crow – Page 47 – As The Crow Flies

Odd woman on the AT.

It was a rainy day on the AT (Appalachian Trail.) It was where the AT comes closest to New York City. Not far from this shelter there was a train stop right on the trail that would take you in to NYC.

I stopped at the shelter to get out of the rain and take a break. There was a thin middle aged women in the shelter and she screamed and jumped out of her thin blanket- bag and ran around the shelter in her underwear, grabbing at her clothes she had hung up to dry. I said, “No need to dress on my account�?. So she got back into her bag. She was cold and had this thin blanket bag that she assured me was what all the “campers�? were using, now. She had a metal bowl full of flaming wax in her lap that she was using to try and warm herself up with. I offered to make her a hot cup of coffee but the only thing she had for a cup was a really big plastic Big Gulp cup that was apparently holding her entire water supply.

She told me that the people in Kent, Connecticut don’t like campers and that if I tried to resupply there “I wouldn’t be served�?; she was English. I told her that I was going to resupply there anyway but she kept saying, “you won’t be served. So, now where will you resupply?�? Then she told me that there was a place on the trail where the air would sometimes turn bad and you could suffocate. And that emergency service will not respond to cell phone calls. She also told me that right up ahead there was a hot dog stand. “Well, that’s a good one,” I thought; Wingfoot, in his Thru Hikers Handbook, lists every possible source of calories on the trail from pop machines to fine dining; I don’t think he would leave out a hot dog stand that was right on the trail.

My break finished I walked on and in a few miles, right off the trail, there it was: the hot dog stand.

Light

One of the joys of living with out electric lights is just laying back and enjoying the world getting darker and lighter. Lights are nice to have if I want to read a book or cook somthing but it’s not mandatory that everytime it starts to get dark I have to have light.

Though I have a small solar system, the only thing it runs is my laptop. For light I use a L.E.D. headlamp. With it I can read, cook, clean up, bring in wood, ect. This one has a really super bright spot light for when you need a lot of light and three not so bright L.E.D.s for other times. It takes 3 AAA batteries. I also bought this one at Wal-mart for 13 dollars that has 2 white LED’s and one red one; you can switch between the white and red. I wanted a red one so that I could look at a star chart without losing my night vision. I’ve been happy with that headlamp as well and it’s nice to have in case of company or when I need to change my batteries in my other headlamp.

I just got this battery charger so that I don’t have to buy so many batteries. It is dual voltage for international travel and comes with an ac cord, a dc cord and a USB cord so that you can recharge your batteries through your computer. It says that it will charge 4 AAA’s in 22 minutes.

If I have company or I just want some nice light to hang out with, I use oil lamps or tealights. I use Ultra-pure lamp oil in my lamps; anything else will stink up my cabin. It’s expensive, Wal-mart sells it for 4.49 for 64 ounces which is much cheaper than anywhere else.

Library for a nomadic wilderness dweller.

It would be impossibly expensive and take up too much room in my cabin to buy enough books to last me through even one winter. So rather than sit with my own thoughts, last year I bought a laptop, and a solar panel to power it, and headed to my cabin to be snowed in. I didn’t have a phone then, so I couldn’t connect to the internet, but I stayed happy reading the folowing.: Project Gutenberg DVD This is a free dvd with 9600 books on it, whose copyrights have expired. Most of the books are at least 80 years old but as long as you have power for your laptop you will always have something good to read. You can download it or they will mail it to you. There is also a CD version but with only 600 books on it. Project Gutenberg has 19,000 books at their web page that you can download for free.

Encarta Encylopedia Premium

I have the 2005 deluxe edition: a huge stand alone computer encyclopedia, atlas, and dictionary. Most of the authors that I would read in Project Gutenberg also had entries and often literary guides in Encarta. A search box can be docked on your task bar for handy looking up of words or subjects. I found it really nice to be reading a Project Gutenberg book and coming to a word I didn’t know, copying it and pasting it in the dictionary search bar and getting a definition with the option of also hearing it spoken. Often when I’m reading a paper book and I come to some reference, word or place that I’m not familiar with I just keep reading but with this handy encyclopedia, atlas, and dictionary it’s so easy to look things up.

This encyclopedia also has articles from magazines like, National Geographic and Scientific America. In addition to all this it has an extensive history of African Americans; the slave narratives alone will keep you in good reads for weeks.

