two well padded shoulder straps and a big interior. And it's a retro style bag. You'd think it looks kind of more like a fashion bag, but it's worked really well on hikes. And it's a fun, it's a little bit less sort of military or technical looking when you take it on a plane or in the airport. I don't know. I'm a big fan of Topo Designs anyway.
James Stacey It's a great looking bag. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great looking bag. And definitely in stark contrast to my kind of go to travel bag, like smaller travel bag. I use that like I mentioned a 511 Rush 24. Yeah. And 511 is a fairly well known supplier for military and police outfits and things like that. And I bought the bag because I was interested in a bag that you have the GORUCK GR1. But the GORUCK is quite expensive. Yeah. And I knew that I was buying a bag to essentially abuse it. Like it was going to be my go-to travel bag and I didn't really want to worry about it. So I didn't want something that looked as nice as your, um, topo. And I needed something that had a lot of, um, interior volume. So the, the five 11 rush 24 is about 32, 33 liters, which is great. It also has a series of internal zippered mesh pockets and a separated like foot locker. So, In the situation where let's say I go swimming and I still have a wet bathing suit. Yeah. When I'm coming back, it has this like, you know, it's like a waterproof layer at the bottom. I can tuck something in there.
Unknown Very cool.
James Stacey Or if you've got really smelly socks or something like that, you can tuck them in there and separate it from the rest of the bag. And if it's, if what you put in there is quite wet, there's actually two draining holes. Oh yeah. Wow. The issue with the bag to my eyes is that it looks like I just got off base. Like it looks like I'm a military operator. It's a jet black bag. It's covered in what they call mole webbing. And it has amazing pockets and it cinches to be quite small, or you can use the compression straps open and you can get an unbelievable amount of stuff and it'll carry a huge amount of camera gear. But whether you're going through, I don't know, security, I've been to security, you know, various parts of the world. I was on a dive boat in Hawaii when somebody asked me where I serve. When they saw the bag and like I just used the bag like just to beat it up and doesn't show a day of wear But I would really like I would go out and buy a second one if 511 made or rushed 24 civilian Yeah, that didn't have all the mole webbing. Just give me a little bit of it Just like they do on the gr1 right which has I think maybe three layer three lines of mole webbing Whereas this has like 20. It's all webbing. Yeah And don't get me wrong, if you need to tie something to it with paracord or with a carabiner, it's great. But it looks really tactical. And like I wasn't in the military, I have no aspersions to claiming to have anything more than, you know, an interest in military, but not enough to, you know, wear military clothing or anything like that. And so the bag can sometimes rub me the wrong way with that. But I've used it for a lot of trips and i really love it for when i leave my house to where i get to the hotel or to where i'm staying because you can put so much in it and i know that i can get it on a back on a plane yeah it'll go nose first into a an overhead with uh no issue it's just the right size it's about the size it loaded out it's about the size of one of those small roller bags that people use now yeah i would say that if you put a lot of weight in it It doesn't have the waist band or maybe I removed the waistband, but it didn't have like a fully integrated waistband. It had like just a strip of nylon with a clip on it. And so I think if you put a ton of weight in it, you know, like training for Baker, I would put 50 pounds in it. Yeah. And then go up, up and down hills around Vancouver. And with that much weight, it's all on your shoulders. Sure. And because it's just basically a box, it doesn't, there's no real tech design to it. It doesn't handle a huge amount of weight really well, or maybe I don't handle a huge amount of weight really well, but either way, I really love the bag in its usefulness, but I do kind of feel like I'm driving one of those Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty editions that has like, it just looks as military as possible. And I would be really tempted to get one that didn't have all the mole webbing on it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, when I saw it, when I came to Vancouver, it's, I was jealous. I have the GR1, as you mentioned, the GORUCK, and you know, don't get me wrong. Everybody that knows GORUCK loves it. They make great stuff. It lasts a long time. And it actually flies a little more under the radar than the 5.11, certainly, as you mentioned. Yeah. And I use it a lot. I actually went for a hike today, which I'll talk about in a little bit, but I use the GORUCK. I mean, it's turned out to be a real go-to bag because it's pretty minimalist. I mean, I do kind of envy your sort of bathing suit drainage pocket and all the interior organization. But for most things the GORUCK works pretty well for me. It has a padded laptop sleeve that's pretty discreet. It has two, actually it has three internal pockets. There's sort of a sleeve inside that I'll often stash like magazines or flat stuff for on the flight if I'm taking it on a plane. And then it has a small top pocket that I use for quick access stuff, because you can kind of just zip open the top of the bag and I'll throw my keys in there, sunglasses. And then it has kind of a bigger mesh pocket that I'll stuff like charging cables and things like that. And then that frees up the main part of the interior of the bag for clothing and shoes and whatever else I have. So it's a touch small for anything lengthy, but I can get away with like a two or three day quick getaway kind of travel weekend. with that bag pretty well. And, uh, and one advantage of is, is that it slides nicely under a seat if you're stuck putting it under an airplane seat.
