Thanks to HikingDrews's recent comment, I discovered eyehike.com. It's a treasure trove of resources – especially for the Wonderland Trail.
I haven't spent as much time as I would like on the site yet, but here are some of the things I've found so far:
Check it out – handy site.
Our Wonderland Trail hike will probably involve a reasonable amount of snow travel given how early in the season it is and the current record snow levels.
I'm noodling on options for extra traction control. YakTrax makes a product that at approx 5 oz straps onto the base of a trail shoe for extra traction.
I'm thinking it might not be compatible with the big lug soles of my Golite Sundragons.
I'm also thinking it might be overkill to justify an extra 5 oz and poles and caution will be enough to get by with.
Interesting product though.
Longmire Ranger station called today to inform us that they were able to make one of our backup itineraries work. Score! We're going to Wonderland!
The trip is set for July and our Camp sites are as follows
I'm really excited about it already.
Tips from the ranger:
I discovered “Mini Tissue” the other day on a fellow backpackers blog and ordered a pack.
These things are kind of cool. We normally take a few wet-ones with us on a trip to augment our TP supply. The moisture in the wet-ones add a weight penalty that means we don’t take too many. One reader suggested drying them out prior to the trip and re-hydrating on the trail. Neat idea – but I’m too lazy.
Enter the “Mini Tissue”, these tiny compressed tissues expand when you add water into a very strong ‘shop-towel’ kind of material.
They weight about 10 tissues for 1.0 oz.
Here’s a video of me re-hydrating one in our kitchen sink.
The West Coast Trail is notorious for it's wetness. One investment we made prior to the trip last year was a couple of dry bags. These don't show up on my gear-list as I wouldn't normally feel that they are necessary, but they sure gave great peace of mind. They delivered bone-dry down night after night – even after a few mud-pit submersions 🙂
At 0.9 oz for the Small (4L) – I ended up taking two. One to cram in my down sleeping bag and one to protect my spare clothes. Theresa needed to take the Medium (8L) at 2.3 oz to fit her bulkier bag.
Available from backcountrygear.com starting at $11.95 for the small.
The morning sun is shining sparkles off the fresh snow and the clouds are starting to lift. It's very pretty on my desktop today.
If you haven't already, download Mountain Desktop here.
OK… first of all I have to introduce the man behind this amazing creation.
None other than Mr. Bill Snead. I was fortunate enough to get to hike (and double-turtle) with Bill on our WCT trip last year.
Bill currently works at Microsoft and is a very talented developer. While he may blow off his creation as "no big deal", I'm blown away every time I use it and am excited to see it stable enough that he's willing to share it with others.
So what is this "creation" I speak of?
Bill took the Windows Live mapping engine and overlayed on it, USGS trail maps.
Yeah yeah, big deal… Google has been doing this for a while, right?
Bill one-upped them.
The Windows Live guys didn't just stop at building a simple GPS satellite view mapping service, they integrated with the Microsoft Flight Simulator Engine which allows you to get very detailed 3-D style views of supported terrain.
Bill's mapping data has altitude information that allows for an incredible 3-D experience when viewing hiking trails and terrain.
Remember the topo-style pictures in my recent post about Little Annapurna? This is the tool I used to take those snapshots.
It now supports both FireFox and Internet Explorer (Windows Only, no Mac), and you can check it out for yourself at:
http://www.midstation.com/topo/
Usage Hints:
– Make sure you put the map in "3D mode" and download the necessary plugins.
– Hold down the CTRL key and LEFT mouse button and move the mouse around the rotate the image.
– Use the mouse-wheel to zoom in/out.
– Hold down the SHIFT key and LEFT mouse button and move the mouse around the pan the image.
– Depending on how "Zoomed-in" you are, different scale maps will load, over the topography.
IMHO – the results are staggering. Find your favourite trail and zoom right in and follow the contours and enjoy.
Great job Bill!
Trail permitting begins on March 15th (Tomorrow) for the Wonderland Trail. We have an application ready to go in the mail.
The Wonderland Trail is an epic 94 mi hike around Mt. Rainier. Aside from the distance, there's quite a lot of elevation gain.
Some resources:
We applied to take on the trail in mid July. Hopefully, we have a warm spring and a lot of the snow melts.
The adventurers on this trip will be myself, Bill & Tim (from our WCT Trip) and Nigel. Nigel is taking Theresa's spot as she is pregnant and due in August, so won't be able to make it.
We going to take a somewhat relaxed pace and do the trail over nine days. There are two points at which we can cache food for re-supply, so with only having to carry three days of food on each leg, we should be able to go pretty darn light.
I've been considering the plunge into alcohol stoves for a few years now. My brother made me a pepsi can stove a few years back. I haven't quite struck up the courage to rely on it yet.
