Hello, this is Crout(?) and I’m sending this blog post by talking into my phone via free service from Jott.com. I learned about it from Ben and Lorin’s blog. So you can blog while you talk on the phone. Okay, bye. listen
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Month: March 2008
Trail update
I’ve bought my plane ticket to San Diego. I leave in two months. I think I will skip doing the Grand Enchantment Trail(GET) this spring as I haven’t done all my chores. Also, the logistics of doing back to back trails makes me sleepy. I can always do the GET in the fall after hiking the PCT(Pacific Crest Trail), if I have a bunch of energy left.
The logistics of doing a long trail are much easier than doing a bunch of small trips. It’s also cheaper. Like for the PCT, all you need is a ticket to San Diego ($116), a thru hikers permit($5), a bus to Campo($15), guidebooks, data book, and town guide($92) and you are all set for 3-5 months of non-stop hiking. You can take side trips, go where ever you want…just moving through the world–free. Walking and sleeping high up on the crest with a sunset and sunrise everyday. No, securing the proper permits to move or camp. You are home.
Blue plastic tarp tent.
I just discovered this site last night called minibulldesign.com. This guy makes a huge variety of pop can stoves, a Heniken can pot (with lip guard), and has instructions on how to turn a cheap blue plastic tarp into a 20 ounce tarp tent for two.
Even though I hike with about 2 grand worth of gear, I have this dream of being able to outfit myself for a couple hundred dollars . When I go to Walmart I always think, “Now what if you had nothing, and you needed to outfit yourself for living completely out of your pack and you could only spend like 100 to 200 dollars and it had to be lightweight. What would you buy?” So, blue plastic tarp and contact cement would now be on my list. Build your own Hasty Hooch!
He also has a blog. It looks like he makes a lot of youtube videos.
Spring snow
Most of the snow is gone here. The buttercups are blooming. Yesterday, when I woke up there was 3 inches of new snow, but by afternoon it was gone. This morning everything was flocked with new snow and the sky was pink. Now it is a gloriously sunny day.
A few days ago, thinking that spring was here and that I should be able to find some good trails to backpack on around here, I went to the ranger station. He said everything is under at least 1 1/2 foot of mushy wet snow. He said he had tried going out this early one year, and he was cold, wet and miserable.
Cob Builders Handbook–online.
This is a good book about how to sculpt your own dirt cheap house– The Cob Builders Handbook, and now it’s offered for free, online.
If I ever stay home for a summer this is the kind of home I want to make for myself.
Buyers remorse from the Sawyer ‘Just Drink’ water purifier.
I bought the Sawyer Just Drink Water Purifier. Someone on the Yahoo group, “PCT 2007”, was big on it. It was supposed to be lightweight and purify–not just filter, but purify– out all bacteria and viruses for 3000 gallons and then you backflush it and it’s good again. I liked the idea because sometimes I run out of Aqua Mira and it’s hard to find along the way.
Sawyer advertises this as something to not only camp with but to have on hand for emergency water purification in case of the municipal water source becoming polluted. Their big thing is all you do is “Just Drink.”
But the instructions call for you to have a safe source of tap water to prime it with. Why would someone who had a safe source of tap water, need a water purifier? They say not every faucet will work with it and if you can’t get it to work on one faucet find another. My only faucet is a gravity feed system from a 55 gallon barrel up in my loft; it didn’t work. I took it into town and tried the library’s faucet and that didn’t work either. Once it quits freezing, the town will have the community facet turned on; maybe I will try it there. I don’t know if once it is primed then it stays that way or if you need to keep finding faucets that work with it to prime it.
I do know that is heavy. With what water I have managed to get in it, it already weighs 9.5 ounces(269 grams), then you have to add a ring, a cap, some hose, and a big plastic bottle ( it won’t fit into a regular wide mouth Nalgene).
Also the instructions warn against it freezing and they say you need to drain the water out of it to store it… but I can’t get what water I have managed to get into it, to drain out, so I’m guessing mold will be a problem. Probably, I should just toss it.
Maybe I’m missing something here; there is a video on justdrink.com. If I find some high speed internet, I’ll watch it and then maybe it will all become clear to me. I see a problem with requiring a safe source of tap water and high speed internet to get a water purifier to work.
I would warn you not to buy this unless you hear from people who actually used it and had a good experience with it.
