Gear Ruminations Again

Back in June I pulled my backpacking gear out and went through it. Most is in fine shape, some of it needed replacement because it was defective, and a few things needed replacement because my corcumstances have changed.

Consider my bivy sack, for instance. I have an OR Advanced Bivy sack. It retails for $299 (currently, it was cheaper back in the 90s), and is pretty much the ultimate mountaineering bivy sack. Before owning that bivy sack I once spent three days buried in the snow in a blizzard. I had a tarp and a garbage bag then. At one point I discovered for some bizarre reason that there were some frozen hot dogs down near my feet. I bent one of them and it made a terrible cracking noise, and at that point I realized that a) my toes were frozen, and b) that was a toe not a hot dog.

SAR was (and still is) an unpredictable trip planner. When I bought the bivy sack, it went into the SAR pack. Only the most durable and hardcore bivy sack would do. SAR missions are spontaneous, and often take you into bad weather. The state policy had been that teams should expect to be out 8 to 12 hours, but should be prepared for 24 hours. George had us be prepared for 48 hours, and on a big search in a remote area he might send you out on a single mission for as long as three days (there are no roads in wilderness areas, so remote searching requires a lot of hiking). Back then missions were long too, since people didn't have cell phones and GPSes. I spent a week searching for a young boy named Michael, and I didn't come the first day, and I left long before it was over. His body was found years later.

I'm not very much in SAR anymore though. I moderate the mailing list, and sometimes I think I should join AMRC for the excitement and difficulty of their training, but for the most part, I don't do SAR. My bivy sack is heavy, so I bought a new one. It is still an OR bivy sack, but this time it's the lightest sack they make. I'd say that most of the time it will still be overkill for what I need, but not as much overkill as the OR Advanced Bivy, and it saves me a noticeable amount of weight and size.

Since I was replacing my bivy, I decided to replace my long underwear too. I have three pairs of it. My black pair I purchased in 1991 or 1992, and is the kind of polypro that retains odors. They've been through a lot with me, and have some holes in them, but are still in good enough shape that I wear them. Sometime in the late 1990s I bought a set of white capilene long underwear. I haven't worn them as much as the black ones, so they are better shape, but they look worse because the color shows stains more easily. My final pair is a set of very heavyweight long underwear that seems to be military surplus. They've never been worn in the field, just around my house in the winter. My new underwear is a set of SmartWool microweight long underwear. I'm very interested in going back to being a wool-wearer for the cold weather. Wool is nice stuff, and merino wool is extra nice. I had planned to wait until winter, but plans have changed. I might make an Augusth 12th midnight ascent of Copper Canyon, and if I do, I'm pretty sure I won't be wearing shorts up there.

There is also gear I need to purchase for the first time. I hope to go up Ladrone this winter. And if I do, I need crampons. Admittedly, I have made it up Ladrone without crampons and I'm sure I could do it again, but I think I'd rather have crampons. I've never bought crampons before. Not only will I need to get crampons that fit the boots I currently have, but I should make sure they fit the boots I plan to upgrade too.

Losing my pack over the edge at Cold War Cave has led me to believe that I need to carry rope in it at all times. All it needs to be able to do is hold the weight of a pack, so a 50' length of the Kelty triplite would be idea. It holds far more than my pack will ever weigh, and it weighs nearly nothing itself.

Wednesday Night Walk

From 20090729

Walked around with John. Was hassled a little by campus police because Billy Romero doesn't think that public property is open to the public. Went a little over 9km in two hours.

Tuesday Night Running Failure

My gamers were clearing out nicely by 22:00. Jason asked if I was planning to run at Clarke Field, and I said I was, so he said he'd walk over with me. Instead of departing at the field, he walked around it with me. Then again. And again. An hour and forty minutes later, I noticed what time it was and how long we had been at it. We went around a couple more times, then each headed to our own homes. So I got in two solid hours of walking and no running. I'm guessing it was probably about 10km, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

Further Monday Night Adventures

Walked 1/4 mile. Ran 1/4 mile. Walked 1/4 mile. Ran 1.4 mile. Walked 1/4 mile. Ran 1/4 mile. Walked 1/4 mile. Ran 1/4 mile. Walked 1/4 mile. Posted about it on the internet.

