Nom, Nom, Nom ...

The door bell rang, and there was a big ol' box on the stoop - With Clif Bar logos all over it!

Woo-hoo!

Inside were several boxes of Cliff Bar goodness.  My winnings from their 12 Days of #Clifmas contest on Twitter. All different types and flavors, chosen for their fat content!

Just in time too, as I'm getting antsy to put drop boxes together, and these will feature prominently in them.

Best AT Hiking Resource Ever

Mountain Squid, a moderator on WhiteBlaze, wrote a humorous piece that links to definitive forum posts on probably every question hikers contemplating hiking the AT might be asking themselves.

If you have any interest in hiking any of the long trails, whether it would be thru, or section hiking, you owe it to yourself to join Whiteblaze, and to participate regularly in the forums.

Direct link to the article: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?73587-how-to-hike

Going Solo

For a variety of reasons, some of health, some of family, Mary has elected to stay home... So, I'm hiking solo. Which is ... ok. I get to hike when I want to hike, take a break when I wanna break, camp where I wanna camp. If I want to go off trail to bag a peak, I won't have to negotiate with anyone but myself.

I'm going to miss hiking with her.

It certainly simplifies logistics. We don't have to close the house, find someone to take care of the cats, someone to mail the drop boxes, forward the mail, pay the bills, mow the lawn ... Mary will be my support crew.

Why does writing that make me think I'm gonna owe her big?

MYOG - A Cozy for my Kettle

I like the concept of freezer bag cooking, but multiplying two baggies per day, by 170+ days equals a whole lot of plastic in landfill. I'll still use the basic concept, but I'll do it in my MSR Kettle. That means bringing food to a boil, taking it off the heat, and putting it in a cozy. I needed a cozy.

I envisioned a simple, insulated pouch, with a drawstring top, that would serve as both a cozy, and as a bag to carry the pot in.

I went to my local fabric store where I found some light rip-stop cotton duck which won't melt when I drop a hot pot in it. To keep the heat in, I found some Insul-Bright which is hollow polyester fiber with a metallized film backing. The backing resists radiant heat loss, the fiber resists conduction.

Now all I had to do was put it together ...

Mail Drops

Different Strokes - There are many options for resupplying along the Appalachian Trail. Towns are generally spaced such that hikers can hit them every 3-5 days, and many rely solely upon buying from grocery stores, convenience marts and gas stations along the way. Some use a box they bounce up the trail, from post office to post office, with items they use frequently such as medications, maps, spare batteries, and extra food. Others employ drop boxes mailed to them along the way by a trusted soul back home. Still others employ one or more of these options in a hybrid approach.

I'm gonna do the latter.

Manna from Heaven!

I'm on the Twitter. You can follow me @LaughingDawg. I follow Clif Bars, and they held a holiday contest/clever marketing event called the Twelve Days of #Clifmas. They posted a different task every day, and contestants tweeted their best efforts with the hashtag #Clifmas.  And all those posts went out to all their followers... Brilliant.

One contestant was selected every day to win a box of their various products. And, everyone who posted was automatically entered to win the grand prize - a one year supply of Clif Bars!

I was motivated. I managed to write such instant classics as:

"I'm dreaming of a White Macadamia Nut #Clifmas, just like the ones I used to know ..."

and,

Peakbaggin' The AT

With a thru-hike along the backbone of the Appalachian Mountain range, and crossing 14 states, I thought one would certainly be able to bag several of the 50 States high points. I consulted Peakbagger.com, mapped the provided coordinates, and consulted the ATC's Thru Hiker's Companion. This is what I found.

Fire Starters

It's one of those Ten Essentials things. The ability to start a fire. A life saving skill in the cold, and one that can be difficult in the worst of conditions - when everything's wet. So when I ran across Jermm's blog post "DIY Fire Starter Wafers," I had to give it a try.

Folks have been using wax-impregnated stuff as emergency firestarters for years. Lately a few vaseline-soaked cotton balls stored in a pill bottle is a common solution (tho it sounds like a potential mess). Alcohol-based hand sanitizers such as Purell can be brought to task, and there are all kinds of commercial firestarters available. What Jermm did was to saturate those flat, cotton cosmetic pads with molten candle wax. When dried, they harden into very packable flat discs.

Food Pt 1 - Eating Like Hobitts

"And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times, and of six meals a day (when they could get them)."


While this might sound like a description of thru-hikers, it was Tolkein describing Hobbits in The Fellowship of the Ring.

But long-distance hikers eat whenever they can and as much as they can. Hiking in the mountains with a 30 lb pack burns more calories than one can generally consume or even carry comfortably. Common estimates of caloric requirements in this environment are from 4500-6500 calories per day. Add cold temperatures and these requirements go up.

Keeping Juice to the Camera

In a previous post, I outlined just why I wanted a camera that sucks down battery power like a thru-hiker does milkshakes. Ok, that isn't a feature so much as an issue. I did get a spare battery, and that might just be sufficient, but if I'm inspired to shoot, I can go thru a battery in a day or so ... Two batteries might just not get me thru five days between town visits, adding more batteries is adding more weight, and I might have another option.

I have that New Trent ACD66 I got to keep my Droid powered up between town visits. It's a 7000mAh battery pack, with USB outputs that should store more than I need for the Droid. I started looking for a way to recharge the X100's batteries with the ACD66. A search of chargers for the X100's battery uncovered the PowerGen Rapid Smart Charger. It sports a USB port, which can either be an output to charge a device, or an input to power the charger from a USB source. It comes with a cigarette lighter/USB adapter.