Weminuche 2022
August 20, 2022 § Leave a comment
This is going to be a very short post. I promise.
If you follow my writings then you know that I just finished writing up my adventure from 2021 a few weeks ago. These long multi-day trips become a chore to sit down and compose sometimes, and I don’t want it to seem like I drone on and on about the same old drivel. So I got distracted and didn’t finish documenting last years trip, and then time kept marching forward, as it always does (tick tock), and before I knew it, other adventures had come and gone, and been written up as well. It wasn’t until I rode the Rockies again in June, that I came to realize I needed to finish the 2021 write-up before I began 2022!
So, what is going on in 2022? Well, let’s begin with who is going. There were four people who wanted to go last year, two of whom actually had monies invested in the trip when shit happened. The other two, father and son, had family obligations that kept them away, and so on the second day of our trip last year, amidst the beauty of the San Juans, I decided then and there to come back this year. I wasn’t going to do the exact same trip, but I would plan a new trip and anyone who wanted to join was welcome.
For a while, I had the interest of a couple of campers who came last year, but other things got in the way, and they backed out. So, it is five of us. A pretty nice compact little group. We have Larry and his son Drew, myself and my daughter Alyson, and my friend Mike. Everyone has spent time with me in the back country before, though this is the first time that my daughter has been able to join us again since the Grand Canyon in 2012.
That is the base. I have been in contact with some others that could join us, but as of this writing, I am not sure we will have anyone else just yet. You might be thinking “If they were going to join you why wouldn’t you know that, and since you are in Durango, wouldn’t they have had to make arrangements already?” and you would be right for most people, but the extras I refer to all live in Durango. We shall see what we shall see.
What are we doing? Last year we took the Durango Silverton Diesel to Elk Creek and then backpacked an inverted “C” from West to East to South To West and eventually came out at the “other” stop on the train. So train in, train out. This year we are going to start at Pine River Trail Head, further East and South of our adventure last year, and hike North East for a couple of day, then turning North West to intersect the Continental Divide Trail, which we follow to the Vallecito. If you read last years trip details, then the Vallecito will be familiar, and we will basically then follow the route from last year. The only difference from last year will be instead of a two day Columbine effort, we will do it in one day.
Now, again, if you read last years account, it should be obvious by now that decisions are made on the trail, and last year we made more than a few. I am sure the same will happen here as well. It all depends on how people feel, however we have distance that has to be covered, so there isn’t a lot of room to do less in a day while there is a lot of room to do more. So let’s leave it at that.
We depart into the wilderness next Friday. I am going out tomorrow, and people are joining starting Sunday. There are things to do still to prep, and I will be working still as well. I am not sure at this point if I will post anything more until I return, but …
Brokeback Mountain Weekend Dec 4-6 2020
April 1, 2021 § 1 Comment
The planning of this weekend has somewhat been discussed, as here for example, already, and perhaps there is some humor and purpose to scribing some of what the weekend actually entailed. There was at least one first for any of these “Weekend Warrior” type trips, and perhaps, to some degree, maybe another, though the former is much more notable, than the latter.
I call it a weekend, but really it’s a three day weekend. The average age of the crew, brought down somewhat by the recent addition of a one Dan G… (name protected to protect the innocent), hovers in the very high 50’s if not almost low 60’s, so, looking back (as I am at the moment) to all the weekends that have come before (and there were many), the trend (some would say not a great trend) has been towards less backpacking, and more hiking. That is to say, backpack in, establish a basecamp (I think one word works fine here), consume beers the rest of Friday which could (not always, but has) include a late night hike (but this weekend did not), and then a hike (sometimes challenging, sometimes not) on Saturday, leaving plenty of time to harvest more trapped CO2 in form of downed timber, followed by more beer consumption, and finally a backpack out. On occasion, there has been a late night hike as well, however, the few times that has occurred has been within the “late night hike rich” confines of Dolly Sods in West Virginia.
« Read the rest of this entry »Planning a Brokeback Mountain Weekend
February 14, 2021 § 1 Comment
When non-camping friends I have ask me just how do these weekend trips get planned, it’s hard to really comprehend all the negotiations that occur to determine a weekend, then to determine where we go, and finally to determine what we will do, besides build a big fire, consume the hauled-in assortment of quality craft beers, cook and share the equally well thought out food stuffs and smoke the many fine cigars and cigarette tobaccos. What is going to be posted here, for all to read, is some, maybe all the correspondence that flies around that great echo chamber known as The Internet as we work these details out.
