Anticipation

I am starting to get really antsy about my trip to Big Bend. I have never been the patient sort so the wait will be agonizing.

I received a call yesterday from Karen's nephew Clay who is a student at the University of Alabama and he is definitely going on the trip. That was good news and I know he will truly enjoy himself. Bradley Jones, who made the Pinhoti Trail trip with me will also be going.

My son Wes is starting to put together his gear for the trip. Wes has been with me twice before and has soloed in the Chisos overnight. However, this will be his first long distance backpack trip. He has always been great in the outdoors and does love Big Bend. His friend, Jeff, is working to get himself off so that he can take the trip.

In anticipation of the trip I am bugging the potential group with emails as to what to expect in Big Bend as far as weather and terrain. I sent them all a daily weather report for Big Bend that is posted everyday on their web page. The high for today is 70 and the low is 23. The temperature extremes in the park always amaze me. Because it is a desert and you get radiant heating and cooling, the nights can be colder in the low desert than up in the mountains.

This is also the time before the trip that I start getting all my gear together and begin the culling process. My problem in time past has been taking too much gear. I am always trying to plan for every emergency both medically and gear wise. I am hoping to reverse that trend this year. I am only bringing one extra pair of socks and underwear. I will reducing my first aid kit to the bare minimum. I do not need every possible gear repair item that I own.

My repair items will be a sewing kit, duct tape, super glue, tent patch, stove repair kit (I spent hours a few years ago trying to fix a balky stove) and a couple of heavy duty safety pins. I usually carry extra straps, webbing, buckles, glue sticks, head light lamps and the like.

My food bag in time past was always the heaviest thing in my pack (other than water). I always packed a breakfast, lunch and dinner for each day along with snacks, tea and coffee. In addition, my dinners were always Mountain House or Backpacker Pantry freeze dried foods. This year I am going to bring pop-tarts for breakfast, peanut butter crackers and chocolate for lunch and instant rice/potatoes and chicken breast for dinner. I want to keep my meals down to no more than 1 pound per day. I will keep some trail mix in my pocket for snacks.

I am going without a tent this year to save on weight. Instead I will carry a silnylon tarp that only weighs 18 ounces rather that my 5 pound Marmot tent. I will use my trekking poles as tent poles at night. I practiced setting this up over the holidays and it seemed to work fine. It does rain in Big Bend but normally not heavily so this should do me fine as long as I can stay out of the wind.

Over the next couple of weeks I will continue to refine my packing list probably adding and deleting the same items several times. But that is the fun of it. Anticipation!!!!!

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Toting on the Pinhoti

I met Bradley Jones and Ben Deason at the Pine Glen Campground early on Saturday morning to begin a two day backpack of Section 10 of the Pinhoti trail. This section begins at the campground and travels northeasterly to Burns Trail head near Pinky Burns' cabin. The total distance is approximately 16.5 miles and is considered moderately difficult.

Curbie had not been out lately so she was ready to go and have a good time. The weather was cool and a little overcast when we began. Once we found the trailhead we were off to see the wizard.

The first day we hiked around 10 miles and camped on a creek in Chipmunk Canyon. Along the way we went through some hardwood bottoms, along Lake Sweetwater and Coleman Lake, some pine ridges and then into the canyon. What we did not realize at the time was Saturday was opening day of deer season. We realized that when we walked under a tree stand with a deer hunter sitting in it. I wore a yellow hiking shirt but we did not have hunter orange on which we should have. I will try not to make that mistake again.

We ran into a very large Boy Scout troop camped at Lake Sweetwater. They were just getting things ready to backpack in the same area that we were going so we moved on out to get ahead of them. We spent some time exploring Shoal Creek Primitive Church and went past the Laurel Shelter.

The camping spot in Chipmunk Canyon was very nice with a great running stream next to the spot. Filtering water was very easy and Curbie could have all she wanted. I slept under the stars in my hammock that evening. The only wildlife that I heard was a pack of coyotes racing through the woods but I did not spot them. The moon was so bright that it was casting shadows on the trees up the hill from my hammock.

