Writer in Review

I have this professor at school. She is managing editor of Arizona Highways magazine, as well as a published author. She said something in class that really got me thinking:

"Write as though every word is on trial for its life."

So I decided to go back and review what I have written on this blog. I have almost made it to the five year mark and I think a good clean-up is in order.

It's funny. There are so many things I didn't write about in the beginning. Why did I omit so many epic backpacking trips? The Seven Devils, Heart Lake, William O' Douglas, Revett Lake and tons more. I briefly considered going back and writing them all anyway, but I wont. Instead I'll just clean up what I have.

Reviewing my archives, it's clear that I just didn't take the blog seriously until I moved to Arizona in 2013. It's the stuff before then that I'll be working on. I want my blog tip-top. I want it to be the best.

Highline

I've mentioned a few times over the last couple of months my desire to hike the 51 mile Highline National Recreation Trail end-to-end. Well, it looks like I'll finally get a chance to attempt it next week. Currently I'm well within the planning phase, mapping out daily distances, water sources, possible campsites, etc. Believe it or not, this is my first time planning a trip without the use of a guidebook. I'm finding the process a little more challenging, but much more enjoyable. This will also be the longest solo hike I've ever attempted. I'm definitly looking forward to spending some quality alone time in the woods.

Since I'm in the process of testing the 75 liter Osprey Xenith pack for Mountain Gear, I plan on packing heavier than normal with the goal of testing this load hauler as accurately as possible. With that goal in mind, my gear selection for this trip has been more traditional. I'm not an "ultralighter" by any means, but usually on a weekend trip my pack weight is about 20 pounds (including food and water). I'm guessing I'll be closer to 30 for this trip.

I'll spare you the details about gear selection for now. As a blogger, I'm still undecided about the level of detail I wish to include in my blogs. I have gotten some criticism in the past for lack of detail, mainly the absence of certain specifications in a review I wrote about the Solo Stove. I tend to write what I like to read, and frankly I find long gear reviews and trip reports bogged down with statistics and product specifications quite boring. At the same time, I don't think the lack of detail somehow deminishes the educational value of the story.

Now I'm rambling... Time to get back to my maps.

Mountain Gear

Recently I mentioned that I had several writing projects in the works. Well I'm pleased to announce that one of those projects is finished, and I wanted to post a link so my blog readers here could check it out. This piece Is a "guest blog" I wrote for Mountaingear.com. It's a funny story about what happens when you let your imagination get the best of you in the backcountry. Hopefully this is the start of a long and fruitful relationship with Mountain Gear. Enjoy.

http://www.mountaingear.com/themountainblog/2012/11/lions-tigers-grizzlies-oh-my/

Hikers Unite!

Sorry about my lack of writing lately. I actually have several writing projects that I'm currently working on, and have been really hard-pressed for time. Hopefully these photo-blogs make up for that.

So here is a new category for the photo-blogs. I'm calling it "Hikers Unite!" It's just a celebration of people on the trail. Enjoy.

Hiding from the rain.

Jason and Kelly 

Maggie and Sarah

Luke in the rain

Retrospect

One statement I've heard people make over and over through the years is “no regrets”, and when I've heard it I've always wondered to myself if the speaker truly meant it. In fact I've always believed that having no regrets was an impossibility, and that anyone claiming to was full of shit...

I think it's because I am incessantly reflecting on my life, not just the events of last week or last year, but from ten or even twenty years ago. But I'm not just reflecting, I'm analyzing and criticizing, and wondering if the choices I made or the road I took was right. There are choices I've made as a teenager that still haunt me, and that's just the beginning. I review the consequences of my decisions and I wonder what would have become of me If I made the opposite choice. Which path then would I have walked? Which roads will I have traveled? How would “things” have turned out?

And when I think back on these choices they seemed so inconsequential when I made them and in some cases I think invisible, as if I did not realize I was making a choice at all. It took time for me to discover that even something as small as a word can change everything. To realize that one moment of false bravado, or pride, or weakness, or selfishness, can alter the course forever.

The times when I hurt people are the worst. Even now I can feel how I must have made someone else feel when my words cut them, or my actions betrayed them, or my inaction let them down.

I found myself asking: What should I have done? What should I have said? How should I have reacted?

