Zion 2024 – Segment 2
November 10, 2024 § Leave a comment
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The second segment of our Zion traverse includes what I have called Death March 1, and Death March 2 based on how I felt at the end of each of those two days, which was exhausted. Just to be clear, this is not like a Solzhenitsyn march where you know from the start what kind of day it will be, but rather each day began just like any other day when you backpack and have to move camp pretty far along the trail. Don’t sleep in; Pack your sleeping bag, and deflate and stow your air pad before you exit the tent; Breakfast on oatmeal, and coffee drinks, water up, and pack the rest of the things; Groan while raise the potential energy of the pack, and start walking, a smile on your face, and nothing but happy “What will today bring?” expectations ahead.
We compared “steps” at the end of each day, where Jed and Jim were scoring around 3-4 thousand more steps than me, who marks out a fairly decent stride. More, when I go up hill. The two “Death March” days were 24,951 and 28,985 steps, and I still backpack in fairly traditional leather boots made by Zamberland (“Zambies”) that weigh in around 4 pounds so 2 pounds per foot. Jed and Jim wear something more like trail shoes that are a lot lighter. Mike is also more traditional, and I can’t remember what Paul was wearing. I think you see where I am going here. Each step moves that 2lb boot further along the trail, and as they add up, fatigue starts to set in, so that by the end of the day, you just want to get those damned heavy-assed boots off your feet and let those feetsies recover.
« Read the rest of this entry »Zion 2024 – Segment 1
November 6, 2024 § Leave a comment
The Grand Escalante Staircase. I am sure that most people have heard of it, but I am not really sure that most people understand what it means. Yes, its an area of the country, mostly in Utah, but it has importance in Geology terms when it comes to the age of rock. Now, though there are people that would like you to believe that the Bible has dictated the age of Planet Earth, the fact it is that it is much older. Orders of magnitude older. Bible Age is 103 and actual age is 109, but we are only talking about the last 120 million years. Over that time frame, the undersea plain that had collected 100’s of millions of years of various sediment layers began to be pushed upward, and over the course of time, rose out of the water, and continued its ascent as a flat plain, however once it was above the level of the sea, it began the process of erosion. In Physical terms, it was probably very light at first. The potential for erosion is dependent on the number of feet above sea level, so not a lot of erosion at first, but of course, the uplift continued. Today Bryce Canyon sits at 9000′ above sea level. That is more than 1 and 1/2 miles. Water boils at 193 degrees at 9K instead of 212 at sea level.
« Read the rest of this entry »Zion 2024 – It isn’t 2011
November 3, 2024 § Leave a comment
The last time I went to Zion National Park was to do the Trans Zion Trek. Not the entire trek, as few people ever do the Eastern portion. It was one year after I joined my Brother-in-law Walt E for a 4 day Grand Canyon adventure that I joined him and his friends in Zion for a truly wonderful 4 days in early May 2011. I didn’t own a digital camera then, and I recall borrowing one from Ed who, for some reason, brought 2. In those days you applied directly with the park staff for permits, and the permit process was pretty simple. You submitted a request with your dates, group size, and preferred campsites as most of Zion had fixed campsites and only 1 at-large area. I think the queue was FCFS, and if the sites were available, then you got your first pick, if they weren’t, then they’d suggest alternatives, and give you a day to respond.
Today it is a wee bit different. First of all, almost everything in Zion requires a permit now, especially the famous Angel’s Landing. A certain number of sites were opened to long term planning back in March, which is when I would have had to apply to get both the back country permits as well as an Angel’s Landing permit, but I didn’t get the date straight (again) and was left with the second option which was to be ready at 2AM Mountain Time on September 5th to see if I could get a permit for up to 12. I was staying in Bend, OR with D2 and her husband Will, and you may recall my adventures in the Three Sisters the previous weekend, so I was an hour behind, and I set an alarm for 12:50 am.
« Read the rest of this entry »Three Sisters Loop – 9.1 9.2
November 1, 2024 § Leave a comment
The first part of this story went on a wee bit longer than I felt could be covered for a 5 day trip. I left off where we had blundered our way into a shortened day camping in a burn-out along Soap creek. I may have missed that we were the first ones to throw stakes into the soil, but as we the evening wore, others moved into the area as well, so there was quite the little community there by the time the sun set.
Will and I put our heads together, and using my paper map, and his online map, which basically looked like the same map, using the mileage between marked points, we were able to determine that it was 9.8 miles to Matthieu Lake, which was high up and right along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). We both felt that if we got up and didn’t dawdle, we could make the lake by noon, where we would take a nice long break, and then we would shoot for a water camp somewhere on the West side.
