WTF? A $300 Tarp!

My name is Kyle of High Mountain Gear in Tacoma, Washington, and I make the Taco Inflatable Hammock Portal Edge, whatever it is that you want to call it. Never heard of this until I met him at the base of a big wall, and I was like, oh, there's another lightweight portal edge out there? And so he brought it over, since we're damn near neighbors, and he's going to show us all about how it works and the benefits and everything, so you guys know that there's more options out there. This will be in the Big Wall Bible as we're trying to include everything in there. Now that the Holton Bible is kind of caught up, I can spend more time on that. Before we get into this, how long have you been making gear? Is portal edge the first thing you've been into, or were you always planning on making backpacks? Actually, the funny thing about backpacks is I tried to make my first backpack, and the straps were awful, and then I never made one for four years. Would not make it. But I started out with some broken gear, and I just wanted to repair it all. Your broken gear? Yeah, all my stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I tried to make and do repairs for other people, and that worked for a while, and then I decided I wanted to make stuff that helped me in my pursuits. So when I was trying to do a first ascent in the Cascades on Mount Index, the North Norwegian buttress, I got tired of carrying my heavy portal edge up there, so I just made a harness for an inflatable pad. And that's where the taco comes from. That's pretty cool. So you make... So you have several sewing machines now, technically. So you'll do custom stuff as well. I do do custom, I think. You are trying to make stuff, though. Yeah, absolutely. This is a sustainable business model. Correct, yeah. Custom work sometimes is difficult to do, but I don't mind doing it. Like, if it's a cool concept or something unique. Stoke goes a long ways. Yeah, Stoke is very important. Money goes a long ways, too. Yes. Cool, so let's take this apart and show us kind of like what you've improved with this. This is not the first model. There's... One of the models are over there. And I'll just chase them around with the phone. Yeah. The very simple design, it is user-repairable and modifiable because it's literally just a 2-yard, 76 by 48-inch tarp. And then on the inside are two wings. I like to call these the love handles. And that sort of captures the width of the pad, of almost any inflatable pad. And then you have a foot box down here for the bottom of the pad. So this does require you to have your own air mattress, but most people have them anyways. You could hypothetically not use a pad, but then you would be using... You're truly taco-ed. Yeah, you would have a bad time. If you want to look up Warren Harding and the wall womb and their near-death experiences with their crazy... They had a rainfly that encapsulated this, and it wasn't waterproof, and they almost died because they filled with water. This is not this, right? So again, you have an inflatable pad, which they didn't have in the 70s. The top pocket holds the top of the pad. The bottom pocket is now extendable in the wall version because it's actually a tube. So if you have a huge pad... Gotcha, it's a foot. It will extend out even further than the bottom of the taco. So it will accommodate pads of between 72 and like 76 or 78 inches in length. And then also, if you accidentally bought like some kind of Econ-O-Lodge massive 3 inch by 3 inch thick mattress, it will fit in this taco, this model. And if it's wider than what you have, this is what, 20 inch? This is 20. It also fits a 25. And if it's thick, obviously it can handle that. Yeah, the new model does. Now, does this taco you? There is some... It's not a completely flat surface. This fabric does stretch. So regardless of however much you like tension it, you're going to have a little bit surface, but nothing like an actual hammock. The horizontal baffle pads are excellent for keeping a sort of like, more like a gentle banana shape than like a hammock. So it's not crushing your hips and shoulders? No. If you have the horizontal. Correct. If you have the vertical, there's nothing keeping it from squishing you. I mean, if you're on a low angle slab, it's kind of difficult to keep, with a 20 inch pad, it's difficult to keep you from getting crushed and having like an uncomfortable evening. But the new model has these. It's going to be a little abstract, but these are just through slots and you can put either aluminum tubing with a stop or PVC. It seems to be really popular among people who buy tacos because it's extremely cheap and ubiquitous. What diameter? This one is sized to fit a three quarter inch piece of