I think the answer to those questions is that there is no answer. I tell people all the time to leave the past in the past and yet I cannot seem to live by my own words because I am struggling to find answers where none exist. I'm like a dog going round and round in the living room chasing my tail but never catching it.

When people from my past ask me why I made a certain decision, even though I may have asked myself the same question a thousand times, the only sincere response I can give is to shrug my shoulders and say “I don't know”. Sure I can give reasons. I can play self-psychologist and offer explanations as to why I behaved the way I did, but it's like grasping at straws. It's like buying a scratch ticket but not knowing if you've won because no matter how many times you read the instructions you still don’t understand the rules.

I want to say that I have no regrets, and that every choice I've made and everything I've done has made me the person I am today, but only the latter is true and I'm okay with that. It took me time to realize that having regrets is not a weakness or some flaw in my character, as some people make it out to be. In fact having regret and admitting regret is quite the opposite. It shows strength of character. The hard part is knowing when and how to let go. The hard part is leaving the past in the past and just accepting the choices you've made, because no matter how much you may wish it, they can't be changed.

I regret that my face was this fat when this picture was taken.

The most important things

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a tellar but for want of an understanding ear."

— Stephen King

Back on Track

So my gear buying is officially over. Last week I purchased the last few big items on my list, including trekking poles, a sleeping bag liner, and a pack. With the trekking poles I just bought some lower end Black Diamonds. They are fairly light and telescopic so they should work just fine. For a pack I ended up buying the Flash 50 from REI, mainly due to the fact that I could go to the store and try it on. It's not as light as some, but at 2 lbs 10 oz its still saving me over three pounds from my Gregory.

There are so many opinions out there on packs and I was looking at ULA, Gossamer Gear, Granite Gear, and Six Moons, and the truth is that, while all of them had packs that I was interested in, I couldn't try any of them on. Obviously a lot of people buy packs online so it's not that big of deal, but for me it was just too hard. One week I wanted the ULA Ohm and the next it was the Granite Gear Vapor Trail. I just couldn't pull the trigger on anything...

Turns out that It was a good thing I went in to REI. You see when I bought my last pack, my torso was measured at 20", and of course I ended up buying a "Large" sized pack. The Gregory that Ive been using, while heavy, has always been fairly comfortable, but never really seemed to fit me quite right. Last night at REI I had the salesman measure me three times, and every time my torso came out at 18". Which means that Ive been lugging around a pack thats too large for my torso size for the last year because when I was originally fitted the person at REI who measured me screwed up.

Now, I'm not the type of person who negatively takes advantage of REI's return policy. I stand by my buying choices and almost never return items. Well, I paid $250.0 for that Gregory and it kind of pisses me off that it doesn't fit. So yeah, I'll be taking that one back, even though I bought it over a year ago.

Soloist: Stevens Lake Overnighter

View from my camp

Sometimes I just want to go. I get the itch to be outside. I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel possessed. That’s how I was feeling a couple weeks ago as I watched the days become shorter and the nights grow colder and the summer slipping away too soon again. At work my racing mind bounced from one locale to the next, obsessing over possible plans for the weekend, and wondering who will go with me…

 Steve and Luke were both feeling under the weather, and I didn’t even bother asking anyone else because I know what the answer will be… The answer is always the same; it’s only the excuses that change. A man can only hear the word “no” so many times before he stops asking the question.

So I head out unaccompanied into the Bitterroot Mountains on the Idaho/Montana boarder.  I climb 2’000 feet in 3 miles mostly through the dense timber of a shadowy evergreen forest.  The trail splits and forks and shortcuts switchbacks, and since I didn’t bring a map I mark my rout by digging big directional arrows in the dirt trail with my boot heal. I didn’t bring a watch, either and worried that I wouldn’t make it to Stevens Lakes before dark I put my camera away and push hard.

I am greeted by the sounds of laughter at Upper Stevens Lake as I break into a clearing and discover several tents in various locations on the north side of the lake.  Wondering why so many people are camped so close together I push on… After all, isn’t that one of the reasons we backpack, to get away from… everyone… everything? The trail around the lake is steep and narrow and soon my convertibles are soaked from the dew covered greenery that overwhelms the vanishing trail.