The next morning was a 6 mile hike to the end of the trail. It was a very interesting hike from a topography standpoint. We started in the bottom of the canyon and then gained a lot of elevation as we came out of the canyon. There were several blowdowns along the trail that I had a little trouble with. I find myself forgetting I have trekking poles and they get stuck in the limbs.

When we got to Choccollocco Lake we took a nice long break on a pine ridge overlooking the lake. This was a very pretty place and the ground was covered with pine needles making for a nice resting area. The Boy Scouts caught up to us at this point allowing Curbie to have some fun with the kids.

As I got started back on the trail I heard loud wing beats and looked up in time to see a turkey flying into the woods above my head. What a pretty sight.

The Pinhoti Trail is a true gem for the state of Alabama. It travels from Sylacauga to the Piedmont area and then continues into Georgia. The Georgia section connects to the Benton/McCaye trail which then connects to the AT at Springer Mountain. I am going to continue working on the different sections of the Pinhoti until I complete the trail.

It was a nice weekend and a good warmup for the main prize-Big Bend National Park.

New Ground to Break`

Over the last couple of months I have been in contact with some younger guys in Birmingham who are into backpacking in a big way. I posted some trip reports on Backpacking Alabama which is a site on Facebook hosted by one of these guys. As time has progressed we have now planned a trip to the Pinhoti Trail in the Talladega area. I have only liked an initial section of the Pinhoti so I am very interested in this weekend's trip.

We have had some rain in the Alabama area over the last week so I am hoping there is some water in the creeks so that we do not have to carry much. The weather looks like it is going to be very nice with cool nights, warm days and clear skies. I am sure that Curbie the wonder dog is ready to go.

I will bring a small digital camera on the trip and bring back some pictures of the area we will be hiking on. The leaves are changing and hopefully there will be some color left to see.

The Road Takes a Short Detour

We all have people who were great influences on our lives. This weekend I will along with many of my family members pay homage and honor to one of the most profound influences on my life, my Dad. Dad will be 90 years old on November 4. Since I have to be out of town that day Emily, her husband David and I will be going to Baton Rouge this weekend for the first birthday party Dad has ever had. Karen will not be able to attend because we do not have anyone to keep the dogs (this fact made Dad a little sad because he loves to talk to Karen).

Dad was always an outdoorist, he loved to hunt, fish, walk in the woods, bird watch, animal watch, just anything attached to being outdoors he loved. I guess that is where I got my love for outdoors and the activities that I enjoy doing. He did them at a time when not everything was hi-tech and there were still many places you could go and not be stopped by fences. For that I will always be jealous. But for passing on his love of outdoors to all the boys, I am forever grateful.

Sometimes life is not fair and there are times when the world seems to be closing in on you, but one thing remains constant-you can always go for a walk in the woods and things do not seem that bad anymore. But I digress. Many of the grandchildren and great grandchildren will be at their house Saturday to honor the man that we all love so much. Even though he and I do not always see eye-to-eye (mainly because as Karen says "you are Jimmy Keith") I always have respected Dad for his uncompromising outlook on life.

So Dad, get prepared for the onslaught of kids, grandkids and mostly those precious great-grandchildren that we come to see the great man on Saturday and may God bless.

And Down the Stretch We Come

After a week at the beach, eating everything in sight and 75 days till Big Bend, it is now time to get back to work. Back in the spring the Big Bend trip just seemed to be a dream. It was fun to talk and think about but it was always so far away. In addition, I knew that getting in shape was paramount to getting to go so everything seemed to not be real.

Well, reality is now starting to set in. I have taken the necessary steps to get ready to go. I have gotten into one of the best conditions I have ever obtained. I have lost about 60 pounds, added a good deal of muscle and my cardio-vascular conditioning is above average. Best of all, I have not had a cigarette in over a year. I still want one but I have not come close to smoking one.

I am now entering the last phase of the program. I will be fine tuning my conditioning by concentrating my efforts on cardio-vascular work at an incline to get ready for the tough up-hills and down-hills that await me. In addition, I will work on my core strength to help with balance and pack weight. Working on the core can be very boring but in the long run pays dividends. You cannot see much outward difference in your body but you can sure tell the difference on the trail. You are much more confident in your balance and steady with your burden.

