Spent a night and a day with the Washington Trails Association working on a reroute of the Bogachiel River Trail (erosion wiped out parts of the old trail). This was the first time I’d done trail maintenance with the WTA in 10-15 years. No pictures since I didn’t bring my camera due to the heavy rain forecast (which didn’t happen until we were done working for the day) and not a lot of notes since I was busy digging up ferns and roots and removing topsoil. However:

Sleep

Slept great! Temps never dipped below 50F in the tent so I was roasty toasty. I did end up putting on my fleece sometime in the middle of the night but was comfortable in my hiking shirt until then.

Gear

What worked:

  • I actually signed up for this trip specifically due to the poor weather forecast since I wanted to test out my new rain gear. I didn’t have a reason to wear the Sierra Designs Elite Cagoule until we were ready to hike a mile or so back to the trailhead with packs and tools, but I was very happy with the performance – it was in the mid 40s and raining moderately and I actually felt cool hiking back wearing just my hiking shirt underneath it, even with some uphill near the end. The cagoule is easily the most well-ventilated rain gear I’ve ever used.
  • First trip with my new Montbell Wickron Light long-sleeve button-down hiking shirt. It isn’t as breathable or as comfortable as the OR Echo but it’s still great for sleeping in (actually, it’s better for cooler weather since it insulates more) and it’s a lot better looking – much less technical, which is exactly what I was going for. It does not have roll-up buttons on the sleeves so I need to up my rolling game if I don’t want to keep fiddling with unrolled sleeves as much as I did. Breathability and fussiness were some of the reasons I originally moved away from synthetic button-downs so I hope I’m not just repeating past mistakes.

What didn’t:

  • Klymit sleeping pad is still too narrow, and I was annoyed that my heels kept sliding into the grooves in the pad instead instead of staying at the angle where I wanted them. Since it wasn’t as cold as my previous trip I tried just resting my elbows on the floor, which was actually comfortable until around when I went to sleep at 11. It made me think that maybe using something like the Gossamer Gear Thinlight foam pad but perpendicular to the pad under my hips would give me something soft to rest my elbows on as well as provide a little extra insulation for my hips (they hit cold spots now and then when I rest on my side). I think I’m still going to upgrade to a wider pad, either the Big Agnes Insulated AXL Air 25×72 or some model of Therm-A-Rest.

Notes

Running and weight lifting had apparently not prepared me for a day of “yard work” – lots of sore muscles. I’m going to look into kettle bells or some other form of large-motion/full-body exercise to make sure I’m targeting more muscles.