Meditation

Along with all this hiking and walking and (sometimes running) and (soon to be) mountain biking, there is yoga and meditation on the horizon. Meditation happened today, at the yoga place. Yoga doesn't start for a few weeks yet. All in all, I managed to sit through the two meditations we did quite successfully. I fidgeted less than my future yoga instructor did. On the other hand, she had all kinds of things to say about the experience, while I was left with feelings that I was itchy, and that I didn't know how to contemplate things. I didn't participate in the group discussions at all because of it. I may not make the next session, but I'm certain to go back.

Cold War Cave

From 20090726

From 20090726

Today we hiked up to a place in Water Canyon that I refer to as Cold War Cave. Back when I used to go there a lot, during the cold war, we didn't really have a name for it. It's quite close to the campground, but there is no trail. Not only is the mountain quite steep, but towards the top it's bathed in scrub oak. I lost a lot of blood on the way up. On the way down, I put my gaiters on, and it was much more pleasant. The pass into the valley seemed different, and once through it I discovered that I had taken the right one instead of the left one. The left one (as you face it from the bottom) has a jumble of rocks with a corkscrew gap that you can wiggle up and down.

The valley itself is steep and brushy, but small and semi-sheltered. There are lots of overhangs, small cracks, and a couple of small caves. The cave we had planned to hide out in after nuclear war is a deceptive dead end cave with a side tunnel hidden on the left. The tunnel goes in, turns, and has a side room off of it. It isn't big, or glamorous, but for a post-apocalyptic world it would do nicely. It would need work to level out the floor, and it would always be extremely dark inside.

The trip down was quick. In the corkscrew rocks I dropped my pack down into the first hole. It ended up tumbling down and went over the edge. My nice metal Sigg bottles didn't take it very well. The camera I had with me was too slow to catch it going. Once I had managed to climb down to it I was taking pictures when Brad lost his pack in a different part, but it also came out and shot past my head. I didn't get a picture of his pack flying through the air either.

As you can see above, the GPS tracklog and profile show problems. The new GPS is more sensitive, and does a much better job, but there were lots of places where I was underground and it just isn't sensitive enough.

Hells Mesa Report And Pictures

There are three things you should know about Hells Mesa.

1) There are no trails.

2) There are no trees.

3) There is no water.

Those three things appear to describe the entire area, not just Hells Mesa. I got the idea of going to the Bear Mountains because the Forest Service had mentioned that no one goes there. Well, there's a reason no one goes there. They suck. At least, in the summer they do. I suspect they might be very pleasant in the spring or fall.

We headed out looking for a FS road that took us to a spring on the South side of Hells Mesa. We missed the road because it wasn't marked, but found it on our second trip back through the area. There is an old house towards the end of the road that someone put a lot of work into. It must have been a nice place back when it was inhabited.

Since there are no trails, we just headed up the side that looked easiest from the topo maps. It worked out well enough. Hells Mesa isn't really much of a mesa. It's more like a ridge, but without peaks on either side of it. On top we discovered a lot of tarantula hawks, but no sign of any tarantulas. There was one dead tree, which I hammocked in. But one tree doesn't hammock well. Brad tied his hammock off to the tree and a bush, and elevated the bush end with a rock. It kept him barely off the ground. Not to be outdone, I did the same, but elevated my bush-end with my trekking poles.

We went down to the West, and looped around back to the truck. All told, it was a short trip. But the rough terrain and the steepness of the ascent made it a hard trip. The sun was brutal.

I regretted not having replaced my climbing helmet yet. If one had been with me, I'd have been wearing it. This was also the first hike with actual pain and injuries. I took a stick to the stomach and bled. Loose rocks elicited painful screams from both of us during the treacherous descent.