James Stacey So, yeah, it's a lot thinner, like in the distance that like, if you take the five 11 and really zip it down with the compression straps, you can make it get really thin, but then like it gets so thin that the, the, the material on the side actually starts to take up space. Oh, sure. As it starts to collapse like a baffle. Yeah. The GORUCK is a much more like simplified, sleek design, I think. Maybe I could get more done with the added, I don't know, six to seven liters in the external pockets and such. But what it really came down to me was just price. In Vancouver, I could get the 5.11 bag for about 150 Canadian. And you're looking at nearly 400 Canadian. before you start to get into shipping, whatever, you know, I think they often offer free shipping and such, or at least deals on shipping for the GORUCK. And it was just like, I was able to go to a store and actually see the 5.11, and I went with it. And I think the GORUCK's probably a better bag, or maybe the GR2, which is like 36 liters, would probably be just about right for, especially for a guy our size. Yeah. I'm very tall. You can get away with a bigger bag all the time. Yeah. And then, I mean, if we're going to look at bags that are bigger than that, I think we push into extended travel or even like heavy duty backpacking. You did Rainier. What did you take there?
Jason Heaton Yeah, so when I did that trip, I used, you know, I've had a couple of sort of backpacking packs over the years. Some of the names escaped me, but the one I used for Mount Rainier was from Osprey. And I think it was the Ether 70, which, you know, big full on classic style, you know, backpack with uh, hydration sleeve outer pockets for, for bottles. It had, um, what was kind of cool about it was, is it had a, an outer sort of expanding mesh pocket that you could put, uh, a climbing helmet, uh, you know, stash it at the outside and keep that on the outside on the back. Um, the top flap had a big top pocket, actually, I think two zip pockets that you could, you could put little stuff in. And then of course the inside was just, huge. I mean, the thing was like, you know, it's a 70 liter bag. So it's, um, it's made for three, four or five day outings with everything from a tent to a stove to, you know, sleeping bag and clothes and layers and things like that. So it worked really well for, for Mount Rainier. Um, you know, I can't say anything bad about it. Um, but another bag that I've used, um, is one that, that You know, you briefly touched on earlier, uh, and it's a bag that, that I've had and I've used, you know, quite a bit that I passed on to you and that you used on Mount Baker and that's the, the F-stop Satori. So, you know, it, it started life, I think, as a, as a camera bag, you know, you can put that ICU in it that you mentioned from F-stop, uh, to haul camera gear around it, but take that ICU out and it's, it's a pretty full on good technical pack for, for extended trips. How did, how did you find that it worked on Mount Baker?
James Stacey Uh, yeah, I think, uh, it punched way above its weight class on Mount Baker. Uh, the bag, the, the Satori EXP is about 55, 56 liters. And I was told to have a 60 to 75 liter bag for the three day trip. And I didn't have to carry a tent, uh, that was part of like the group gear. So I only carried part of a tent. I had the fly. Another guy had the tent and another guy had the poles. Yeah. And, uh, I could get everything in the bag that I needed to, but what ended up happening was I kind of looked like a decorator crab because I was just covered in ancillary gear that couldn't fit inside the bag. So like I had double plastic mountaineering boots on the outside of the bag. I had my sleeping bag on the outside of the bag. I had all sorts of stuff just strapped to the outside of the bag. And, and like, I think probably when I, when I got the bag out of the van and everybody else, you know, a good portion of my group had the same bag. They were using these, um, Gregory Palisades bags. Oh yeah. And they were about 80 liters with a big brain at the top. Yeah. That would like cinch vertically down. Yeah. So if you didn't need 80, the bag just kind of got lower and lower behind your head. Right. There's a really great design. And I think if I was going to do way more of this stuff, I would probably go out and buy the same bag. The guys, they were all said they got a good price on it and they all had everything inside their bag. Like, you know, I was the only one with double plastics, which worked out beautifully for me and maybe not so well for everybody else. So I had a lot kind of strapped to the outside of the Satori just because it filled up, you know, you get a sleeping roll, your clothes, your food, and then you can fill 50 liters pretty quickly and then some ancillary gear in there as well. So it was really just a sleeping bag that I kind of lashed to the top. If you had a slightly bigger bag or a slightly smaller sleeping roll, I probably could have gotten the sleeping bag in there. Certainly if I had a smaller sleeping bag, I could have. But the bag itself didn't seem to care what I attached to it. I found it to be really comfortable. There's a lot of nice little adjustments on it. It's got a really good hip band. Yeah. And like I said, a punch way above its weight class. When I got to camp and you start taking things off that bag and it's just like, it looks like you just knocked over a shelf at an REI. There's just stuff everywhere. And then it was all in or on that bag and, and, and everybody, you know, guys had probably better suited bags for the job. But I got in and out of there in relative comfort, and I thought the bag did beautifully. It's a great bag. And certainly, I think with an ICU, it would make just an amazing kind of extended trip camera bag.