Rocky Mountain High - September 2015

Rocky Mountain High, Colorado

Every now and then the stars align and you get to do something awesome.  Such was the case for me this past summer.  And in my case, the stars that aligned were my work schedule, my home & kid schedule, and the work and home schedules of 4 of my friends.  And the something awesome was a trip to Colorado to climb mountains and drink beer.

Trip Planning 101

Most of my trips happen on short notice and go to places that I know like the back of my hand.  Planning for those trips takes minutes, not hours or days.  Who's in?  Who's going to drive?  What time should we leave?  I toss some gear in a bag and off we go. 



Not so with the bigger trips.  These are the trips that happen only every few years and go someplace great.  For me, the planning of these trips is an outlet for the anticipation and excitement that's building, and a chance to re-think gear and methods that are normally just "my way of doing it."  I thought I'd share what goes through my head during this planning process.

17 Things I Keep In My First Aid Kit

I recently re-packed my first aid kit that I take backpacking, and I thought I would share what I carry in mine.  This is not necessarily meant to be an educational post, since what you will carry in your first aid kit should be fairly personal and customized for the duration of your trips, the places you go, and the kinds of ailments you might reasonably have to treat in the field.  It should also reflect your know-how.  A shaman might need less or different things than me, because I don't know how to forage for special medicinal herbs. 

Water, Water Everywhere... My Backcountry Water Treatment Dissertation

 

"Water, water everywhere / Nor any drop to drink" - an oft quoted excerpt from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, expresses the desperation of a ship's crew adrift at sea, surrounded by salt water but out of clean drinking water, and without a breeze to blow them to land.  The poem is much deeper and darker than that, but the quote comes to my mind when I think about drinking water during backpacking.

This will probably be my most controversial post to date - simply because people are generally passionate in believing that whatever method they've chosen is the best and everyone else who does something differently is loco.  I will describe to you how I gather and treat water in the backcountry currently, as well as methods I've used and discarded in the past.  It's really easy to argue about water treatment methods, which ones work, which are the best, etc.  Everyone has their own preference, this post is about mine.

April Showers

Instead of a single specific topic, I thought I'd share a few short updates on my life that probably won't ever make it into a full article.  Here's the quick rundown: (1)Tarpon Fishing in the Florida Keys, (2) Progress (or lack of) on my backpacking teepee, (3) Teaching my daughter how to tie flies, (4) My bum knees, (5) Memorial Day weekend camping, (6) Going west, young man

Let's dive in, shall we?

Benchmade Griptilian Custom Knife - First Look

I recently found myself in the market for an almost every-day carry knife.  Most days I still carry the small folding knife that I bought myself with store credit that I earned working as a counselor-in-training at a Boy Scout camp a long, long time ago.  It's a great knife - sentimental, well-loved, and still in great shape.  The knife that I'll someday hand down to my son.

I somehow talked myself into having a second option available for those days when I might want to carry something a little more substantial.  I did my research, laid hands on lots of options, and in the end chose a Benchmade Griptilian.  One of the things I really liked about the Griptilian is that it is a part of Benchmade's custom knife program, meaning that you can get it customized from the factory more-or-less the way you want it, for a small premium over the MSRP of the standard Griptilian.

On Lightweight Backpacking, Being Prepared, and Being Comfortable

• Wool Blanket
• Hatchet
• Rambo-style survival knife
• Chicken (frozen) and potatoes w/ enough aluminum foil to wrap and cook a cow
• A bottle of Jack Daniels
• Full-blown Gordon Fisherman style rain suit
• Dinty Moore Beef Stew, still in the can
• Half a dozen cans of chewing tobacco plus a couple packs of smokes
• Pancake mix (the add water & shake kind)
• Tripod-style seat
• 3-man Dome tent, w/ bathtub floor & full coverage rain fly

I could go on.

These things were all in the kit that my friend and I took on a backpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail back in college.  This was not 1978, unfortunately, though perhaps if it were the packing list would have been more excusable.  No, this was the 90's, and by this time I had been backpacking for years.  My buddy was a farm boy who rode horses competitively in 4-H and spent plenty of time outdoors.  Neither of us were city folk with no appreciation for what it takes to live outside.