Several people have recently mentioned to me how impressed they are with the Caldera Cone ™ System.
OK.. I'll bite, so what would it take to make me switch?
First lets review my current gear list. My current cooking system comprises of 3 components:
 |
Snow Peak Giga Power Stove |
 |
|
 |
|
|
12.7 oz Total |
The windshield is the biggest offender, and I often tell myself to leave it home, but I rarely do.
As I already have a BPL 550 pot, they make a cone custom to for this pot – which seems like the way to go.
The cone & stove weigh just 1.7 oz. Given that the cone is a natural windshield this saves me a whopping 4 oz! I suspect I could get more mileage on a 7 oz bottle of alcohol than I could in the 7 oz fuel canister.
For just $30, this might be an experiment I'm willing to tinker with.
Oh yes… the gratuitous upgrade I made prior to the West Coast Trail trip last year.
I traded in our Black Diamond LED Headlamps for these little suckers.
Total weight savings? The old headlamps weight an outrageous 1.1 oz, and these are only 0.2 oz. A whopping 0.9oz gain!
OK… I agree I'm getting into diminishing returns on my gear list and would be better served eliminating the Tarptent for a sheet of Tyvek. 🙂
So why the upgrade? Aside from just being a gear-head, there were are few other justifications:
1. Not just a simple on|off flash light – this thing is tricked out! It has a brightness control and you can dim it very low to conserve power. It has various 'blinking' modes – like an emergency SOS signal. All of this configuration with just a single button.
2. It runs for 120 hrs on a single battery.
3. The spare batteries are lighter.
4. With a little tab of Velcro on the back, it attaches easily to the rim on a hat to make a decent hands-free head-lamp mode.
5. It's bomb-proof and waterproof.
Finally… if you think about getting this – a word of caution. The light ships in a 'safety' mode to prevent accidental battery drain. If you turn it on, it auto-shuts off after 5 seconds. To get it out of this mode you have to hold the button down for a whopping 20 seconds. I learned this the hard way on the WCT. Three engineers around a campfire failed to figure this out in four nights on the trail. You wouldn't think that a single button can have so many permutations! Moral of the story: RTFM.
Available from PhotonLight.com for $19.95.
Certainly not ultralight. Ultra-stylish maybe?
I thought this post on Engadget was quite amusing.
I guess it's handy for making sure your lipstick doesn't get smudged on the trail maybe?
Trail Name: Little Annapurna
Distance: 15 miles, round trip
Elevation Gain: 5,200 ft
High Point: 8,440 ft
Trip Date: Aug 12th, 2007
Permits: Very restrictive over-night permits. A few are available by on-the-day lottery. See here for permit info. Day-use only permit available at trailhead.
Getting There: From Seattle – take Highway 2 east to Leavenworth. As you enter the town – turn right on Icicle Road. At 8.5 miles, turn left onto FR 7601 and follow it 3.7 bumpy miles to the Stuart Lake trailhead parking lot.
Read on for full trip report…
The "Enchantments" are a breath-taking, endless sequence of lakes nr. Leavenworth, WA.
The area has a very strict permitting policy and only a few lucky people get a permit for overnight stays each year.
This picture was taken on our last trip there in 2004. If you are running Windows Vista – it's pretty much taken from the same spot the default Vista desktop background is taken from.
If you've ever wanted to hike the enchantments and are thinking this would be the year to do it – the applications are due soon.
You cannot mail your application prior to Feb 21st (postmark) – but it has to be there before March 1st. Then at random, they will select applicants for a permit. There are several strategies around filling out the form to improve your chances.
Some good tips and more information can be found here:
If you backpack in groups of 4 or more, it's sometimes fun to play a game of cards at night in camp. Hearts? Spades? The options are endless…
These cards are tiny and weigh in at 0.53oz.
So go on and splurge on your next trip and treat yourself to that extra half ounce!
You can get a 3-pack from the Backpacking Light Store for $2.99.
Theresa keeps a pack in her purse also. We've occasionally pulled them out on the Washington State Ferries to alleviate the boredom on rainy days. �
I've been looking for a better treatment solution than MicroPUR tabs.
They work great, but we usually only let them sit for a half hour. In icy cold or dirty water, the recommended time is 4 hrs. I've always wondered if we are just being lucky when we are using very cold water from most of the streams around here.
So what are my other options?
Chlorine Dioxide also comes in liquid form – which has a faster reaction time.
Aqua Mira has had a two-part product on the market for quite some time. However, it requires pre-mixing before adding to the water – which sounds like too much effort.
KlearWater is a newer product that is pre-mixed and has a decent shelf life. It comes in small 9ml containers, that weigh 1.22 oz and treats 9 liters+. Ryan Jordan talks about a way to re-pack them down to 0.5 oz and a strategy that can stretch this to get 25 liters of treated water.