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey But I think it would operate without the ICU. It's really, really well made. Definitely a considerable step above any other bag I've ever owned as far as the quality of the zippers and kind of the thoughtfulness of the design. In the back, like in the actual back panel, It's this kind of padded back panel that has a U-shaped zipper around it and you can actually set the bag down on its flank and open this and you have access to like a series of pockets for like thin things like memory cards. Oh yeah. And like a fully watered seal pocket that's for a passport. Yeah. So basically whatever you did to everything else in this bag, you have like this dry bag inside one of the pockets for your passport. It was great. Just a really thoughtful design and a bag that I, it's bright blue, which is like, it's a great color. And I found it very comfortable. You add a couple of carabiners and then they have these kind of clip on straps that allow you to attach more things to the outside of the bag. A couple of those and you're carrying way more than you would think for 55 liters.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, I think, I agree. And I think if it hasn't come out, you know, up to now in the show, I think it's pretty clear that we're both huge fans of F-Stop as a brand.
James Stacey It won't be my last F-Stop bag.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So like I said, I, you know, I've got the Kenti and I've used that and brought it to Vancouver. Um, I used that Satori for a long time. I brought it to New Zealand and took everything from underwater camera gear to three days of, of hiking gear in it. Um, and then passed it on to you. And then I've got the Tilopa, which is their replacement for it. Uh, just great products. Um, so maybe we, maybe it's time we kind of step into our new business section of the show and talk a little bit about Mount Baker. I mean, you, you use the bag, sounds like the bag worked well. Um, but how, how did the climb go? Tell me about it.
James Stacey Yeah. So, uh, for those of you who are maybe just stepping into this or who've phased out when you knew I didn't make it last time, um, for my birthday this year, my wife got me a guided summit of Mount Baker, which is in Northern Cascades in Washington. It's a peak you can see from Vancouver. I would see it on a clear day walking to and from, uh, you know, my office and, and it's, uh, it had always just kind of been there with Rainier as like, if I was going to try mountaineering, It's a perfect playground to do so. My wife looked into Rainier as well. And for the guided trips, it was a huge backlog of, of basically a huge waiting time to get onto a team and ended up going with Baker. And I went with Mountain Madness and I ended up doing it twice. The first time didn't go so well, but Mountain Madness was really cool about it. It had me come back out again. And it was a blast. We had a team this time of seven other people and two guides.
Jason Heaton What was your team the first time around? It was a smaller team with just one guide?
James Stacey It was one guide and three other people.
Unknown Okay.
James Stacey So one rope team the first time around. And this time we had two rope teams, so five to a team. I see. And one of the guides had just come back from Denali, a summit, a guided summit of Denali. And she was awesome. Uh, we, we had a, we had a really good time. The team was great. Uh, a few Canadians on their, uh, handful of, uh, you know, like Americans from, from all over and everybody was awesome. I mean, it's kind of unilateral. That's my experience with any sort of adventure travel is it tends to bring out not only the best in people, but attract kind of the best people. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so I, I, these people were all great and, uh, they were, they all were well briefed on, on what to expect from the mountain. Um, a few of them were quite accomplished. adventures and one guy had brought his daughter. He had done peaks in Peru and he had done the Grand Tetons and he was doing this with his daughter. He had done Rainier before. And we had a good time. Basically, the trip, the way Mountain Madness does it, breaks into three days. And on the first day, you basically leave a little town called Sedra Wuli whenever you can. And you get to, that's about 45 minutes to an hour from the trailhead. Put all your gear on your back, maybe 50, 60 pounds, I would say to expect. And then you hike into base camp, which is a pretty simple climb as a hike, aside from maybe the weight would, would, if you didn't train for it, I think would, the distance might take a bit out of you, but it was about nine or 10 kilometers to camp and set up camp, have some food and go to bed as early as you can. They do a little like a snow school. Were you camping on snow? We were on rock this time. Okay. But when we got to the parking lot, there were so many cars there, we were sure we were going to be on snow. And it just turns out most of them were day hikers. Oh, I see. But there were a lot of people on the mountain. Huh. Um, I'd like there for the, for the full weekend or, or longer, but we were lucky. We got, um, we got kind of two spots on the rocks.
Jason Heaton How was the weather?
James Stacey Oh, beautiful. Yeah. It was, uh, not freezing at night, certainly. And then it was really warm. I, you know, for Canadians, it was mid twenties coming down the slope. In the afternoon of the Sunday. So you really had to be mindful of overheating and of sunburn So you there's a picture on my on my Instagram if you want to see a picture from the peak and you can see that I'm wearing long sleeve and gloves still and I've got kind of my silly shemag that I used Throughout the climb to kind of various effect to keep the Sun off and I was able to do with no sunburn So that's great
Jason Heaton What did the snow school consist of? Did you, was it sort of a rescue, self-rescue skills and that sort of thing?
James Stacey Yeah, it was just the basics of how to walk in crampons and a couple of different techniques for how to manage various levels of steepness. And then also, you know, your imbalance and out of balance step in terms of using your ice axes, your third leg. Sure. When moving, traversing a slope. And then a little bit for glissading and a little bit for self-arrest. There's nothing really steep on Baker. I was expecting to find the Roman wall, which is the main feature on, on Baker before the peak, I was expecting to find it quite steep. And instead it's kind of like when you fall on a steep black diamond at a ski run and then stand up and, you know, your skis are half the hill down below you. It's basically like that. Like it was steep, but, and you wouldn't want to fall cause it would take you a moment to slow down, but it didn't feel exposed, I guess. Yeah. Certainly in hiking, I felt like where, well, if you slip here, when you stop, it's going to be done or bad. And I don't think that's necessarily the case. You know, they said that the Roman wall was a no fall area simply because you're above kind of a large exposed crevasse.
Unknown Hmm.
James Stacey But I still think you would have had some runway and you're on a rope team, so the whole time you're tied to four other people.
Jason Heaton And what time did you guys get a sort of one of the alpine starts the morning of your summit attempt? Did you get up at one o'clock or two o'clock to set off?
James Stacey Yeah, we got up and out around two and it was great. So we basically didn't even actually deal with direct sunlight until we were just below the Roman wall. So we did the majority of the climb either in darkness or in that kind of morning twilight or just in the shadow. You actually walk, there's a full on ridge line essentially facing you from the east. And so you get some sun protection from that going up.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And just, just for listeners that maybe aren't aware of why there is such a thing as an Alpine start the, you know, for mountaineers on glaciated peaks or snow covered peaks, the, the idea is that you get a very early start. You want to get, as far up the mountain as you can before the sun comes up because you want the snow surface that you're hiking up or climbing to be as firm as possible. And when the sun starts to come up in the mountains, it's, uh, you're at higher altitude, the sun strength is higher and it tends to soften the snow to the point where you get, you know, at, at, at best, you know, just tough, tougher hiking, um, at worst, you know, avalanche danger or just a more treacherous, uh, climbing. So that's typically why they do it.
James Stacey Yeah. And certainly coming down, we had terrible snow. It was, you know, you would take a step and slide for a foot and on a rope team, that's difficult. And there's a few points we had to jump a crevasse. Oh, wow. And, uh, and a couple of them, people had kind of kicked away the lip. Yeah. So it was just a negative jump. And, uh, you know, maybe you're only jumping a foot, but when you add in double plastics, plus you're tied to somebody. Yeah. That foot seems like a plenty of a jump, especially when it's on a slope and there's no spot for you to stop at the edge. Sure. So you have to commit somewhere mid step to like, yeah, I'll actually do this. And then you hope that the guy behind you is giving you enough rope.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey That that step, that your next foot won't be disabled by a, you know, a taut rope. Right. But yeah, I had an absolute blast. It was a beautiful day. There's a handful of pictures on my Flickr, which I'll link to. And yeah, we were up in. know, about maybe six and a half, seven hours. I have it on my Phoenix. I just haven't downloaded all the data. And then down took, felt like it took three times longer, but I think it was maybe three hours, three and a half hours down.
Jason Heaton And then you camped that night again, right? And then you went down the final day, correct?
James Stacey Right. Yeah. I think they find that a lot of people, if you have to go all the way back to camp, break camp and hike back to the car, it's just tough on people to do the weight. Yeah. To carry out. I mean, I would, that would have been fine by me, would have saved me taking the Monday off. But it was nice to be able to come back and just kind of sit at camp and have a bite to eat and then just take a nap. It was a it was a fantastic day. And if you're even remotely interested in doing this sort of thing, find an outfitter, whether it's Mountain Madness or somebody else, find somebody and just ask all the questions that you might have or you feel free to write Jason and I at greynadoe at gmail.com. I'll answer as I can. Talk to an outfitter, talk to one of these adventure companies. If it's something you want to try doing. I had such a good time and I learned a lot about the intricacies of even just entry-level mountaineering and glacier travel and rope teams and all that sort of thing. It was a blast. It was a great, great, great experience.
Jason Heaton Well, congratulations. I'm glad you finally got to do it after the disappointing first attempt.
James Stacey And then, yeah, how about you? You went on a little adventure today, didn't you?
Jason Heaton Yeah. So I've been a bachelor all week. My wife's been out of town. I just, I had cabin fever all week, so I just set off really early this morning. Speaking of Alpine starts, I woke up at 3.30 and I had some breakfast, packed a bag, packed the car with diving gear and some hiking gear and set off for the north shore of Lake Superior, which is about two and a half hours north of Minneapolis, where I am. And my goal was to scuba dive, there's a shore dive that that can access a really popular shipwreck that's went down in 1905. It's called the Madeira and it sank in a storm in 1905 and you can get to it from shore. It's below a big cliff. So I wanted to dive that in the morning and then I was going to do some hiking, uh, in the afternoon, which is what I did. And so it was great. The weather was gorgeous. The bright sun, flat, calm seas on the lake and, uh, had a, had a, had a great dive. I mean, the water was cold. It was, 39 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about four degrees, four to five degrees centigrade. But, uh, you know, I had, I had a dry suit. I had my new, uh, you know, my new to me, uh, uh, bomb disposal suit that I think I've talked about in the past episodes. Very cool. Got to shake that down in some cold water and it worked, worked really great. Uh, had a good rig and, uh, it was, it was a fun dive. The wreck is fantastic. It's well preserved in the, in the cold, fresh water. And it's kind of broken up into two pieces. You've got the bow, I don't know, about 50 yards from where the stern settled. And they're, they're kind of at these dramatic angles, a lot of torn metal. But then on the deck, on the bow end of it, you can, there's this big winch or capstan that used to pull up the anchor and it still has rope coiled around it. And the handle is there and all the gears are still intact and, and it's just a fun wreck to dive because it's accessible from shore and it's, uh, it looks like a shipwreck, you know, you, you, you get that sense. A lot of wrecks are very broken up and sort of piles of lumber, but this one's a, you know, it's a legitimate sort of big broken up steel ship that's, that's, uh, sits at about, I think from about 40 feet down to about, uh, the pilot house is sitting upright at about, uh, 95 feet or so. And, uh, was this your first time diving? No, this was my, I think my fourth time, my fourth time diving the Madeira. I try to make it up there at least once a year because it's, it's probably the closest kind of cool shore dive that, that I can do from home. And, uh, so it was great. I mean, other than the biting flies that were, you know, attacking me around the parking lot, uh, it was, it was fantastic. Um, uh, you know, so I, I, I got out of the water and, hoofed all my stuff up. It kind of reminded me of our approach or of the dive site that we did at Kelvin Grove up in Vancouver, where you sort of park up above and then you sort of have to hike down a steep trail down to a rocky beach. Right. And it's on this little bay. And so it's a very dramatic, very beautiful spot. And so when I was done, I packed up, tossed all my wet gear in the back, pulled on my hiking boots, and then Drove just a short ways away. This is all right around the vicinity of what they call the Split Rock Lighthouse, which is a lighthouse that was actually built in response to the storm that sank, I think, 30 plus ships in 1905, including the one that I was diving on, the Madeira. They built this lighthouse the next year and it's perched on this cliff and they made a state park out of the area surrounding it. So when I was done diving, I just drove the car just up the road, up the highway, I don't know, about a mile to sort of a wayside off to the side and parked and hiked up one side of the Split Rock River. The Split Rock River actually flows into Lake Superior and I hiked up one side of it about two and a half miles to where a bridge crosses over to the other side and comes back down the other side. And it was a beautiful day, like I said, and I just took my time, hiked up and sat on a rock and had a little lunch and then came back down to the car. I was pretty, I hadn't realized how fried I was from the diving. until I got on the trail. My legs were pretty tired from the surface swim and from hoofing all my dive gear up to the car, but no doubt, but it was fun. It was a good day.
James Stacey Sounds like a great day.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it was a really great day. It was kind of like our, our TGN summit, but it was a kind of on a smaller scale.
James Stacey So great, great, great fun. All compressed into one day. Yeah. Well, I've got a great day coming up. If we're going to stick with new business this coming Thursday, I get to have a, a flight with the Breitling jet team as they're in town for the Abbotsford air show, which happens later that weekend. You've been with these guys, so what am I in for?
Jason Heaton Well, yeah, so I did it last summer in my hometown of Milwaukee, and I think you'll get the same experience because it's your hometown, but I'm from Milwaukee, and they were there last summer as part of the tour, and it's a gas. I mean, it's really cool. They're so well organized. They do this countless times with journalists and VIPs and retailers, and so they They, they really know how to set things up ideally for you. So you'll get, you'll get a nice jumpsuit, you'll get your helmet. Um, and then when they, they give you a little briefing and then when you get in the cockpit, you're kind of locked in, you're given a few rules and they've got a GoPro camera mounted in front of you. And then they've got another one mounted on the underside of the plane. So when you're done, literally like an hour later, someone walks over and hands you two USB keys that has the footage from looking at you in the cockpit and then the footage underneath the plane. And it's such, it's like the ultimate, like, like if you think your summit shot from Baker is a hero shot, wait till you show people like a screen grab from, you know, flying upside down over downtown Vancouver. It's, it's, it is just super cool. And I think, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to give in too much because I think, you know, you'll, you'll find out for yourself, but it's, uh, it's fun. I mean, I think some people, I know some people, you know, have some trouble with the G forces and kind of the queasiness that you get. I, I didn't have too many. problems with that. They kind of teach you a few little tricks to, you know, keep down your lunch.
James Stacey Yeah, so it looks like it's a flight in an Aero L39C. And so it's a trainer aircraft, a jet aircraft. It looks just like a fighter plane. This has been on my bucket list for a long time. I had no idea that Breitling would be the outlet for this. Oddly fitting, of course, and I'm covering it for Nouveau magazine. And I'm kind of hoping that I either puke or pass out, just because I think that'll be better. Like I think that's, I think that's taking it to my limit, like in top, in top gun parlance, if I push it to my limit, it's going to be to puke or to pass out. I don't think I can, I can really, I don't think I can be any more logins about it than that. I think that's a, so I'm, I'm allowing myself to be quite excited about this. I'm hoping for great weather and, uh, and I'm hoping just, you know, it's something that I've been I've loved jet aircraft since I was a very little kid, and I grew up right near the Warplane Heritage Museum in Ontario. Oh, wow. So I've been around. My dad took me to air shows since I was really, really young, and I'm really excited about this. I think it's going to be a fantastic experience. Very, very cool. And you've got a new watch in for review. I'm a little jealous.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So, you know, as, as everybody's probably heard already, if, if you listened in, uh, we did our first standalone TGN chat with Chase Fancher from, from Oken Oscar. And, uh, Chase was here in town in Minneapolis, uh, a couple of weeks ago and he was debuting his new Sanford, which is a GMT watch. It's his second watch that he's come out with. The Burnham was his first. And after I, uh, did our interview for the gray NATO, Um, he left one of the watches behind a sample for me to spend a couple of weeks with and review. And I'm going to be writing that up for Hodinkee. And, you know, I haven't had it long enough to form any sort of firm opinions yet, but first impression is it's, it's a, it's a pretty rocking watch. It's, it's a 40 millimeter, uh, steel case, um, you know, great size. It's not too thick and it has these nice little details, you know, the stencil dial, the play of orange and gray, which you know, as anybody knows, James and I both like that, that color combination. For sure. Great strap that he puts on it. He has it made, I believe he said in Indiana, it's a nice sort of chunky Horween leather strap. And, uh, I don't know. It's first impression. It's great. I mean, we both love, you know, twin crown watches and GMTs. And this one, this one kind of ticks a lot of boxes. It's a, it's a, it's a really neat watch.
James Stacey Yeah. I wrote up a piece for, for a blog to watch about it and, and, you know, they're selling them for, There's a pre-order price right now in stainless steel, $17.50. And then the PVD one, as I mentioned at the end of the TGN chats from last week, the PVD sold out in less than two weeks.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So it's gone. I mean, they're retailing, I guess, for $18.50 for a brief period of time, but not long enough. They weren't available long enough to even outrun the pre-order window. Yeah. They're just sold out. I mean, I think it's such a great looking watch. I think it's a great size. And I love the GMT and with the twin crown system, you don't ever really have to touch that crown if you just want to use the GMT and its most basic feature. But if you really want to go nerdy, there's a few different ways to use that crown and track more than one time zone or to be able to track theoretically any time zone. Yeah. Once you have the GMT hand actually set to GMT and you can use the internal bezel, the rear bezel to to actually manage just the offset from GMT. So if you know that, I don't know, Budapest is plus two, then you could set it to plus two and be able to change it kind of on the fly without changing the timing of the watch, which is quite clever.
