Backyard Temperature Testing
One of the great things about having a yard during winter time is that it makes it safe and easy to check out the temperature ratings of your gear. Last night's low was in the upper twenties at the cabin so I set up the X-Mid with my new quilt and spent several 10-15 minute intervals in the tent using various combinations of gear to gauge the temperature range as well as practice winter camping skills such as setting the tent up in the dark in the snow and cooking on cold snow. Here's what I learned: The Enlightened Equipment [...]
Trip Report: Salmon la Sac
Now that my Sno Park permit has arrived I'm free to hit the nearby winter recreation areas, particularly Salmon la Sac which is just down the road from my cabin. Today I went on a short ski of the Sasse Mountain Trail (aka Forest Service Development Road 4315) to get a bit more comfortable on skis and evaluate some gear choices. Mostly I'm just happy that I'm getting outside in the winter instead of being stuck indoors waiting around for the spring thaw as I've done in the past. After this my plan is to spend the night in the [...]
2020 Fitness Baseline
After reading through Training for the Uphill Athlete I picked up a heart rate monitor (a Fitbit Inspire HR) and have started using the treadmill three times a week for an hour at a time. I wanted to record my starting stats so that I could refer to them later in the year. In order to build endurance 80-85% of your exercise volume needs to be in heart rate zones 1 and 2. The book suggested using Phil Maffetone's 180 formula to determine the beats-per-minute that define the upper limit of your zone 2. The formula is simple: Zone 2 [...]
How Much Battery Capacity Should I Bring?
Batteries are heavy so dialing in the proper battery size is an easy way to drop a few ounces off your pack weight. Step 1: List Device Battery Capacities First, start off by listing your devices and their battery capacities (units here are milli-amp hours or mAH): Pixel 1 phone: 2,770inReach Mini satellite communicator: 1,250Nitecore NU25 headlamp: 610Fuji X-T20 camera: 1,260 That's 5,890 mAH total. Step 2: List Device Expected Lifetimes Most devices provide some sort of estimate of lifetime based on typical usage. Let's list those out: Pixel 1: 19 days (standby)inReach Mini: 20 days (extended tracking mode)Nitecore NU25: [...]
December 2019 Loot!
Becoming a 4-season backpacker ain't easy - or cheap! Neither is getting in shape, apparently. Here's all the junk I've accumulated this month: Oboz O Fit Plus Thermal Insole Few things reduce your enjoyment of the outdoors like cold feet. I prefer Oboz insoles to Superfeet so when I discovered they had an insulated version I snagged a pair. They feature a fuzzy (moisture-wicking polyester) top and mylar reflective layer on the bottom. They now live at the bottom of my winter boots although I don't see any reason I couldn't throw them in my trail runners as well. ($34.95 [...]
Book Review: Training for the Uphill Athlete
Training for the Uphill Athlete is a follow-up to the bible of mountaineering fitness Training for the New Alpinism, generalizing the fitness advice to include mountain running, skimo and ski mountaineering. This time around they've enlisted the help of Killian Jornet, a crazy person who jogs across mountain ridges for a living (that's him on the cover). Despite being loaded with pretty pictures and semi-interesting athlete stories the book contains a numeric overflow's worth of scientific and tournament-tested endurance fitness information. It starts out with the biological basis of fitness, covering mitochondria, pyruvate production, ATP, lactate thresholds, and so on. [...]
Trip Report: Cle Elum River
I went skiing for the first time yesterday. Winter had finally come to the Central Cascades so I drove up Salmon la Sac Road to the Pete Lake turnoff and did a little bit of tooling around on my new Altai Hok snowshoe-skis. There were only a few inches of snow with a hard thick crust so conditions weren't ideal (or so I assume since I have no frame of reference) but since I was just doing loops around a parking lot I still had a good time. I first read about the Hoks in Ultralight Winter Travel and was [...]
Cotton Shirt Drying Times Compared: Kuhl Airspeed vs. Montbell Wickron vs. Wrangler Riata
In his September wrap-up of his Northern New Mexico Loop trip Paul "PMags" Magnanti mentioned his love for cotton-polyester blend thrift store hiking shirts, particularly western-style snap-button shirts. Having been raised in a "cotton kills" household I found this to be rather shocking, but since he obviously does a lot more hiking than I do I decided to do a little more digging. I picked up a Kuhl Airspeed (265g, $85) and Wrangler Riata (194g, $20) to compare against my Montbell Wickron Light (203g, $69). The Montbell is 100% polyester and the Wrangler is 55% cotton and 45% polyester. The [...]
Book Review: Ultralight Winter Travel
In the winter of 2014-2015 Justin "Trauma" Lichter and Shawn "Pepper" Forry became the first people to complete the Pacific Crest Trail in winter. That's 2,650 miles of continuous winter backpacking which is absolutely insane. Two years later they released this book which contains not only a wealth of knowledge on winter backpacking but also an appendix containing their PCT gear lists. I picked this up at the beginning of November and despite not being much for physical books these days I've had trouble putting it down. During a bout of insomnia I finally finished it around 4 in the [...]
Trip Report: Red Mountain
I headed back to Red Mountain Trail #1330 to do some solo trail maintenance, managing to clear about 10 downed trees (including one leaner) and brushing most of the first fifth or so of the trail. I didn't quite make it to the first creek crossing but when the trail is as overgrown as it is I wasn't expecting to even get that far. It poured rain on and off for the whole five hours with temps in the low forties which gave me a great opportunity to test out my gear in the rain. Also due to the rain [...]