PVC. With a cap? Or just the PVC? Yeah, just straight up PVC. And that keeps it from... Does that keep it from tacoing or does that keep it... This just keeps it... So if you're on a low angle slab, like if you know you're going to climb something that has like no features and is also low angle or you're using a narrow pad or your pad sucks, you could put this PVC stop in here on both sides and that'll keep your hip and your shoulders away from the wall easier. Okay, it's just pushing you away from the rock. It's an option. Yeah. I've never used it. Also, apparently I don't care where I sleep. I can sleep in like a bed of talus. I don't understand how that's possible, but I just want to accommodate other people and their sleeping styles. You want to... One thing of note is you want to put this pad in before you do anything and tension all the straps. So that way when you're on the wall, you're not trying to insert a pad. Oh, before you even go up. Yes, it is awful. You will never get it in by yourself. Good beta. I did not know that. So you inflate it while it's in there. Yeah, inflate it here and then this loop in the center kind of keeps it all captured. Okay. It's also adjustable. And then you just deflate it. Like you deflate this thing like almost instantly. I don't have... Like having to like sit on it for like 45 seconds. Do the pre-roll before the final roll. Yeah. And also the new nozzles. I'm sure Therm-a-Rest is not the correct term. But the new ones allow you to have it open and you can still blow air into it and it's locked. Oh, wow. Instead of where it was before where like you'd have to just keep kind of back pressure. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You kind of want it like very firm. Okay. So when I use an air mattress just like on the ground, you kind of like it a little softer like not completely full. Yeah. But for this usage in the taco, you want it like, you know, about a quarter off of it. Also cool we've used at least once is you can just lay this thing on the ground and it's your ground cloth, right? If you're on your way to get somewhere or you're camping at the base. Yeah, you could sleep at the base or the top like this. Yeah. And then also you can use them as sunshades. So without the pad and I usually take the pad out but you can like clip it to the bolted anchor on the climbing wall. I think with these loops here and just like sit under it. Yeah, it's just like a big sunshade. Yeah, I've done that on El Cap where it's just like too hot. Like at two o'clock in the afternoon. I'm like we need to stop and just sit under this thing. Last time I was on El Cap, that's what we did. We sat out the afternoon underneath our portal ledge. Just chilling. Yeah, you can't climb. You'd fry your brains. That's the best part. The chilling. Yeah. Do you only have one buckle on it? Correct. Yeah, the new model is going to have a roller cam on it. It's extremely durable, very choo-chee. So it reduces friction here because that part actually moves. I don't know if you can see that here. Very low friction. So you just grab the two... What's it rated for? 350 pounds. And does it slip or break the webbing at that point? That is an excellent question. Oh, I guess we're in the right place to find out. You could break one of those. Yeah, just trying to keep your master points together and just like clipped onto a carabiner. If you put it in a stuff sack, you know, just clip everything together. It makes it a lot easier to sort out which way these straps are. I had undone it and now I'm paying for it. Yeah, because if you get a loop, if you loop it... Yeah, it's not too bad. The simplicity, right? I found it to be pretty bad on the framed ledges. You get it underneath the wrong way and it's just... Well, that's why they have the quick length so you can like detach them because it sucks. Yeah. Somehow you've like put the whole ledge through something and you're taking it apart. So you've got your roller cam buckle here. And that's fully extended. So that's actually not even holding everything. Correct. If you went all the way down... It's a backup. Yeah. So like the full strength, just in case the buckle blew out or something, you're still technically... You're in something. It's still connected all the way through this thing. This is a single monolithic piece. Do you want to say what people need to hear? You're not... Yeah, you need to not... You need to be clipped in. Yeah, you need to not clip in to the portal edge. You need to be clipped into an actual anchor to whatever it is he's climbing on, the rock or the ice. So that way you can not trust this thing. What happens to... I don't even use heavier thread anymore on the taco on the lower portions because the thread