Shakedown Hike

I've got some new gear for this hiking season. My hiking pants were pretty much coming apart at the crotch and my hiking shirt used to be one color but is now at least four different colors and pretty worn out. So I bought a pair of Rail Riders pants, which also have bug protection. I had to buy the bug protection kind because they don't have women's pants with the reinforced seat and knees except with bug protection. I didn't want to be just wearing those around because the bug stuff is only good for 70 washes, so even though I bought them a while ago, I hadn't actually tried hiking in them. And I bought a new shirt by Mountain Hardwear that has sufficient pocket space to satisfy my desires. 

I wore both of those on a little four mile hike from the Swan Falls Dam on the Snake River in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. Both did quite well. The shirt does run large, but I didn't size down, because I felt that the looseness would help keep my body cool. It was quite breathable. The pants need wearing in, I think, or I just need to get used to the sound they make when I walk and the legs rub against each other. 

Overall, I'm happy with how they performed, and I'm looking forward to using them on my solo hike this year. 

The trail starts fairly wide, but vehicles aren't allowed here. 

Not a lot of climb to this hike, but some very interesting views.

They're serious about keeping motor vehicles away.

Tumbleweed trail obstruction.

Either the ground is salty or it was recently snow covered.

The trail edged closer to the water. 

I had some trouble following the trail in this rocky section.

Sometimes it seemed like there were multiple correct paths through. 

I decided to turn back after reaching the top of that rise. 

I almost kept going, but there was a boat down near the trail ahead and I didn't want to walk past them.

Views got even better going back. 

I could hear ducks and geese on the water. 

I still lost the trail a bit in the rocks, but I was confident that I'd get to the other side.

Rocky overhang.

Holey rock.

Tiny flowers. 

Really tiny - that's my index finger. 

A moth held quite still for its portrait.

Almost back to the car. 

Future Plans - Solo 2019

On April 11th 2018, I got it into my head to start looking into the next segment of my solo trip. Not the one that was to take place in a few weeks, but the one taking place in 2019, when I would broach the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Ambrose said it would be 100 miles to get to Big Creek, and I wanted to make sure that was from the farthest point I could reach by car to Big Creek, rather than from, say, where I left off at Stanley Lake in 2016.

I used the ICT trail maps to make the count. From Lola Creek Campground, which is the farthest a car can reach towards the Frank Church, to the point nearest Big Creek was about 88 miles.

And from there to the Big Creek trailhead was 14.6 miles.

My first thought was, "That's ridiculous."

My second thought was, "I wonder how far it is from that point on the ICT to the next place it meets the road."

So I checked. It's about another 81 miles to the Magruder corridor.

That left me with a choice. Travel 100+ miles in 2019 and then another nearly 100 miles in 2020, traversing nearly 30 miles of non-ICT trail in the process.

Or take all 169 miles in one big bite in 2019.

For that second option, I would need the cooperation of my husband. He usually just serves as resupply depot from the car on these trips, but for this trip to work, I'd either need to carry 10 days of food or get him to hike out 14.6 miles from Big Creek with my resupply (and of course he'd have to hike back and drive around to Magruder).

Lucky for me, he's excited to have his own little solo adventure doing that resupply hike. I just hope he can make that hike out and back in 2 days. Luckily, there's not even 1000 feet of gain, so he should be good. He's just got to get started early and keep on walking.

And I figure if I arrive at the rendezvous early, then I can take some rest. Dip my feet in the water. If I'm a day early, then I get a zero day, a tradition of thru hiking that I've only read about so far.

I'll need to go as fast as I can sustain. I can't go for maximum distance each day like I did through the Owyhees. That wrecked me. But I'll still need to make close to 20 miles per day through rough terrain. I mean, sure, I could bail when I meet up with Ambrose for resupply, but that's a costly bail.