The new thing in backpacking is called lightweight or ultralight backpacking. This is simply reducing the amount of weight you carry on your back to enjoy the experience more than just feeling like a pack mule. At first I was sort of put off by the idea. Many of the anonymous souls on the message boards were trying to make it a contest as to who could carry the least amount of weight and still survive in the wild. But the more I studied the concept the more I understood what the underlying idea was: Carry enough gear to be safe but make as many things in your pack multi-functional.

With the new silnylon material that is on the market you can really reduce the amount of weight that you have to carry. Instead of taking a 5+ pound tent, I will be taking a 8 x 10 tarp out of silnylon that only weights a pound. I have reduced the amount of first aid gear and repair gear down to a more manageable level. I am bringing a grease pot from WalMart rather that a whole mess kit and saving almost a half a pound. Rather than bringing a heavy ground cover I am bringing a piece of Tyvec that is used in the housing industry. The list keeps on going but I will not bore you with it anymore.

Suffice it to say that I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. When I start writing those kind of cliche's you know that I am ready to go.

A Break From the Routine

I will not be backpacking or hiking this weekend as I will be moving my office to the beach for a week. When I return I am planning a multi-day trip up on the Pinhoti Trail in Eastern Alabama. The Pinhoti Trail is now a feeder to the Appalachian Trail. The beginning point is in the Sylacauga area and continues to the Georgia border in the Piedmont area. The trail then continues on to the Benton/McCaye trail that ties into the Appalachian Trail at Springer Mountain.

I am going to section hike the whole of the Pinhoti Trail (in excess of 300 miles) over time. My start will be the Adams Gap, Chinnabbee and Skyline trail loop on the side of Mt. Cheaha. I am going to try this loop as a light-weight backpacker, meaning sans tent. Instead I will be using a hammock and tarp combination. I am interested to seeing how this works out. If all goes well I will not be taking a tent to Big Bend but instead will take a tarp.

The hammock could be utilized in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend but would be of no good down in the desert. The main reason is there are very few trees in the desert to hang the hammock between. That is a real shame because the hammock is a lot more comfortable to sleep in versus the hard ground. The trade-off is that when sleeping on the ground you get an insulating effect from the ground. In a hammock you get air flow from below and my big tush compacts my down bag. The obvious effect of that is a cold butt. I will counter that with my poncho liner from VietNam.

Well, more on that later, for now enjoy the week and I will be back soon.

Wild South

I took the time this morning to look at the website for Wild South. org. I met some of these guys on the trail this weekend on my overnight trip. They are surveying all the habitation along the trails and waterways of the Sipsey Wilderness. I copied a piece of their site addressing the surveying of the plant life on the Sipsey.

In a grant proposal submitted to NFF earlier this year, Wild South proposed to conduct a walking survey of all marked and maintained trails and year-round streams in the Sipsey Wilderness and record all NNIPS populations within a reasonably observable corridor. The grant was awarded, and since early May, Wild South staff members, interns and volunteers have been walking the trails and streams, collecting data with handheld GPS units, cameras, voice recorders and field survey forms. All data is collected and digitized according to the USFS’s Data Recording Protocols for Invasive Species Management and stored in the Terra module of the National Resource Information Systems (NRIS) database.

Trails, stream corridors and old roadbeds are some of the common entry points and conduits for the spread of NNIPS, so it is no surprise that our inventory so far has shown the most diverse and numerous NNIPS populations occurring along the major waterways and trails that follow historical roads. For example, Nepalese browntop (Microstegium vimineum) occurs in an almost unbroken strip along the banks of Sipsey Fork itself, as well as along Wilderness Trail 208, which follows the Old Northwest Road.

As noted in the article, they all had GPS's hanging around their necks. I asked them about the reception from the sats in the canyons and they thought the Garmin's did a great job. They thought they were getting down to about 20 feet. They also told me about a shortcut to the Big Tree through White Oak Hollow which I need to find on another trip.