Campfire Breakfast Burritos

So I don't normally do recipes - there are a million websites dedicated to recipes of all sorts.  Most of them have about 100 pages of pictures - one for every shake of the salt shaker.  I'm not going to do that because that format drives me crazy, and this will probably be the only recipe on this blog.  But I made a bunch of these in advance of a camping trip last weekend, and they were too good not to share.

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.

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.

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...

How to Get FREE Topo Maps

If you're like me, you don't leave home for a trip without a map of the area and a good compass.  I can't help you find your way to getting a cheap or free compass, but there are a bunch of great resources online to get free USGS quads that you can print at home and take with you.

MYOG Projects for this Winter

So I've been thinking about a number of new projects to tackle this winter in the Make-Your-Own-Gear (MYOG) department.  I'm not afraid to tinker, so here's what I'm thinking about working on over the winter, in no particular order.  As I write these up, I'll link them here so it will be a quick reference to all my winter projects.  Links to similar projects I used as a template or for inspiration are on the individual project pages.  If you have any thoughts, ideas, or other projects I can turn to for inspiration, feel free to leave a comment.

How to Make Your Own Chamois Lube

An important but often neglected (or at least rarely discussed) aspect to cycling a lot is the need to lube up the old grundle to keep from getting saddle sores.  There are lots of off-the-shelf solutions out there on the market, but I think it's a bit overpriced for something that I'm just going to rub up against my man parts and sphincter.  Can't live without it, though, so I make my own.  Here's how: