Scoutmaster

Learning to be light

Tom Mangan at Two Heel Drive reports on his participation in a lightweight backpacking class

Eleven of us sit at tables in a small meeting room in a nondescript office park on the outskirts of Palo Alto. Steve faces us from behind a table containing a blue backpack that looks big enough for moon missions. Steve notes that he routinely toted 60-70 pounds in this leviathan before he saw the light and started trimming his load. While describing his idea of a "lightweight" pack, he opens a zipper and plucks a smaller pack — one that might hold 15 to 20 pounds of gear fully loaded — from the beast’s upper thorax.. Then he starts talking about his "ultralight" pack and snatches a shiny little number from the beast’s lower abdominal cavity...

...For years, one of the primary appeals of backpacking has been the melding of dreadful suffering with wondrous outdoor vistas. Most folks are content to gawk at mountains and forests from their cars or camper vans, but those who insist on seeing them up close have been forced, until recently, to carry equipment built tough enough for Everest expeditions. A few people who were not Sherpas became indignant that lugging a 50-pound pack up a hillside turned an afternoon amid nature’s wonder into hours of praying for the day’s end or death, whichever came first. They made up their minds to enjoy the show and save their shoulders (and knees, hips, ankles and feet), and the lightweight-backpacking movement was born.

Read the whole story - part one, part two

Freezer Bag Cozy

Have you tried freezer bag cooking yet? I am sold on the method - simple, lightweight, inexpensive and reasonably goof proof. Stove Stomper has a great pictorial guide to making your own freezer bag cozy from Reflectix insulation.
via Freezer Bag Cooking Blog

See also
Freezer Bag Cooking - worth a look

Sgt. Rock's Hiking H.Q.

Intrepid and experienced hiker and backpacker Sgt. Rock (Ernest B. Engman) has developed a web site for backpackers that is worth a visit.

Here is his introduction to his section on teaching compass skills -

This is a subject near and dear to my heart. You see, as a NCO in the Army, I have literally taught over a thousand people how to navigate using a map, protractor, compass, and the brain God gave them.  I personally have built or re-built two courses for the Army, and have taught these techniques for woods, desert, and steep mountain like terrain. I have worked with US Army soldiers, kids, and even FBI Agents to impart these skills. So I speak as what I would consider an expert on teaching these skills.

Visit Sgt. Rock's Hiking H.Q.

Ten Essentials (yes, yet again) With a Quiz

There is a five question quiz at Two Heel Drive that refreshes the Ten Essentials. Take the quiz.

What ten essentials? Roger A. Jenkins writes about the ten essentials at twohikers.org;

With all the "excitement" that the wilderness can throw at you (weather, critters, rough terrain, accidents), it seems to be only common sense that the hiker should be ready to meet it with at least the bare minimum of equipment. This minimum is usually referred to in hiking guides as the Ten Essentials. (The exact number and composition of such a list can often consume hours of debate around the campfire, or anyplace else where hikers congregate.) Briefly, the Ten Essentials are those items that you should never leave the trailhead without. And that means NEVER! EVER! It is absolutely amazing how many hikers have heard this, and yet fail to head the advice. Why not? Laziness. Stupidity. The old "it can't happen to me" syndrome. Well, maybe not. But are you willing to bet your life on it? I personally know some folks who did, and came dangerously close to losing. The couple of pounds that the essentials represent are not "extra." They are absolutely critical. There is no way to emphasize this point too much.

Read the Jenkins' full article here.
Here's an article from Scouting Magazine

Interview: Through-hiking the Pacific Northwest Trail

From Tom Mangan at Two Heel Drive:

Not to be confused with the Pacific Crest Trail, the Pacific Northwest Trail runs for nearly 1,200 miles from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean. Two-Heel Drive reader and blogger Greg Seitz interviewed Sam Haraldson who hiked all those miles over two months this past summer.

Full post here

Freezer Bag Cooking - Worth a Look

Last December I came upon the Freezer Bag Cooking Blog after reading a post in Tom Managan's Two Heel Drive.

I finally got down to business and tried it out. Freezer bag cooking is easy, inexpensive and an especially great way for Scouts (or anyone for that matter) to prepare food on backpacking trips.

The ingenious technique 'boils down' to this ;  measure ingredients into a 1 quart freezer bag and add hot water, wait a few minutes and viola! - a great-tasting meal.

Most of the recipes consist of ingredients you can find on the grocery store shelf Add a home food dehydrator and the possibilities really expand.

In preparation for a backpacking trip I prepared a freezer bag cooking demo for our Scouts and they were impressed by how easy and how cool it was to cook something better than a brick of ramen noodles. (Jeeze, they really love ramen noodles too - yuck.)

Blogster and author Sarah Svien offers a book, home made cozies (an insulating fabric envelope for freezer bags) and a few hard to find supplies in the Freezer Bag Cooking Store. Her website features a blog and quite a few recipes.

The Gear and Techniques features basic "how to" instructions and advice.

Related Posts on Scoutmaster

Freeze Dried Food

Baking for Backpackers

Two  of my favorite freezer bag recipes (the brownies are truly amazing) are included after the jump.

