Pat's Backcountry Beverages

Not quite available yet, but looks like it could be something cool to have, especially for the beer if it’s any good. Or some rye and ginger in the backcountry would be super sweet.
Pat's Backcountry Beverages

I'm stoked to try it out, I hope to get one when it is available.

C to C Roll

I finally bothered to learn a rescue roll... and edit video at the same time!

Here's a bit of a video I put together from footage I took in Georgian Bay when camping at Awenda.

Georgian Bay C-to-C Roll from Jason Fowler on Vimeo.

Awenda Provincial Park

     One of my favorite Provincial parks in southern Ontario is Awenda.  It is a little bit of a drive from Guelph where I live, but it is a pleasant enough drive even on a long weekend, if I take Airport Road up to Stayner  to avoid the 400.  Wasaga beach is close and it’s good to avoid that as well during the summer to get to Awenda.  

     Myself and Peter just got a last minute reservation after refreshing our browsers many times until we found a cancellation at Awenda for the August long weekend.  Awenda is an old growth forest and quite large as you can tell when you are driving to the gatehouse.  Awenda is in the southern coast of Georgian Bay near Midland and Penetanguishene.  The trees are very large, and the campsites spaced out nicely.  It’s certainly a good place to bring a hammock, and a tarp can be easily set up as well, from all the large trees around. 

     I brought my Hennessey ultralight backpacking Hammock to  spend the night in this time.  Another good thing to have is a bike to get around, especially to the beach.  Otherwise you have to drive, and the parking lot is quite packed on a hot midsummer day.  The other option is walking to the beach which normally wouldn’t bother me but our campsite was just about as far as you can gte from the beach and would be about an hour’s walk.  Just to get to the first beach.

There are 4 beaches there, but you can only park at beach 1, the rest of the way you got to hoof it along a trail.  Beach 2 is the pet beach and 3 and 4 are a bit of a hike.  Beach 4 is actually  4.1 kms. From the parking lot.  You will see a bunch of people rolling their coolers along it or even carrying them in tandem.  I think some don’t realize how far of a hike it is, but again a bike would make easy access to beach 4.  On the long weekend, all of the beaches were pretty busy.  The beaches have nice sand on them, but the shoreline and water are quite the opposite, with small to medium size rocks, giving way to large boulders as you get out into the surf.  A dive mask, snorkel and fins is nice to have if you like swimming. 

     Inland, there’s Kettle’s Lake, a small lake good for fishing and paddling or hiking around it – you can rent canoes from the wood lot.  Another strange thing is you can pay for and get canoe rentals and ice at the woodlot, but you can only pick up wood there and have to pay for the wood at the front gate.  I’m not sure what the logic is regarding that but that’s how it works there.  One good thing is the wood seems to be dry, well seasoned and easy to burn, much improved over previous years perhaps due to the feedback from last year’s survey.  Ontario Provincial Parks are almost notorious for having crappy, water soaked wood and have been that way for many years.

     Georgian Bay itself Is very tempermental.  Sometimes it’s super flat, other times 8-10ft waves, and good for advanced kayaking.  We wanted to paddle around Giant’s tomb island offshore, which I have done before in the past.  It’s about 5km offshore, so it is advisable to have some good rescue skills and a paddle float in  order to attempt it, since the wind can pick up and whip up some huge waves by the time you need to get back.  Giant’s tomb is part provincial park as well – many powerboaters raft offshore and swim on the beaches.  In any case we just paddled from beach 1 to three- the winds were 60km/h one of the days and massive waves which can be very dangerous kayaking in without a helmet, with the barely submerged boulders.   On the plus side, I managed to pull off my first ever mandatory self rescue roll (a C to C roll) in my kayak when a wave swamped me and turned me over.  Unfortnately, I lost my Oakley sunglasses in the process (always use the sunglass bands), and they are now sitting at the bottom of georgin bay, as a gift to the water gods.  I only learned to roll this year even though I have been paddling for 4 yearsm, since the vast majority of my paddling has been on rivers and not open water with huge waves.

Other than that, Awenda offers some good hiking trails as well, and is certainly worth checking out.

Links:
Awenda Provicial Park
Friends of Awenda

Snow Peak Chopping Board Set

Snow Peak is a Japanese company makes some sweet high end outdoor stuff.  Most people would know them primarily for their titanium mugs and cookware, but they also make many cooking utensils, tents, even chairs and outdoor furniture.  I haven’t seen many of their products here in Canada but they do look well designed, although pricey.

