Small stuff sacks

[gunwharfman]

I notice that some companies, when a clothing product is purchased, provide a small stuff sack for the item to be kept in. Personally, I don't use them at all, I'm sure that over time, pushing and scrunching the clothing mass into such a small space tells me that all I will do is damage the item?

I prefer to roll or fold my clothing into my rucksack and hang them up in my wardrobe when I get home.

[richardh1905]

Agreed. I use large (40 litre) drybag inside my rucksack into which goes spare clothing as well as my sleeping bag when I head off on a camping trip. Can't see the point in individual clothing stuff sacks, especially non waterproof.


Whilst in Orkney I found a small and very well made Rab stuff sack on a beach, presumably for some item of clothing -  it has proved very useful to keep odds and ends like toiletries etc together in my rucksack. But these things do have to be paid for, and that is no doubt reflected in the prices that the likes of Rab charge.

[Patrick1]

I don't tend to carry much spare clothing even on a multiday walk, but would agree that a single waterproof stuff sack suffices for my spare socks and thermals. My down jacket, waterproof and windshirt all stuff into their own pockets, and I do find that quite useful. Obviously the down jacket needs something to compress it into, and the other two items are easier to drop into outside pockets of the rucksack once stuffed away.

[Percy]

The only item of clothing that lives in its own stuff sack are my waterproof trousers. No idea why they’ve been singled out for this special treatment.


I do use small waterproof sacks to organise stuff, e.g. medical kit, loo roll and wipes go in one.


When camping I stuff a medium sized bag with my spare clothes to use as a pillow.


I use a rucksack liner - rain covers are hopeless for all but the lightest showers.

[Kev06]

I used to always roll clothing for the rucksack, but these days most things that live in there are thinner or more flexible so work quite well in small stuff sacks. They do wear over time, but then so did rolled garments - usually on the folds at the ends of the roll. The rates don't seem massively different, at least not enough that I've noticed.

Which actually is a surprise, now I come to think about it; the thinner stuffable things look like they should be less robust. I wonder if it might be because the creases are more randomly placed each time they're packed and so even out the wear. Or if the snug-fitting stuff-sack stops them moving and rubbing against themselves and also the rucksack.

[Birdman]

The only clothing stuff sack I use is the one that came with my down jacket, so I can pack it compact. It weighs 12 grams so really no penalty. Additionally, I have a few 12L silnylon dry bags to store all my clothes (including down jacket-in-stuffsack) and other stuff that I don't want to get wet. They also help to pack my backpack and manage weight distribution.

If it gets really wet, I'm using a heavy duty bin bag as a liner inside my entire backpack. This is extremely effective. But I only use that when conditions are very wet, because if I use it it forces me to unpack and re-pack my entire backpack every day, which is a bit of a pain.

[Perranwell]

I have everything in stuff sacks, drybags, etc. I think this is more to satisfy my over-neatness than anything else.

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When I was hiking past the Houses of Parliament, though, the police made me empty my rucksack. Tidily done--though I say so myself. I'm glad I didn't have to strew clothes and food items embarrassingly across the pavement. They didn't want to see in each sub-sack. Maybe they decided "This guy is too nerdy to be a terrorist".


They didn't check my side pockets or other rucksack pockets either, so I can't say much for their thoroughness. Perhaps they were looking for something in particular.

[Birdman]

I have everything in stuff sacks, drybags, etc. I think this is more to satisfy my over-neatness than anything else.

*

When I was hiking past the Houses of Parliament, though, the police made me empty my rucksack. Tidily done--though I say so myself. I'm glad I didn't have to strew clothes and food items embarrassingly across the pavement. They didn't want to see in each sub-sack. Maybe they decided "This guy is too nerdy to be a terrorist".


They didn't check my side pockets or other rucksack pockets either, so I can't say much for their thoroughness. Perhaps they were looking for something in particular.

A bomb that can do significant damage outside the building has to be pretty big, so it will probably be found without having to unpack everything. What's more, they also just look for red flags. If they are searching a hiker/ backpacker, they are supposed to find certain items (dirty clothes, a tent, perhaps a stove, snacks, backpacking meals etc). If something is a-typical, that is a red flag.


I have been in Israel 3 times and always got picked out by security at the airport, because I fit the typical terrorist profile. Single man, nothing booked or organised (red flag, because if you are planning to blow yourself up you don't need that). My passport was full of Arabic stamps, one of which they had never seen before (entering Morocco by sea for instance). These guys look for very small details. For example, I needed to explain why there was dirt on my daypack. A couple of attractive young ladies went though all my dirty underwear one time, literally checking every piece of underwear with a metal detector! It was really embarrassing, but also very understandable why they are so vigorous.