Another interesting 
product is the Aquamira Frontier Pro Filter, shown on the right. This is inline filter is a mere 2oz in weight and fits onto the opening of a platypus bag and the other end to a hose.
I love the idea of not needing chemical treatment and having instant water, but I need to read some more reviews before I'm sold.
I went to my dentist today for a tooth repair. Bob Spreen (quite possibly the worlds best dentist) was in a very excited mood. Last time I was there, we talked a little about backpacking and how he likes to get out once in a while, but doesn't so much anymore… his gear is heavy etc. I told him about my new found way of travel and something clicked. Bob is a weight-geek at heart too – except for him it's about shaving the extra threads of the titanium bolts on his racing car for more speed. Ultralight backpacking seemed like the perfect fit.
Bob and his wife acquired some new gear – a GoLite Jam Pack, a lighter stove etc and got their weight down considerably this year. They both said how much they enjoyed the new freedom. They don't use the new advantage to travel faster or greater distances, but use it to simply not be tired at the end of the day and not feel encumbered on the trail.
Hearing their story made my day. 🙂
OK… maybe the headline sounds like something out of a tabloid, but there's a grain of truth in there.
There are two things that struck me recently where my fetish with going lighter has been of benefit in my normal life.
1. Light Airplane Travel
I go on a lot of business trips with my job and I travel very light. On one-day trips to the bay area, I'll take next to nothing: My mobile phone, a tiny ipod shuffle in my pocket and maybe a laptop (no laptop bag). At SeaTac airport – as I don't have carry on bags I can save time at security by using the 1st class line (For 1st class, MVP members or passengers with no carry on). On 2-3 day trip I might bring a small shoulder bag and on week long trips I bring a small Samsonite bag that I bought in Japan – similar to this.
I watch people fighting over locker space and hauling huge oversized bags onto the plane and getting stressed out all the time. Not me – traveling light takes all the stress out of flying. I can roll on after most people have boarded and always guarantee I can find a time bit of space overhead or worst case under my seat.
2. Impulse Purchase Immunity
Back in the heavy days I used to love to go to REI and get sucked into buying something cool and new. Oh! Look! An ice cream maker for camping, or a mini espresso maker. Now, I still love going to REI – but I'm immune to such impulse purchases. I scoff at the weight of things. Why would you ever bring a 20 lb dutch oven with you on a camping trip? I get more pleasure from purging things I already own, then I do acquiring new things.
The Sierra Club initiated an effort that was adopted by an environmental organization in New Mexico to tax video games in an effort to encourage kids to spend time in the outdoors.
I'm skeptical that a nominal excise tax would be punitive enough to discourage a purchase and suddenly encourage playing outdoors. However, perhaps with increased revenue one of these organizations might have the funds to be able to reach out and market to these children to encourage them to get outside.
I think the responsibility lies with the parents, not the IRS, to pull the power on the xbox and encourage their kids into the wilderness.
Happy new year! It's 2008, and I'm noodling on some backpacking goals over the next few years. I haven't done much long-distance backpacking. Most of my long ones are in the 30-50 mile range. I'd like to expand my horizons (and mileage) a little…
Here are some hikes that get me drooling:
1. The Wonderland Trail
This is in my own back yard, so it's a must. A 93 mile jaunt around Mt. Rainier. I think this might be my big trip next summer.
2. The John Muir Trail
This is supposedly one of the most spectacular sections of the PCT, that goes though Yosemite Valley in California. Its 211 miles in length.
3. The TGO Challenge
I already mentioned this one. 200 miles from west->east coast of Scotland.
4. The East Coast Trail
The antithesis of the West Coast Trail. This trail is still under development, but offers 335 miles of very pretty coastal hiking.
5. The entire Pacific Crest Trail
And finally… the mother of all challenges. This trail runs from Canada to Mexico down the west coast of the US. At 2,650 miles it would be a serious commitment – but I would love to do the entire PCT (continuous) some time in the next 5 years. It seems like one of these life-changing trails.
There are several long distance hikes I want to do over the next few years, 
and one of them I've had my eye on for a while is the TGO Challenge. TGO or "The Great Outdoors" is a magazine published in the UK.
The TGO Challenge is a ~200 mile hike from the west coast to the east coast of Scotland.
Of course… unlike hiking in the Pacific Northwest – Scotland has a generous helping of pubs to stop at along the way 🙂
Every year in October, TGO magazine publishes the entry forms for the challenge, which is held in May. It's an oversubscribed event every year and space is allocated by lottery. The official challenge site is http://www.tgochallenge.co.uk/.
I may have missed the window to apply for 2008 – but hopefully I'll I RESOLVE to be more on top of it next year. 🙂