And for any pragmatic advice on cabin living, I would turn to:Thirty years of Mother Earth News articles on CD

Beautiful snow

It warmed up later today and melted a lot of the snow. But, oh what a treat to wake up and find the world so beautifully transformed. The snow here is dry and fluffy; I have woke up to a foot of new snow and cleared my porch off with just a broom. Winter, here, is wonderful.
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Nomandic bed

My sleeping bag is a Marmot Helium; it’s a 15 degree, down bag. It’s a warm, fluffy, and beautifully made bag with no cold spots. It is supposed to weigh 1lb 13 oz but mine weighs 2lbs. If you are 5′ 6″ or less there is a short version and if you are tall there is a tall version . This is a really nice bag made with 850 fill down. If I could only have one bag this would be the bag I would chose. I rarely zip it up; I just stick my feet in and throw the bag over me like a luxurious down comforter.

When not in use and not in my pack (which is rarely for me), I keep it stored in the large cotton bag it comes with. Compression is not good for a sleeping bag, so, I buy a bigger stuff sack then the one it comes with to use when backpacking.

I also have a Western Mountaineering Highlite bag that weighs 1lb. It also comes in a long. Good for travel in warm climates, but for me, it’s not warm enough to take on a long distance hike. If I put the two bags together I have a winter weight bag for under 3lbs.

I use my clothes bag as a pillow when not at my cabin.

When traveling, I also bring a Jag bag silk liner. The extra wide weighs 4.75 ounces, is beautiful, and is the same size as a sarong so it can be used as every way a sarong can: skirt, dress, bag, etc. Many hot nights in Thailand it was the perfect weight to sleep in. It keeps your bag from getting all smelly an dirty. You can easily just rinse it out and it will dry very quickly. They also sell a mummy version that weighs 3oz and a standard rectangle one that weighs a little more then the mummy but less then the extra wide one; It could be used as a skirt but probably not as a dress.

For a pad when hiking I use a full length Z-Lite Sleeping Mat I carry a full length because it gives me a little island to lie on when the night is really wet. Most hikers just have a 3/4 length and put their pack under their feet. A pad is necessary for insulation from the cold ground. It doesn’t matter how warm your sleeping bag is if you don’t have a pad, the cold ground will suck all the warmth out of you. I keep it strapped to the outside of my pack and grab it and lay it down on breaks. It’s particularly nice on rainy days because it gives me someplace dry to sit. It also can be ripped up for splinting material if needed. The cheap option is to buy a blue closed cell foam pad at a store like Wal-Mart, for 6 dollars. You can even score the blue pad and make it like the z-rest. Learn how at http://www.trailquest.net/TQaltgear.html#pad

Even though it packs flat, a full length pad doesn’t make your luggage look like a nice tidy package and always pegs you as someone who is planning on sleeping without a bed; which is fine on the trail but for international travel it’s better to have everything inside your pack. I have carried either the inflatable ultra light therm-a-rest ( the short one weighs 13 oz or 368 grams) or I had a small cheap closed cell foam pad that fit inside of my backpack when traveling internationally. When traveling to warm counties it’s not that important to have a pad for warmth but some people need one for comfort. The Ultra light inflatable Them-a-rest also can be converted in to a comfortable Trekker Chair for an extra 10 oz (283 grams).- For a long hike the chair kit would be pretty silly but depending on what you are doing it might be kind of nice. You lean back in it and it’s like a rocking chair that sits on the ground.

The hot sack Western Mountaineering Hot Sack is a vapor barrier/ bivy/ pack liner/ emergency sleeping bag that I sometimes carry. I bought this and have used it on really cold nights as a vapor barrier. It also doubles as a pack liner, though I still kept my sleeping bag in a plastic bag. The coating started to wear off after awhile but Western Mountaineering sent me another one. It weighs 4.5 ounces.

Who couldn’t love a morning like this?

All this happened overnight. Will it be spring before I find my axe or get my vehicle down to the road? My skis are backordered and will be here Dec. 4th. If they send them UPS the guy will leave them at my neighbors house, 2 miles away. Then I can ski up to my cabin. They are fat and short and have metal edges. They are waxless and they come with bindings. You don’t need special boots just strap yourself in and go.

hovering

hovering When I was little and I would fall down the stairs or fall off of a wall or get knocked down, I would pass out. Then I would hover above me looking down listening to what people were saying. My dad always said, “She just got the wind knocked out of her again.�? Then slowing I would spiral back down and wake up.

Backpacking stove

A stove is nice to have. Life is just better when you have a hot beverage to drink. A hot meal is not necessary but psychologically a hot meal can be both soothing and uplifting. And life is all about where your mind is.

