Originally Posted by
Wander'nFool
Thanks all, for the Birthday wishes! This 50 year old still's got a lot of game! The icing on the cake (banana pudding) was backpacking and hammocking on the SHT with a good friend. We tinkered a bit, blistered a bit, froze a little bit and had a lot of laughs.
The section around Pincushion will kick your buttocks, however, it also had some of the best scenery on the trip...excluding the trail along Lake Superior. Walking on the lake shore rocks was like post holing in 6 inches of slushy snow and then you'd come upon ankle wrecking angled boulders. However, we felt real good doing this section of the trail. The views were spectacular! Many folks opt out of the lake walk and take the hwy to the next trailhead.
Very happy to have Shug loan me his winter Yeti. This, along with the 2QZQ uq protector and the JRB Hudson River(L) kept me toasty warm down to 24 degrees, in pretty windy conditions too. Buying a winter uq is definitely my next major gear buy.
Can not say enough good things about the WL Lite Owl(dbl). I am 6' and 200 lbs, and was able to comfortably sleep on my back and side...with no calf or leg pressure. Real pleased with the flat lay.
The 2QZQ tarp pole and door mods on my sil MacCat Deluxe are definitely worth the added weight to me...especially in cold weather. A plus with the poles, is that I do not need tarp tensioners. Having the pole and the doors gives me a lot more options to set my tarp too. I used a CRL, but had real problems adjusting the prusiks to connect my tarp. Not sure if it was because of the wet and cold? I retied the prusiks to loosen them and still had problems. Not a good thing to happen in the field with cold hands. I am switching back to a single line attachments on both ends.
This was the first time I used whoopies in the field with my suspension. They worked great! I like them a lot.
The MoraKniv Bushcraft Survival knife is a fine knife. Man, it is a sharp knife. I am sending it off tomorrow, to have it fitted with a custom kydex sheath. It was "okay" attached upright on my pack shoulder strap, but I prefer and inverted attachment for easy, quick access. The new sheath with be built for an inverted attachment.
Shug loaned me a Black Rock Gear original hat and I loved it. Little did I know that he was in kahoots with my wife, and I had a new BR Nobul waiting for me when I returned home. A perfect match to my Marmot 850 light weight puff, for our chilly Wisconsin winters.
I did learn that I was not eating enough calories. I gave Shug a bit of a trail scare when I became a little light headed. I culled from a few of my meals and drank a lot of water. It was a good learning moment. You also have to keep on yourself with keeping hydrated during cold treks. Not as natural to remember, as when you are hiking in warmer weather.
Had a bit of a mishap with my DIY gravity filter. Unknown to us, the interior tubing disconnected from the filter and when Shug went to fill his bottle, he had the fastest fill from a gravity filter ever! We chatted out a plan. I emptied the bag and boiled some water in my SP 900. Dipped about 6 inches of the tube in the water a few times, took the now clean end in my mouth and siphoned the boiling water in the full tube about six times. Then poured the remaining boiling water through the bag tubing. So far so good.
I have learned to find a balance between hike-your-own-hike and smart communication. Shug is the more experienced in the piney woods. However, he is very good at soliciting my input with all of our decisions. I do very much appreciate how lucky I am to hike with such a learned fool in Shug. Nothing worse than being pissed off or on, in the piney woods. An over bearing, overeducated or undereducated trail know-it-all can really put a damper on your trail wonder. Discuss, pre-trek, what your bugout plans are in case of an emergency. Shug knows my wishes and I know his. We have discussed various emergency scenarios and worked out a plan to deal with these situations. Most important, always keep an eye out for each other... and with me, it is literally one eye. This will be better explained in the part two video.
Bookmarks