August 2017 — Wild Country Found

08/12/201709/25/2017

JMT Planning – Part 3 – Fear the Gear

This post is part three of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear. If you missed my latest JMT post about what food we’re bringing you can read that here. And to learn more about our plan and the trail in general you can check out my first post here.

It’s less than two weeks before our JMT hike and I’m considering buying a new backpack. Not seriously, but like, kind of seriously. The realization that lead me down the new backpack buying rabbit hole was the discovery that my base weight for the JMT would be 13 lbs, add to that my bear canister and I’m looking at a whopping 15.5 lbs before food, water, or stove fuel. This weight, 13 lbs runs around and around my head and I start to look at where I can shave weight from my pack to get it down from 13 lbs to 12 lbs, because clearly one pound is going to be the difference between having fun on the JMT and having a terrible time. Panicked trip logic am-i-right?

Intellectually I know that most people carry much more weight on the JMT, that the average is closer to 18-20 lbs before fuel and water and that my pack weight still puts me in the “light weight backpacking” category. But deep down, I covet the idea of being called an ultralight backpacker, with a sleek 10-12 lb base weight, dancing up mountains like a majestic goat. Intellectually I know that people have been hiking the JMT, PCT, and AT with much heavier bags, wool pants, and leather boots and that they made out just fine. Finally my intellectual brain wins out of my terrified gram-counting brain and I stop looking at new backpacks. For now.

What’s In a Bag:
My backpacking style would best be described as ‘comfort ultralight,’ since at 13 lbs for a standard trip (a bear canister is not required for the majority of the trips I take, but on the JMT and sections of the PCT it’s mandatory*), I fall just outside of the ultralight classification which is generally sub 12lbs. This means that I have chosen to minimize my gear, remove duplicate items, and buy or make lighter gear where time and/or money permit, but I still have all the comforts of a standard backpacking set up. I still have a stove, a freestanding tent, a pillow, and an inflatable sleeping pad – all items which true ultralight backpackers eschew, but I have chosen to bring for my own sanity and comfort. Click this link for a detailed breakdown of my gear: lighterpack.com.

*Why is a bear canister mandatory? Because people are garbage. Or rather, people have a lot of garbage, and food, and items that smell like food, which they bring into the backcountry and then don’t know how to store properly – which in this case means out of the reach of bears. Years of people leaving their food in places where the bears and other critters can get it it has taught these animals that people mean food, food that is much more delicious and easier to get than foraging for berries or hunting. As a result bears and humans have had an increasing number of interactions. So in areas where these interactions are most common the Forest Service and several National Parks – the most notable being Yosemite – have decided that a bear canister is a mandatory piece of equipment to be carried any time you’ll be out overnight.

What Isn’t In a Bag:
The observant among you may have noticed that my bag is conspicuously absent of several items. One of the great joys in hiking with a partner, is that ability to share gear. While I carry a larger portion of the tent weight, my hiking buddy and boyfriend will be carrying our stove, pot, and fuel canister. Where I will be carrying a rechargeable battery for our various electronic items, he will be carrying a small solar panel from which we can recharge the rechargeable battery. Cool, eh?

Other things I don’t carry, and I frankly don’t recomend for those looking to keep their back weigh down are – Physical books (use the Kindle app on your phone instead), camp chairs (use a square of foam and a rock), complex cooking set up (spoon + bowl = all you need), stuff sacks for everything (your bag is a stuff sack), deodorant, makeup, hairbrush etc (just be ferral)

What’s On A Body:
When calculating one’s base weight, there are a few things that you can leave out – namely everything that’s either going to be worn on your body (clothes, shoes, etc), or carried in your hands (really, this is just trekking poles). When selecting clothing for a thru hike or even just a weekend backpacking trip, functionality, fit, and look should be considered in that order with style coming in last. For me I’ll be wearing the following:

Nike Pro 5″ Women’s Compression Shorts – Synthetic compressions shorts are great because they’re quick to dry, don’t ride up or down, and greatly reduce the likelihood of painful chafe. They also accentuate your sexy hiker legs. True story.
Old Navy Go-Dry Mesh Running Tee – T-shirts over tank tops reduce the chance of pack rub and sunburn on your shoulders, and a nice light color won’t absorb heat from the sun. I also don’t feel the need to break the bank buying a fancy trekking shirt from a company like Patagonia since they’re typically made of the same material as cheaper shirts. Personal fit and synthetic material are the biggest concerns.
Exoficcio Give-N-Go Bikini Brief – Under-doodles are actually a big consideration. Again personal fit and synthetic are the biggest concerns. You really don’t want to be dealing with a wedgie all day when you’re trying to hike 15 miles over rough terrain.
Bra – I bought just a cheap Target yoga bra that’s cute, fast drying, and fits. Again, I don’t really see the need to shell out $60 for a bra from an outdoor retailer when I can find something that works just as well for $14 and has lasted me years.
Altra Lone Peak 3.5’s – I love these shoes, and they’re incredibly popular with the trail running and thru hiking community. Even if they look weirdly like clown shoes. However, your shoes are probably the most important piece of gear you’ll buy. Blisters, crammed toes, and poor fit can ruin or possibly end your hike. It’s worth finding what works for you.
Injinji Run Midweight Mini-Crew Socks – Look, toe socks are pretty universally ugly. They just are. BUT! They prevent blisters like a dream, and come in a variety of thicknesses – I opt for the mini-crew in midweight because they’re not too thick (which leads to blisters) and they are tall enough that I don’t have to worry about them slipping into my shoes.
Black Diamond Distance Cork Z-Poles – Sadly, BD stopped making these (lame, I know because the cord was awesome). But they have similar models. These are great because they fold up small, and unlike the carbon fiber models, I’m not afraid of snapping them.
Oiselle Runner Trucker Hat – Light weight, folds up, covers well, good ventilation, has a cool pic from a female artist on it. What else could you need?
Polarized Sunglasses – Cheap, ship from amazon so they’re easy to replace, polarized, come in lots of different colors. Cheap (this one is worth mentioning twice since mine always get destroyed after a season).