Alas I reach the small lake and am greeted with… silence. I am the only one it seems who bothered to go the extra mile for solitude and am rewarded by my efforts.  Alone I set up camp and build a fire, but everywhere I look are signs of civilization and I can’t help but feeling screwed out of a true wilderness experience. My camp is littered with aluminum cans, bottles, and miscellaneous trash. Not far from my camp I find an uncovered cat hole filled with toilet paper and tampons…

But I clean it all up, and after the sun goes down I sit around my smoldering fire staring at a billion stars and wanting to say something… But no one is there for me to talk to, so I put the fire out and go to bed.

The next morning is beautiful and after taking a few dozen shots of the awakening lake, I head out. I am walking along a sand beach covered in deadfalls and I spot someone. It is a woman sitting alone at the water’s edge, her face buried in a book... I wonder what she looks like... I wonder if she is alone like me... I wonder what she is reading... I want her to look up from her book and see me so I can smile and wave to her... I want to go talk to her…

 I take a photo and walk away.

Rocka Rolla: Dawson Pass Loop Day 2 - Glacier National Park

Not long after we left the moose behind, it started raining.  The forecast actually looked really good, calling for a chance of rain Thursday but partly cloudy Saturday and Sunday with highs in the 70’s.  Despite all the times the weather forecast has been wrong, I believed it like a fool, and packed accordingly.  So you can imagine the look on my face a couple hours earlier at the Ranger station when I stood bemused while the Ranger was contacted by radio and informed right in front of us that an arctic storm blowing across Canada would hit the park that night and last for two damn days.  Here it was early August and Glacier Park was expecting 2 inches of snow…

 So when the rain started, all I had for protection was a pack cover and a rain jacket, which usually would be fine in a regular rain storm… But it rained hard and never stopped.  By the time we got to camp at No Name Lake I was soaked. My feet were soaked through waterproof boots, my whole upper body was soaked through a waterproof jacket, and my pants were so wet I could wring them out like a dish rag. I’ll be honest; it made me rethink the quality of my gear.  The really crappy part was that because fires are illegal in most of Glacier Parks backcountry, we didn't build one. We sat in the rain and made dinner, and the first time the rain broke, we hurriedly pitched our tents.

Finally the rain did let up and we all went down to the water and did some fishing. The dreary overcast sky was darkening with the coming of twilight, and as we fished at the waters edge a thunderclap exploded in the sky overhead.  It boomed like a howitzer and the violent crash of rolling thunder stampeded from the mountain side onto our beach and shook the ground beneath our feet. And there it remained, unwavering, beating against our courage and filling our bones with dread. Our eyes were fixed on a massive sheer cliff towering over our beach like Point du Hoc, and with eyes wide open we could see stones and boulders violently tumbling down its doom lit face and smashing into the rocks below.  It was a sight to behold, the raw power of nature. Jesse looked at me and for the second time today asked, “Should we be standing here?”

Luke fly-fishing No Name Lake

It rained all night and the next morning.  At breakfast we discussed our course of action. Luke and I were so sick of the rain. We have been rained on every backpacking trip since April. It seemed we couldn't escape it and we were both feeling like we just wanted to be dry. But Jesse came to the rescue with words of wisdom that really got moral turned back around, “Overcoming adversity like this is what makes you a better and stronger man, we need to finish what we started.” Of course he was right, and a half hour later we were packed up and heading west toward the continental divide.

Gear Review: The North Face Orion 20

I was looking for a sleeping bag comparable to the weight and compressibility of down, but with the ability to retain insulation when wet. Living in the Pacific Northwest (or NorthWet as some call it) I was worried about buying an expensive down bag and getting it wet, so I felt like synthetic would be a better choice for a climate known for rain. I found this sleeping bag on Backpacker.com, which was the bag of choice in their March 2008 Perfect System: Northwest, and I purchased it from REI soon after.

In action at Cabin Lake, MT

The North Face Orion is a 20 degree mummy bag with Climashield Neo insulation. I had never heard of Climashield before I found this bag and it's actually some really impressive stuff, at least according to Climashield and the U.S. military. I learned that Climashield, like Primaloft, was developed for the military for an alternative to down, which wasn't preforming well in the field. In fact Climashield is still the insulation of choice for the U.S military according to this article here. Now I can't confirm any claims about it being the "most compressible, warmest, softest, most durable, water resistant and hypoallergenic insulation", but I can say that it works pretty darn well.