The backpacking stove I now use is the Brunton CRUX Compact Foldable Canister Stove, it weighs 3.1 ounces. The reason I bought this one is it’s higher than average BTU output.

It’s a canister stove. I like canister stoves because I can use them anywhere, from on the trail to a vehicle to a hotel room and they heat water fast. They also pose less of a fire hazard than other backpacking stoves. I have found the canisters in Thailand and in most places in the US. Worldwide they probably are available but you might have to spend a day finding them once you arrive.

You can’t bring the canisters on the plane but you can mail them to yourself, domestically, by writing on the box: “Surface Mail Only, Consumer commodity, ORM-D.”

One medium 8 oz (12oz total weight) canister will usually last me 10 days for all my meals and hot beverage needs. When traveling and using it just for a cup or two of coffee in the morning and the occasionally pot of ramen, 2- 8 oz canisters lasted me more than 3 months. The small 4 ounce canisters barely last 3 days.

The canisters are recyclable, though you may have to puncture them first. The biggest draw back on the canister stove is the price of the canisters, ranging anywhere from 3.00 to 6.50 apiece; acceptable when I’m traveling but pricy for cabin use. Sometimes discount stores like Wal-Mart and Fred Meyer have an off brand of fuel for much less then the outdoor stores and works just as well.

All I ever do is boil water on it: I add food and water, heat to boiling or almost boiling, turn off the stove and let the food sit in the pot with the foil lid on it and finish cooking without the stove going.

There are lots of lightweight stove options ranging from wood to gas, some you make yourself, at http://zenstoves.net/

If you get a canister stove that comes with a peizo igniter, remove it, it weighs more than a small Bic lighter and is less useful and less dependable. Also, carry a spare Bic lighter. I also threw out the case that the stove came with. It’s just unnecessary weight. The canisters fit in my pot for storage all though with some of them I have to turn them upside down to make them fit. I store the stove, can opener and lighter in a light plastic sandwich bag before storing them in the bottom of the pot, so they don’t get wet, and then put the fuel canister in the pot and keep everything in a 8�? x 9�? nylon ditty bag.

Yoga class for recluses

I first heard about Richard Hittleman’s Yoga: 28 Day Exercise Plan from Ray Jardine in Beyond Backpacking. He said that it was one of the things he did to prepare for a long hike. It’s not just a twenty eight day course, it’s a life long yoga program that will make you strong, flexable and healthy. The book is horribly dated; it’s from the seventies, but I can overlook that.

Cabin stove.

This is my stove. I bought it online at Cabellas along with a 12′ propane hose and regulator. I drilled a hole in the floor using a 1″ spade Bit and a cordless drill; the 1″ bit was to big but it was the smallest size spade bit I had. Since there is very little clearance under that side of the cabin, barley enough to get my hand in, I tied a thin rope off inside and dropped the other end down the hole. Then I reached under and grabbed the rope and tied it to the inside end of the hose. Then I went inside and pulled it in. I stuffed foil around the gap around the hole and the hose.

I have it hooked up to a 30 lb propane tank outside. I think this will last me all winter, but I have lots of spares if it doesn’t. The stove simmers well, yet it also has a high 15,000 BTU output.

Update: It’s March 27th and the stove has worked well all winter. I’m still on the same 30 gallon propane thank that I originally hooked it up to.

Update: On October 30th, almost a year after I hooked it up, my 30lb propane tank finally ran out.

The snow comes down like rain.

snow flowers

The snow melted yesterday. I thought today, for sure, I would head out to cut more wood. But it started snowing this morning and hasn’t stopped all day. I shouldn’t let another nice day pass without cutting wood.

My solar panel offers little effort on these days. I have to start the generator to charge my batteries if I want computer time.

My bottles are leaking.

My cabins a mess!
The bottles are leaking!
My valuable water is quickly depleting!

Snowy morning.

snow on pine

Yesterday was sunny. I vowed to go cut more wood. When I woke up I was suprised to find snow.

It’s 37 degrees and all is quiet.

On a earlier post I complained about my digital thermometer waking me up at night because of it’s ice alarm. After reading the manual, and finding no way to disable this sleep depriving “feature”, technical guru, Laen Finehack, came up with this idea to disable the ice warning alarm on a Oregon Scientific thermometer model #RMR382A :
The ice warning only works on the #1 sensor so just set your inside unit to channel 2 or 3 and the outside sensor to the same. Tonight when it dropped to 37 degrees, I felt relief when it didn’t go off.