Spring Break Hike/ New Gear

My plans for a 187 mile hike fell through due to illness, but after sleeping for three days, I was still able to do some hiking.  The Guino ended up hiking three awesome nights in the Santa Catalina mountains, north of Tucson, Az.  The Pusch Ridge Wilderness is a special rugged place bordering a metropolitan area which holds over a million people.  Hiking in this wilderness though, the hiker does not feel the proximity of civilization.  Only on the ridges and mountains where the view of Tucson spreads out below the hiker for miles does one notice that he is near a city.  Otherwise, the only evidence of civilizations are the metates left behind in the granite by Native Americans grinding mesquite beans and other grains and nuts for flour.

The 48 miles that I ended up hiking took me from Saguaro lined desert floor, to the lands of 100 ft tall ponderosa pine trees.

Three very lovely natural pool areas were located along my route; Seven Falls, Hutch's Pool, and Romero Pools,  all carved from granite by crystal clear warm Arizona water.  Hutch's Pool is about 100 feet long 20 feet wide and deep enough to not see the bottom.  Overall Hutch's is an excellent swimming hole, and is a popular day hike destination for hikers who want to cool off from the desert heat.

Yesterday I put in my order for my 9.1 oz Hexamid tent from Zpacks, and well as my 4 oz 43 liter Blast Pack.  My goal is to have a base weight, for my pack, just around 5 lbs on the Appalachian trail this summer.

I also purchased a Western Mountaineering High-lite 35° down sleeping bag which weighs in at 16 ozs.  This is the one that looks like a blackberry, and is very popular amongst the hikers.  Babbit's Outdoors in Flagstaff gave me a little discount on one, since I asked, bringing the total with tax for the bag to a mere $265.

This weekend the plan is either to head to the Grand Canyon for a three nighter, or to hook up with the lovely WildChild and her husband Dash.   This awesome couple is on there way from Berkely to Georgia, where they will begin the Appalachian Trail next week.  Hopefully the three of us can all go to the Canyon to do some pre Appalachian Trail training, and some much needed socializing. (Turns out they showed up and we had a great time, we even went out for a stroll on the Arizona Trail.)

Spring Break Hiking the Arizona Trail

Spring Break officially begins for me at 2:45PM today.  I will have 10 days to hike 189 miles on the Arizona trail.  The weather should be perfect for this stretch from Flagstaff south to the crossing of AZ87 between Payson and Phoenix.  I'm dealing with a little cold and a bad sore throat, but this is a training shakedown hike for a much bigger one on the Appalachian Trail this summer.  I have been having a lot of trouble uploading the GPS tracks from the Arizona Trail Associations website to Garmin Basecamp on my wacky macky.  This resulted in me just staying up super late last night making a track Basecamp, correlating it to the maps in the Arizona Trail guidebook.  Hopefully changes since they wrote the book to the trail won't very to much from the actual route.  This should be fun!

Anticipation building!

Two months and a week to go till I fly to Atlanta to start the 2,181 mile Appalachian Trail.  My plan is to hike the Appalachian Trail in about 106 days.  That's a fast hike!  It has been done before by fast hikers like Andrew Skurka and Krudmeister.  They are fast, I move at a Penguins pace though.

The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine through the backbone of the east, the Appalachian Mountains.  Home of Southern accents, moonshine, dreams and ambitions, yet still plagued by stereotypes and the misconceptions.   Here's a highly detailed map of my route.

The only conceivable way to make a 106 day hike of the Appalachian trail feasible for me is to cut every spare ounce I can from my gear.  Zpacks offers several ultra light tarps and a line of packs that weigh mere ounces.  My current pack weighs just under 2 pounds, and tent is also 2 pounds.  The 3.2 oz Hexamid shelter combined with a 7.4 oz pack slips by at a mere 10.6 ounces, a weight savings of 3 pounds after adding a 4 oz Tyvek ground sheet.

The old stove that I have become accustomed to, a MSR Pocket Rocket is finally ready to retire.  This lightweight champ of a stove served me well and will always receive praises from me.   However a cat food can also functions nicely as a stove and is nearly weightless.  Here's a picture of one I made following the plans on Andrew Skurka's website.

I will whittle down my gear more as I approach the start of my hike, but till then I must strive to juggle 17 credit hours at Northern Arizona University, a job at Starbuck's, and some training to get in hiker shape.

Cheers,

Guino

Ooh a blog!

Gee Golly,  am I finally cool, or what?  I have my very own bloodspot blog!