Small Sleeping bag, big guy, just fine

I am what they call a "hot" sleeper. This summer, when my wife and I were amassing camping gear, I tried out many sleeping bags. Right away I determined that I could not, would not ever be comfortable in a standard mummy-style sleeping bag. I'm just too chunky. We bought a couple of 20º "three season" sleeping bags (I actually wound up with a small collection) and took them camping.

The first lesson that I learned was that a bag rate to 20º is a pretty warm thing! I'm not sure what the third season was supposed to be, but summer was not one of them! I could sleep inside none of the bags that I had collected: they were simply much too warm! Of course the nights were too cold to sleep un-covered though. Luckily, one of my bags was a square one that you could un-zip and use as a quilt. Un-luckily, it was down and the feathers got scrunched and soaked from my perspiration and condensation inside the tent.

Lesson two: when one needs a sleeping bag (you know, when it's actually cold out side), the last thing one worries oneself with is how snug the bag fits them! The only thing the matters is how warm the thing is. Suddenly I was confronted with a collection of sleeping bags that, during the summer, I had become sure would perform to their rated temps and more. In the winter... not so much. I zipped, wrapped and wriggled into all of them in an effort to find the best one. None of them. Each had a "flaw". I settled on my GI surplus bivy-bag set up with a cheep fleece liner. I only had the patrol bag, not the intermittent cold bag. On a side note: the flap of the bivy that bothered me so much during summer testing was 100% un-noticable in December.

I had a great weekend and slept warm and comfortable but I learned my lesson about "sizing" sleeping bags: tight is right!

If a Bear leaves a paw-print in the woods...

... does it eat the pudgy Mountianbikers? I sure hope not! After an un-sucessfull attempt at the North Peak at Pawtuckaway (it was getting dar quickly so I bailed) I ran into a slightly pudgy, very nice and very white-bread pair of mountain bikers in the parking area. It seams that they had gone off on the far side of the road and found the trail too difficult. They wanted to know if the trail on my side might be easier. I answered them to the best of my ability and offered them what guidance and direction that I could. I even let them spray themselves with my Off before they went peddling into the twilight woods on their brand-new bikes with no lights on them. What I didn't tell them though, was the when I followed the trail into the forest, about an hour earlier, there were NO bear tracks on it. When I had just walked out of the forest there were bear tracks on it! I sure hope that they were either fast or tasty!

Tried to hike South Mt. at Pawtuckaway

we only made i half way up but the Boy is a natural rock climber and we had a great time.

Holt Hill Andover

creepiest
place
ever
solistice stones
big foot
bad vibes

Of course you CAN (kinda) see Boston from here:

Back Yard Camping

Yea, I know. It's lame. It didn't start out to be a camping excursion though. We were just supposed to be picking up our kid from Grammy and Grampie's house in Maine. We had just bought a big-assed tent that the whole family can fit into: parents kids and nephews. The kind with the door on the front instead of a zipper. It's a Coleman. It has a screen-house attached to it that zips up to make another room if you want. G7G have a huge back yard: just the place to set this thing up and try it out. Good idea Honey, I can set up my new Nemo Obi-1 and try that out too! So, set them up we did (and by "we" I mean "I"). Air mattresses inflated and sleeping bags were installed in the Tent-Mahal. There you go baby, if you and the kid need me, I'll be in the little green one over there on my Thermarest. Yea. Right. It seems that my wife's parent's yard is patrolled by Grizzly Bears, Hungry Wolves, Rabid Mose and all other manner of predatory, crazed and generally grumpy wild animals. I had no idea that the yard was such a dangerous place until she told me! Furthermore, it turns out that I, and I done was responsible for sleeping i  the Big Tent so that I could fend off the Wild Hoards when they attacked. Really?