If you have specific questions about gear (or just want to say ‘hi’) feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll try and get back to you before we head out on our trip.

08/11/201709/25/2017

JMT Planning – Part 2 – Snackums!

This post is part two of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear. If you missed my first JMT post about our plan and the trail in general you can read that here.

The Terrifying Crisis That is Backpacking Food:
Have you ever tried to plan out 10 days of food, with the knowledge that once you’re on the trail there will be no opportunities to change it? Have you ever tried to do this three weeks in advance, knowing that you’ll be drastically increasing your daily caloric expenditure? What about doing it with no access to refrigeration, with weight being a massive concern, and the only kind of cooking available to you will be to add boiled water to things?

10 days of food – minus motivation cookies – is this enough, too much? Who knows? Certainly not me.

Have you? Because I have, and it’s crazy stressful!

Picture this: I am standing in my kitchen surrounded by a multiple scales, innumerable plastic bags, and piles of the most calorically dense food that I can find. I’m portioning, weighing, and bagging my food before I dump it into one of two bags. The first bag will go on my back and will (hopefully) get me through the first 10 days of our trip. The second bag will be mailed to Vermillion Valley Resort, our one and only resupply point for our hike and should (again, hopefully) contain enough food for the remaining seven days of our hike.

The ten day bag looks massive sitting in front of my washing machine. I hoist it up using the food scale and it reads 15.5 lbs. “Fuck! How is it still so light?!” I exclaim to Keith who is in the process of portioning trail mix into little baggies and counting ounces out loud like some sort of M&M drug dealer. I do some quick mental math to add in the food I’ll have to cook right before we leave, and come up to just shy of 17 lbs of food for 10 days. The general rule of thumb is 2 lbs of food per person per day. I’m short almost 3 lbs and at this point I just say “fuck it.” My well-fed American body can do with a few less calories. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine. But then again, everything about this trip is new to me so maybe I’m 100% wrong. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

There are few hard and fast rules when it comes to backpacking, and a large portion of the advice out there is “see what works for you” which, I think we can all agree, isn’t really advice at all. But the general thought is that you should pick food that doesn’t spoil, has at least 100 calories/oz, requires minimal to no cooking, isn’t heavy, and is full of fat and carbs, with protein being a secondary concern.

So what does that actually mean I’ll be eating.
Well we can break it down into three categories: breakfasts, snacks, and dinners.

Breakfast: Simplicity is key when packing for days and days on the trail, so I stuck with a three meals for breakfast that I know I like, and can rotate between.
– Mountain House Breakfast Scramble – this is one of the best freeze-dried foods I’ve ever had, so Keith and I bought it in bulk online and repackaged it into two-person servings.
– KIND Chocolate granola, freeze-dried strawberries, and powdered milk aka trail cereal!
– Luna Bars and whatever snacks I feel like eating that morning
– * Most breakfasts will be accompanied by coffee or hot chocolate

Snacks: I rarely stop for a real lunch on the trail, preferring to snack 2-3 times during the day at convenient rest stops. Snacks also make up the biggest diversity and calories in my food.
– Potato Chips or Trader Joe’s baked Cheetos knock offs – chips have between 130 and 160 calories per ounce, are full of fats, sodium, and carbs, and are delicious. They’re a backpacker superfood.
– Home made beef jerky – because we’re classy like that. Get on our level!
– Trail mix – and by trail mix I mean 80% chocolate items with a few handfuls of nuts and dried fruit in there to give it the illusion of “mix.”
– Rice Krispies – because duh, they’re delicious
– More chocolate – because you can never have too much
– Motivation cookies – these look similar to regular cookies, except I save them for when I’m having a low moment.
– Various bars that I’ll admittedly save until the last 2-3 days before our resupply when I’ve eaten all the good food from my bag.

