Out on Dingle I used the Eureka Backcounty1 tent. My Scouts gave me this tent as an end of the year gift last year. It weighs 3 lbs 14 oz, which is relatively heavy for me, but it's sturdy, holds up well in wind and rain and is free standing--unlike my Spitfire solo--2lbs 14 oz + all the patching I did after the encounter with the cat so probably like 3 lbs even.
Lately, I've been thinking about tarps. This isn't a very attractive option for me in Florida--due to tick-carpeting and mosquito clouds--but I'm thinking that once I'm out of this (God-forsaken) state that tarp-ing will be more of an option.
If a tarp weighs 9.2 oz plus say 3.2 oz for stakes (GoLite aluminum V stakes), 3.2 oz for a tyvek ground sheet and another say 6 oz for a rope that puts us at 21.7 oz, or about a pound and a third--way less than half of the Spitfire's weight. If bugs really were a problem I could throw in a bug bivy for another 14 oz. For a total of 35 oz or 2 lbs 3 oz I could have it all.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Home away from Home
I worked here for a few summers, some of those young staff were my campers. Le sigh...
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Trail Tales Thursday, Dingle #4
Dingle Way, Day 4
5 July 2010
Fred and I got up early and humped our gear down to the dining room. While I was writing postcards, drinking a cup of coffee out of an awesome Batman mug I found in the dish cupboard and worrying about the retired Belgian Army beating us out onto the trail Fred was using band-aids and moleskin in some ingenious combination that I wouldn't have dreamed of in a thousand years.
It was a drier morning than the other two and we were in good spirits as we headed up the road from the hostel. We had planned to do 17 miles and we were both nervous about the distance--neither of us had done such a long day before. But, we had all day and nothing else to do but walk.
Shortly after leaving the hostel we passed a famous pottery shop (Louis Mulcahy Pottery). The guide book promised coffee in the cafe, but we were passing by an hour before opening and didn't feel like taking a break yet. We dropped down over some dunes and passed the beach where Tom Cruise once stood--they filmed Far and Away on Dingle. Fred and I took a picture, but neither of us had ever seen the movie, so we weren't too impressed.
We walked over some beautiful cliffs, located Skelator's Island and crossed some fields with the Three sisters in the background. We started a race with the Belgian Army when we spotted them on the beach. It rained on us earnestly and we ducked under someone's overgrown garden wall to pull on raingear. Fred draped his overgrown self with his brittle blaze orange boyscout poncho. I was embarrassed to be seen with him thus attired but we pressed on. It stopped raining precisely when we'd left our garden wall shelter. It warmed up quickly but the damage was done. My feet were wet and I didn't stop to change my socks. Trench foot had begun.
We ambled over beaches and fields for the rest of the day. Around the town of Ballynagall, after we'd walked the square of Smerwick Harbor we crossed a few creeks headed to the bay that were full of giant scallop shells. I tossed a couple into my backpack for souvenirs. In town we stopped at the Post to buy some Cokes and candy bars. Fred was looking for more moleskin, he'd already gone through my whole supply. Irish Posts have pretty much anything you could want (including fresh baked bread) but sadly no moleskin. The Belgian Army was there when we pulled up.
The rest of the day was a blur of wet feet and road walking. We missed a crucial turn around Feonagh and accidentally headed east up a road off the Dingle Way. By the time we figured out our mistake and made our way back to the Dingle Way we'd added a few extra miles onto our trip. Around 5pm we were nearing our critical exhaustion point and passed a Bed and Breakfast. Rooms were 80 euros a night, way beyond our budget so we pressed on.
When we reached what looked like the last house on earth, right at the base of Brandon Mountain we hollered over a high wall into a paddock where a man was working on a tractor. Fred asked him if we could camp in his yard. He seemed a bit put off--maybe by our forward desperation, but he offered us a small private corral for ourselves and even showed us where the spigot was.
I hung my socks on the fence, spent some time lamenting my sore feet and discussing nutrition with Fred. Based on his calculations and the assumption of 10% efficiency of human metabolism coupled with the force it takes to move our weight a certain vertical distance (not accounting for horizontal distance) he figured we needed only 97 calories to power us over the mountain in the morning. I scoffed and had a second helping of our gourmet trail dinner--rice and cheese.
We kicked the sheep droppings out of the way, dodged the 3 foot high thistles and settled down for the night after watching some tv on the ipad. Luxury camping.
5 July 2010
Fred and I got up early and humped our gear down to the dining room. While I was writing postcards, drinking a cup of coffee out of an awesome Batman mug I found in the dish cupboard and worrying about the retired Belgian Army beating us out onto the trail Fred was using band-aids and moleskin in some ingenious combination that I wouldn't have dreamed of in a thousand years.