I'm not sure what I'll do about my hair. No matter what I've tried, if I don't wash my hair every three to four days, I get horrible headaches. I might experiment with dry shampoo and see if that helps, because that would be easy to take out on the trail. But I have a feeling it might not, because I don't see how adding stuff to my hair could possibly help without rinsing it away. So maybe Ambrose will have some shampoo in his resupply kit for me and I'll make myself take the time to do it to get rest. Yeah.

As long as I get all the miles that I'm planning to get in 2018 (Hammett to Willow Creek Transfer Camp and Stanley Lake to Lola Creek Campground), and then if I can swing this crazy trip in 2019, I'll be at mile 424. Nearly halfway through the 900 miles of the ICT.

I'm already excited.

Call of the Spring

Yesterday I went to the library. I rode my bike after work, and when I rode home I took the path along the river.

It was pretty nice outside, around 70 degrees. The clouds were threatening rain, but not following through. The trees were starting to bud and blossom, filling the air with scents green and sweet. The Boise River was flowing high, rushing past over sections of bed long dry from the winter.

This was the kind of day that is both soothing and a tease. The spring air was calming, the water sounds a delight. I finished that ride in a happy mood, but at the same time, I wanted to be out on the trail. I wanted to surround myself with dirt and grass and blooming trees and spend the night under the stars, no matter how cold it would inevitably get overnight at this time of year.

And it won't be too long before I start getting out there.

I just need to hope that the snow starts melting fast along the Lime Creek trail system or I'm going to have to split my solo trip up in a lot of pieces this season.

I have been considering what to do if the Lime Creek area isn't going to be ready for hiking by my last set of dates in mid-May. One option is to do the desert part from Hammett as far north as possible to a point that meets the road. Maybe the intersection of Featherville/Pine Forest Highway and High Prairie Road or all the way to the Hunter Creek Trailhead if the roads are in shape for it. Then take a weekend sometime later in the summer, late June or late July maybe and finish up the remainder. And if I do that, I might as well do another little segment, from Stanley Lake to the edge of the Frank Church Wilderness.

Actually, I think that's the only option if Lime Creek is still snowed in. I can handle hiking through some snow, but I'm not going to risk my life if the trail is so covered as to be completely invisible. I don't want to try that on an unfamiliar trail. I know how easy it is to get lost when snow covers the trail even when I know the area well. I take risks when I hike, but I calculate them.

Even if the lure of the spring air is tempting me to go forward no matter what...

Uncounted Steps

The other day I was talking about hiking a 50 mile stretch of trail with no water, and someone asked me how many steps that was.

I had no idea, and, quite frankly, I've no desire to know.

Even if I get one of those fitness tracking devices for everyday wear, there's no way I'd take that on a backpacking trip. For one thing, I really dislike having something on my wrist while backpacking. Dirt gathers against it, sweat gathers under it and it catches on my pack when I heave it onto my back or drop it to the ground. I'm pretty sure those things need regular charging that I wouldn't care to provide in the wilderness. But mostly, I really don't care how many steps I take while backpacking.

Sure, I check my mileage, to an extent. I like to know approximately how far I've gone and how far I plan to go. And, sometimes, when I'm feeling near the end of my rope, I'll count my steps in my head, giving myself a break at the end of some number. But I don't record those steps.

Backpacking isn't about fitness for me. Fitness is about backpacking. I do CrossFit for fitness, but I stay fit to do backpacking. I stay fit so I can go out into the wilderness and walk for days carrying a loaded pack. Backpacking isn't the means, it's the goal, the reward for all the time I spend in the off-season dong other things.

To reduce backpacking to a metric of steps would be to change the entire purpose of why I backpack in the first place. It's all about the journey, the experience of the trail. It is an escape from the idea that I have to quantify and commodify everything in my life. While I do write books about some of my backpacking journeys for sale, I don't do it to make money - which is good, because they don't make me much. I do that to share the experience with my family and any other people who might want to know what it's like to get out of the modern world and into a place where you just do what you need to to make it through the day.