{"id":1382,"date":"2013-08-26T16:49:13","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T16:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nikwax.wordpress.com\/?p=1382"},"modified":"2024-10-24T09:47:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T08:47:19","slug":"true-confessions-weve-neglected-our-gear-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nikwax.com\/en-us\/posts\/true-confessions-weve-neglected-our-gear-too\/","title":{"rendered":"True confessions: we&#8217;ve neglected our gear, too"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nikwax.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/dumpster-jacket.jpg?w=611\" alt=\"Just like &quot;Old Yellow,&quot; this faithful jacket was abused and forgotten\u2014for a while. Fortunately, we salvaged it before it crawled into the dumpster.  \" class=\"wp-image-1390\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Just like &#8220;Old Yellow,&#8221; this faithful jacket was abused and forgotten\u2014for a while. Fortunately, we salvaged it before it crawled into the dumpster.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>The smell was ungodly. Every time I cracked open my dry bag, the stench brought tears of disgust and pain to my eyes. At first, the smell just made me feel a little dirty \u2013 nothing over the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It wasn\u2019t until Day 13 of a 16-day mid-August Grand Canyon river trip that I realized the bag had taken on a life of its own. This odor was different. It wasn\u2019t just unpleasant; it was downright rancid. While I recognized something was amiss, I ignored the warning signs. But on that fateful day, the sky opened up and the first rain shower we\u2019d had since the put-in sent us scattering to grab rain gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I excavated my cherished lemon yellow raincoat from the offending bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some background: I had coveted this coat since childhood. It was a classic happy yellow, just what the Morton salt girl would wear if she were a Gore-Tex junkie. This coat was my partner. One time, its near-neon yellow visibility saved a group of 30 tourists from careening off a cliff on fog-encased glacier in Switzerland. True story. It held up on a backpacking trip to hell and back. It was neither flattering, nor stylish, but I loved this raincoat with all my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the rain pummeled us, I slipped it on without a care, though I couldn\u2019t help gagging on the smell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDummy,\u201d I thought to myself. \u201cYou put a damp coat into a compressed dry bag for 13 days in 100-degree heat. It\u2019s molded and ruined!\u201d It was moldy, alright, but this mold had nothing to do with being put away wet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This mold was the result of absolute neglect: a slice of cheese and a dry bag warming to incomprehensible heat in the hot Arizona sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You see, the night before the put-in on a raft trip is always hectic event, especially in the rain. You\u2019ve been planning the trip for ages and you\u2019re jockeying to rig boats. When I picked up the cheese slice that someone dropped, I threw it in my pocket\u2026 until I could make my way to the garbage cans. At least that was the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve not researched the full catalog of fibers cheese mold can adhere to and successfully colonize, but I can now say with confidence that waterproof\/durable, lemon yellow raincoat fiber is one. In the petri dish of a rubber dry bag, heated to a consistency far above average body temperature for a fortnight, that mold will not only survive, it will flourish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Too mortified to tell anyone that I\u2019d been conducting inadvertent chemical experiments the entirety of our trip, I stealthily pushed my raincoat into a plastic trash bag and rode out the remaining three days of the trip with a lingering odor that people noticed but were too kind to mention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back at home, there were only two options for Old Yellow: the trashcan or the washing machine. First, I turned the jet hose on it. The stink was stronger than my will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a last ditch effort, I threw it the washing machine and poured in some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nikwax-usa.com\/en-us\/products\/productdetail.php?productid=268\">Tech Wash<\/a>, as that was my habit. Had I stopped to think about it, I would have poured in the most toxic stink-fighter I could find. Instead, I berated myself for \u201cwasting\u201d the Tech Wash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One wash with Tech Wash gave me hope. We weren\u2019t in the clear, but you had to <i>bury <\/i>your nose in the jacket in order to smell the cheesy aftereffects. The second wash brought the world back into equilibrium: zero stink and no evidence of mold. The third wash was really just a hopeful attempt to erase the mold hangover in my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Six years later and I\u2019m proud the say my yellow raincoat is still with me and performing like a champion. I may have put her through the ringer, but sweet redemption is ours from the Great Grand Canyon Cheese Episode. <b>\u2014Brook Sutton<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The smell was ungodly. Every time I cracked open my dry bag, the stench brought tears of disgust and pain to my eyes. At first, the smell just made me feel a little dirty \u2013 nothing over the top. It wasn\u2019t until Day 13 of a 16-day mid-August Grand Canyon river trip that I realized&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":209,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,2377,2376],"tags":[605,2657,2658,105,2567,135,209],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gear-care","category-product-information","category-stories","tag-base-layers","tag-gear-rehab","tag-nature","tag-nikwax","tag-nikwax-basefresh","tag-outdoors","tag-waterproof"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>True confessions: we&#039;ve neglected our gear, too - Nikwax NA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nikwax.com\/en-us\/posts\/true-confessions-weve-neglected-our-gear-too\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"True confessions: we&#039;ve neglected our gear, too - Nikwax NA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The smell was ungodly. Every time I cracked open my dry bag, the stench brought tears of disgust and pain to my eyes. At first, the smell just made me feel a little dirty \u2013 nothing over the top. 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