[forgotmyoldpassword]

Huge fan of stuff sacks myself, if it isn't waterproof it's pointless though.


For me it's about being able to operate in shocking weather and not have my kit blow away - and I colour code the bags for how important they are.  Red for important extra layers, blue for camping 'nice to have' stuff, yellow for first aid kit and so on.  Down jacket gets its own bag, as does my down bag.  Because I know what is in the bag at a glance it lets me function better by headtorch, or when it's blizzarding and I really can't afford to be hunting through the pack for long as it's very exposed.

[gunwharfman]

I had a 'bomb' experience once, in Keswick a few years ago. I'd left the YHS building there and walked to the bus station, it was a bit after 8 am so whilst waiting I decided to have breakfast in the cafe next to the supermarket. I walked in and there were just an elderly man and his wife sitting nearest to the supermarket products just behind them. I wondered in, nodded to them, propped up my rucksack against the wall by the entrance and walked over to the counter, and placed and paid for my order. I then sat all by myself by the cafe window. Within a few minutes, my scrambled egg on toast arrived and I started eating.

Within a minute or two a uniformed Police Officer came in and walked over to me. "Excuse me Sir, is that your rucksack?" It is I said. He then told me that someone had phoned the Police worried that my rucksack might contain a bomb, "can you open it for me." I course said I and proceeded to start to take my stuff out and place it on the floor. By now the Police Officer I think was bored and he stopped me and said "That's fine." He then wandered off. I turned around the elderly man customer said "Sorry, I didn't know who it belonged to."

I was amused by the experience up until that moment, but his limp excuse irritated me, and I told him that he knew exactly that the rucksack was mine, they had both seen me come into the cafe, we had acknowledged each other and we were still the only three customers.  I'm sure it was also the Daily Mail on their table that turned me from being polite to being impolite and I bet I muttered "Typical!" as I went back to what was now cold food and cold coffee.

[Perranwell]

Crikey, how ridiculous. So suspicious, a rucksack in a cafe in Keswick! What utter timewasters.

[fernman]

Thanks for all of the entertaining reads! A good many years ago the Swiss police went through the contents of my rucksack when I was arrested for scrumping, but the less said about that the better.

Back to the OP: Because I have done most of my longer walks in Wet Wales it's nothing but plastic bags for me, especially ziplok bags or freezer bags for the small items. Low cost and low weight combined.
The only exception is my down sleeping bag which is compressed into its own roll-top waterproof stuff sack. But even that goes in a large plastic bag because without it the outer surface of the sack can get wet, and I use it as a pillow at night with clothing inside it.

Incidentally my down jacket, a Hagloffs LIM Essens, is made so that you can stuff the whole of it into half of one of its sleeves, resulting in a soft sausage shape about 40cm x 10cm. Which I then put in a plastic bag, of course.

[Kev06]

For a quite while I used plastic bags and sacks, rolled over at the top and taped to prevent unrolling. As added value, white postage sacks and bright blue rubble sacks reflected at least some light and made it possible to see things in the dark recesses of a rucksack, which otherwise tend to be made of the darkest materials known to man.

But on several occasions the contents still got inexplicably wet, and of course the poly bags didn't drain 'at all'. I suppose in retrospect they could have been packed upside-down, but I never did work out how they got wet to begin with. My best guess is capillary action in the (ironically) tight folds where I rolled up the tops.

[Perranwell]

Thanks for all of the entertaining reads! A good many years ago the Swiss police went through the contents of my rucksack when I was arrested for scrumping, but the less said about that the better.

Back to the OP: Because I have done most of my longer walks in Wet Wales it's nothing but plastic bags for me, especially ziplok bags or freezer bags for the small items.

Ha ha, arrested for scrumping! I shall remember not to scrump in Switzerland. It's a very fastidious nation--a friend was told off in the street there for having a button missing.

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I agree about ziplocks, so useful. But I find the fasteners prone to fail--on brand ones as well as own-brand ones--so I often double up.

[gunwharfman]

When I did the Tour du Mont Blanc a while ago, going anti-clockwise I walked through a village down to a road bridge and there just below the bridge in a garden was a tree loaded with large black cherries. The elderly lady owner was sitting nearby in the sunshine. After a wave, etc and some verbal interchange and hand gestures between us, at my suggestion she let me pick a lot of them for her. She just supplied me with a ladder and a bucket and I picked and picked for about 2 hours. I grew up in Kent and remember 'cherry-picking time' with great affection. I had a great time. She rewarded me with a large tray of bread and various finger foods and a number of Schnapp type drinks. No idea what the drinks were but by the time I left I could hardly walk properly. I remember making my way out of the village and sleeping it off on a grassy area I found.