Tag Archives: ultralight

Is It Even Thru Hiking? Groucho’s SLASH Flip Flop CT 2020

Leave a reply

I was feeling restless, even after having completed a 4500 mile bike tour this spring and early summer. I mean, the tour itself was stress inducing… rather than contemplative expansiveness of previous journeys, travelling this year was filled with anxiety. Between the explosion of COVID and increased awareness of Black Lives Matter, there were a lot of factors mading the Days of Death tour less about personal meditation and more about social awareness and action. I totally support of and engaged in mutual aid, anti-racism. I also have mental health, just not all of it. I needed some mountain meditation – not to escape issues, but to walk with them.

I live in Leadville, so the Colorado Trail seemed appropriate. I hiked it in 2017 with my friend Atrain and his dog Ekho, covered many of the miles on my 2018 CDT thru, and hiked a modified Collegiate Loop last summer. The logistics were easy and familiar, and Sara needed a ride home from DIA and agreed to drop me at Waterton Canyon so I could start walking.

The miles were fast between Waterton and Breckenridge, but I definitely wasn’t in hiking shape. Climbing up over the 10 Mile range, and then again up Copper Mountain to Searle Pass was, um, hard. In 2017, going NOBO with Atrain we ate acid and flew up the 10 Mile climb, only to get hard, freezing rain on the way down into Frisco. Miles of memories overlapped as I traversed the familiar terrain between Copper and Tennessee Pass – meeting Futuredad and Huck on that section when I was hiking the CDT in 2018, and inviting Hot Legs and Digeridoo to CDT SOBO TRAIL DAZE the same year. I got to Leadville just before the Labor Day weekend, and decided to hide out. Then there was the early winter storm, and we got 11 inches of snow. I ended up taking 10 zero days!

Harpo suggested I could flip flop and hike northbound out of Durango..and maybe dodge some snow. She was kind enough to offer a ride down south…

Surprise! There was still plenty of snow in the San Juan mountains, especially leading up the Kennebec Pass. BUT I’d never flip-flopped a trail before, so now I guess I’m officially a wavy hiker. Is it even thru hiking? Who knows…

The walk into Silverton was beautiful as always. I raced the Colorado Trail Classic a couple weeks before; what took me 12 hours on a rigid single speed mountain bike (Molas Pass to Durango) took 3 days of walking. Reaching the San Juans felt like coming home – seeing the signs for the shared CDT/CT corridor made me realize I’ve been on this trail, or part of it, every summer for the last 4 years. I got an easy hitch into Lake City and slept by the river, resupplying and hitching back out the next morning. I love the walk across Snow Mesa, just north of Lake City… an expanse of high alpine meadow that stretches into the horizon, with the San Juans framed to the south. I finally ascended San Luis – a fourteener just off trail that I walked past twice before – summiting at 10pm on a night with no moon, seeing a panoply of stars and the Milky Way like a smear across the sky.

I was making good time and getting into my rythym. As I got service for the first time in days, I got a text message from my Reno friend Mikey, who had just finished installing an art project on the east coast. He was driving thru and wanted to check out Leadville. I’d be at HWY 50/Monarch Pass the next day… I told him to scoop me. I stayed with Mikey for a couple of weeks on the Days of Death tour, so I was excited to show him our small city in the high mountains. He picked me up the next morning – after I saw a huge bull moose in Fooses Creek – and we and headed to Leadvegas.

Mikey and I had a great few days in Leadville and I was sad to see him go. But the mountains were calling… I did a short slack pack with Jack the dog from Timberline trailhead to the Fish Hatchery and knew I had to get back out. The following day I picked up from the Fish Hatchery and headed south.

I hit Mt Elbert on the way, and traversed to South Elbert, descending via the Black Cloud trail and slept at the empty Twin Peaks campground. I had walked this section before and the traffic was terrible on HWY 81, but I arrived at night this time and under a full moon. The road walk was strange and beautiful. In the morning I explored the connecting social trails between the Twin Peaks campground and the Willis Gulch trailhead, where I started up towards Hope Pass and the Collegiate West route.

Collegiate West was scenic as always… and this time included a night hike under an almost full moon as I traversed the miles up to Alpine Tunnel. Seeing the high alpine terrain lit up in ghostly light was spectacular. The next morning I began the descent back to HWY 50 to connect my footpath. I cut down the forest road at Boss Lake so I could check out the new Butterfly House hostel and pick up a resupply package at the Monarch Mountain Lodge in Garfield. I walked down the old railroad grade that parallels the highway to intersect Collegiate East where I had left off… the road was flanked by aspens exploding with fall colors, the road itself a golden ribbon of fallen leaves.