It was a drier morning than the other two and we were in good spirits as we headed up the road from the hostel. We had planned to do 17 miles and we were both nervous about the distance--neither of us had done such a long day before. But, we had all day and nothing else to do but walk.
Shortly after leaving the hostel we passed a famous pottery shop (Louis Mulcahy Pottery). The guide book promised coffee in the cafe, but we were passing by an hour before opening and didn't feel like taking a break yet. We dropped down over some dunes and passed the beach where Tom Cruise once stood--they filmed Far and Away on Dingle. Fred and I took a picture, but neither of us had ever seen the movie, so we weren't too impressed.
 |
| Three Sisters |
We ambled over beaches and fields for the rest of the day. Around the town of Ballynagall, after we'd walked the square of Smerwick Harbor we crossed a few creeks headed to the bay that were full of giant scallop shells. I tossed a couple into my backpack for souvenirs. In town we stopped at the Post to buy some Cokes and candy bars. Fred was looking for more moleskin, he'd already gone through my whole supply. Irish Posts have pretty much anything you could want (including fresh baked bread) but sadly no moleskin. The Belgian Army was there when we pulled up.
The rest of the day was a blur of wet feet and road walking. We missed a crucial turn around Feonagh and accidentally headed east up a road off the Dingle Way. By the time we figured out our mistake and made our way back to the Dingle Way we'd added a few extra miles onto our trip. Around 5pm we were nearing our critical exhaustion point and passed a Bed and Breakfast. Rooms were 80 euros a night, way beyond our budget so we pressed on.
When we reached what looked like the last house on earth, right at the base of Brandon Mountain we hollered over a high wall into a paddock where a man was working on a tractor. Fred asked him if we could camp in his yard. He seemed a bit put off--maybe by our forward desperation, but he offered us a small private corral for ourselves and even showed us where the spigot was.
I hung my socks on the fence, spent some time lamenting my sore feet and discussing nutrition with Fred. Based on his calculations and the assumption of 10% efficiency of human metabolism coupled with the force it takes to move our weight a certain vertical distance (not accounting for horizontal distance) he figured we needed only 97 calories to power us over the mountain in the morning. I scoffed and had a second helping of our gourmet trail dinner--rice and cheese.
We kicked the sheep droppings out of the way, dodged the 3 foot high thistles and settled down for the night after watching some tv on the ipad. Luxury camping.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Bears
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| Bear Safety by the USDA |
In a nutshell: Bears? How do we feel about bears? Do we take bears seriously, or not? The question is whether or not bear canisters are overkill on the AT.The answers range from "No, a bear canister saved my cache" (including a picture of a well gnawed but not comprised canister) to "Don't be silly, bears don't exist on the AT/aren't real on the AT (compared to the Real Bears Out West)/aren't anything compared to the mice on the AT". Not a small proportion of responders claimed to sleep in their tents with their food. What? Folks, c'mon, really?
Bears do get bags down from time to time. If bears become adept at retrieving food bags they can become habituated to an area and become a nuisance--which puts them at risk for being shot. (I hear they're pretty fond of the Spring thru hike season in GA) So, in that way one could argue that hanging bear bags is actually a bad thing to do and therefore sleeping with a bag of food between your legs, or near your head in your tent at night is good.
But, bears are smart and have an amazing sense of smell. How long before they decide that it's easier to pluck the bag from the tent you're in? A layer or two of nylon certainly isn't as difficult to get through as a minivan door.Besides the risk of losing your food, there's the risk of loosing limbs or worse. People do get grabbed from tents--it's not common--but it happens.
It seems to me that a bear can is the safest bet, but if the choice is between hanging a bag or keeping a sack of bear bait next to my head, I'm going to hang a bag. After all, hanging a bear bag seems like common sense, and it's free.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Passing it on
You never forget your first. The campmor catalog was a staple in our house but I don't think I seriously picked one up until I was about 11. I'd grown out of my kid sized bag and needed a new one. Dad taught me that one must not pick sleeping bags by color alone.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Bears! and the PCT bagging method
My middle school Scouts want to go backpacking over Memorial Day weekend. They were supposed to go a few weeks ago but we had an unfortunate limb-breakage that precluded us from saddling up (so-to-speak). Consolation prize is a trip over the last long weekend in the school year. But it's going to be hot. They're thinkers though and have decided that we'll go somewhere with springs to cool off in. Okay by me, but now we're looking at getting into bear country--since there are no places in South East or West Florida that satisfy their requirements for backpacking AND springs. North/Central Florida does fit the bill.
