Date: 2005-03-08
To: Falling Temps/Rising Tensions
Miles today: 0.0

As I type this, snow is falling here in northern Virginia, winds are blowing at about 20 mph, and the temperature is steadily dropping toward a predicted overnight low of 20 degrees. I've just spent the past hour or so reading journal entries from the AT Class of '05 -- those who have already left Springer Mountain and are headed north. What I'm seeing out my window is pretty much what I'm reading about in the journal entries of the past couple of weeks. None of this is surprising, of course. It is, after all, still officially winter, and will be for another two weeks. The arrival of the Spring Equinox, however, does not promise the end of cold winds or wintry precipitation. Indeed, those of us leaving in mid-March can pretty much count on snow as we trek through the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina, and especially as we enter the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Knowing that going in, I have packed my winter gear, which is one reason my pack is as heavy as it is -- @35 pounds with five days food and the amount of water I start the day with (100 ounces in my camelback bladder inside my pack, and another 32 ounces in a Nalgene Bottle in a side pocket). And, as a fallback, "Plan B" is to simply "hole up in town" if weather conditions get too bad. After a day or two, things will generally improve enough to continue the hike. After all, Spring IS coming...Tensions, however, among most of us about to depart for Springer seem to be rising. The common theme is that we are all desperately trying to finish up all of those uncountable last minute chores, the final details of perparing to leave town for the next several months. It's not easy!In my case, having worked my last day for awhile with my employer, I turned in my employer-provided home computer, and then faced the daunting task of getting my new personal desktop computer set up to do all the things I had taken for granted when I was supported technically by the IT staff at the office. THIS is a whole new ballgame, and I have largely been striking out. I won't go into the details, but the end result is that I have been all but incommunicado for much of the past ten days. You don't realize how much you have come to rely on email communications until the line goes dead on you! Well, maybe it's just as well, as I will have to make do on the trail as well. I have been working with my new Pocketmail device some, and it seems to work. The main problem is that it doesn't seem to want to work with my cell phone, which is going to sort of compromise my plan to be able to update my journal whenever I can get a cell phone connection. I'm not sure what the problem is, as the pocketmail web page indicates that my service provider should be compatible. It is, in fact, exactly that kind of little "kink" in the plans that is driving me nuts at the moment, and leading to the above referenced "rising tensions". Fortunately, "She-who-knows-me-best-but-still-loves-me" has been ever-more patient, igoring my outbursts and doing her best to placate both me and my new computer. The woman is clearly a saint, and I will owe her more than I can ever repay for all the support she is giving me in preparing for this little walk in the woods. There have been some happy moments and continued progress on a number of fronts, so I should be counting my blessings. It's just the pressure of knowing that the days are passing more swiftly now as my departure date nears, and I have no choice but to get those final critical arrangements completed if I want to leave on time. I leave, now, in just four more days! AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! On the bright side, one of "M Company's" finest, Wyatt, has managed to program a map of the AT that will show where exactly on the trail up to 20 of us are at any given moment. We each have a color associated with our trail names, and you'll be able to follow us as we move north. What I'm working on now is to get that map incorporated into this journal. I know there is a way to do it, as Breakaleg has it up on her site, and it is really cool looking. As the regulars amoung you assembled eyes will note, however, I have still not figured out a way even to upload photos to my site, so I have no idea if I will be able to get the map up. If not, you can still find it, and check on progress geographically by clicking on Wyatt's web page at: http://wyattmcguire.com/trail/map.phpMeanwhile, I will get on with the process of trying to get some photos uploaded, since that little item has finally made it close enought to the top of my A list to merit my attention. On an additional happy point, I was pleased to hear from my son in Atlanta on Monday that my pack and its entire contents had arrived safely and intact. All I need now is to add some white gas to my fuel bottle, and I'll be ready to hit the trail.Speaking of fuel, however, those of you who are paying really close attention may have noted that I just referred to white gas, when my gear list includes an alcohol stove. Well, that was another of those little items on my "A list" of things to do before I leave town: test the alcohol stove under winter conditions and see how it does! Bottom line: it flunked. Big time. I had been alerted to this possibility by an entry in Jaws journal in which he expressed some frustration with his stove, which turned out to be the exact same model as was in my pack - the Varga Titanium. He gave up on his as it was too hard to use under really cold conditions. So I went outside on a 20 degree day, when the wind was whipping things around pretty well, and had a go at boiling a liter of water. Two main problems arose. First, alcohol doesnt' light very well when it's cold. I tried warming up the four ounces needed to fill the stove by putting it into a small plastic squeeze bottle and putting that under an armpit for a few minutes, but to no avail. When I finally got it to light, I had to immediately get the wind screen set up right or the wind would blow the flame out. The problem was that putting the windscreen up close to the pot all the way around meant that I could not easily tell whether or not the stove was still lit or had blown out again. Lots of wasted time and fuel on that as the water cooled down quickly when the flame went out and I was blissfully unaware of that fact.Second, if the flame did stay lit, and I kept the wind screen too tight around the pot, then the stove overheated and the then-boiling alcohol flowed out of the stove and onto the metal tray that I was using as a table top. Not only did that get a rip-roaring fire going (helping me to understand all of the scorched picnic tables I'd seen at various AT Shelters!), it wasted even more of the fuel that I had carefully warmed up and measured out into the stove. For both of those reasons, I did not manage to boil the water on either the first fill up of fuel or the second, and basically wasting about 30 minutes of my time standing around in the cold hoping it would work. Not my idea of a good time. Since those are precisely the conditions I expect to find for the first month or so on the trail, I immediately dug out my trusty Wisperlight International and my white gas fuel bottle and shipped those off to Atlanta with the rest of my pack. I suspect the Varga may be just fine when the weather turns warmer, so I've put it into my bounce box for future access. I can assure you, however, that I have no intention of repeating that particular charade at the end of a long day's hike just trying to get my dinner on the table! The Wisperlight weights a bit more, but hey -- life is just filled with tradeoffs. I'll take a hot meal and the few additional ounces.Well, enough for today. It's been good to read journals again, and to get another entry into mine. With luck, I might just get one or two more entries before I leave on Saturday. And if the technology gods were to REALLY smile down on me, you might finally see a photo or two and a map -- but don't hold your breath!