CK's Journal: Backpacking essentials

Boom!
I was talking with a man named Stephen about backpacking. Out of that conversation I decided to post kind of an annotated listing of the main things I’ve posted on backpacking. Hopefully it will be helpful to someone in addition to me.

What to take, including a little on car camping.

Backpacking food, including links such as the freezer-bag cooking site (fbc is where it's at, food-wise.)

In the Cirque of the Towers in southern Wind Rivers - Lonesome Lake

Car-camping in Colorado – good places for car camping. Copied from another website.

Maroon Bells is a great four day hike at high altitudes. Some people say it is the premier Colorado trek. Stephen - highly recommended - in a Natl Forest area, so not as many restrictions as a Natl Park.

The Wind River Mountains are my favorite mountains and this was my epic hike in the Winds.

I was a climber, a hiker, and a camper when I was young. But after two years in the Marine Corps, including 13 months sleeping on the ground in Vietnam I’d had enough of the outdoors. In 2007 I saw a photo my son had taken in Colorado and suddenly the mountains were calling. Over Thanksgiving 2007 I went on a backpacking trip to Big Bend with the Sierra Club. Something magical happened (copied from a trip report)…

Watching the sun come up out of Mexico,
New Years morning 2008

When I got up the next morning I walked into the woods to urinate and as I unzipped I heard a sound off to my right. I looked and about 30 feet away (I later paced it off – 10 paces) was a mountain lion standing sideways to me, looking at me. Big, beautiful tawny, big eyes. I flashed on Juana, a Mexican woman I know who has power over animals and I did what I though Juana would: I said “Hello, how are you” and went ahead and peed. Meanwhile the cougar watched me, sneezed a few times, sat down and licked her chest. I finished, zipped up and said something like “I hope I see you later” and walked away. When I looked back she was still sitting there, watching me. A little while later at breakfast I told the people in my group what had happened and several of the men went to see if they could see it (they assumed it was a male, I thought it was a female – we later found out which it was).

Two days later… In the morning the tents

On the Highline Trail in the Winds - Jeff in tent

were covered in (granular) ice an inch thick in some places. The plan was to break camp and hike to the lodge for breakfast and then hike out of the mountains. Taking the tent down was soooo slow, with so much ice (inside the tent, too) and my fingers icy cold and then numb and kind of hot feeling – how many times long ago climbing had they felt that way – knocking the ice off and untying lines and then the lion returned and began to scream. I saw it again, about 40 feet away, watching us. It stalked our camp, screaming and hissing 5-10 times as we broke camp.

Later I learned that I shouldn’t have turned my back on the cougar – and I thought about that. BUT, I felt like it was important to be cool and backing away seemed inconsistent with cool.

Planning calendar (when to go where)

	Asia	Grnd Can	Rocky Mts	Sierra	Utah	Big Bend	N Cali	Appa	New Mex	Okla & Ark
Jan	x					x	x		X	x
Feb	x					x	(wet)		X	x
Mar	x	x			x		(wet)		X	x
Apr	x	x			x		(wet)		x	x
May	x	x			x		(wet)			x
June				x			x
July			x	x			x
Aug			x	x			x
Sep	x	x	x	x			x			x
Oct	x	x			x	x	x		x	x
Nov	x	x			x	x	x		X	x
Dec	x					x	x		X	x