Collegiate East was way more beautiful than I remember from my modified Collegiate loop last year. Timing is key. Tho there was no free coffee at the Princeton hot Springs store (ugh COVID again), everything was pretty, pretty hard, and surprisingly devoid of humans. I actually walked the whole road section out of Princeton, which I’ve trespassed before because wtf Christian camp, u gwan make me walk all the way around on a road with no shoulder?

I headed north past Princeton, Tabaguache and Chavano (the local Sawatch 14ers). I slept one night overlooking the faint lights of Buena Vista glowing like embers in the clear air. I woke up a day later at the top of a ridge with a hunter asking me for directions. From there, I headed over Waverly mountain to the Belford / Oxford traverse and descended into Missouri gulch, picking up a couple mile roadwalk to Sheep Gulch trailhead, allowing me to reconnect to the Collegiate West route. I ran over Hope Pass, trying to get to the Twin Lakes General Store before they closed at 6. I made it, and Bob bought me some rolling papers and 2 for one (end of the season) Bobo bars. I ended up night hiking for a few hours and sleeping near the Mt Massive trailhead… it was a long day with a lot of elevation; I slept well.

I was getting close to home and I was getting excited. But there was still one last challenge – the Mount Massive Ridge. It’s a spectacular and difficult hike. I headed out earlyish up the Mt Massive trail and cut northwest off trail about a mile in, following the topos up to South Massive. It was as hard as I remembered, and as beautiful. Following the ridgeline I drank some coffee at South Massive, and continued up and past the Massive summit, entering the rock problem area. Reminding myself of the first time attempting this ridge and how crazy scary it was – this was still physically hard, tho mentally easier as I moved through a lot of class 3 scramble, loose talus and pristine alpine meadow.

Around 2 pm I had just summited the last 13,000 foot peak on the ridgeline, and rather than walk all the way to Hangerman Pass, I decided to cut down Rainbow Lake and intersect the Highline Trail back to the Fish Hatchery. TBH I missed Jack the dog and was ready to be home. My housemate J agreed to meet me somewhere above the Fish Hatchery and we’d hike down & they would give me a ride home. Not all human powered, but a good portion of it… and a extra 100 miles or so on my CT journey, including a few new peaks.

I’m not sure if I found what I was looking for out there. It was a nice & meditative walk, punctuated by interesting and dynamic visits to the (smol) city. The more I explore how to get in & out of Leadville, the more it opens up. Personally, I feel like I’m trying to decrease my orbits and settle into home…

Lost then found then lost again

1 Reply

Favorite Southwest resupply options. I love them vegan chili ramens – which I haven’t seen since Said Valley on the PCT in 15. Also, once you get far enough spin every bodega & grocery has instant dehydrated refried beans – perfect cold soak food with Fritos!

Made a fancy custom rain cover for my fancy Brooks saddle… dodging afternoon rainstorms our of Taos.

Branching with the best of them in Cuba, NM. It’s interesting coming back after hiking thru on the CDT last year and seeing how my perspective has changed.

Steel horses and dirtbag cowboys. Riding through the American West reminds one of many conflicting narratives – black cowboys, soldiers paid cash for scalps, a million miles of barbed wire, shooting bison from the train, the violence and genocide that surrounds how these spaces are occupied & my privilege in being here. It’s a lot to digest, but the long views lend themselves to meditative thoughts and potentially change… tho there are still uranium mining railings outside Grants (the largest federal SuperFund site) and endless ‘NO TRESPASSING’ signs.

Good luck finding this or yourself – spiraling ever inward & outward simultaneously, away from and into an invisible center.

Borders & Reflections

Leave a reply

IMG_8454

Done & done – 2900 miles border to border, triple crown, and 11,000 trail miles down. What’s next?

IMG_8567

The southern terminus is a Crazy Cook, a nowhere place in on the NM/Mexico border, just a little bump on the panhandle 85 miles away from any roads.

IMG_8566

Life is harsh out in the desert. Everything is sharp, the sun intense, and the bones bleached dry.

IMG_8564

I was skeptical about the southern terminus, expecting another anticlimax. I’m happy we were there at sunset, where the light turned spectral over the western mountains. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but as the sun descended behind the hills there was intense pink and blue banding fading into a perfect butter yellow sky.

IMG_8563

We waited for hours at the road after walking the 85 miles back – no luck hitching, only a couple of cars. Finally we got a ride from border patrol – we didn’t bother telling him Huck was a Danish national on a dubious visa.

