Appalachian High Peaks Trip

I finished making a track/recording on Alltrails for my Appalachian High Peaks trip in June.  Great place, and good time to go - not many people or bugs! The weather was nice and cool to deal with the massive vertical that many of the trails have.

Bare Boxer Contender Bear Container

There's a first time for everything.  For me, using a bear canister in June while hiking in the Adirondacks was new to me.  In the Adirondack High Peak region, it's mandatory to use a bear canister in the backcountry.  Apparently by the early 2000's bear encounters had become such a common occurrence that it was mandated that travelers use a bear canister, instead of using usual methods such as hanging from trees.  Typically these containers are used more in the West than they are in the east, and provide much better protection from bears eating your food.

Bear containers are heavy.  They need to be somewhat to withstand the punishment of a hungry bear trying to eat your dinner. I did a bit or research to find the lightest one I could for a three day trip for one person and figured I would pick up the Bare Boxer Contender 101.  It's manufactured by a company called Golf City Products which surprisingly makes golf products such as golf cups for holes.  It was on back order at the time I ordered one, but I did get it before my trip.  In the Adirondacks you can borrow and/or rent them as well, but I wanted to have my own to be able to know what it's about and pre pack it.

So, this thing looks like a barrel made of heavy plastic with a separate lid with three half turn locks on the top of it.  The operation is quite simple - you have to rotate all three locks until the arrows point inward, then the lid can be removed.  There's one catch - you can't just simply twist the locks to rotate them, they have a little protected piece that needs to be pushed down to rotate it. A key or swiss army knife will do the trick for this.  Even though it is one of the lighter ones I could find, it isn't all that light, weighing in at 1.6lbs.  It also is less packable and needs more strategy to pack than just a bag of food, since it's a hard barrel shaped container.

Challenge #1:  Packing the bear container.  I bought a bunch of freeze dried meals to take with me on the trip, as well as usual trail snacks - trail mix, etc. to take with me on my three day trip.  Most of the freeze dried meals are in a large pack and the contents are hard, so fitting them in the box was pretty difficult.  I made the decision to ditch some of the foil packs they come in, in order to fit more food in it...  I cut the packs open and transferred the contents into a ziplock bag.  The idea was to reuse the one of the foil packs for multiple meals, and that worked well.  I also had to change my meal plan and opt for more energy dense foods instead of what I would normally bring for lunch... i.e. snickers bars instead of sausage and cheese with crackers.  Packing anything fragile in the box is just guaranteeing it'll come out in crumbs or all broken up.  I did manage to pack three days worth of food for one person in the box. It may be stretched to 4 days, but more compromises would need to be made for choices of food. 

Challenge #2:  What the hell do I do with the container..? I didn't know what to do with the container when at camp.  It seems weird just to toss it on the ground and leave it there, but that's exactly what you do with this.  The idea is if the bear comes around and is interested in your food, it will just bat the container around until it gets frustrated, then leave.  The barrel shape and smooth surface doesn't allow for the bear to pick it up and walk off with it.  It's advised that it's put a distance away from the camp, in some bushes or something like that so it's less likely to be moved around...  and not near a cliff or water.

Conclusion

The bear boxer contender is a good piece of kit for one person, three days worth of food or 4 pushing it. it needs a little to get used to packing it and is heavy though.  I believe some of the hardware on the lid can be changed to aluminum or titanium to lower the weight a little without sacrificing strength.

