For warm hands if they do get cold:-
Another thing I carry and use are those small gel pads that you boil in their bag. I then ‘activate’, them if I need to. They are quite handy and do warm your hand/fingers up. They can of course be used over and over again once you boil them up again.
Update on the telescopic stool.
It arrived today - very professionally packed (no joke) which surprised me for the price.
It is solid and comfortable from my first tests.
Unfortunately, it is relatively heavy and large when collapsed, so not really useful for SOTA summits with any length of walk-in. It’d be fine on a drive-on summit with a short walk but apart from that, IMHO this is not a good option for SOTA.
73 Ed.
9.26 into this video is how I keep warm. It was below zero with -10°C windchill. I was on the summit for an hour.
The YouTubers SOTA Summit to Summit Party - YouTube
Bear Grylls taught me.
pics of my backrest. Up high when used with a tarp, but a bit wobbly. Down low when used without a tarp. Much sturdier and the ropes act as arm rests. Just a string with 4 loops and 2 pegs. Use the straps on the sticks to keep the string loops from slipping down. As light as you can get. Along with my padded laptop sleeve as a seat.
perfect low budget solution
73 Armin
I use a 2cm thick lightweight, closed cell foam seating pad. I then try to place it somewhere where my legs are below my bottom, sort of like a chair. I then try to take a quick break and get up and stretch between band changes. I rarely operate for more than 2 hours, usually just one hour. That’s enough for this 67 year old.
If you paddle and write with the same hand, you use the same thumb and index finger for both functions. So you must either drop the pencil before starting to paddle or flick the pencil into the other fingers. Then reverse those steps when returning to logging. Using both hands you keep holding the pencil and the paddle without any change…
But if you sit on a sharp object then you will end up deflated.!!
Avoid going out in the cold and wet as far as possible.
I’ve got a little foam sit mat if the rocks aren’t very comfy.
A link dipole means you have to keep getting up and down for a walk to change bands.
Find a summit near a cafe 
Transferring the pencil 'twixt thumb and finger is similar to the way we guitarists transfer our picks to a spot between the fingers and then back under the thumb.
Elliott, K6EL
Hi Ed,
I had the same idea a couple of years ago and ordered one of these. It was fine for 2 activations. On the third one it broke into pieces after I sat on it for half an hour and I fell on my back. Fortunately, I did not hurt myself, but you better make sure there is soft grass behind you and not a rock or a cliff…
The stool consists of hundreds of plastic pieces that hook into each other, it looks like if only one or a few of them do not hook properly or break, it causes a chain reaction especially if you’re close to the specified maximum weight like me…
I usually carry one of these with me, not really heavy, fits into the side pouch of the backpack next to the pole, and is reasonably stable except for on soft ground.
If I can’t find a bench, a pile of rocks or a bunch of wood where I can sit comfortably, I use it as a plan B. Plan C (nothing to sit on and soft ground) is to use the stool for putting the TRX on, and standing next to it during the activation.
I use a clipboard with an attached tin strip that holds my keyer and my cell phone which I use for logging. That works while I’m sitting or standing anywhere.
73 Jens
I sometimes use a light collapsible Trekker chair (Therm-a-rest) with a foam sleeping mat on it, for when I want to avoid weight.
Instead, most of the times I just carry a square profile cut from that sleeping mat and sit on ground crossing my legs yoga style, but it’s not as comfortable for a long time.
73 de Ignacio
There are few tick probalems when you stay vertical.
Paul w0rw
I always look to see if I can find any rock or tree to sit on. Being on the floor is pretty exhausting at some point. Sometimes I find awesome places like this where I can even put my radio on it
Me too use the left hand for cw. An old rhytmer suggested me this trick when I was passing from vertical to iambic key. It’s very useful to have the pencil always in the right hand!
73 de Claudio IX1IHR
As previously mentioned, I’m left handed (write, straight-key, play tennis, etc). Interesting that we get the English word sinister (associated with evil) from the Latin for ‘left’. My mother told me children were dissuaded from writing with the left hand (1920s) and teachers snacked any child of her parents’ generation doing so. We live in more enlightened times.
You’re just a few years older than my sister. She started out left handed but was “encouraged” to become right handed at kindergarten and infants school. Back then, left handed children in that infants school where placed in a remedial class until they were “normalised”. They still did it when I went to it. So she is completely right handed in writing, mouse use etc. But quite often I’ve seen her reach out for things with her left hand rather than her right hand.
When my son was about 7 the teachers went on that he was having issues holding pencils and writing and maybe he needed some extra support. “Funny, he has no problem holding a Playstation controller. Have you just told him to stop swinging the lead and get on with his writing?” The teacher looked horrified. We had words when I got home regarding holding pencils and availability of Playstations and the problem was cured there and then.
We seem to have gone from one extreme (forced right handed-ness) to not telling the kids just to do it or else.
For Christmas my daughter bought me a small self-inflating cushion, short length of paracord and a carabiner.
Attach cord to cushion and carabiner - Attach carabiner to trouser belt loop. This is to stop the cushion getting blown away when I get up to adjust aerial or stretch my legs.
This gift was thought up after she noticed many of my walking trousers were wearing thin from sitting long periods on rocks.
