Dear Fellows,

With a great regret I have to inform you that the repairs by Cascade Designs worked exactly for 1 days. By the second day, my sleeping pad was flat again as we camped in Sierra Nevada. It slowly leaked as I was asleep. Somehow, without waking up, I kept crawling on top of my climbing partner – she was softer and warmer than the ground. To specify: she is not my sexual partner, in fact, she is my buddy’s girlfriend. My climbing partner expressed her unhappiness about the situation in a number of technical four letter terms.

So, for the rest of the week, I ended up spreading climbing rope and backpack under my 40F summer sleeping bag.

I am not by any means a princess, my climbing gear is not a pea and the flat sleeping pad is not twenty mattresses.

Still I remembered the corresponding folk tale by Hans Christian Anderson called “A princess and a pea” quite a few times on my last trip.

Oh, well, nothing lasts forever. I guess it’s the time to look for another sleeping pad.

Regards,
Boris Itin