Gear experiments

Before I post details of the actual hiking in the Uintas that I did, I thought I'd take stock and talk about some of my "gear experiments" and how well they worked--or didn't.

• Cheap vs. expensive specialty.  For the most part, I avoided expensive specialty gear from pricey brand-names like Mountain Hardware, REI, First Ascent, Marmot,  etc.  I bought my backpack in the Meijier sporting goods section for $50 fer cryin' out loud.  My conclusion, primarily, is that brand doesn't matter.  I was perfectly happy with my pack, my headlight, my sleeping pad, etc. even though they cost only a fraction of the expensive gear recommended by Backpacker Magazine (who, of course, pays their bills by advertising for backpacking gear suppliers.)  There were, however, a few notable exceptions.
• 50L backpack plus a "fanny pack" for items I wanted to have more on hand--a lot of folks will tell you that a 50L pack for a longish expedition is pretty small.  I did OK, though--and I really liked the fanny pack addition to keep stuff handy.  I will admit that if I'd been backpacking in an area where I needed a bear canister, I'd probably have been in trouble without a 65-70L pack, though.  I kept my needs a little light by never planning on spending more than 4-5 nights out without returning to my car and moving to a new trailhead--conveniently reloading my pack while I'm at it.
• Permethrin treated clothes.  Not sure.  I didn't get bit by any mosquitoes or ticks, certainly, but that may well be because I was there when the mosquito season was more or less over, too.  I'd like to try this experiment again.  I brought some 100% DEET spray in a pump bottle as a backup.  It ended up leaking in my pack and ruining some of my gear, by essentially starting to dissolve and destroy the plastic.  I'm not keen on bringing more again.  I'd also like to get the "real" Permethrin treated clothes; the way that bug-proof clothing actually does it, instead of the backpackers permethrin, which wears off quickly.
• No cook food.  I'd make a few changes to my food, but not many.  This worked out well.  I was certainly tired of eating the same stuff day after day, but then again, I appreciated not having the weight of a backpackers stove, or worrying about having to prepare anything.  Most likely I will by a Jetboil Zip cooking system before I go backpacking again, but not because this particular experiment was a failure.
• Lightweight sleeping bag with hat and base layers.  This didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.  Not because the concept is bad, but because I should have known that a 40° bag for $35 that actually performed as advertised was too good to be true.  I was cold every night; at least a little.  Next time around, I'll pick up a Kelty Cosmic Down sleeping bag--about the cheapest of the "nice" sleeping bags, and use that.  It'll probably take up a little bit more space, but not much, luckily.  Having a small sleeping bag is an important consideration.  Speaking of sleeping well, I'll also bring sleeping pills and some kind of inflatable pillow.  The worst part of my trip was not sleeping as well as I'd want, and not feeling rested the next day.  Without that, I could have had fun for several more days than I actually ended up doing.
• Athletic shoes instead of hiking boots.  This was another mixed success.  For the most part, I enjoyed having lightweight, comfortable shoes that didn't need any breaking in.  However, it's important to note that this hiking advice was developed in the Pacific Crest Trail by through-hikers.  The PCT is famously a smooth, easy trail for walking on.  The Appalachian Trail, by contrast, is notoriously rocky, which leads to more sore feet if the soles of your shoes aren't sufficiently hard, and more possibility for turning or twisting an ankle in low-cut shoes.  Start wandering off-trail, especially in a place like the Uintas where above tree-line has a mass of loose rocks, and your possibility for an ankle injury goes up dramatically.  I spent some time on steep scree slopes, and I did not feel secure in my ability to withstand ankle injuries.  My shoes ended up being a limiting factor that contributed to my lack of success (and later, lack of attempts) on any of the summits in the Uintas.  Of course, it's not a false binary--$35 athletic shoes at J.C. Penny's (what I ended up spending) or $300 Asolo boots, of course.  For my next excursion, I'd like to split the difference, and get some high-top hiking shoes of an athletic variety.  I mentioned earlier some Cabela's XPG mid-hikers as a strong contender for what I'd like.  New Balance also has some that are about the same price, and another pair that are even cheaper (albeit also lower--but probably high enough to protect my ankles if they start to roll a little.)
• I'm also going to ditch the rain pants.  I didn't get any really hard rain, but even if I had, I think the Frog Toggs jacket would have been sufficient.  My hiking clothes are sufficiently quick drying that I'm not worried about sitting around wet and catching hypothermia or anything like that.  To be honest with you, I didn't even use the jacket except for a brief moment the first day--it was sprinkling when I started out.  I ended up putting the jacket away after about 45 minutes or so of walking and never got it out again, even when I got caught in some other rain storms.  But like I said, I never ended up hiking in any really strong, hard rain either.

Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff National Monument

Last time I posted, I was all packed and ready to go.  I've now been back home for almost a month.  Time to start talking a bit about my trip!

I road-tripped to the Rockies from my home in the northern Midwest.  One advantage to this was that I could see things on the way.  I stopped for the first night of driving in mid-Nebraska.  It occurred to me that if I got off the interstate, I wasn't really going very far out of my way to see Scott's Bluff; a location I'd always wanted to see both because it's kinda fun and scenic, and because it's historical, as a pivotal location on three pioneer trails; the Oregon Trail, the California Trail and the Mormon Pioneer Trail.  Not only did I stop at a few historical markers in Hwy 92 (namely Ancient Bluff Ruins and the Brigham Young North Platte River crossing site) but what I really stopped for and got out and walked a bit were at Chimney Rock and the National Monument itself.  Chimney Rock doesn't have any maintained trails, but there is a small visitor center.  If you continue past the visitor center to the small dirt road to the right, you can go to a small turnaround, where there is a use trail (i.e., not maintained, but developed by persistent use) that heads to the base of the monument.

I didn't follow this trail all the way to its conclusion.  Not expecting it to be there, I wasn't really dressed for it, namely I was wearing shorts and the trail is thin and marches through unmowed thick prairie grass.  I did walk far enough to take some pretty decent pictures of the rock itself, and it looks like it continued all the way to the base of the rock were there is a small marker or some sort.  I'd really like to get back to the spot again (maybe with my family; showing them some history as well as some scenery to boot is always a worthwhile activity, right?) and walk all the way up to the marker, at least.  Just need to remember to wear long pants!

Chimney Rock approach.  I didn't have any camera batteries, sadly, at the time, so I had to take pictures with digital zoom on my phone, which are poor quality.  Sorry!

The scenery behind the rock.

More scenery behind Chimney Rock.  If you panned your view about a quarter turn to the right, Chimney Rock would be more or less centered directly in front of you.

Chimney Rock while approaching it on foot.

Closer up view.  You can just see the small marker at the base of the rock.  Unfortunately, as I said above, I didn't get much closer to it than this.

My stop at Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff National Monument was a bit constrained; although I started the morning pretty early, I had to finish this part of the trip and get back on the interstate before it got too late, because I was due at my sister-in-law's house later in the evening on the eastern end of the Uinta Mountains.  If I'd had long pants, I would have walked at least as far as the small marker you can see in the image above, but I didn't, so I turned around and came back quickly to I could proceed a few more miles into Gering, NE and from there to the Monument.

Scott's Bluff National Monument is relatively small.  There's a road that runs straight through it, and a small visitors' center.  From there, you can park your car and hike up to the top of the bluff itself, where there are a few smaller loop trails.  Or, if you're in a rush, you can drive up to a parking area near the top of the bluff and take the loop trails from there.  Because I was concerned about time, I drove to the top, but as it turned out, I hiked almost all of the way down the trail and back up again.  Next time around, I'll probably not even bother with driving to the top.

The entrance.

Either way, you can see most of what there is to see in just a couple of hours or so.  Scott's Bluff is not a pristine wilderness, it's a few hiking trails on a large rock formation next to two small but attractive little towns, surrounded by a vast sea of prairie.  From the top, you can easily see Gering and Scottsbluff, the two towns, as well as the North Platte River, a few other more distant rock formations (including Chimney Rock), and on extremely clear days, some of the distant mountains of Wyoming across the border.

Mormon handcart replica.

Famous view of Eagle Rock and the wagon replica.

 

Eagle Rock and a different wagon.

The wagon, but instead of Eagle Rock the slightly more distant Scott's Bluff itself...

