Date: 2009-10-23
To: October thinking
Miles today: 0.0

Surprisingly, I keep thinking about AT hiking. Time is going too fast and time is standing still. I continue my quest for the elusive combination of comfort and light weight. The old standby author¢s (Jordan, Townsend, Jardine, Fletcher & Rawlins) books keep getting cross checked by gear item, hoping to find some magic bullet to drop a few ounces here or there. Success is slow. But of course, drop the comfort and save the pounds. This I have done, but now misery is no longer an option. Being wet is ok some of the time. And hot is not cool.Jardine has a story about being much younger packing 12 army pup tent and then finding a buddy to make full tent and liking the light weight. Brings back fond memories of early boy scout days. After the first hike you talked your parents into helping find a tent with a beak on both ends. And then found a buddy who had a similar tent as this set up helped keep out some of the mosquitoes, but only some. Today, a full tarp has much more room and much less weight. I am liking technology more every day. Have loaded spread sheet with all my gear by weight, ranked heaviest to lightest. Starting weight is 23.4 pounds (375 ounces) without food, fuel, water. By focusing on reducing weight of heaviest, I am looking at packs and tent. Pack size largely controlled by all the stuff-so pack takes second seat right now. But, if I can reduce from Gregory Z pack at 50 oz to Granite Vapor at 32 oz, I drop 18 oz. I need to be well below 20 lbs base weight to make lighter Golite packs without support a viable option. I keep looking at using Henry¢s tarp tent, or going back to just tarp. Saves a few ounces and space, but tarp tent has bug netting. Exploring idea of making larger poncho and having it serve double duty as tarp. This combination would also save carrying a pack cover so trade off is 37 ounce total tent including poles/stakes plus 6 ounce pack cover vs estimated 24 oz poncho/tarp without bug net. If I can reduce the tent size and weight, I can also drop to slightly smaller pack and save real weight. But this is all being off-set by new therma-rest pad. I want full length as no matter what I put under my legs/feet during last AT hike, I found the 34 length was just too cold down there. Old age has disadvantages as extremity body parts are now too far from the heat source. Yesterday, I was out walking around in the woods. Helping the Cascadia Conservation District work with land owners and get some fuel reduction projects done so that their property and houses are protected from forest fires. The Conservation District got some grant money to lend a hand and they continue to do fine work-which is why I continue to volunteer my time. Some of the lunch talk was about the funding problems here in Washington State-money is tight and natural resources are getting hit hard. Proposals for reorganizing state organizations take a lot of time and mental energy and by and large do very little to help. If the legislature was serious about saving money rather than being politicians, they would take a look at where the largest chunks of money are being spent and do the appropriate staff work to come up with some reasonable solutions. But just like all over the county, legislatures are a joke--national health care reform being another case in point to high light how well our elected representatives can put aside politics and work for good of people. Our elected legislators who have final say in appropriation of funds and taxes want to divert attention and blame governor and so it goes. I think I¢ll go work in the garage. It needs painting and I need to finish up the spackle work. I can get back on track and sand away while thinking about hiking-politics will always be around.