- Joined
- Apr 27, 2011
- Messages
- 3,201
Headed out Saturday for a solo overnighter in the east end of the West Clear Creek Wilderness area. In addition to hoping to find a spot clear of Memorial Day chaos (not saying anything is wrong with tearing shit up on a long weekend; I just needed solitude), I wanted to start testing out some LNT techniques (several good threads on BF: samples here and here). The idea was: no tent, no fires, no tearing shit up.
I learned a hell of a lot, in addition to getting the solitude I was craving as well as enjoying some quality Arizona dirt-churchin' time.
Let's set the mood: here's what I got to look at while I was on my little jaunt.
Next up: nothing lets me know I'm out of the Phoenix bake like spending the night out on the deck of my mountain place. Even better if I'm in my Big Agnes bag; damn do I ever love that thing. Got me good and ready.
So, the gear. Here's the before and after.
First lessons learned: use a backpacking bag for backpacking. I had this fantasy that since I was going LNT and wouldn't be using a tent or cookware or anything, that I could get away with my Camelback. Not only was it near impossible to fit all the gear I brought, I had additional challenge when it came time to pack out other people's trash, plus this sumbich eventually was hurting something fierce and I'm quite sure contributed to my considerable fatigue. This was in large part because I failed to reduce weight when possible. This went hand in hand with being overconfident in my own physical condition. I did a Grand Canyon rim-rim-rim last year and figured this little overnighter wasn't going to be anything. How easily I forget that I've spent every day since that GC trip packing in the beer, mexican food, and not exercising worth a damn. My upper torso for SURE wasn't ready for a pack and my lower half wasn't ready for scrambling through crappy footing for hours on end.
Also, despite the LNT goals, this particular hike still required some extra kit (most notably spare clothes, a towel, and waterproof bags since I was going to have to be in water a lot). Sufficient intel might have helped me pare things down a bit. For example, I brought an inflatable float because I had read that some parts of the hike have to be swum. If I had researched better I would have known I wouldn't have made it that far and could have left the float behind. Conversely, preparing for the worst was hardly a bad thing. While I did not necessarily need a lot of what I brought, I ended up using it. Here's why.
While I at first thought I would be searching for a small enough piece of flat ground to lay down my sheet (just a thick plastic painting dropcloth, which worked just fine versus a tarp or whatever) such as this:
at the end of a day of getting tore to shit bushwacking and cold soaked after hours of stream hiking not to mention taking a pretty major fall, I decided a nice existing campsite might be just what the doctor ordered. Voila.
So I reused an existing campsite: good. The previous campers had left a bunch of shit behind, so I packed out other people's stuff. Doing some Sherlock Holmes work, this last group must have been real winners. There was garbage in the firepit (which I took with me), leftover camp cooking stuff, a machete, a big clearing they had clearly chopped out of the forest for their tents (tons of fresh green branches laying around), and a huge area covered in toilet paper about fifteen feet away.
Need to take a dump? Dig a cathole FFS.
Screw them, but thanks for the fish frying basket, two full propane tanks, the propane cook stove, and my new WalMart machete.
Since there was no real camp stuff left behind I figured they were long gone and just couldn't pack everything. I did wait overnight before I touched any of it, but figured by the morning that it was officially left-behind junk.
Anyway, camp.
My clothes were all wet, and while I could have survived it was still mighty nice to have something dry while my stuff slowly dried. Had I run into serious trouble those dry clothes might have taken on even greater significance.
Did I ever use the towel? No. Did I ever dump the pack so that my stuff was protected by the waterproof bags? No. But there were about a hundred thousand times where I could have easily gone ass over teakettle into the water. It was good weight to have.
Oh, and before I forget, a hike like this absolutely demands a good hiking stick. And not just because it's holding up one end of a paracord clothesline there; I cannot express how well it smoothed out uncertain footing, pushed aside thorny branches, and helped me hump my dead ass back out of the canyon at the end. I could make an entire post about what I learned needs to go into a good hiking stick, and a custom stick is now at the top of my projects list.
So, camping shoes. Hippy-dippy Tom's Shoes so my big stupid feet don't hurt the poor defenseless forest floor.
Did I need to bring a one-pound Becker BK2 camp knife? No. Was I happy to have my one-pound Becker BK2 camp knife? Hells yes.
Cheers to you, Mister Ethan Becker, wherever you may roam.
Always bring hootch. Hootch good. Don't drink most of it the night before you actually go camping, though. Dumbass.
One last lessons learned, then on to some tourist shots, then I'm done hogging everyone's bandwidth. You are wise to bring a first-aid kit. Here's my leg after I took a bad fall because I was scrambling around on rocks even though I was fatigued and my balance was all jacked due to the unfamiliar pack weight and poor weight distribution.
Unbelievably, this was the first hike in hundreds of miles where I've carried any FAK. I'm a lucky SOB. In fact, I used a lot of the stuff in my emergency kit including iodine pills and gatorade. If I had put chili powder in there (like I intend to) then I woulda cooked up the many fat crawfish I saw.
Corny fake posed action shot self-portrait time!
