As The Crow Flies

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.

He also has a blog. It looks like he makes a lot of youtube videos. I have a dial-up connection; to watch a youtube video is almost impossible. But this morning I managed to get through part 1 of his water filter video. It’s hilarious. Favorite quotes, “See this water filter? If it fails me and I’m twenty miles from nowhere, I’m dead.” And “People won’t trust their life to technology they don’t understand.” Ha!

Anyway I subscribed to his blog and I may buy his CD called, 10 POUND BASELOAD BACKPACK PLANS, because I love stuff like this.

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.