Dinner: Dinners are where we really put some effort in. We dehydrated veggies (a lot of which went moldy in our first batch – live and learn eh?), bough bulk freeze-dried meat to supplement our lacking protein sources, and developed/made up eight unique-ish recipes. The store WinCo Foods aka “prepper heaven” proved to be invaluable for buying bulk foods. Do you need pounds and pounds of fake mac and cheese sauce powder? If so, Winco Foods is the store for you! Here is what we’ll be eating:
– Green Chili Chicken chili – Recipe Courtesy of Anna and Derrick, thanks kids!
– Mac and Cheese with sausage
– Bean and Cheese Burritos
– Chicken Teriyaki
– Chicken Fajitas
– Pasta with ground beef
– Cheesy potatoes with sausage
– Chicken tortilla soup
– Something else I can’t remember that probably has potatoes or something

7 days of food…. I hope! Minus the four dinners that Keith will be carrying. Sorry babe, I gave you more food to carry than me.

You’ll probably have noticed a pattern in that list, which is to say most meals start with a carb (either rice, potatoes, or refried beans), add in some flavoring (cheese powder, taco seasoning, teriyaki seasoning) and finish with whatever protein sounds like it fits the best (we bought freeze-dried chicken crumbles, sausage, and ground beef in bulk).

This bag has seven days of food. The bear canister next to that bag is supposed to hold all that food, clearly that’s a lie.

Resupplying – Or How I paid $50 just to mail myself food:
The final step of this entire process will be getting ourselves our food on the trail. The JMT goes through a very remote portion of the Sierra Nevada range so the only two options for a mid-point resupply are Muir Trail Ranch (generally thought to be for uppity jerks who can pay an exorbitant amount just to avoid hiking a few extra miles), or Vermillion Valley Resort commonly known as VVR (for the less wealthy among us who are totally willing to save $80 by hiking a few extra miles).

The plan will be to start the hike with 10 days of food each, resupply once at VVR, and then hike the remaining seven days into Yosemite Valley without starving, killing each other, or being eaten by bears. This is why I’m packing lots of chocolate people, chocolate solves all issues, except for being eaten by bears.

Look for part 3 on the blog in the next few days where we’ll be discussing gear!

08/08/2017

JMT Planning – Part 1 – Where Y’All Goin’?

This post is part three of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear.

As some of you know, Keith and I will be hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT) this year, and for those of you who didn’t know, now you do. Lucky you. While I’ve been speaking to people about this a handful of similar questions have been coming up mostly regarding our schedule and planning process, our gear, and what our food and resupply strategy is. So I’ll be posting three articles in the weeks before our trip in an attempt to answer your questions and just generally clarify what is required to spend three weeks in the middle of nowhere.

The first thing you need to know, dear reader is that the John Muir Trail is a 211 mile hiking and equestrian trail that runs from the summit of Mount Whitney to Yosemite Valley (plus 9ish miles to get to/from the top of Whitney). The typical season for hiking the JMT is late June through mid September, and people usually complete the trail in about two to four weeks.

The second thing you need to know is that getting a permit for the JMT (especially if you want to do the entire trail and aren’t psyched about skipping sections) is really a pain in the ass. This is largely because of the trail’s increasing popularity. This year a record-breaking snow year compounded the problem by reducing the JMT window even further as Yosemite valley wasn’t even open until late June.

The permit system for the JMT opens 24 weeks or 168 days in advance of when you actually want to go. So while everybody was thinking about cute scarfs, and wearing knee-high boots and all the other fun stuff you do in January, Keith and I were frantically trying to get permits for a trail we wouldn’t even hike for close to half a year!

Some people wait years to get the right permit for the JMT, only content to hike it south bound from the northern terminus at Happy Isles in the heart of Yosemite. Other people who don’t have time for that kind of shit, rig together a crazy permit like some sort of Frankenstien’s monster of trail systems and just say fuck it.

I’m going to let you guess what group Keith and I fall into.

Yep, we’re the second group. So we’ll be departing from Horseshoe Meadows and heading over Cottonwood Pass, adding 17 miles and two days to our JMT hike because ain’t nobody got time to wait until the fates of the Eastern Sierra Permit System or the Yosemite nordic gods to shine down upon us in 1 to a billion years time. The plan is to cover roughly 237 miles in 17 days, with one zero (no hiking day) at Vermillion Valley Resort where we’ll pick up our resupply of food and bug spray and sunscreen, because the JMT is actually so remote that there are only a few options to get more food on the trail, and all of them involve mailing yourself a box of snacks. We’ll finish in Yosemite Valley on September 9th or 10th.

So why, you might ask, would a reasonably sane person such as yourself want to deal with the headaches of the permit system just to get the chance to hike for more than 200 miles in the middle of nowhere, where you can’t even stop into a CVS to pick up snacks?!?! To which I would say: clearly you don’t know me, because if you did you would never use the phrase ‘reasonably sane’ and my name in the same sentence, especially not where hiking and snacks are concerned. Also, because the JMT is known to traverse some of the most beautiful terrain in the Sierra Nevada range – which some people (mostly Keith) argue is the best mountain range in the lower 48. If you need more evidence, take a peek at these images that I blatantly stole from the internet:

It’s gosh darn majestic y’all!

Keep an eye out for my next two posts on the JMT where I’ll be talking about gear, and our food.