My Limmer Boot Journey - Part 3 (Care and Feeding)

My posts about my Limmer Lightweight boots have been quite popular, so I thought I'd post an update now that I have a couple hundred miles on them -  not that you would be able to tell if you looked at them.  In case you missed it, here's part 1 where I talk about what it takes to get even off-the-shelf Limmer boots, and here's part 2 where I discuss my first impressions and how I broke the rules and wore them backpacking way sooner than recommended.

MYOG Backpacking Tipi - Part 1 Design

For a while now there have been a number of things pushing me towards going to a Tipi (tepee? teepee?) for backpacking.  Normally I'm a hammock guy, and it's a great solution for trips where I'm sheltering alone.  A recent 4-person trip to the Dolly Sods Wilderness was the first thing... Four of us carried two 2+ pound shelters... not bad, but probably improved upon with an ultralight 4-person solution.  The other thing that got me thinking about it was my desire to take my kids backpacking.  Real backpacking, not car camping, which would mean lots of weight on my shoulders and no real lightweight solution to sleep more than 2 of us together.  Putting someone in their own tent without Daddy would be a non-starter at their ages, so I need a big and light shelter for the whole family.  Enter my defining MYOG project for this winter... a lightweight backpacking tepee capable of sleeping 4 adults or a few adults and a lot of kids.

Suunto M-3 Global Compass Review

Suunto M-3 Global Compass

In the world of navigation, there are many choices.  These days people often opt for a purpose built GPS or sometimes even a smartphone. While I own these devices, I tend to leave them at home and instead bring along a simple map and compass.  Of course, there are also people who go naked, without any navigation aid, and instead rely on a well marked trail or other known landmarks to get themselves home. That's not for me either - I'm a compass guy.  Among compasses, there are several types - baseplate models and mirror models being the most popular / useful.

The M-3 Global is Suunto's top of the line baseplate compass, and the one I reach for most often.  I recently purchased a new one after my previous one got lost, forgot its own map and compass, and failed to make it home.  What follows is my thorough review.

Ultralight Recycled Camp Shoes

I promised I share how to make some super simple, super cheap, and super lightweight camp shoes.  Recently I was stuck in the house for an afternoon and needed something to fill my time.  Looking around my gear room, my old trusty blue foam pad caught my eye.  Camp Shoes!  Time to grab the scissors...

My Limmer Boot Journey - Part 2 (First Impressions)

Recently I decided to invest in a pair of high-quality, full leather, old-school hiking boots from the Limmer Boot Company in New Hampshire.  You can read all about the ordering process in Part 1.  I then proceeded to do exactly what Mr. Limmer told me NOT to do, and immediately took them out for a 2-day, 20 mile backpacking trip to Dolly Sods.

Backpacking Dolly Sods - October 2014



Dolly Sods in early October, 2014

 

Three friends and I headed to Dolly Sods Wilderness near Davis, West Virginia recently for a weekend of backpacking and taking in the fall color.  We chose a roughly 20 mile route and planned to hike it in about 2 days, hoping that we had timed the trip with the peak of the fall colors, and I have to say the trip worked out extremely well.

My Limmer Boot Journey - Part 1 (The Order Process)

 

I love backpacking.  I really do.  I don't do nearly as much of it as I'd like to, nor do I do enough to justify really awesome gear.  But that doesn't stop me from being a gear whore.  I've trended towards ultralight over the past 10 years, just like everyone else.  And then I got this bug.  This idea in my head that I should buy a pair of "lifetime" boots... You know the ones - really sturdy, full leather, resoleable.  The kind you leave in your will.  And total overkill for my purposes.

But that didn't stop me from searching.  At first I considered full custom, but my feet are pretty normal, and I just couldn't justify the near or over 4-digit price tag of a full custom boot.  So I settled on an off-the-shelf boot from a high-quality manufacturer.  There are numerous options, but for a variety of reasons I set my sights on Limmer Boots.