The hike up the side of the monument is a scenic one, you get to see the saddle from up close, and you get to walk along a trail that hugs the sheer sides of the bluff too.  There is a small pedestrian tunnel that bores through the monument.  The early part of the hike is thus on the south side, but it finishes up on the north side.  It doesn't end at the parking lot, but rather at a far extremity of the north loop hike on the top.

At the Visitor Center looking at Mitchell Pass

Climbing the bluff on the hiking trail, you can see views like this.

Approaching the saddle on the trail.

The rocks of the saddle.  This is as close as you can get to these rocks without ignoring the signs and the rangers and pressing on across the top of the rocks.  I didn't elect to do that.  :)

On the north side of the bluff trail.

South side summit views. with a clear view of the tunnel that bores through the bluff for the hiking trail.

Visitors center from the south summit loop.

North side summit loop.  I tried to catch a hawk in flight here, but I missed.  Still, a nice view.

Further north side summit view.

The actual summit marker.

 After this, I drove to Vernal, UT, which was pretty fun too.  I was on the interstate most of the time, but got off to drive through Flaming Gorge to get to Vernal.  You can't go to Vernal and not look at some dinosaurs.  I didn't go to Dinosaur National Monument (although I'd love to on another trip sometime!) but I did see the dinosaur museum in Vernal itself.

The national monument straddles the Utah/Colorado border and is actually better known as a scenic destination than one that's really all about the dinosaurs.  It was uplifted in the same orogeny that created the Uintas (although the origin of the rock itself is different, it's usually considered the far eastern vanguard of the Uinta Mountains).

Although in spite of that, of course, a number of very productive fossil beds have been found in the area.

My niece in front of a Stegosaurus skeleton.

Allosaurus fragilis.  Always one of my favorites.  And part of my niece's head...

All packed!

Except food and water.  Lacking anything other than a bathroom scale to weigh it, I weighed myself without the pack, then put the packed up pack on, then added the fanny pack.  Got a base pack weight of 15.8 lbs, which sounds really pretty good, especially considering that I cut a lot of costs by not buying super expensive ultralight stuff, like a really lightweight, great tent, etc.

But the fanny pack was an additional 3.2 lbs.  Combined total base pack weight--and I think it's only fair to combine them--is 19.0 lbs.  Not exactly ultralight, but certainly lightweight compared to the crazy pack weights we used to haul around as teenagers.  I'm not unhappy.  I had estimated a total of 16.5 lbs, but I added a few minor items, and ended up using small bungee cords to hold the sleeping pad in place.  I could have cut off some paracord and saved some weight there, but it's not worth the effort.

I could also shave a little weight by getting rid of a few things--the fanny pack could be repackaged inside the backpack, saving the fanny pack weight.  I could ditch the SteriPEN and camera cases.  I could probably ditch the tarp.

But frankly, I think the fanny pack concept is too convenient.  So what if it adds a pound or so?  Totally worth it to have stuff readily and easily available without having to stop, take my pack off and dig through the side pockets.

The corner of my room looking a bit more organized...

Moment of truth

At least on weight.  Here's my pile of clothes and gear, waiting for me to pack it up.  Once it's done, I will weigh the total and see how far off I am on my estimate for base pack weight.

And I need to get going on my food quick!  This trip is right around the corner, and I haven't picked any of it up yet!

Tonight, I'll pack up everything in the base pack and weight the whole thing.  Plus, that way I won't have a big pile in my room anymore...

Shoes

I don't know why I've been struggling with shoes lately.  For years--twenty five or so; maybe closer to 30--I've been consistently wearing size 10½, I've struggled with the last few pairs of shoes I've bought to get them that fit.

My plan was to hike in these Fila Trail Runners that I bought a few months ago.  But the 10½ shoes didn't fit well.  I bought some 11½, and although they're plenty long; I've got probably ¾ inch almost of toe room.  And yet, my feet still feel constricted in the shoes.  Its like they're exceptionally long and narrow compared to other shoes that I've bought before.  So, I'm thinking about buying a new pair of trail shoes with only a week to go before I start hiking well over 50 miles in less than two weeks.  Ugh.  (Luckily, I see some good New Balance, Skechers and Avia trail shoes on sale at JC Penny at a good price.  I'll probably end up picking them up, because I saved money vs. my budget on other aspects of the trip, particularly on hotel stays.  Thanks to my sister-in-law and her husband who moved just a few months ago to very near where I need to stage my hikes, so I can crash with them on either end of the excursion!)