isn't what breaks. It's the fabric that rips out. This is really choochy for how much it costs and how much it weighs and how durable it is. It's a polyester fabric with nylon ripstop, which is way more burly and stronger than like just standard pack cloth, which they've been using in the past for like just portal edges in general. It's just... It's shimmery. It looks like a fish. Yeah, it's pretty thin. Kyle's going to get in that in just a second. But I just started an email list and something fun we're going to do in there is give away some Rocky Takis. And you can open up the emails if you sign up for the list and it'll show you how to enter that. It'll either be click a button or if you just open them, maybe. Not sure quite how I want to do it yet. But the first thing we're going to give away before the Rockies is a Linescale 3. Not everybody needs a Linescale 3. So there might be a submit here kind of thing just so I know you are absolutely stoked if you are a winner. There's not that many people on this email list yet. So you have a high probability of actually winning this stuff. And if you've missed all these, we'll be giving away some Extreme Gear gift cards and maybe some other gear. So make sure you go sign up for our email newsletter, so we can tell you about the stuff we're doing since half the things we're doing is written content, including the Big Ol' Bible, which we'll be adding this to that. And how would you know, other than this video, that we updated those chapters? So usually when I get in the taco, I just kind of sit in it like a chair. And then I grab the front two straps, put my feet on the edge, grab the bar straps. And that's it. Like you're trying to keep your shoulders a little bit short of here. It's not squishing you, right? Yeah, the wall you're against, which is why some people like PVC. Yeah, I mean if you just push yourself, if you have those PVC pieces, yeah, stops in the center, like it's just going to push you away from the wall and then you're not even going to be touching it. Or you have a wider, wider than your shoulder pad. Yes, you just have your shoulders are wider than the pad you're on. Correct. That's the only reason you have that right now. If you are vertical or overhanging, you want the red side, air side. And that's because the adjustment goes from just over. Oh, you can't, yeah, you can't make it the opposite way. Because this side is not adjustable. Right, only one side. But if you put this side on this side, it's adjustable. If you are on a low angle slab, then you want to actually put this side on the wall side. So that way you can adjust against the angle to bring it up to vertical or even. And then you only deal with one buckle. Like my Metolius ledge has six of these things. Yeah, that was just kind of nice. It's like, okay, well these things weigh a lot. Yeah. Steel. You only want to have one, but it needs to be good. Yeah. Other features are, yeah, having a wider pad is cool. Horizontal baffles are critical. It looks like you're getting crushed. And sometimes it is uncomfortable. And that's where you need to, like, be creative. With, like, when I was climbing the nose, I climbed the great roof pitch. I led it and then fixed it. But then instead of being at the anchor, like, crowded with someone else in a taco. I fixed to the first bolt, like, 40 feet away. And then I was able to be on, like, a vertical rock. So it was really comfortable. But that took, like, some planning, right? You can't just, like. So location is what made this better for you. So low angle is what's going to push you against the rock harder. Yes. The more overhanging, the more comfortable you're going to be. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, low angle is the enemy of the taco. Most ledges, actually. Yeah, it's like, everything gets, like. Everybody thinks that, thinks about, like, oh, yeah, it's super steep. But then, like, every climb almost always has, like, one bivy or a place that you avoid. Because it's, like, 75 degrees or even worse. You have loops here that are bar-tacked. And then you have these two daisy chains up here. What these are for, you just take a single. You can take a single carabiner or a quick draw if you want it, you know, somewhat relaxed. You just reach up and clip that and take another single carabiner. Clip one loop here and here. And now you have kind of like a recliner. You can put your arms. I actually kind of like how there's, like, extra fabric because it's a rectangle. Other designs of, like, these single-point hammocks have the, like, huge cutouts. So that it supports the weight. Because the fabric was, like, not as strong, right? So they needed to, like, make sure that it was as strong as possible. I like