The Cascade Effect - How Hikers Get Lost

Going in the wrong direction
By Denny Boyles / The Fresno Bee

09/27/07

It's called the "cascade effect" -- a catchy name for the way one mistake leads to another, and a quick explanation for how a hiker who takes one step off an established trail is one step closer to trouble.

Park rangers and search and rescue experts say that hundreds of hikers take that one wrong step each year. The key, they say, is where their next step takes them -- back toward the trail or further down a perilous path.

Ron Hoggard of Corcoran became lost two weeks ago after leaving the trail for only a few minutes. When he tried to find the path again, he went the wrong way and spent the next three nights with no food and little water, trying to find help.

Hoggard, 58, had never heard of the cascade effect, but said after he was found that he believes it can happen to anyone.

He also believes he was lucky.

In the case of Ottorrina "Terrina" Bonaventura, the cascade effect led a hiker with decades of experience down a wrong trail, and what should have been a short walk with friends turned deadly.

Bonaventura, 80, was on a day hike July 30 when she apparently headed the wrong way down a trail. Another hiker spoke to her later in the day, several miles from her destination, but she did not say she was lost or ask for help.

Her body was found two weeks later, miles from her campsite.

Full article LINK

via Two Heel Drive

Google Earth and Google Maps

A post at The Goat alerted me to a new feature available in Google Earth :

A new feature in Google Earth shows hundreds of hiking and biking trails across the US, and it allows users to add and rate new trails. You can send the trail info to your cell phone and plot the hike if you’re running a GPS-enabled phone. To see the new hiking trails courtesy of Trimble Outdoors and Backpacker Magazine, just turn on Google Earth and look under the Featured Content in the Layers pane. With all this technology, pretty soon I won’t even have to leave my computer to go hiking.

Google Earth is availble to download for free and is a great resource for planning outings. Depending on the resolution of the satellite imagery (it varies depending on what area you are viewing) it is possible to zoom in extraordinarily close.  for example much of the area we visit annually on our Canadian canoe trip is at a high enough resolution that I can estimate mileage, the relative difficulty of portages and the location of campsites. I have found that using  Google Earth along side topographic maps I can get an excellent visualization of the conditions we are likely to encounter.

Google Maps is another great resource for trip planning. Unlike Google Earth  it is browser based and does not require downloading a program. Satellite imagery available there has been helpful in pinpointing locations and directions for our outings. The recent addition of my maps also provides a way to link or email custom maps to share with Scouts and their parents as a set of directions and as a record of trips.

An helpful overview of Google Maps for new users is available at this Google Maps Tour. Be sure to look at the My Maps User Guide.

I haven't made the jump to GPS yet, but both Google Earth and Google Maps integrate GPS data for those of you who use it.

Related Information on the Scoutmaster Blog;

Scouts and Backpacking

Trail Information

Choosing a Backpacking Route

Naismiths Rule of Hiking

 

Outdoor Products Dragonfly Backpack

I prefer an external frame backpack for Scouts because they make it easier to pack, adjust and access gear. The Dragonfly from Outdoor Products  has a capacity of 2780 cubic inches and weighs just 3 lbs. 10 oz. I was suspicious of the  plastic frame at first, but have come to appreciate the many simple adjustments it facilitates and have yet to have a problem with wear or breakage. At less than forty dollars this is a inexpensive, durable piece of gear.

The Dragonfly has a great suspension system featuring padded belt and shoulder straps with  load carrying adjustment straps. It is important to spend the time required to properly adjust the pack, it will be a great deal more comfortable and efficient.

Note the different adjustment points in this illustration. (Although it shows an internal frame pack the placement and function of the adjusters is the same on an external frame pack.)The top and lower stabilizer straps are important and can be adjusted as you hike. The shoulder and waist belt adjustments should be made before the hike begins. Here's a good guide to making these adjustments. The Outdoor Products Dragonfly is available at Amazon.

Freezer Bag Cooking

A promising approach to lightweight, inexpensive, easy to prepare and readily available food for camping and backpacking. Dry ingredients are put in a heavy duty freezer bag and hot water is added. Sort of a do-it-yourself freeze-dried food pouch.

Hike, backpack, bike, paddle or do other outdoor activities for any amount of time and you will learn shortly that your options and imagination are seemingly limited when it comes to food to fuel your adventure and fun.  Traditional outdoor food and cookbooks are good, but they prescribe heavy ingredients, require long cooking times and consume a lot of fuel.  When you are in camp, you want to enjoy your time, not dread prep work and cleanup.  Commercial freeze dried foods are expensive and for many people, do not set well with their stomachs.

Freezer Bag Cooking™(FBC) style cooking changes the ideas of traditional outdoor food.  It adds in convenience, variety and speed of preparation and whirls them together with modern ingredients and philosophies of lightweight outdoor adventuring. 
The simplicity and portioning of FBC makes it also great for friends, couples, and families.  Each recipe can be split up and in its own bag.  Each person has a meal that they would like, just add water.  As our motto goes "Do not take what you do not like to eat."

Many people who have been introduced to the FBC style of cooking are shocked at how sensible FBC is, how good the food is and how easy it is to incorporate it into their existing outdoor menu.  Whether you want to dabble or like to be obsessive and manage details, FBC style cooking can be your ticket to better eating and enjoying your outdoor experience more.

Freezer Bag Cooking Via Two Heel Drive