Other than this, I've got most of my gear all piled up in a corner of my room.  I don't have my food yet, but I've got almost everything else, and over the next day or two I plan to to actually pack up my pack and then put it on the scale.  Time to see if my estimates for weight are worth anything or not!

I'll end up having two measurements, because I actually have two bags--my actual backpack, and then a "utility belt"; like a hunter's fanny pack, kind of.  Because that will naturally be on my hips, the weight of what's in that pack probably shouldn't truly be listed as part of my base pack weight, which will be shared between my hip belt and my shoulder straps.  Anyway, I'll have a true base pack weight, and then a combined base pack weight showing both weights together.  Even being pessimistic, I hope that my combined base pack weight comes in well below 20 lbs.  My estimated weight is only 16½ lbs.  Of course, true ultralighters won't look at that base weight and be thoroughly impressed, but for a "standard" backpacker, that's almost crazy light, and certainly much lighter than I did as a teenager.

I find as the date of my hike is really right on top of me that I'm both nervous and excited.  Excited for obvious reasons, but somewhat nervous too.  I haven't done this in quite a long time.  Although I'm confident in my knowledge and skills, I'm not sure how it's going to work, how in shape I'll find that I am--or rather, how out of shape I really am and how much that will end up holding me back.  I've also never done a solo excursion before, and... I dunno.  I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I do find myself just a bit nervous about the entire affair.

Naturally, once I'm home, I'll post lots of pictures and trip report type information here.

Burro Packing: Epic failure becomes legend

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today, so I thought I'd discuss one of my more memorable hiking trips as a youth.  This isn't really in line with the same type of backpacking trips that I'd be interested in planning and taking today, but I've always thought it was a great story.  In fact, it's a literal comedy of errors in terms of an outdoor experience, although along with the axiom that "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye"--well, this one remained all fun and games.  In fact, this experience entered the oral tradition of Boy Scout Troop 967 where it remained for years.  A friend of mine remarked to me once nearly ten years after the fact that he still regretted not being part of this experience.

In what I believe was my last Scout Camp at El Rancho Cima River Camp (or anywhere else for that matter, since I was a Life Scout and finishing up the last details of my official Scouting career) me, Pete Ferguson and Tim Matis were all required by our Scoutmaster, along with everyone else in our Troop, to spend a night on an official "overnighter" off site from our regular camp.  The three of us were among the oldest in the Troop at this point (all of about 14), we'd all been to Scout Camp at least three times now, maybe even four in some cases, and we didn't think that that notion had a lot to offer to us.  As is perhaps all too typical for kids our age and our placement relative to the other kids in the troop, we frankly thought we were just too good for the whole affair.  Nevertheless, being powerless to avoid it, we grumpily sat with the other guys and reviewed our options.

Burro packing very quickly jumped to the front of our consciousness.  The reasoning, if I recall correctly, was something along the lines of the idea that scouts with our experience shouldn't have to carry our own gear.  Stick it on a pack animal and this activity sounds like Easy Street.  Plus, there was supposed to be black powder muzzle loader rifle shooting, which sounded kind of fun.  The three of us quickly claimed a spot on this one, and we were the only ones in our troop to do so.

When the evening of the overnighter came upon us, we found ourselves waiting at the appointed gathering place.  There was a counselor or two (a nineteen or twenty year old guy, if I recall correctly) who had been roped into doing this activity literally half an hour before we were due to arrive.  He was trying to figure out the logistics.  There were two or three other guys (hereafter referred to as the TOGs--Two (or three) Other Guys) who had also signed up from another troop.  I'm sure we must have gotten their names and introduced ourselves at some point, but we promptly forgot them and didn't speak to them again, so from our perspective, they were merely passive hangers-on who were along for the ride.