I did find using a bear container more convenient that trying to hang my food.  Many times when hanging food, I would be walking all around near the camp looking for any semi-suitable branch to hang food from, only to give up and find a not-so-ideal branch to hang my food, that a determined bear would likely get my hands on my food.  This eliminates all of that... but at the downside of being an extra 1.6 lbs to carry around and being awkward to pack.

http://www.bareboxer.com/

Everytrail acquired by Alltrails and lost my 70 trips, photos and descriptions

I'm pretty pissed off.  I haven't been on Everytrail much lately, but I wanted to look at my trips today and start a trip for my Iceland Laugavegur trip.  When I went o Everytrail, it was redirected to Alltrails.  Apparently Alltrails acquired Everytrail recently (like yesterday) and proceded to promptly shut the Everytrail site down immediately and redirect to the Alltrails site.
Despite their wording that ' EveryTrail users will be able to seamlessly interact with their existing photos, reviews and trail recordings... etc.' it's bullshit.  I can't access any of the 70ish trips I meticulously uploaded, added thousands of photos and wrote lengthy descriptions of.  None of them. To add insult to injury, some of the photos on there I don't even have on my hard drive, since there is about a year of photos I lost around 2008 or 2009.  Perhaps I should have downloaded them earlier but I thought they were safe on Everytail.  If I know this was coming in advance I would have.  Much of the traffic to this blog was a result of people reading my Everytrail trips and they were an excellent resource for people planning trips in the areas I traveled in.  This is pretty much bullshit - they couldn't keep both running for a while and/or send all Everytrail users an email explaining what happened to allow them to get their data off of Everytrail???  That would seem reasonable to me, but they didn't do that.
The only recourse I have to get my data back is I submitted a help ticket on Alltrails asking how I can access my data.  Hopefully something comes of this but I am not holding my breath.

UPDATE:  Alltrails did help me out and imported my trips (now called recordings) into Alltrails.  Thanks Alltrails!

Good to Go Gourmet Dehydrated Food - Yummy Thai Curry

 

I had the pleasure of eating a Thai Curry Good to GO meal in the Adirondacks I picked up from Eastern Mountain Sports in Lake Placid before hiking.  This meal blew me away how great it tasted.  All the coconutty Thai Curry goodness of it all.  The long hike may have had some bearing on how awesome it was, as backpacking tends to do, but I don't think so. Previously I have heard how good these things are and wanted to try it out - the shop employees at EMS even asked if I've heard how good they are and said the Thai curry were their favorite flavor.  They're made in Maine.  

 

 Good to Go has mainly have vegetarian dishes and some pescatarian dishes that includes some fish but really not much.  I wouldn't mind trying out a few more of them, like the Pad Thai or the chili.  This was so yummy, I had to pop back in to EMS on my way out of town to pick up a couple more since I don't think they're sold in Canada.  They are a little on the expensive side at around 12 dollars US (15 bucks Canadian - yikes!).  This one does take quite long to rehydrate (20 mins.), but I've found most containing rice do.

If you come across some of these, pick one up...  or probably more, you won't be disappointed!

Good To Go

Thai Curry!

Thermarest MondoKing 3D Review - Car Camping Sleeping Bliss!