Mesa Trail #13 on July 19th

From 20090719

It was a fairly long hike over an easy trail. We went up the Northernmost part of 13 and hammocked at the top. From there, we headed South and did the loop that hits the two scenic viewpoints going widdershins. After the first viewpoint the trail went bad on us. It was missing in many places, easily misplaced in others, and plagued with fallen trees just about everywhere. We lost the trail and had to backtrack a few times. It was rather pleasant. Once we made the loop, I took a left, mistakenly believing the fork I wanted was in that direction. It wasn't, but we got extra hiking in as a result.

Once again, the trip down was the worst. We were already tired, and the sun was unbearable. Our conversation drifted from small talk into length discussions about exactly how much water we had left. At some point during this hellish part of the hike, I announced that it was too hard and I should go back to sitting at home stuffing myself full of delicious food and getting all my exercise from playing WoW. Brad reminded me that my goal was to die by the Mountain, and not from diabetes, and he's right. Then I realized that if I didn't bring water on hikes like these that I'd easily achieve my goal.

Overall, it was a decently long hike. The brutal sun was the worst part of it. Again, I hadn't taken enough water with me.

A gallery of a few of the interesting photos follows.

Hells Mesa Profile And Tracklog

From 20090725

From 20090725

It was 4.56km today.

I still need to upload pictures from a week ago, and talk about it, and pictures from today, and talk about it.

I'll get to it.

Update!

Monday I ran. I think I already posted that here. Tuesday I was tired, and starting to hear things, so I decided to sleep instead of doing anything Tuesday night. Last night, Wednesday night, I did a 2.5 mile walk.

Still no pictures available from the Mesa Trail hike on Sunday. My hard drives filled up the day before on Jason's wedding, then my ethernet switch went out leaving my computers isolated from each other and the internet. Things were mostly back to normal, but I did a partial upgrade of my server and ended up crippling useful programs like emacs because I didn't upgrade everything. So I have bigger problems still than getting those pictures online. Soon though, I hope.

Saturday I plan to hit Hells Mesa, and Sunday I plan to hit an old cave me and my friends had planned to hide out in when Russia nuked the United States back during the cold war. Neither should be very long or strenuous.

Running

No pictures yet from Mesa Trail. I'm fighting hardware failure in my home network and a full hard drive.

Tonight I went to Clark Field and I ran four laps. I wasn't anywhere near fast, but I was doing a lot more than just walking. suspect I could have run more laps as well, but four laps is enough since my last attempt at running on netted me something like 370 meters.

Mesa Trail #13 Tracklog

From 20090719

All total we went a little short of 16km. I'm not nearly as beat as I was last week. The trail is bad in lots of places.

Last Nights's Walk

Went on a walk around on the Clark Field track last night. Did 10.1km in about 150 minutes. An old toe problem is returning from my days of running. I forget the name of it, but I remember the solution: athletic tape! I wore my new fancy wicking boxer shorts, and my wicking The North Face t-shirt, and overall I was quite pleased. Previous experiences in nighttime walks were not as pleasant due to the sweat, but the wicking layers kept me dryer despite the hotter night last night.

GPS Comparison

My Gecko 201 weighs 112g. My eTrex H weighs 182g. I paid $117.99 for the Gecko 201. I paid $81 for the eTrex H.

Now compare tracklogs. Both were set to 1m recording intervals. One is definitely more accurate than the other. It's the eTrex H.

From 20090714

Tonight's Adventures

Most recently I went to Clark Field and walked around it many times. I went two miles, but was thwarted from going farther by an upset stomach.

Earlier today I drove out to the ranger station in Magdalena. The guy manning the front desk was useless. But I kept asking him questions until he passed me off to one of the guys in an office. The new guy wasn't nearly as useless, but he still couldn't answer most of my questions. Eventually he passed me off to someone else, who just happened to have all the things that the first two had no idea about. Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned is that the Cibola National Forest has a trail crew now. It's been at least a decade since they had one.

I think Clark Field will need to become a somewhat regular part of keeping my legs moving. It's close and reliable. No hills or interesting terrain, but it saves a tremendous amount of gas since I don't have to drive to it.