« Read the rest of this entry »The Halfway on the AT – Not the Winter Trip We Expected
January 19, 2020 § 2 Comments
You may recall from my previous post, that there was a plan and except for a little damage to Andy’s wife’s Infinity and a little bit of rain, everything was so far going to plan. We all arrived safely, ate huge breakfasts at The Elkhorn in Bendersville, and we pared everything down to all the food, beer and booze we needed to enjoy all ourselves for the weekend. We set out from our parked vehicles, and we headed South on the AT, which at the start was nothing more than getting out of the parking lot, and walking along the road until the trail turned right and started climbing past some local hunting cabins. The grade was a pretty easy grade, and there really wasn’t anything in this day that was expecting to be any real challenge.
« Read the rest of this entry »Christmas AT Backpacking Trip – Ma to NY via CT – A Change of Plans
January 5, 2020 § 1 Comment
You may recall from an earlier post, the preparation and the plans I made for this grand winter adventure. As is usual I fall into a capabilities trap. I reason (wrongly) that if I can cover 6 miles in Hartshorne Woods in 90 minutes, then surely I can cover 21.6 miles in 7.5 hours of daylight. The math says 18 miles in 4.5 hours, which leaves 3 hours to spare for the final 3.6 and some stopping here and there, and that is where my fatal flaw lies. An unburdened jaunt through Hartshorne, is not the same as a burdened, though lightly burdened I was, jaunt through the Taconic Mountain range through which most of the Connecticut AT traverses. You just can’t do it. Let me re-phrase. A 60 year old in decent shape such as myself coot still can’t do that. Hell, the same flaw led us to a 21 mile hike in June along the AT where we still didn’t cover our goal, and we had a much longer day for that.
« Read the rest of this entry »Christmas AT Backpacking Trip – MA to NY via CT Day 1
January 5, 2020 § 3 Comments
I stayed in the city Christmas Eve with Susan, filling our belly’s with Tenho ramen, and getting to bed long before midnight. My plan was to arrive at Grand Central with plenty of time to find my platform, and possibly find an open food establishment. Susan packed me a nice breakfast of granola, yogurt, and some Clementines, but with a long hike ahead, I thought some coffee, and a pastry of some sort would supplement well.
« Read the rest of this entry »Christmas AT Backpacking Trip – The Preparation
January 4, 2020 § 3 Comments
After returning from a three day weekend backpacking trip in Pennsylvania Furnace State Park, also known as Michaux State Forest where the Appalachian Trail halfway point between Springer Mountain Georgia, and Mt Katahdin Maine lies, I had all my gear still out and ready to put away when I thought “What if I took some time before the end of the year and tried to knock out the AT in Connecticut?” Though not the shortest sections of the trail in any state, it is pretty low. Maybe even number 2 to West Virginia, but maybe even number 3 to Maryland. I knew that the total length in CT was just over 50 miles, and I was already familiar with the Southern terminus; I just didn’t know much about the Northern end.
« Read the rest of this entry »Eagle Cap – Walt
September 28, 2018 § 1 Comment
Walt, as you may recall from this earlier profile on him, is my brother-in-law. I am fortunate that a man as busy as he is, can find, or make the time to be off the grid for an entire week. In a business where 24×7 problems can be escalated very easily to the director level, or at the vary least need to be socialized with the director, it’s hard to imagine that a) anyone else would want to step into that for a week, and b) the adrenaline rush of having to make those kinds of decisions all the time, can be hard thing to step aside from. To have a silent phone for an entire week. I would imagine there is a certain level of ghost alerts where a muscle twitch feels like a phone alert.
Mountain Lake Wilderness – 2005
August 16, 2017 § Leave a comment
My first winter backpacking trip was a weekend on the AT out of High Point New Jersey during my first trimester break from college in 1977. I was a freshman at Penn State, and while I was home for the Christmas holidays, my buddy Chris suggested we do a weekend on the AT. I can’t say that everything went great on that trip, but I learned that you can backpack in the Winter, and it brings a different set of circumstances to bear each and every time.
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