Still, a night under the stars is a night under the stars and they were amazing up there! We got to sit around the campfire withe her parents (which we could probably never do in "real" camping) and sing camp fire songs. We roasted marshmallows and snuggled into our sleeping bags to enjoy the first really nice sleeping night of the summer. Sadly, having a nice sleeping night is a sure sign that the summer is slowly drawing to a close. Hopefully we will get a few more of those magical nights before the weather changes.

Trekking Poles are Boss!

The nerdiest peace of hiking equipment, by far, has to be the Pole. You know the ones, the thin aluminum or, gasp, carbon fiber tubes that resemble nothing more than the ski pole industry's lame and transparent attempt to boos market share and Sewell more crap that people don't need in the "off season" instead of focusing their attention on Mountain Biking, like the ski areas do. Anyway, I guess these things came out in the 80s when every one was too coked out to stand any way, but had LOTS of energy for hiking and stuff. To the people who had money to waste on things like cocaine and summer time ski poles, "Tercking" Poles must have sounded like a fantastic idea. I did most of my hiking back in the 80s with a machine gun in my hands, so they seamed a little gay to me. Of course, I don't mean to insinuate that all Gay people use Trekking poles or that the use of said poles, by default, makes one Gay. Sexual orientation had little, or even nothing, to do with the possession or use of ski poles in the summer time thus the small "g" in gay. 

They do, however, make you a complete and total nerd. They were never cool and were certainly never "combat" so I never even considered them for use. Then, last fathers day my daughter got me a set of cheep, WartMart poles. Honestly, I didn't know what to make of them. I stared at them for a long time. I spent several minuets extending and collapsing them. I pushed the little spring thingies on the bottom. "these thing are SO gay", thought I to myself, and into the closet they went (pun intended). 

Well, the other day was their Coming Out Party. I' m not sure what it was that possessed me to actually try these things out. I am quite sure that it was NOT the YouTube video of the hot blond chick showing us all how to look bigger than a bear by waving ski poles in the air to frighten one off. I think mostly I wanted the satisfaction of knowing how the pole mounts on my backpack worked. For whatever the reason, I dug them out, figured out how to adjust them and dragged them out into the woods.

Now, it's time for me to tell you a secrete. THEASE THINGS ARE FREAKIN' AWSOME!!!! You simply MUST try some, if you have the means. Of course, the cheepo ones, like I have only cost twenty bucks of so. You can't even get a descent snoot-full of blow for that kind of money these days. 

Seriously, they really work as advertised. If you ski at all, as opposed to snowboarding, you will take naturally to the swinging of the poles. They provide that all important Third Point of Contact that really, really, really helps your stability on uneven ground. You can use them to test the firmness of muddy spots and as plows to move pricer bushed out of the way that have overgrown the rail. Most importantly for me, they give my front paws something to DO while hiking other than flopping around at my sides. hiking Poles, while they might still be a gimmick, are not really all that nerdy and are defiantly NOT gay.

Pawtuckaway State Park: North Mountain

I needed to get away. I needed to walk off some stress and calories. I did NOT need to be dodging cars or saying "Hi" to a hundred people walking their dogs. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and work on being a healthier me. I needed a Hike Time was short, so I went local. I went to Pawtuckaway State park.

The walk in, or "approach" was a nice, fast, nearly level walk in the park, literally. Then the "up" started. Not a gentle sort of "up" at all but the kind of "up" that one usually associates with stairs or a ladder. In fact many of the natural features of the ascent resembled stairs. Big stairs. I have been up some "bigger" mountains lately that war not as harden the joints as North Pawtuckaway was! Now, the difference between the "top of the climb" and the "summit of the mountain" is about a hundred feet of elevation that you gain by hiking along a half mile ridge line. The views are at the "top" and not the "summit". I urge you to poke around at the top of the climb as the views are pretty darn stunning for a scant 800 foot investment. Of course, you might not have a choice but to poke around!