Because of the troubles I've had with track logs I bought a different GPS. The new one is cheaper, still has 10,000 tracklogs, and boasts a more sensitive receiver than my Gecko 201. The forest services guys prefer it to the $3000 professional Trimbles that they are given by the forest service.

Yesterday's Pictures

Some of the more interesting pictures I took yesterday.

I'm still very sore today.

New Gear

Thursday of last week I went to REI to pick up some new shorts and a titanium cooking pot. Both had been on sale, so it was a good deal.

While at REI, I picked up an MSR nano pack towel because I felt I needed it, and browsed the sale racks in the store. I found a button down shirt that I can use at work for those rare days that a customer comes, and a The North Face t-shirt that was only about $20 instead of $30. The regular cotton t-shirts I wear have proven to be hot and sweaty. The North Face t-shirt was horrendously over priced, even on sale, but the promise of superior materials lured me into it. It also had the benefit that the shirt was cut so that there wasn't a seam on the shoulder, which should make it more comfortable to wear with a pack.

I wore the t-shirt yesterday for Copper Canyon, and it was well worth it. I wasn't sweaty, I felt cooler, and it was more comfortable. I still think it is horrendously overpriced for what it is, but I don't regret buying it. I may even buy another, and pay full price if I can't get it on sale.

I also put the nano pack towel to use. This new towel is vast improvement over the pack towels I owned in the 1990s. I bought it to clip to my shoulder straps so that I could use it to wipe sweat off my face. I've had trouble with sweat dripping into my sunglasses, and my only recourse had been to squeegee my face off with my fingers, which isn't effective. The new pack towel worked well. I might need a slightly bigger one though.

Yesterday's Hike

Dave came down from ABQ to go on the hike. Like me, he wants to be fit and healthy again. We headed out and parked at the Water Canyon picnic area. From there it is about one mile to the trail head. The hike up Copper went amazingly better for me this week. Last week I required two hammock breaks on the ascent. Yesterday I blew through where I'd taken the first hammock break with no trouble. When I got to where I'd taken the second hammock break I could have kept going, but it seemed like an ok time to stop, so we took a hammock break there.

We pushed on and made it to the fork in the trail that we had encountered the previous week. Past that, we found another fork in the trail. The second fork we found was the fork marked on the map, so my distance guesses for the previous trip where short by maybe half a mile. I have no idea what the first fork is now. It is a real fork, with blazes and maintained trails, but there are no signs. Perhaps we shall have to hike it to find out where it goes.

I still felt good, so we moved on through the fork heading up towards trail 8. The final climb out of Copper Canyon was a bit brutal, but eventually we reached a point where we could look up and see sky instead of just seeing more mountain. One up on the ridge it was a wonderful treeless and grassy meadow with rock cairns to guide the way. We headed back roughly parallel to the trail we'd come up on trail 8, under the assumption that was the trail that would take us to the Langmuir road. It cut through the trees South of South Baldy. We encountered some hikers along the trail, and I asked them where the trail we were on went too. The guy feigned ignorance at knowing where he was, but did admit the trail we were on was in fact the trail we thought it was, and we were quite close to the end.

At the road, we headed down to the top of trail 11. At trail 11 I admired the tire tracks left through the meadow by people driving around in the grass, and then we showed my map to two hikers who were unable to locate the trail they were looking for. The trip down trail 11 was brutal. I'd felt pretty good up until this point, but I hadn't taken enough water, and I hadn't been adequately drinking the water I did have with me. Trail 11 is steep and hot. The sun was unrelenting. By the bottom of the trail I was seriously considering just collapsing.

Eventually we emerged onto the road. I was beat. And there was still a bit of road hiking to do. I hiked for a while, but eventually had to stop. I think we were still a mile or a mile and a half from the car. The people we had encountered on trail 8 came down the mountain, and I asked for a ride. They gave us one, which was good. All total, the GPS recorded about 15km of hiking and about 1150m of elevation gain.
The narrow canyon in the upper part of Copper played havoc with the GPS though, so it was probably a longer hike than that.

