Most of the snow is finally melted off the mountain behind my house. I went out for a hike today.
Ramen and Instant Coffee for lunch
Fine Cuisine: Freezer Bag Noodles
I had some sort of GPS malfunction somewhere along the way. This was an 8 mile hike, not a 15 mile.
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My Catalyst arrived a few days ago. I’ve been excited to take it out, but I couldn’t fit an overnighter into my schedule for this weekend. It was raining pretty hard today, but I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I threw my dayhiking crap into the Catalyst, and went out on the Darlington Trail for a short hike.
Scenery
My dayhiking gear isn’t very heavy, so today’s hike probably wasn’t a good test, but the pack was extremely comfortable. There’s a lot more room in there that I’ll probably ever use, but the next smaller pack (the Circuit) doesn’t come in an XL size, and I need about 25″ between the shoulder straps and the hipbelt to accommodate my long, studly torso.
In all my excitement, I forgot to take any pictures of the pack itself (hard to do by yourself when you’re wearing it). So, you’ll have to settle for a picture of this handsome devil.
A handsome devil in a Bivanorak
I’m hoping to do an overnighter next weekend, so maybe I’ll have better pictures then.
I went for a hike on the Darlington Trail today. I did an out-and-back from Lamb’s Gap Road to Miller’s Gap Road.
It was very sunny out, and with all the snow (about 5″ on the north side of the mountain), all my pictures came out overexposed.
I bought that hat at a gas station for $3 this morning. It came in handy. It was a little cold on top of the mountain.
I had some GPS problems on the way out, but by the time I got to the turn-around point at Miller’s Gap, I had a strong signal, and got a nice GPS log on the way back.
You can see the fruits of today’s efforts on the map already.
I still have to do the section between Lamb’s Gap and Tower Road. Then, the Darlington trail will be completely mapped.
Klinutus and the Taoist (and a ridiculous dog) came down for a nice hike on the Darlington today.
Here I am, lumbering through the woods.
Klinutus brought up the idea of backpacking the 100 mile wilderness after I get my ass into better shape, and I must say, the idea has a certain appeal… Good relations with the mooses, I have.
I got out for a bit of a hike yesterday. I logged the west end of the Darlington Trail as well as the east end of the Tuscarora Trail.
I walked a bit of the AT just so I could make a nice junction on the maps.
By the way, I started a Wikipedia Article for the Darlington Trail. If you know anything about the trail, please add to the article before it gets deleted for lack of “notability”.
Brandi and I went on a (very short) hike yesterday, and I was able to log about a mile of the Darlington Trail for the map. GPS reception was very bad on the north side of the mountain, but approximate data is better than no data at all.
The Darlington trail is only about 8 miles long. Maybe I’ll have a chance to log the rest of it next weekend.
By the way, some of you may remember my hysterics when a developer wanted to build a housing development across the White Rocks Trail. Well, it looks like the Monroe township supervisors shot it down (on June 14th. I’m a little behind the times).
From what I understand, they are going to try to strengthen their zoning laws to keep this kind of thing from happening again. Kick ass!