Knitted a Camelbak Hose Insulator (Shallow Thoughts)

Knitted a Camelbak Hose Insulator

This week's group hike was at the always beautiful Las Conchas trail, up in the Jemez mountains. Originally planned as a snowshoe/ski hike, we discovered there wasn't enough show to justify either one, so we all opted for Yak Trax or other forms of shoe-mounted spikes. As it turned out, there wasn't much ice so we probably didn't even need that. (One of Dave's spike sets fell off early in the hike, and he continued for miles before he noticed one foot was unspiked. Fortunately, he was ahead of the group and someone else spotted the lost spikes.)

It was beautiful, and the 27°F temperature didn't feel so bad once we were moving. But it did cause one problem: my Camelbak hose froze up, so I had to resort to eating snow when I wanted a drink of water until lunchtime when I managed to clear out the ice.

Not the first time that's happened. I've long wanted to get some sort of hose insulator that would keep the hose from freezing, but I haven't been able to find one.

You'd think that would be a common thing. I envision a long tube sewed out of neoprene, or maybe fleece. But I've never seen one in an outdoor equipment store — you can buy a pack with a built-in hose insulator, but I have several packs that I like already — and I haven't had any luck searching Ebay or Amazon or places like that. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong keywords.

On this week's hike, as I was relating my hose woes to a fellow hiker, I found my eyes wandering over the various knitted and crocheted items I had with me: earmuffs, hat, little bag. Most of them intended to keep parts of me warm on cold days. Why had it never occurred to me that I could knit or crochet a hose insulator?

For my first attempt, I decided to use the same medium-heavy weight yarn that has worked well for hats. But while I use big needles and a fairly loose knit for hats, I figured I should make my hose insulator as dense as possible, with a small needle more suitable for medium weight yarn.

Which direction? I have knitted very narrow tubes a few times, knitting in the round with two or three double-pointed needles and only a few stitches on each needle. But that's hard, and fiddly. I decided to knit it as a long, flat rectangle, then sew it closed once the long dimension was wide enough to curve around the hose.

How long — how many stitches? I measured the hose and decided I wanted roughly 24 inches. That's longer than any needle I have, but just a few days ago I stumbled across a page mentioning that circular needles can be used not just for knitting in the round, but also for projects that are wider than any one needle. It just so happens I have a long circular needle that I never use because it's longer than any circular project I've done.

I knit a test swatch and decided I needed about 70 stitches to make 24 inches. And that worked out just fine. It only took a couple of evenings (I mostly knit while we watch TV), maybe 4-5 hours.

I'm happy with how it turned out. I used the darkest yarn I had in that weight, on the theory that it will stay warmer in sunlight. The stitches look pretty even and I didn't mysteriously end up with more or fewer than 70 stitches at any point, a sign that my knitting skills are improving.

Will it actually work? I won't know until our next below-zero hike. Temperatures that low aren't super common here, but we have a cold front moving in, so next week's hike might be a candidate. I'll report back.