 

Gear Hacks: Ultralight Dental Floss

2 Replies

As mentioned in my previous post, I really like flossing on trail. My moms and I have had endless discussions about my dental health, and maybe this reminds me of her when I’m in the backcountry. Or maybe the act of keeping my mouth clean allows me to forget that the rest of me is so stinkin’ dirty. Regardless, I try and floss every day, and also use dental floss for gear repairs and sewing on punk rock patches… it’s great to have an adequate amount around. The problem is, like most conventional products, it’s value is defined by excessive packaging making it seem ‘fancy’. Here’s a simple hack that will allow a hiker to carry an almost full roll of floss at 1/2 the weight.

Above left is a conventional, full roll of OralB Glide dental floss, weighing in at 16.5g, on the right is a sample floss (easily obtained from any dentist’s office) weighing in at 5g. Why not just carry the sample? It only contains about 3 meters of floss, or enough for 3 days of regular use or 1/3 of sewing on a Minor Threat patch. The Glide, which contains 20 meters of floss, weights so much mostly because of its packaging. The key is to repackage the Glide in the sample container to reduce the carried weight.

IMG_4238

It’s clear that the sample pack just isn’t enough floss to sew on that AT patch, much less the 2000 miler bottom rocker. The problem with the full sized roll is all the extra packaging

Remove the roll from the sample container. There are typically 4 plastic tines securing the small roll of floss in the center. Break off two opposing tines – this is necessary because ultralight, duh! Actually, as you can see from the photo above, the center spindle of the full roll of Glide is much smaller to accommodate the extra floss. Next remove the full roll of Glide (or floss of your choosing, this trick works with any brand – I only use the OralB because this is the one moms gave me. Thanks Lynn!) and remove about 2 meters of floss from the roll. The full size roll is, in fact, slightly too large to fit the sample container, so we need to reduce its diameter slightly.

Once you have replaced the sample with the full sized roll, thread the floss around and over the right post, then under and around the left post, leading it thru the dispenser opening. Then close the package and you’re done! This is a super simple, if not slightly neurotic way to save a few grams on trail. Based on the photo below, you’ll notice the new floss system weighs in at 8.4 g, which is 8.1g less than the original full size package. Happy flossing!

IMG_4243

Sample package with full size roll of Glide, minus 2 meters. One of these guys is usually good for me for about 2 months of daily use. I keep the sample container after I’ve used up the full roll during a thru hike, and repeat the hack with a new roll purchased in town…

Gear Shakedown: Mountain Laurel Design SPIRIT 28 Quilt

2 Replies

IMG_0216Last week, Groucho and I tested our new quilts for the PCT. I recently upgraded to a 28 degree, “regular” size spirit quilt from Mountain Laurel Designs.

I love quilts. Or at least I love the idea of quilts.

A backpacking quilt is basically a sleeping bag with no back. The insulation in the back of a traditional bag is compressed as you sleep, compromising it’s insulating properties. This is more pronounced over time, as all insulation eventually loses it’s insulating loft after repeated compression, and on a thru hike happens for 150 days straight or so… So you end up with extra weight an no extra warmth.

The MLD SPIRIT quilt is a shell of lightweight black ripstop nylon filled with Climashield Apexa insulation. The bottom of the quilt has a cinchable elastic base, velcro closure and snaps which form a temporary toe box, keeping the feet toasty with a small breeze blocking pillow – the quilt can also be used fully open during warmer weather, as a flat blanket. The SPIRIT comes with a nylon ‘waist’ belt (one elastic, one nylon – choose based on your preference) which keeps the edges of the quilt tucked – a handy feature. The neck opening is cinchable with a snap closure, allowing adjustable thermal regulation, and also allowing you to wear the SPIRIT as a camp cape (see photo.).

For my SOBO AT I ordered a 28 degree bag. I was totally convinced I ordered a 28 degree bag. I realized I actually a 38 degree bag while looking at my old order receipt. Ha ha ha. No wonder I was sleeping cold…

I found the 38 degree quilt worked great when it was warm. Once the temperature got to the 30’s I paired it with a liner which kept it fairly comfortable, especially as I modified combinations of base layer, puffer and wind pants and jacket. In November on the AT we had a month of 20 degree nights with at least one sub zero. These nights not ‘comfortable.’ Folks say you can wear more clothes to make a 3-season bag work in the winter… in this case each night I wore my hiking dress, two base layer tops and bottoms, a fleece hoody, puffer, silk balaclava, wool hat, XL fleece hat, wool socks fleece booties gloves liners and fleece mittens. EVERYTHING I had.