I'm on the fence on what to think about the whole glamping movement.  On one hand I hate people for wanting/needing every single amenity from their house including the kitchen sink while camping.  Also a little bit selfishly is the more comfortable camping is, the more people will be camping and Ontario's Parks are already overcrowded and difficult enough to get a reservation for nowadays.
On the other hand, there are a few things I do appreciate.  One of them is the elusive perfect sleeping mat/mattress for car camping. So really I shouldn't complain.
I do a lot of backcountry camping so I have all the ultralight stuff, but let's be honest - sleeping on a NeoAir mattress or most camping mats isn't exactly a dreamy sleep.  It's just a compromise from lying on the hard ground while trying to get some shuteye.
In the past couple years I have used a blow up Coleman type of queen sized bed.  They're very popular at the Canadian Tire/Walmart type of camping sections because they are cheap on sale. But, even if you get a good one, the seem to ALWAYS leak sooner or later, which drives me nuts when I wake up in the morning with my ass on the ground and have to blow it up every night.  All that, and they are cold...  even in a temperate camping climate, you loose so much heat out of the mattress that I always put a blanket down on top of the mattress.
In any case, due to these shortcomings, I picked up a brand new XXL size Thermarest MondoKing 3D mattress to get rid of these issues. It is quite expensive, costing me 215 dollars at Mountain Equipment Coop.  It is quite large, coming in a bag about the size of a medium car camping tent.  The XXL sized mattress itself when blown up is about the size of a twin bed - a glorious 30x80 inches, and a full 4 inches thick.  Very comfortably long and wide for my 6'2" tall 180 pound frame.  Inflation is similar to any old old school foam Thermarest- open the valves.  Yes valves - there are two.. both leading to the same space, just to make self inflation quicker.  After half hour or so then I close one off and blow maybe twenty times to get it firm, then close off the second valve.  The mattress is extremely comfortable and supple, similar to memory foam.  I have used it twice in a Lean-To so far, and I am so glad I had this at the end of my recent 43km Adirondack hike to rest my sore and weary bones.  As well, it is the warmest Thermarest ever, with an R rating of 11.4 compared to around 3 for your standard NeoAir mattress.  Comfy sleep... ZZZZZZ.  This will also come in handy for winter car camping..  it's too large to be dragging around the backcountry.
Deflating is somewhat simple and painless.  Open the two valves, fold over itself a couple times and sit on it to get rid of most of the air, then lay out and roll, squeezing any remaining air out with your knees, then close both valves when rolled.  It comes with a handy stuffsack/carry bag with a strap on it.  The only thing I wish is that it came with a mini pump instead of having to huff and puff your way to the correct firmness.
I am super happy with this so far, and it is so nice to have a great sleep uninterrupted by pressure points as many camping mats have, or coldness and leaks as air mattresses have.  I am looking forward to great sleeps with this in the many years to come.

Thermarest MondoKing 3D

Black Diamond Distance Carbon FLZ Poles - The Trekking Poles That Couldn't

I wanted to get some high end, lightweight trekking poles for use while backpacking.  I thought these Black Diamond Distance Carbon FLZ Poles would do the trick, since I figured Back Diamond should surely know how to design some trekking poles - they have been doing it for quite a while.
Brand new, these poles seemed to be great - lightweight, easy to set up and extend.  My only issues were the hand straps - they're are non removable for some reason..  and the tips are plastic for some reason.  I had to buy some carbide tips to switch out, which is easy enough - the plastic tips simply unscrew.
Unfortunately it didn't take very long for me to find out how how unsuitable for trekking these poles are.  First trip with these was a three day backpacking adventure in the Adirondacks. I only got the chance to use them a day and a half, or around 10 hours/20kms of hiking, before one of them failed.  Basically the locking pin for them frayed the carbon fiber tubes and one pole was useless after that.  I looked at the other pole and it was showing signs of the same thing.  I managed to use the second pole for the other day and a half of my journey, but that pole is useless now too.

 

I am actually a bit shocked at how unsuitable these poles are for trekking - I expected much more out of Black Diamond for a set of poles that cost nearly 200 dollars.  I weigh only 180lbs and didn't abuse these in any way - slamming them down or falling on them - I was simply using them in a way that anyone would while backpacking in steep rocky terrain.. I honestly can't think of a use for these poles except if you are a senior and want to use them in the local city park, either that or if you weigh less than 130lbs they might be suitable for the backcountry.  I question if Black Diamond even spent any time testing these.
I rarely return gear that has been used, but I will be returning these to MEC.  I don't know which poles I will get next.  I don't know if I can trust Black Diamond to get a different model than these now.

Black Diamond Distance Carbon FLZ Poles

High Peaks and Back

I just got back from the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks.  I visited Lake Placid for a day and then headed to the Adirondack Loj and Wilderness Campground.  An amazing place, excellent for launching on a backcountry hike, as the trailheads are right there.  A last minute decision on the route had me going over Algonquin Peak the first day, I stayed at Opalescent River lean-to the first night, then over Mount Marcy from the Four Corners, over Little Haystack and on to the amazing, new Bushnell Creek #2 lean-to for a cold night, then out back to the Loj the day after. 
It was a great rip and it gave me a chance to builkd up my legs for Iceland, as well as test out a whole bunch of new gear.
There'll be some good reviews I'll write up soon with loyts of new gear I tested out!