Back at my car I finished off the last sips of water I had, and drove to Socorro. At home I didn't really have any food. And I was so tired that I felt like I was on the verge of collapse. I'd taken food on the hike, and eaten it, but apparently it wasn't enough to keep me going. I ended up seeking out a ride to the Asian Gardens. Their soup is made from broth, and that kind of soup has always made me feel better after strenuous activity. All the other soups in town are thickened bowls of glop with more stuff in them then liquid, and that isn't fulfilling. The soup made me feel like I was dying anymore, which is good.

I'm sore today. And sunburned. The pictures aren't offloaded yet. Sometime today for sure.

Today's Tracklog

From 20090711

I'll post about it later, and upload some pictures. Hiked about 15km.

Copper Canyon

Headed back to Copper Canyon any minute now. The GPS is inside the pack, not clipped on to the outside of the pack. And I've upped my weight carried for this trip by adding my silnylon tarp, 100' of cord, a map, and 15 tent pegs. Though I may cut the tent pegs and cord down to a more reasonable amount carried before I set off to carry them.

Today should be good I hope. My toe is still purple, but not tender to the touch, so I'm hopeful I can wear a sock with it. If not, I have first aid supplies that will help me through.

Pictures From Copper Canyon

Pictures from Sunday going up Copper Canyon. The long white thing in the water is a giant worm.

GPS And Map Distance

I found my GPS. Long before this happened I'd commented on the Amazon product link warning that the belt clip on the GPS holder wasn't reliable. Now I have proof, not just suspicion about it.

I found my Cibola National Forest map. It appears to still be T/S/R style mapping, so the squares are 1 mile. It looks like I hiked almost exactly a mile from where I parked to the trail head. From there it looks like we headed West across one square, and Southwest across another to a fork marked on the map. We had stopped at a fork in the trail, both with blazes, that looks a lot like the fork on the map. So 1 + 1 + 1.4 = 3.4 miles one way, 6.8 miles both ways. That would explain why I'm so beat.

I have pictures, but none have been offloaded yet.

GPS Woes And Copper Canyon

This morning I clipped my GPS onto my backpack. I put the backpack into my car. I drove to pick someone up, drove to Supermart to buy some trail food, drove to Burger King to buy some breakfast, and drove to Water Canyon. At Water Canyon there was no GPS attached to my backpack. I can't find it in the car, and I can't find it at my house.

We hiked up Copper Canyon for quite a ways. I think it was a good day. But I have no distances, so I don't know for sure. A hiker with an altimeter said we had gained 1200' at our second rest stop. We hiked from the campground, not the trailhead, and we continued past that rest stop, so I'm guessing it was closer to 1600' elevation gained. The only landmark I really know was what appeared to be a fork in the trail. I'll try to find that on a map.

Water Canyon on July 2nd, 2009

From 20090702

Thursday after work I went out to Water Canyon alone. I headed West from the campground, up what used to be an old barely passable road. The entire area up there has been improved since I was last up that way. I'd noticed that camping was no longer allowed at the Water Canyon Campground, and the improvements are why. Just up a well made road is a camping area with firepits, latrines, trash cans, tent pads, and picnic tables. Even further along is a gated and fenced in group camping area with handicapped parking and a huge group of picnic tables. Just past the group camping area the road reverts to being in poor shape, though only for about 50 meters. It's a good road if you can get past that one bad part.

All total, I hiked about three miles I'd guess. The GPS batteries didn't make the entire trip with me, but they did the first half which is the track log you see above. I took a few pictures, which you can see below. Pulling times out of the GPS tracklogs I've made, I find that my batteries had been with me for about 14 hours before they died. I had used the lightweight and expensive lithium batteries. Amazon tells me that I should get 12 hours of operation on alkaline batteries. Customer comments tell me that 12 hours is unreasonably optimistic for it, and six is more like it. Perhaps I'll try some alkalines and see how long they last compared to the lithiums.