Ok, glamor shots time! Thanks for reading, the zero of you that read this far.
And I'm out.
I learned a hell of a lot, in addition to getting the solitude I was craving as well as enjoying some quality Arizona dirt-churchin' time.
Let's set the mood: here's what I got to look at while I was on my little jaunt.
Next up: nothing lets me know I'm out of the Phoenix bake like spending the night out on the deck of my mountain place. Even better if I'm in my Big Agnes bag; damn do I ever love that thing. Got me good and ready.
So, the gear. Here's the before and after.
First lessons learned: use a backpacking bag for backpacking. I had this fantasy that since I was going LNT and wouldn't be using a tent or cookware or anything, that I could get away with my Camelback. Not only was it near impossible to fit all the gear I brought, I had additional challenge when it came time to pack out other people's trash, plus this sumbich eventually was hurting something fierce and I'm quite sure contributed to my considerable fatigue. This was in large part because I failed to reduce weight when possible. This went hand in hand with being overconfident in my own physical condition. I did a Grand Canyon rim-rim-rim last year and figured this little overnighter wasn't going to be anything. How easily I forget that I've spent every day since that GC trip packing in the beer, mexican food, and not exercising worth a damn. My upper torso for SURE wasn't ready for a pack and my lower half wasn't ready for scrambling through crappy footing for hours on end.
Also, despite the LNT goals, this particular hike still required some extra kit (most notably spare clothes, a towel, and waterproof bags since I was going to have to be in water a lot). Sufficient intel might have helped me pare things down a bit. For example, I brought an inflatable float because I had read that some parts of the hike have to be swum. If I had researched better I would have known I wouldn't have made it that far and could have left the float behind. Conversely, preparing for the worst was hardly a bad thing. While I did not necessarily need a lot of what I brought, I ended up using it. Here's why.
While I at first thought I would be searching for a small enough piece of flat ground to lay down my sheet (just a thick plastic painting dropcloth, which worked just fine versus a tarp or whatever) such as this:
at the end of a day of getting tore to shit bushwacking and cold soaked after hours of stream hiking not to mention taking a pretty major fall, I decided a nice existing campsite might be just what the doctor ordered. Voila.
So I reused an existing campsite: good. The previous campers had left a bunch of shit behind, so I packed out other people's stuff. Doing some Sherlock Holmes work, this last group must have been real winners. There was garbage in the firepit (which I took with me), leftover camp cooking stuff, a machete, a big clearing they had clearly chopped out of the forest for their tents (tons of fresh green branches laying around), and a huge area covered in toilet paper about fifteen feet away.
Need to take a dump? Dig a cathole FFS.
Screw them, but thanks for the fish frying basket, two full propane tanks, the propane cook stove, and my new WalMart machete.
Since there was no real camp stuff left behind I figured they were long gone and just couldn't pack everything. I did wait overnight before I touched any of it, but figured by the morning that it was officially left-behind junk.
Anyway, camp.
My clothes were all wet, and while I could have survived it was still mighty nice to have something dry while my stuff slowly dried. Had I run into serious trouble those dry clothes might have taken on even greater significance.
Did I ever use the towel? No. Did I ever dump the pack so that my stuff was protected by the waterproof bags? No. But there were about a hundred thousand times where I could have easily gone ass over teakettle into the water. It was good weight to have.
Oh, and before I forget, a hike like this absolutely demands a good hiking stick. And not just because it's holding up one end of a paracord clothesline there; I cannot express how well it smoothed out uncertain footing, pushed aside thorny branches, and helped me hump my dead ass back out of the canyon at the end. I could make an entire post about what I learned needs to go into a good hiking stick, and a custom stick is now at the top of my projects list.
So, camping shoes. Hippy-dippy Tom's Shoes so my big stupid feet don't hurt the poor defenseless forest floor.
Did I need to bring a one-pound Becker BK2 camp knife? No. Was I happy to have my one-pound Becker BK2 camp knife? Hells yes.
Cheers to you, Mister Ethan Becker, wherever you may roam.
Always bring hootch. Hootch good. Don't drink most of it the night before you actually go camping, though. Dumbass.
One last lessons learned, then on to some tourist shots, then I'm done hogging everyone's bandwidth. You are wise to bring a first-aid kit. Here's my leg after I took a bad fall because I was scrambling around on rocks even though I was fatigued and my balance was all jacked due to the unfamiliar pack weight and poor weight distribution.
Unbelievably, this was the first hike in hundreds of miles where I've carried any FAK. I'm a lucky SOB. In fact, I used a lot of the stuff in my emergency kit including iodine pills and gatorade. If I had put chili powder in there (like I intend to) then I woulda cooked up the many fat crawfish I saw.
Corny fake posed action shot self-portrait time!
Ok, glamor shots time! Thanks for reading, the zero of you that read this far.
And I'm out.
I tend (wish I could say always) not to make the same mistakes twice; looks like you learned a few things and got to enjoy some nice country while doing it- can't beat that!
Take care.
I always pack out other peoples garbage no matter where I hike and have found trash that was way off the beaten path in many areas too.