We waited about an hour over our time for the burro to actually arrive so we could load our stuff on the surly animal.  The last minute and ad hoc obviously disarray of the planning quickly sank to second place as a problem with the activity.  We were expected to lead the animal along the trail.  "Don't stand behind him; he might kick" we were told.  Well, that's all well and good if the animal would follow you, but what actually happened was that we were given the rope tied to his bridle and then we discovered that we were basically being dragged along behind the burro, who seemed much more anxious to reach his destination than we were.  Desperately trying not to fall into range of the very hard-looking rear hooves of the burro while holding the rope, we were all drug by the wretched beast through dense yaupon brush since there wasn't enough room on the trail for both of us to walk side by side and the animal was too impatient (and too big) for us to adequately keep him behind us.  Plus, we were all a bunch of city boys who's experience with the outdoors was limited to things like Scout camp, not farm work, so frankly we just didn't know how to deal with a surly, stubborn animal.  We all had a take a turn "leading" the burro, but we had pretty brief stints before managing to pawn the activity off on the TOGs.

El Rancho Cima is located in the Texas Hill Country, so we had plenty of up and down on the trip, and ended up reaching a rocky summit where we set up camp, tied the burro in a paddock and waited for the next phase of our activity--the black powder rifle shooting, and of course, dinner.

Here, of course, the poor planning and last-minute ad hoc nature of the event became, again, the bigger problem.  The closest we ever got the black powder rifle shooting is thinking that maybe we heard some black powder rifles going off in the distance.  We think.  Rather, we somehow found ourselves skinny dipping in a rocky pool, until we were chased off by extremely aggressive and painful stinging horse-flies.  We quickly scampered back out of the water and into our clothes.

Dinner, it seems, was also destined to be a bust.  A great deal later than any of us expected, we managed to somehow get our hands on a small box of snack-sized Cheetos packs and a water cooler with Kool-Aid or Crystal Light or something in it.  We each got to eat a package or two of Cheetos, then we had to use our empty Cheetos bag (which hopefully wasn't too torn) to put Crystal Light into so we could drink it.  The supply lines of El Rancho Cima clearly didn't lead out into the boonies where we were.

Having now had literally our entire evening turn into a debacle and it starting to get late, we went to retire for the evening.  We discovered that we had one two-man tent.  For six people.  We were also short at least one sleeping bag, since the counselor had been drafted at such short notice that he hadn't grabbed one.  Tim offered his to the counselor, and Tim and I ended up having to share mine.  We were so crowded in the tent that at least one of the TOGs had his head sticking out of the tent on the ground.  We went to bed.  We did not go to sleep.  Excepting the TOGs, the three of us and the counselor talked for hours into the night.  We were also, of course, extremely uncomfortable, which didn't help.  I don't remember much about our conversation, but I do know that semi-delirious on lack of sleep, lack of food, and the sheer ridiculousness of the whole scenario, our conversation seemed like the most lively, hilarious conversation of my life, before or since.  We literally laughed and shouted and hooted and hollered deep into the night, while the TOGs slept.

Then, of course, an extremely fierce thunderstorm passed overhead.  Our tent threatened to blow away leaving us completely exposed.  The sides of the tent, which was an old surplus army canvas tent on a base that was made out of wooden palettes, flapped sharply in the wind getting us fairly wet.  The TOG with his head outside didn't wake up (although his face got pretty soaked.)  We laughed even more at that.

Finally the storm passed, and somewhere between two and four in the morning, we all fell asleep.

To wake up an hour later than we were supposed to.  The counselor had set an alarm on his watch, but either it didn't go off or it didn't wake us up.  Realizing that we were desperately late to return to our merit badge activities and everything else, we dashed up, put our stuff together, and went to load up the burro... only to discover that in the night he had somehow escaped from his paddock in the storm and run off.

Completely bypassing the whole reason we elected burro packing in the first place, we ended up having to stuff all of our gear as best we could under our arms and literally run from our spot back to the main camp, short-cutting and bushwhacking through the woods and ravines for a few miles.  We somehow managed to pull it off so that we missed little more than the flag ceremony, and to stumble our way, groggy and unfed on breakfast, to our first class only a few minutes late.

It's amazing to me how an excursion that was, on paper, such a dramatically epic disaster ended up being literally the most memorable and fondly recalled experience of my entire Scouting career.  The other boys were dazzled by our rendition of events the rest of the week, which got even funnier and funnier as we recounted them, until the entire trip reached some kind of legendary status, and the three of us that managed to go on the excursion became fable-like characters in an oral saga that was passed on in the annals of Troop 967 for years to come.  I've used the burro packing experience several times as an object lesson in talks and lessons, and those of us who went (and those who wish they had) have referred to it off and on again for years.