I didn’t die AND as a bonus, I kept all my toes. But the gram-counter in me thought there must be a better way, weight wise and comfort wise to stay alive…

For my Southbound PCT hike, I’m starting with cold weather in the north, then encountering 14,000 foot peaks, and early fall desert nights. Sleeping at below 20 degrees is unlikely tho, so I aim for a system comfortable to 25 degrees. I thought a 10 degree upgrade might do the trick, so in February I ordered a 28 degree SPIRIT quilt from Mountain Laurel designs.

MLD can take up to 8 weeks to deliver in peak season. They’re a small shop, so I ordered early.

We hiked up to Goat Lake (elevation 3200) in early April, the pm forecast predicting 30 degree weather. Perfect. I slept in my hiking dress, lightweight base layer, fleece booties and hat, puffy jacket, and the new 5oz fleece smock I jerry-rigged from a goodwill fleece sweatshirt (more on that later). So at least half of the clothes I needed to sleep in with the 38 degree bag.

And I was super comfortable. In fact, I was the warmest I’ve slept outside. I felt heat radiating from my core. I took off my gloves. And I’m psyched to say I stayed that way all night, even when we woke up 10 hours later to 6 inches of snow. I actually slept and entire night without doing sit ups.

Hooray.

Mountain Laurel Designs 
Spirit Quilt – 28 degree – size “regular”
21 oz
$215

WORTH EVERY PENNY.

The Weight of the World

Leave a reply

Goat Lake, July 21, 2012, 10.4 miles, 1400 ft

Goat Lake, July 21, 2012, 10.4 miles, 1400 ft – from our AT training archives

Now that we’re officially preparing for the trail, the battle with the postal scale has begun. This is what arguing with an inanimate object looks like, and what the results are for a 2 day winter weight training trip looks like for one person:

System Pack Weight in oz
G4 13
liner 1.3
chrome dome 7.8
Sleep
MLD 28 24.6
MLD 38
zlite torso length 7.9
Tarp 21.6
Tyvek footprint 4.3
Clothing worn
Patagonia Baggies shorts 4.7
Icebreaker 100 wt t-shirt 4.1
Trucker hat 2.4
DarnTough ankle 2.1
Timex ironman women’s 1
New Balance 610v3 19.6
33.9
Clothing packed
Patagonia Houdini wind pants 3.1
Patagonia Houdini wind jacket 3.6
Icebreaker Anotomica baselayer pant 5
OR zip top baselayer 6.8
DarnTough crew 2.5
Smartwool balaclava 1.7
bandana 1
Homemade fleece hat 1.9
Homemade fleece booties 2.3
REI sysnthetic puffer 11
Cook
bamboo spoon 0.5
smartwater bottle (empty) x 2 2.8
pot, coozie, stove, windscreen, bearhang 15.5
Toiletries / 1st Aide / personal
hand sani 1.4
brush, floss 0.8
toms 1
weed / biz cards / sticks / marker 1.8
1st aide kit (band aids, gauze, gloves, tape) 3.9
self care kit (hydrocortizone, 2nd skin, aleve, arnicare,gold bond, chapstick) 3.7
Tech
cords – ipod, garmin, cube 2
iPod 3.1
garmin GPS 7.8
steripen 4.8
Totals
Baseweight 168.5  10.5lb
Food for 2 days 41.7 2lb 9oz
Packweight 210.2 13.13 lb

Catching Up with the Boss

Leave a reply

Preparing for our upcoming PCT hike Harpo and I have been revisiting some of Ray Jardine‘s books. Ray was the single biggest influence on how we chose to hike, and his practical (not to mention anti-corporate, DIY) attitude remains totally resonate with where we’re at today. We’re looking forward to exploring the trail where he developed the basis for contemporary lightweight backpacking.

Harpo-Mane and I sewed a tarp tent (with help from our friend Zoe) for the AT and it’s still kickin’ after over 150 nights out – including 6 weeks I recently used it in Northern Cali. I’m looking forward to putting together one of his packs for this journey…



Ultralight Beach Soccer – Gooooooaaaaaaalllllllllllllllll!

Leave a reply

It’s amazing what you can do with a light pack. Baseweight under 9lbs (with winter gear) helped offset the 2.7 lb bear canister required by the Olympic National Park… and we could still play some games with beach garbage! Fortunately with only 1.5 PPPPD of food, we could fit everything for two hikers for 3 nights / 4 days in a single Bear Vault so only the halfback had to suffer…