Mcflurry spoon doubles as long handled spoon and tent stake holder.
I’m thinking that this Mcflurry* spoon would double as a tent stake holder and a spoon. 
I like my tent stakes immediately accessible for quick tent setups. I also don’t want them to be poking a hole in my tent. This set up fits nicely in the inside pocket of my pack for immediate accessibility of my spoon and my tent stakes. The tent stakes fit snugly in the spoon so I don’t foresee a problem using the spoon while the tent stakes remain in the handle. It weighs .20 ounces or 6 grams.
*A Mcflurry is an ice cream and candy dessert at Mcdonalds.
Califorina fire permit
If you want to use a stove or have a fire in California you need a permit. It looks like in some areas, alcohol stoves, wood burning stoves, and fires are prohibited even if you have a permit. Here is a link to the permit. You just print it out; it’s already signed.
I don’t need one, because I won’t be bringing my stove. I carried my stove for awhile last year, but couldn’t find any food that was so good that it was worth carrying a stove plus fuel and a pot for, so I sent it all home. Having a stove also eats up a lot of time. I use to lay in my bag until I had drank 3 hot beverages in the mornings; last year I got earlier starts–and early starts are key if I want to get some good mileage in. There were a few times that I missed having a hot beverage.
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Staking your tent
One really windy night in the Sierras, I was camping with Just Dave. He gave me this staking advice.
1. Brush the surface duff away so that you are staking in as solid ground as you can.
2. Put your stakes in at an angle towards the tent.
After those two things failed me, I went searching for some big rocks to anchor my tent with. Only able to find two rocks, I decided it wasn’t going to rain, took down my tent and slept under the stars. Just Dave was afraid that the wind was going to rip his tarp so he did the same.
No-lose ’em Tent Stakes
I bought some red reflective tape at Wallmart and wrapped very thin pieces of it around my tent stakes in hopes that when the wind blows hard in the night and rips out my tent stakes, I can find them.
The little ones are orange titanium stakes from backpackinglight.com. They weigh 6 grams or .20 of an ounce a piece. A big wind can pull them out easily. They are painted orange because if they weren’t, there would be little chance of not losing them–I know this from first hand experience. Still, orange may as well be black, at night, so I have improved them by taping the red reflective tape on them.
The bigger ones, I believe, are Kelty’s Hexagonal aluminum stakes. They weigh 14 grams or .50 of an ounce each. I like the bigger ones because the wind doesn’t pull them out as easily and because they aren’t as easy to lose. They also are stronger.
In a comprise of light weight verses function–and because it’s what I have and I don’t want to buy anymore gear–I’m going to carry 3 of the big ones and 3 of the little ones.
Haitian Woodstock on the Appalachian Trail
There is a monastery on the Appalachian Trail. The guide book said that the monks allow thru-hikers to camp there. I was going to stop there and take a couple half days off to meditate and enjoy monastic life while I waited for another hiker to catch up with me.
First clue that this wasn’t going to be the retreat I had hoped for was the used diaper and the empty half rack of beer laying on the trail. As I tried to find my way to the place where the hikers were allowed to stay, I was met with loud live music and about 10,000 Haitians. I kept asking people where the ball field was but no one spoke English. There was trash everywhere.
I finally found the ball field. One of the monks showed up and welcomed me. He seemed totally oblivious that 10,000 Haitians had just trashed his monastery. He said that they usually would leave some food for the hikers, and sure enough a woman pointed at a barrel of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a bag of rolls. A couple hours later everyone was gone and I pushed some trash aside and put up my tent.
The next morning the sun that I had seen little of, came out. I woke to looking out at the trash strewn ball-field. I had some time to kill because I was waiting for another hiker to catch up, so I started to pick up the trash. As I was picking up the trash, one of the monastery people drove up and waving his arm out at the trash covered field shouted, “Did you do this!” and then laughed.
It felt so good to be walking without a pack, in the morning sun, and doing something useful after all those months of doing nothing but hiking, that I just kept going and in a few hours I had the whole field cleaned up.
Hey, from a cheap motel next door to the laundromat.
Well it’s that time of year again–time to wash out the down bag I have been sleeping in all year. And since I have been wanting a bath and some high speed internet and I don’t like to hang out in a laundromat for 8 hours, I got a room. And since my bag still wasn’t dry come checkout time, I got the room for another day.