« Read the rest of this entry »Three Sisters Loop 8.30-8.31
September 5, 2024 § 1 Comment
Last time I was in Bend, which as it so happens was actually my first visit to Bend, I was here for 3 weeks staying with Daughter #2 and her husband Will. One day, Will mentioned that he would like to do the Three Sisters Loop, a local loop hike, in the Three Sisters Wilderness, and he’d like to do it with me. A little background. Will’s brother has done some backpacking, but Will has only done car camping, and knowing that I do a fair amount of backpacking, he wanted to give it go. I don’t think Will had any idea how big the loop was, but maybe it could be done in a weekend.
I love a challenge, and so I immediately brought up the area in AllTrails, and I quickly found a route that might be the route, and so I queried the loo[ and found this page which verified that the All Trails route was indeed the route. With the distance being shown as almost 48 miles, I quickly realized this was more than a weekend hike. More that is for me. Even with an afternoon start on a Friday, it would mean two 20+ mile days, and there was no way I was going to lead my son-in-law on death march weekend when I think it would be better for him (and me) to have a pleasant 5 day journey, and not hate backpacking when we were done.
« Read the rest of this entry »Cycling the Pyrenees – Part Five
August 4, 2024 § 2 Comments
I had joined two friends for an epic ride across the French Pyrenees in October 2022, and 3 days into the ride I tested positive for the Covid 19 virus. I convalesced for a few days, and then rode to Bordeaux and then caught a train back to Paris where I then rode West to Plaisir to join a family friend on a business trip to Caen. This should be the final installment in this series as I recall what went down, and how I remember it.
« Read the rest of this entry »Cycling the Pyrenees – Part Four
August 3, 2024 § Leave a comment
As of my last write up I had just tested positive for Covid, my mates, as agreed to, have continued on their way, and I am convalescing in a 2 star family hotel in Argeles France for 71 Euros a night which includes breakfast and dinner. I don’t know why we don’t have these kinds of places in the US, but this was quite a deal. I was staying in my room, I didn’t allow house cleaning in, and if I left my room, I was masked, though I didn’t communicate to my hosts, my condition. I was the only one wearing a mask, so maybe they figured it out. They always put in a corner for dinner far from any other guests, and no one else dealt with me.
« Read the rest of this entry »Cycling The Pyrenees – Part Three
August 1, 2024 § 1 Comment
As I write about this two years later I find that as I open up the memories, there is a lot of detail there to harvest. In Part I I talked through how I came to do this, and in Part II I covered getting here. Now it’s the morning of 3 October, 2022 and we awake in the seaside resort of Saint Jean de Luz in the southwest of France near the Spanish border and we are going to embark on the Peter Cossins researched Ride across the Pyrenees West to East to the Mediterranean Sea.
« Read the rest of this entry »Cycling The Pyrenees – Part One
June 18, 2024 § 2 Comments
It’s been almost 2 years, and I never wrote a single line here about this (mis-)adventure. Surprised I am indeed. Some time in early August my friend Tom Fahey sent me a link to a RideWithGps route across the Pyrenees that he and another friend, Augie Carton, would be attempting in October and did I have any thoughts on it. Of course my first thought was “Hell Yes!”, however I was doing a 10 day trip in the Weminuche Wilderness at the end of August early September, and I would have very few vacation days left, and then there was, of course, the expense, yada, yada. So, I didn’t ask if I could come at that time, but I told him I would analyze the route and get back to him. There won’t be any images to add in this post, but as I scan backwards through my SMS history, I see that there was an exchange with both Tom and Augie on July 30th concerning this trip, so it got onto my radar screen a lot earlier than I remember, and maybe it’s because I got to think about it for so long, that did influence my decision to join.
« Read the rest of this entry »Friday Does Me In Again
May 27, 2024 § Leave a comment
I would like to add a new additional definition for the word “Knucklehead”:
knucklehead /ˈnʌkəlˌhɛd/ noun
Any person (usually male) who, without any real knowledge of the actual route, thinks they can bushwhack from Cornell to Friday in the Catskills with a full backpack.
First let me say that I am glad it was just Jed and me. There are actually multiple reasons for this gladness, but the main one, is that at just the two of us, we could agree easily and though there was a lot of “suck” to embrace, the rewards were enough for us to walk away saying, “Though we failed in our plan, we still had a good time!”.
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