I have a motorcycle. It's a dirt bike. It's a KTM. I don't ride it much. You see, when you have a KTM there is a certain expectation that you have to live up to as far as having a certain amount of skill and ability to deserve a KTM. The guy painting the white rectangular blazes on the North Mountain Trail "deserves" his paintbrush LESS that I deserve my KTM. Seriously, if you are going to emulate the Big Dogs, at least try to do it well. The blazes of this trail are old, worn, widely spaced and in-distinct. It is super easy to wander off on the ascent as there are often several ways that the trail "could go" and no clear indication which way that it should go! A minor annoyance once you realize that there are no side trails or any thing and that you can't really get lost up there. On a positive note, the coming down was even less clearly blazed than the going up, but it was daily clear where the trail went on the descent.

The walk back to the Jeep was a little more rushed that I would have liked, as I was late getting home. It wasn't until then that I saw my first Human either, so I knew that my time alone was truly over for the time being. Tomorrow is a day of places that I don't want to be and then bad to work the next day. Then event after event after event. It might be some time before I have any time to go rambling by myself again. I look forward to that opportunity though. It can't come soon enough!

Sacco River Run!

OK, We did not stay t or rent from River Run, although I suggest that you do: they are great folks and have taken care of us several times in the past. We stayed at Shannon's Sanctuary instead and with three small boys in tow,it was a better choice and we even escaped tangling with the on-site attack dogs this time! There is a little Rec Room there and plenty of other kids running around (on the weekends) so they had things to occupy their time while the adults were doing "rustic" domestic activities. Fun campfires, and lots of yummy s'mores and melted mash mellows were the order of the evenings.

On one of the days we hiked the Fire Warden's Trail up Pleasant Mountain. The main party made it nearly to the top before succumbing to exhaustion. A (purposeful?) miscalculation in distance had us believing that, after hours of hiking, we were only 3/4 of the way to the summit (we are not in very good shape). In fact, we were within feet of it!

The next day we were rained out. We went shopping at International Mountain Equipment in North Conway NH. A store dedicated to hard-core climbing and mountaineering, we felt kind of ashamed to be in there after our failure the day before. The store is owned by one of the member's of my in-laws church and has a second-hand section where we found a used back-pack for my nephew to use hiking with his youth group. I bought a water bottle and some Cliff Bars which are not only good trail snacks but also made by a company that is supportive of my one real outdoor passion: cycling. The rest of the day was spent at über Blast where the kids burned off all their rainy-day energy.

The next day was out day on the river. I don't know why I get scared of this river, probably because I live right on the Merrimack and that my friends, is a scary-ass river! The Sacco, in July? Not so much. We had a great trip down the river, putting in at Lovell Pond and paddling down to the state ramp in Brownfield. The original plan was to go all the way to the camp but another Distance Measuring Error put is on shore just shy of our goal. I'm starting to wonder about my navigator.... One thing that we noticed was that there was a lot of trash along the river but it was all neatly bagged up and left in piles. As if some one comes along and clans it all up. I am confused by this but know little of local River Lore, so can only speculate at best.

For the final day we dropped off the older boys and headed over to Story Land. Opened in 1954, the year before Disney World, this little them park was owned by the same family until 2006! Now it is owned by a small. locally owned them park company that is also family owned. It's nice to see that in today's day and age. That place is just more fun than can be described for a pre-schooler (and his parents)! Needless to say, it was a quiet car ride home for Dad! We drove over the Kankamangus and had supper a the Tilt'n Diner, which was as fund s ever!

Now back to reality. Un-pack every thing and get it clean and dry. Deal with my mirky fish tank and try to get this family active at some point so that there are no more "accidental" distance issues!

Two-fer!