I have a ‘camping kitchen kit’ I keep in a storage box.  It has all of the kitchen stuff I need for car camping: cast iron griddle, and grill, tongs, coffee French press, water carrier, flipper, salt, pepper, collapsible  dish bin,aluminum foil,  fire steel, etc, etc.  It’s all together so I just grab that and throw it in my car - it’s the only way to make car camping much more simple than running around my house gathering items separately to take with me camping, and usually if you do that you will forget something that you wanted to bring.  Anyways, some things that have been missing from my kit was a good knife and a cutting board.  Anyone that has had to prepare a good meal with a swiss army knife or leatherman will instantly agree that it kind of sucks and is a make do thing in the backcountry, really.  A  good kitchen knife is much better. Also finding something to cut things on is difficult and you may end up using the picnic  table as a cutting board. 

         The Snow Peak Chopping Board Set solves my the knife and the chopping board issue at the same time.  The board is made of natural unfinished wood with stainless steel piano hinge and latch and rubber feet so it doesn’t slide around.   the knife is good forged stainless steel with a plastic handle riveted to it.  The board folds up to become the sheath for the knife, and has a magnet to retain the knife from rattling around.  The knife is the shape of a mini chef knife with a curved cutting surface, flat back surface you can hold the back of for quick and easy chopping.  It comes in two sizes – medium and large.  The medium having a 5.875” blade knife and a 10.1” long board, and the large has a  6.625” blade,  14“ long board .  I got the medium because MEC has recently been carrying the medium size, although I probably would prefer the large for car camping, I don’t think I would be bringing either on a backpacking trip.  On top of that, they are very affordable, the medium is $30 and the large is $40. The wood is unfinished.  I've oiled mine with mineral oil, which I use on my butcher board cutting board at home, while Snow Peak recommends olive oil.  

The cutting board after being oiled with mineral oil.

 The oil will help keep it from warping and stop it from absorbing onion and garlic juice among other things you chop.  I’m very excited to be using this and think it will become a great addition to my car camping kitchen kit.
Links:
Snow Peak Chopping Board Set Medium
Snow Peak Chopping Board Set Large
MEC Chopping Board Set

Osprey Waypoint 65 Review

     I thought I would share some thoughts about the Osprey Waypoint 65 travel backpack I used on my three week vacation to Borneo.  I found it almost ideal for what I needed.  Before leaving, I read many reviews of many packs, and I needed to decide on what brand, model and size I wanted to have.  I was concerned mainly about my upcoming Borneo trip, but also wanted a pack to last me through some European vacations in the future, or anywhere else I wanted to go to, too.

It is ruggedly built, large enough for what I wanted, especially for travel in a warm location. Judging what volume I wanted is a little difficult until actually going on trips to different locations to try it out, but I found the 65liter size a good all around multipurpose size and I think it would be suitable for a cooler climate as well when I need more clothes.  To Borneo I brought my Western Mountaineering Summerlite sleeping bag, Neoair mattress, mosquito net and Pacsafe travel lock, all of which I really didn’t need in the end, but even with those things in the pack, I still had ample room left over for the clothes I needed.  The front loading pack and side pockets on the main pack allow for super easy access to your stuff.  Inside the cover, there is a mesh pocket to keep smaller items together so they don’t get lost in the pack.  The strap cover on the front is easily deployable at the airport before throwing it on the check-in conveyor.

     I even used the pack as a backcountry backpack for several days of trekking in the Maliau Basin of Borneo, some things many people with a travel pack would never do.  Mind yu, I did unload half of my gear that I didn’t need with me for the trek before strapping on my pack.  I even used my hydration pack with no issues, even though the pack itself isn’t built with a port for the hose.  Although not quite ideal for a backcountry pack, it was very comfortable and I had no issues with having it on all da.  The compression straps keep the load secure and tight to my back.

     The attached 15liter daypack is great as well.  It has a strange way of accessing the inside – you have to take the pack off in order to access the zipper.  This is a security feature so no one can pick stuff out while you are wearing it.  It is a little awkward and strange to use at first, but I got used to it quite easily.  It also has three small pockets – one on each side and one on the top to store things accessible fom the outside such as snack or other non-valuable items.  There are also several pockets inside for organization of smaller things – I used them frequently for spare batteries and documents.  This pack too I used with my hydration system, and even though it doesn’t have a port for the hose, it is still workable.  It would be good if they could add a feature for the hose.  I used this daypack for my two day trip up to the summit of Mount Kinabalu and even had it on down the via ferrata.  My only complaint other than not having a hydration pack slit in it is that it is on the small side.  I had my super small summerlite bag in it, a hoodie, a camera, some sweatpants, ultralight rain jacket and not much else and it was almost bursting at the seams.  A 20liter pack would be better in my opinion.    The day pack does dock to the main pack easily and can be removed when needed.  There is another security feature that you can carry the daypack on your front while wearing the main pack on your pack in sketchy areas, although I didn’t use that feature.

       In all, it’s a time tested design, it has been around for quite a while and I now know why.  I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.  I got an awesome deal through Moosejaw on sale and paid $175 for it.  Other retails in Canada sell it for around $275 to $300.

Borneo Photos

Well, finally finished editing Borneo Photos as much as I feel like:

Kota Kinabalu           Flickr
Padas River Rafting  Flickr   Everytrail
Mount Kinabalu        Flickr   Everytrail
Mantanani Island      Flickr
Mantanani Diving     Flickr
Maliau Basin Trek    Flickr   Everytrail
Sepilok Orangutans  Flickr
Kinabatangan River  Flickr   Everytrail

More posts to come later.

Back from Borneo

Well, I had a pretty awesome  three week vacation in Borneo.  I was busy every day seeing and experiencing  different things.  For the past several years I have spent the majority of my vacations doing backcountry trips in Ontario, but this year my friend Steve, who happens to be teaching in an International school in Kuala Lumpur in peninsular Malaysia, wanted to climb Mount Kinabalu.  The waiting list is like 6 months long for it so it needs to book early.  He asked if I wanted to join and I said sure…   Borneo looks like a good place for adventure with many things in close proximity to experience – pristine rainforest, whitewater rafting, scuba diving, nice beaches, mountain climbing, exotic tropical wildlife, huge limestone caves, great trekking…  kinda hard to beat all that, sounds great!

So several plans came together right before my departure and it lead for a nonstop action packed vacation.  I managed to get 3 weeks away from work. 

I flew in to Kota Kinabalu, the largest city in Borneo in the northwest, in the province of Sabah. After a day or so of acclimatisation, we  got started with rafting on the PADAS river.  After that was the two day rather tough climb to the summit of Mount Kinabalu, one of the highest peaks in southeast Asia.  On the way down, we basically walked down the cliff face on the Via Ferrata. After that was a 4 day stay at the Mantanani Islands, a small group of islands close by to the North of Kota Kinabalu, nice and relaxed, not very expensive, not many tourists and not developed (yet…).  There Steve and myself got our PADI night dive certification, did a bunch of daytime dives, and even got to dive a WWII wreck, the Eikyo Maru, a Japanese merchant vessel torpedoed by a US sub in 1945.  At a depth of 40m it is at the limit of sport diving  and we did our first decompression dives on the wreck as well. After Mantanani, Steve went back to KL, and I continued my adventures..  first on a 5 day, 4 night trip to go trekking in the Maliau Basin to check out the awesome old growth rainforest, and the 7 tiered Maliau Falls while I was at it. Then I finished off my trip with a trip to Sandakan to check out the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center and to the Kinabatangan River to check out all types of wildlife – birds, crocodiles, orangutans, pygmy elephants, monkeys.  A lot of cool stuff.  I only wish I got to visit the huge caves at Mulu, or had a bit of extra  time to hang out on the beach instead of diving all the time.  Other than that, it was an excellent vacation, many memories and experiences to be had.  After that,, the tiring 20 hour commute home. 

I will be doing a few write-ups on my thoughts and tips on specific locations or trips soon.  I also got to use a bunch of new gear a lot, namely my Osprey Waypoint 65 travel pack, and my new boots.  I had second thoughts on the Salomon 4D boots.  They are a bit too full-on boots and too large, so I went back to MEC to exchange them a couple days before my flight.  I was planning on trying on the Vasque Breeze boots, but they had none in my size in stock.  So I ended up with some Keen Gypsum MID.  These wouldn’t have been my first choice but in the end I am very pleased with them and they have performed quite well on my trip. More to come…