This bag has it all. It's light and packs down really small. As a matter of fact it compresses smaller then my hiking partners Big Agnes Lost Ranger 15 down bag. It actually leaves enough space in my backpack's sleeping-bag compartment, that I can put other items in with it. At 2 pounds 5 ounces it's not the lightest sleeping bag on the market. There are plenty of lighter 20 degree down bags, but some of them are outrageously expensive compared to $179.0 of the Orion.

The bag is very warm. I would say it's close to the EN rating of 23 degrees. Lately my girlfriend has been using it, and she sleeps warm in it as well. But I have to admit that I have had several chilly nights in this bag. It is rated at 20 degrees, and I have used it down to that temperature, but I was chilly. Not cold mind you, just chilly. Now when I know the temps will be particularly cold, I bring a Sea to Summit silk sleeping bag liner.

The bag is a pretty snug fit for my wide frame, but I've gotten used to it over the years and sleep pretty comfortably. The zipper sometimes snags. Mostly at night when I'm fiddling with it in the dark half-asleep. As long as I'm being careful, I usually don't have a problem.

For the price, this bag is perfect. It's light and compacts very small, and will keep you warm during the vast majority of your 3-season nights. The best part about it is that if you always hike in the rain, like I do, you can rest assured that the insulating qualities wont be ruined if it gets wet.

Airing out in the morning.

(legalese)

Gear Review: Asolo Fugitive GTX

Iv'e spent a crazy amount of money on backpacking gear, and after 6 months of regular use I have to say that these boots have been one of my best investments so far. I tried on several pairs of various brands in the store and these Asolo Fugitives were by far the most comfortable.

Since then I have used the boots on a weekly, sometimes daily basis and I love them. They fit great and are comfortable on my feet, especially after I discovered the perfect "sock system" to wear with them, which is simply mid-weight Lorpin merinos with Smartwool liners.

One of the reasons I bought this style of boot was that I wanted something lighter and more breathable. Last summer I wore full-grain leather Vasques and my feet were hot and sweaty all the time. With the Fugitives, my feet feel good. My socks aren't wet when I take the boots off. The sweat factor on my feet are reduced. I don't think I'll ever go back to a full-grain upper again.

Case in point: I recently returned from a 4 day trek on the Olympic coast. My hiking partners who all wore full-grain leather boots were rotating out socks on lunch breaks. I wore the same socks the entire trip. They weren't even damp at the end of the day, which tells me that the boots are letting my feet breath.

The comfortability factor is high as well. Again on the same previously mentioned trip, my hiking partners complained of foot soreness. My feet felt good the entire time, and while my hiking partners chalked it up to "good feet", I am inclined to think that it was my lighter boots.

I can also attest to the waterproofness. I have hiked through swamps, marsh, tide-pools, and small streams, and have not had water penetrate the boot interior yet. As a matter of fact, one trip in early Spring left our boots all covered in mud. At the house afterwards we attached a pressurized nozzle to a garden hose and blasted our boots to get the caked mud off. My boots did not leak at all, even after spraying with high pressure from a foot away.

The only drawback I would say, is the tread. It doesn't seam to grip that great. Other then that, these boots rock, and are well worth the dough I payed for them.

*** UPDATE*** 1/13/12

After having these boots for a couple years now I regret to say that my feelings have changed regarding these boots. Both boots leak (albeit very little) and the tread on the soles are getting worse. Slipping is still a constant problem. The only other big change in my review would be that after I upped my daily mileage closer to 10, I suffer extreme foot pain with these boots. In fact, I quit wearing them backpacking because of this reason. They just aren't comfortable enough for longer miles. In fact I quit wearing boots all together and have moved to shoes, though I still wear these for day hikes in the winter time, which I think they are best suited for.

This shot doesn't do this drop off justice. These boots are best suited for shorter hikes in winter-like conditions.

For your reading pleasure...

Not that anyone reads this thing. But if you do, and are vaguely interested in anything I've said thus far, why not explore a whole new world of blogging entertainment and check out my archives of the last 5 years? All the usual topics are covered including a few that might be new to you. Such as being attacked by fire ants, drunken poetry, bad college newspaper editorials, blimping around the country, and a bunch more fun stuff.

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll