Gear Challenges

With a trip that was twice as long as most of our Green River trips, we did experience some equipment issues. We had three tents that leaked. BJ's leaks were due to areas that should have been seam sealed, and I think that was true of the other tent leaks as well.

My Big Agnes tent suffered from zipper issues. It has a very light weight zipper in the tent body that needed to be adjusted about every third day. The tent is at the manufacturer now for evaluation and possible zipper replacement.

BJ's boots have been a fixture on the river for a number of years. This year one of the boots split. It was a tight crack - letting in water but still keeping the mud out. These boots have been retired and replaced by a new pair from Tractor Supply. The new ones are black boots with polka-dots. Not sure if switching from white to black boots is the same as switching from white hats to black hats. I guess time will tell.

Alan's mattress got torn near the end of the trip, apparently on a rivet in his kayak. I had an old repair kit but the glue was old and didn't work.

Future river trips will have a tube of Seam Grip, a tube of Zip Care, and a box of Tear-Aid Type A added to our repair kit. Amazing what you can do with this stuff.

My NRS Attack boots have been a favorite but have been discontinued. They typically fail about year four in the same place my current pair started to come apart. I've re-glued them with some old Shoe Goo. We'll see if it works.

Finally, my Fujifilm X-S1 is on its way back to New Jersey. The second element in the lens has a small crack right in the center. It shows up as a dark area in the middle of wide angle pictures. It's still under warranty so we'll see how good the warranty is.

Speaking of warranty, the lid handle on our several year old GSI cookset broke on the trip. BJ found replacement lids on their website but no shops carry them. A phone call resulted in an immediate "we'll send you a new lid - no charge" response." We've always liked their gear, now we're really impressed with the company.