Summer mountain trip

Well, a little later than I'd like, I finally pushed the button and ordered the Trails Illustrated maps that I want.  I got Wasatch Front North and High Uintas; both of them highlighting wilderness areas in the mountains of northern Utah.  The High Uintas Wilderness area encompasses much of the entire Uinta range, which is quite primitive; a long stretch of undeveloped wilderness that runs almost due East West along the Wyoming border from Dinosaur National Monument nearly to the Salt Lake area.  The Wasatch Front, on the other hand, are more traditional Rocky Mountains; a range that runs nearly due north/south along the eastern edges of the Provo and Salt Lake Valleys.  Because of their proximity to relatively large metropolitan areas, the Wasatch is full of recreational opportunities that are frequently availed by locals on weekends and holidays.  And because King's Peak, the highest point in Utah, is in the Uintas, that particular route is often busy as well.

Once I have my maps and can find the time to actually make my detailed plans (which I need to do soon!) I can make my final hiking routes and figure out exactly what I'll be doing and make my best plans for exactly when I'll be doing it.

My thought is, in part due to my lack of recent experience, the fact that I'm not used to the altitude, and the fact that I'm not in the best shape of my life, is to take it fairly easy, and to break myself in, so to speak.  It'll take me a good two days to drive from my home in the northeastern Midwest to the hiking area.  I'll take a couple of days in a local hotel before going out in the tent and warm-up with day-hikes, is my plan.

Although subject to change, I'm thinking of exploring the Lone Peak Wilderness area my first day--a small wilderness area east of Salt Lake.  I might summit Lone Peak itself, but we'll see how I feel.  The elevation is relatively low compared to the Uintas (the summit itself isn't much higher than where I'll be base-camping in the Uintas!) but the elevation gain is quite a bit more.  The second day I'm in the area, I'd like to summit Timpanogos, in the Mount Timpanogos Wilderness, east of Provo and very near to Sundance Ski Resort (where the film festival is held.)  Like Lone Peak, the elevation isn't too bad, but the elevation gain is more than I'll do in the Uintas later.  I might actually break this one up into a two-day excursion and spend the night near Emerald Lake.  It's a long day hike for someone who's probably not going to be moving too fast.

Assuming these warm-up hikes go well, my plan is to enter the Uintas from the north and head towards King's Peak, summiting the Utah highpoint, before heading south and hitting South King's--Utah's second highest peak, and less than a mile from King's along the same ridge.  In part to take it easy, in part to enjoy the experience more, and in part to try and find some solitude, I won't be coming in on the Henry's Fork trailhead, but rather one of the trailheads a bit further to the west.  This gives me a chance to see some other iconic Uinta peaks (like Red Castle), enjoy the ambiance of the mountains more, get more acclimated before I head to 13,500+ King's and South Kings, and maybe most importantly, avoid the crowded route.  No doubt I'll see other hikers as I approach my destination, but I hope to have at least a day or two of solitude on either end of my summits day.

Depending on how fast I hike and how much time I still have left after doing this, I might then head south for a bit and see Goblin Valley State Park as well as the Wild Horse and Bell slot canyon loop before heading home.  Or, I might stop on the way home by Devil's Tower and/or Mount Rushmore.  I don't want to get too aggressive with plans before I really know how much I'm going to be able to pull off, though.  I might not make as good a time as I'd like to think, due to weather, due to just me not wanting to push myself, or any other number of factors.  How much and what I see after the "main hike" in the mountains will probably remain open options that I can choose from at the end as time and energy permit.

And, of course, my plan is relatively non-detailed right now.  I don't even have a proper map yet, much less a lot of good beta on the route, so it's subject to change over the next few weeks as I round up details and see how realistic all of this really is.

And, you have to remain flexible on the ground.  I may have a solid plan to summit on a certain day and have to call it off due to thunderstorms or something.  A good plan is good--in fact, essential--when planning a backpacking trip, but the ability to flex your plan on the fly if necessary is important too.