I won't lie. Bears make me nervous. Nervous for myself, but mostly nervous for other people's children. Maybe I'm irrational. I've never even seen a bear in my life. I do find that sort of surprising considering I spent lots of time traipsing through the woods as a kid, and there were probably plenty of bears out there. There are firsts for everything--for instance, I was never stung by a bee until last summer. I was sitting in my living room watching TV when one ambled right up and rudely jabbed me in my elbow. I was just minding my own business, the NERVE.
That's just me though. These kids are tough and are remarkably calm. They've handled torrential downpours and freezing overnights (literally, in FLORIDA!), they've come face to face with a roving gator and didn't even pee their pants (though I nearly did).
Mostly one just has to be a bit more vigilant while in bear country. The Scouts already know how to hang food bags--they've spent tons of time in raccoon-land--but bear bags require a bit more thoughtfulness. Some folks even take it to the next level by cooking dinner along the trail a mile or so before making camp and hanging anything that smells (which always includes toothpaste and other toiletries). I'm not sure if that's totally necessary in the dense wilderness of Florida, but it couldn't hurt.
On my first East coast backpacking trip I made the critical mistake (no, not EVERY backpacking story features a critical mistake...just the interesting ones) of forgetting a rope. I figured that we'd be okay without the rope--there's no bears on Cumberland Island anyway. Just wild horses. I've always been careful to hang my food because of bears, so for some reason I never considered the possibility that other animals may also eat food--like raccoons. Of course, when we got out to the island the ranger reminded us to hang our food and I felt pretty dumb. We had a couple extra straps and managed to rig up a really pathetic hanging system. It lasted two nights, but on the third and final night the raccoons stopped feeling sorry for us and raided the stash. Cumberland Island is a popular place and the campsite we were at was fairly crowded. It was one of the most embarrassing things that's ever happened to me in the woods--or, rather one of the more embarrassing things that I'll ADMIT to having happened--stooping around picking up plastic and food wrappers sheepishly. Luckily there was only breakfast in the bag--a couple cliff bars and left over oatmeal packets. Lesson learned: it's not just bears that eat food.
I found this really awesome video on the Youtube of the PCT Bear Bagging method which I'll make the Scouts practice before we head out.
I won't lie. Bears make me nervous. Nervous for myself, but mostly nervous for other people's children. Maybe I'm irrational. I've never even seen a bear in my life. I do find that sort of surprising considering I spent lots of time traipsing through the woods as a kid, and there were probably plenty of bears out there. There are firsts for everything--for instance, I was never stung by a bee until last summer. I was sitting in my living room watching TV when one ambled right up and rudely jabbed me in my elbow. I was just minding my own business, the NERVE.
That's just me though. These kids are tough and are remarkably calm. They've handled torrential downpours and freezing overnights (literally, in FLORIDA!), they've come face to face with a roving gator and didn't even pee their pants (though I nearly did).
Mostly one just has to be a bit more vigilant while in bear country. The Scouts already know how to hang food bags--they've spent tons of time in raccoon-land--but bear bags require a bit more thoughtfulness. Some folks even take it to the next level by cooking dinner along the trail a mile or so before making camp and hanging anything that smells (which always includes toothpaste and other toiletries). I'm not sure if that's totally necessary in the dense wilderness of Florida, but it couldn't hurt.
 |
| Fig 2. There are no bears on the beach |
 |
| Fig. 1 Horses don't steal food |
On my first East coast backpacking trip I made the critical mistake (no, not EVERY backpacking story features a critical mistake...just the interesting ones) of forgetting a rope. I figured that we'd be okay without the rope--there's no bears on Cumberland Island anyway. Just wild horses. I've always been careful to hang my food because of bears, so for some reason I never considered the possibility that other animals may also eat food--like raccoons. Of course, when we got out to the island the ranger reminded us to hang our food and I felt pretty dumb. We had a couple extra straps and managed to rig up a really pathetic hanging system. It lasted two nights, but on the third and final night the raccoons stopped feeling sorry for us and raided the stash. Cumberland Island is a popular place and the campsite we were at was fairly crowded. It was one of the most embarrassing things that's ever happened to me in the woods--or, rather one of the more embarrassing things that I'll ADMIT to having happened--stooping around picking up plastic and food wrappers sheepishly. Luckily there was only breakfast in the bag--a couple cliff bars and left over oatmeal packets. Lesson learned: it's not just bears that eat food.
I found this really awesome video on the Youtube of the PCT Bear Bagging method which I'll make the Scouts practice before we head out.
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