Jason Heaton Yeah, he's put a lot of thought into it. And it's amazing to me that it was almost literally exactly a year from the release of the Burnham to the release of the Sanford. And for a really small company that's making in the couple of hundreds, it's pretty remarkable what he's accomplished.
James Stacey It's a really impressive time span, no doubt.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey And speaking of creation, I think we'll go to our last piece for new business. Anybody who's fading in and out, turn up your phones a little bit and listen, we actually have a request. So, uh, Jason and I have been struggling. We've wanted to kind of give away a Grenado kit. I'm not going to give away any piece of what's in that kit, but if you've listened to us talk about things in new business and in final notes, It's all that sort of stuff. It's things that we really like or use, or maybe we've read. I guess that's a hint. The thing is we wanted to find kind of a way to engage some of the audience and we're thinking it's time for maybe a new logo for the show. And we want to get into patches, which we've talked about previously, maybe some zipper pulls. So we're asking you, the listener, to help us out and design us our new logo. So all you have to do is Photoshop or Illustrator, however you like to do these things. Design us a logo for the show or that would work for a patch or a zipper pull or something, a piece of gear and put it on Instagram and tag TGN logo. We're going to let this run for, let's say a month, see what we get, and we'll pick a favorite and the favorite will get this Grey Nato kit. I promise you, you'll love what's in it. If you like the show, you're definitely going to like all these. various products. Again, hashtag TGN logo. If you don't use Instagram, but you've got a really sweet design, just send me an email, thegraynadoatgmail.com and we can throw it up on our Instagram or that way Jason and I could at least see it. We're interested to see what people would come up with. I think all of you that listen to the show kind of know what we like and what the show is about. It's about you as much as it's about Jason and I. So please throw us your best design, throw it on Instagram. We're thinking it might be a neat way to let others know about the show. And, uh, I'm excited to, uh, kind of find a new logo and kind of a new, uh, a new look for maybe some gear and some other stuff that we have planned for the rest of the year. So again, that's hashtag TGN logo. And, uh, I can't wait to see what comes in.
Jason Heaton Time for final notes. Uh, James, I'll go first here. Uh, I've got two today. My first one is an article that appeared in The Atlantic, or on The Atlantic magazine's website, atlantic.com, and the article was called The Diving Bell and the Exoskeleton. And aside from the clever title, the topic just really appealed to me. It was all about the history of hard diving suits, as they're called. These are what some people know as a gym suit, or a newt suit, or more generically, a one-atmosphere suit. And basically, the article kind of traces the history of these diving suits that are almost like a mini-submarine. They protect the body from the water pressure that's outside, whereas if you're wearing a dry suit or a wet suit, you know, and breathing, you know, air from a compressed tank on your back or surface-fed compressed air requires, you know, great amounts of decompression time to come back to the surface, whereas if you're in this self-contained one-atmosphere suit, you're basically descending while maintaining surface air pressure inside the suit. So you can come straight to the surface, pop off the top of the suit, and go about your business without having to decompress. The big issue with these suits, of course, is they're large, they're heavy, they're expensive, and they're quite clumsy. And over the years, there have been varying degrees of success with these suits. There have been suits that, I think it was 1935, they had a suit like this that looked like something out of a sci-fi film that they dropped down on the Lusitania in the Atlantic Ocean. I know that they used one of the Newt suits to bring up the bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. And this article kind of covers the history of these one atmosphere suits, and it's really quite a fascinating piece because it not only goes into kind of the physics of deep diving and decompression science, but also this kind of cool engineering story that goes along with it. James, I know you read it. Did you find that one kind of cool?