these because you can kind of, it's kind of like an armrest. And even when you're sleeping, your elbows kind of can sit over here. Like, I have larger shoulders. So, like, I'm almost always, like. Got an arm out. Yeah, in, like, the alpine ledges where the sleeping quarters are, like, offset. Yeah. I would rather have my arm, like, around that center. Right? Or, like, you know, depending on, like, the rock type, you can stick your legs out even further. Yeah. You know, it's very, like. It's versatile. It's a very amorphous design, right? So it's versatile, but it does also require that you, like, think about the best way to do something, right? A rigid framed ledge, like, you have to, you can put it anywhere, right? This one, you can't just, like, set the thing up and, like, not think about it, I guess. Yeah. Maybe you've had more positive experience with framed ledges. I actually hate them. I bivvied in the anchor above stove legs, which is, like, a vertical chimney corner. And it was actually awesome for two tacos. Okay. Just because they're just, like, very minimal space. Nice little ledge. Yeah, so you can, like, kind of chill in, like, a chair. What's cool about the taco is that, you know, it's soft. You can, like, spin it around and just, like, sit away from the wall in a chair. I have, at times. We put that bolt at the perfect height. You are so close to the ground. So close to, like, just touching, right? I think you can also put. I've moved around the other way. If you need to spin, it's easier to do a full rotation and going, like, you know. Yeah, whatever. Let's see if this bolt can stand. Yeah, bolt, I'm not going to stand behind you. That's all I'm going to say. Actually, when I was at an ice climbing festival, I set this up. And I was, like, taking pictures of people. Yeah. And I was, like, like this. I was, like, mountain boots on. And crampons were dangling overhead, so I took them off. Being, like, I was next to a bunch of ice climbers. We were, like, taking pictures of people. I was, like, I'm sitting. Oh, you just used this as, like, a. Yeah, it's just, like, a blaze seat. Yeah, a blaze seat, yeah. Would you flag this thing with your air mattress dangling if it's not El Cap wins? I would jug with it connected to my harness. Yeah. Right? Without any loose stuff whipping around and smacking your teeth out. Yeah, I think I would rather just have it connected to my harness. Yeah, I've jugged with my inflatable edge. Yeah, I think that would be. I mean, you're already carrying so much stuff. What's two or three pounds, right? Yeah. I do have a lot of clipping points for, like, stuff sacks. Not a big pocket person, like, integrated pockets. Yeah. If you're going to put it in a stuff sack, then now you have the stuff sack to put things in. It's a draw cord. I'm afraid to actually sit sideways on this. If you're in between, I have found, if you're in between two straps, you're not going to tip. I've had people. But does it jam up against your. It's a little bit like that. Some people will think that they can, like, try to get in the center. And you can only do that when you're on, like, a dead overhang and you're, like, rappelling in on your degree. Okay. If you're on a full overhang, some people have found it useful to have their, like, aid ladders kind of, like, around here somewhere. Yeah. They're going to, like, have, like, grab loops. You don't want to grab this. Obviously, that's, you know, the adjustment for this side. But having less, I think, is more. You already have all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. You don't need it in the. Ledge handles. I was like, there's a loop on every corner. There's loops over here. You can actually put your cook pot on this. You can also just hang one of your shoulder-length slings right here if you wanted to clip shoes and shit. More stuff. Yeah. I'll try to stand on it. I'll spot you. This could be, this could be sporty. This could be sporty. I'll spot you. My girlfriend's bag. She'll never know. I'm only going to put it on the internet. Yeah, I think if I was dazed off, I think I'd be okay. Obviously, I'm standing on, like, a super ultralight pad. But I have noticed that for, you know, the morning necessities, that standing on the pad is pretty helpful. Yeah, especially if you're sitting in your harness. Your feet are on this, but you're in your harness. Yeah, I mean, if I was connected in, I'd be okay. I think I'd be good. Yeah. I would do this. I don't think you're going to pop it. There's nothing sharp. I let someone borrow my pad, and they, I think it was, like, perfect nut tool shape. It's, like, stuck through the pad. So don't get on with your nut tool. Yes, that would be, you got to make sure everything, I