James Stacey I thought it was such a cool story. If you're listening to this and you don't jump to the show notes or just Google diving bell and the exoskeleton, you're really missing out. The story encapsulates kind of adventure and treasure hunting and the tech side of it and the history of these things. And yeah, these ADS, these atmospheric diving suits, it's just so wild. Yeah. What they're capable of and how deep they can go. And you know, they're interviewing a guy who had done a bunch of these suit dives and had never dove otherwise. And he explains his experience in the suit as though he can't actually see the water necessarily. Yeah. So he feels like he's just kind of in another world. that isn't necessarily compressed by water. Right. So it's such a great article. I mean, the Atlantic's are just about as good as it comes when they focus on something like this, especially when they focus on something that has a historical perspective to technology. I find their article, their writings, just top quality. And yeah, please click this link and check it out. Yeah, it was a good one. Kind of to piggyback on that one, I have a video that Jason sent me and I stole for Final Notes. It's Jacques Cousteau's search for the Britannics. It's a, you know, kind of a quintessential Cousteau style movie about them taking their, you know, full rig and the Calypso and everything out to find the Britannic. And there's so much happening in this movie that I'm excited, that like, that kind of gets me excited. I don't really know where to start. There's some really awesome watches that you can kind of pick up on, some really hardcore diving. They're doing like, they're hanging a decompression bell. to dive on this, on the Britannic, which is, I think, in nearly 400 feet of water. It's a great movie. You should really, again, show notes, click the link. It's on YouTube. Super watchable even now. And, you know, maybe have a good time just buying some of the watches that these guys are rocking. Clearly, Cusseau was such a watch nerd, and that spilled out into his crew, his guys. And then maybe when you're done watching this, just watch The Life Aquatic. yeah right just because that's it like you can't watch any of these Cousteau films without getting a real hit of that of that movie uh because it nailed a few kind of elements of that aesthetic and the environment that those guys this adventurous like there's so much there that we could be doing yeah the movie's great it was really awesome i i think it's a blast it's definitely one that everyone should watch yeah the one thing i'm always struck by whenever i watch one of these old Cousteau films is just how um
Jason Heaton he didn't think anything was impossible. You know, he, he just, whether it took, you know, creating a little decompression chamber that he hung below the Calypso so that they could decompress on the way back up or, um, you know, just the watches they wore their, their, their suits were all color coordinated. Um, you know, just everything that here they are in, I don't know, it must've been made in the seventies or eighties, you know, here they are diving a 400 foot shipwreck and it's like they just go and do it, you know, wearing cool watches and red caps, you know, it's just, it's an awesome film. So yeah, Check that one out for sure. And, you know, for my last recommendation today, uh, I've got something sort of Cousteau related. I stumbled upon this person on Instagram called Pastiche Patches and, uh, he's based in Sweden and he just, he sells these iron on, or I suppose he could stitch them on as well, uh, fabric patches that are kind of watch slash dive related. The Cousteau related one is actually the classic Aqualung logo. It's a black background with a yellow foreground with the writing and the old Aqualung double hose logo that they used to use that's on, of course, Doxa watches. And Cousteau was the president of U.S. Divers Corporation that sold Aqualung. And of course, he was the inventor of the Aqualung. So it's just a cool patch. I got it in the mail the other day. And I don't know where I'm going to put it yet. Maybe sew it on a jacket or on a backpack or something like that. But he also sells one of these no radiation round logos as well that was on the dial of the old Blancpain 50 fathoms that indicates that it was non-radioactive, the dial. And he also sells like a rectangular Submariner patch that's white on black and sort of has the depth rating that was on the Submariner watches. Just cool, fun stuff. They were, I don't know, four or five bucks. Didn't really cost much. Came in about a week from Sweden. And, uh, you know, if you're a watch nerd or dive nerd, um, just something really cool to check out.
James Stacey So, yeah, I think they're really neat, especially if you like, you've got a sub and you want the same sort of the, the, uh, the, yeah, the, the depth rating, or if you've got an old Dachshund and you want the same logo somewhere else on another bag or something like that. I think they're, they look really cool in the, his Instagram seems pretty new. So I think everybody should go give him a follow. Yeah, and hopefully he'll launch more maybe people could suggest things that they'd love to see other logos from stuff. But certainly the no radiation logo is pretty rad. They've got a couple on bags and jackets and things like that. It looks pretty cool. Yeah. And yeah, my final one is actually just I just just want to underline the everyday backpack that Peak Design Kickstarter. The bags aren't going to be that much more expensive when the Kickstarter is done. But I, you know, like I said, I put my own money into it. So I'm pretty excited about the project. And if, uh, if you kind of zipped through the bag talk, cause you didn't care, I think just about anybody, if you carry things day to day, or do you do some traveling, I think you could find a pretty interesting bag there. And I just get excited about backpacks and gear and that sort of stuff. So, you know, swing by the show notes and check that out. Or, I mean, if you, if you Google everyday backpack, you're going to hit it. The SEO on that page is wild given the, Almost two and a half million dollars they've earned for it. So some really, really cool stuff. And, uh, as always, you know, thanks so much for listening, hit the show notes for more details. Be sure to send us your logo designs with the hashtag TGN logo. You can follow us on Instagram. Jason is at Jason Heaton and I'm at J Stacey, and you can follow the show at the gray NATO. And please do, if you're going to support, uh, the, this kind of logo contest, uh, give us all a follow so we can make sure to see your submissions and your hashtags and such. And, uh, you know, if you have any questions for us, please write the greynado at gmail.com. You can subscribe to the show and review wherever you find your podcasts, or you can grab the feed directly from the greynado.com. Music throughout a siesta by Jazzer via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And we'll leave you this week with this quote from Andre Gide who wrote, man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of land.