mean, you get into a portal edge, you make sure everything's off. Like, for real, everything. Here's the thing. What I like about inflatable, the inflatable ledge concept, is you can fix this. Yeah. With, you take the type A patch, you can fix it. You can't fix a fabric framed ledge. Not without. On site. I mean, yeah, I mean, 99% of people cannot fix that. Yeah, you tear that. I can't fix it unless I bring the stuff. Yeah, yeah, you can't fix it without your sewing machine. You can also save weight by chopping straps. So if you, like, get a pad that you like, you know you're going to use, you can just, like, chop off all the excess. Oh, yeah, yeah, these ones, if you're committed to a size for you. A specific size. Like, this one has, like, 22 inches. Unnecessary. Yeah, I could probably trim 80 inches of webbing off of this thing. How much do these run? These are $299.99 on my website. They come with a stuff sack, and they also come with four extra adjusters. So that way, if you want a little bit more adjustability in your taco, then you can actually just connect it back up to here. And those are just with simple stamped tri-glides and some more colorful webbing so everything color matches. So this is your latest model. Correct. This is what you're making now. Absolutely. Cool. What generation is this for you? Let's see, one, two, three, fourth generation. Yeah. You've been doing this for how many years? The taco? Yeah. Two years. Two years? Yeah. If you have questions, put his email in the description. The store will be on there. What stage is this at? That is in its first stage. First stage, but in stock? Absolutely. Cool. Yeah, that's the Wrangler 35 liter ultralight hiking backpack. It has a cool feature where the shoulder straps are completely removable. So if you have difficulty finding backpacks with straps that fit your body, all you need to do is contact me and we'll make sure that we get you a set of straps or I can make custom straps for people that have difficulty. So that way the body is always the same and you just find this part to fit the person. Yeah. It's made entirely with Challenge Sailcloth. So we have the EPX line, which is made out of entirely recycled plastic bottles. Every yard uses 20 plastic bottles. And in that pack, there's a yard and a quarter. So that's 25. And what's this made out of? That's UltraGrid. So that's ultra high molecular weight polyethylene. It's Dyneema. Yes. And then also, those are purported to be un-terrible. The ASTM data says un-terrible. It doesn't even say like a number. I don't know how that's possible. But the side pockets will fit two smart water bottles. You have reflective shock cord. UltraStretch, this is actually over-spun and woven Dyneema. Oh, that's sick. Yeah, it's super durable. It's stretchy. Dyneema's gone into a lot of products in the last 10 years. Yeah. Oh, and another cool thing. I mean, maybe I'm geeking out over it. This hybrid aluminum and plastic G-hook. Yeah, yeah. So you get the strength of the aluminum, but the adjustability and strength of, or like, you know, adjustable buckle strength of plastic. Awesome. What foam do you have in here? There's a layer here. Yeah, so that's EVA foam, quarter-inch. Just to help people kind of like be able to shove stuff in their backpack. Does it come out easier? It does. It's very easy. There is a wind. How committed I could get to that. Yeah, there's wind chance there. Gotcha. Cool. That's just quarter-inch EVA foam. I used it for a water collection device the other day. How? Yeah. I just cupped it into the shape that I needed and then, like, held the water bottle on my knee as, like, the water absorb is coming off the wall. Great extra feature. Yeah, and the entire backpack is either yellow or white. So you can see everything that's in there. Yeah. Oh, that's a lot of room. Yeah. How much does this weigh? That weighs 19 and a half ounces. Wow, just over a pound. Yeah. Cool. What other sizes do you make? Just that one. Just 35 at the moment. We're working on trying to innovate to do, you know, sort of frames and have, like, the correct type of foam, you know, to be more versatile. Trying to make everything—trying not to copy people. Trying to do something new and— Respectable. New and fresh, you know? Yeah, if you're not going to add value to the collective, you know, backpacking industry as it is— Why make anything? Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, if you guys find this little casual kind of video helpful, let me know. I'll do more of these as they come up. I can't always do the crazy 40-hour edit videos all the time. Well, thanks for showing us that. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. And all his info will be in the description below. Cheers.