Lately (for, like, almost a whole week) I have been trying to get out on the local bike paths and cycle some. I want to get in good enough shape to do my cycling on the road. You know, like a big boy.Today brought me to the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in Chelmsford MA. This former rail road bed runs from Lowell to Westford with Big Plans to have it extend far beyond! Starting at the Cross Point Towers (the former Wang Building) it passes under Rt. 495 past the town ballfields and throughout he center of town where there is easy access to restarants, stores and the public library. Among other attractions in the town center are a bicycle-repair station complete with tools-on-strings and an air pump. This is, by far, the busiest section of the trail with many walkers dog-walkers and cyclists. From the center of town the trail rises gently through the woods.There is a side trail that leads to a parking area at Sunny Meadows Farm. Not terribly useful since it's about half way down the trail. It crosses Male Rd near the Bynam School, Kate's Corner Store and Post Office and the First Baptist Church. Getting off the Trail in this little village and crossing Rt. 27 and heading past Parlay's Farm on Proctor Road opens up the Cranberry Bog, Great Brook Farms to explore. These areas are best suited for mountain or hybrid bicycles. If you forgo the side trip and stay on the Rail Trail you will pass Baptist Pond and travel parallel to RT. 27 to where the trail ends. As cool as this all is, the Bruce Freeman Trail holds a secret.   It turns out that this is two trails in one!

Another task that I have set for myself over the summer is to section-hke the Bay Circuit Trail. I have been concentrating on the portion closest to my house. You have to start somewhere and closer is always better. As you might expect, it is difficult to design a wilderness trail that circus navigates a major East Coast Metropolitan area. Concessions have to be made, and the Lowell-Chelmsfor portion of the trail is one such concession. I'm not even sure where (of IF) the BCT travels through Lowell, but in Chelmsford, it shares the same space as the Bruce Freeman Trail. So, today, as I cruised around on the Tri-Spec I also got to cross off another section of the BCT! Very efficient use of my time and precious calories, if I do say so myself. 

More pavement Makes me Sad

I took the Cross bike up to New Hampshire yesterday morning. Last summer there was promising rail trail that led out of the Windham Depot to Derry that was not un-improved but was un-paved. I thought that this would be an acceptably "cross" bit of a ride given my fitness level and bike riding skill. Errr... No. It was freshly paved and smooth as glass. It was anise ride right into Derry center where it DID turn to dirt (yea) for about three hundred yards (meh) and ended altogether in what look to be an Elderly Housing Complex (boo). I almost crash doug prey good when I came to this sudden stop going up hill in the dirt and couldn't un-clip fast enough but I saved it I wandered around the streets of Derry for a few and zipped back down the Bikeabaun to Windham. I only saw a few other cyclists on the trail. Most of them were friendly except for one dude in particular. He was riding a Specialized MTB and was kind of....large. He was not actually riding when I cam upon him. He was looking at the pond. It was a pretty pond, to be sure and if he had kept looking at the pond but that's not what happened. He saw me coming and tried to mount his trusty steed.  He was kind of wobbly and took up the whole path and that was to be expected as he got underway. After three or four minuets of watching him "get underway" I gave a cheery "on your left" and slid past him at a crawl. That's when I got it: The Evil Eye of the Slow Cyclist. I have given it myself on many an occasion. It's the look of "WTF is that Road Biker doing treating this bike path like it's a TDF sprint stage?" sort of an Evil Eye. The thing is, i was behind his wobbly ass for so long and going so slow that I could have walked pst him, on his left, of course.

First Ride of the Season? Really?

No. I mean, we have a vacation planned FOCUSED on riding bicycles. I love bicycles. I own a shit-ton of them! Sadly, it is true. Yesterday was the first time all year that I had the chance to actually RIDE one of them. In a way, it was good.

I have a new bike. I got it at the end of last year and never really rode it so much. It's a Specialized Tricross (just the base model). Being, as it is, a Cyclocross bike it is theoretically capable of not only riding on the road but on light trails as well. Of course it feels like a road bike, more so than it does a MTB. Having ridden neither in many months my body had no "muscle memory" of what a bike on the road "should" feel like or what a bike on trails "should" feel like so when I went off exploring yesterday, I was able to go on both with he same bike and not get wiggles out about having a "road bike" on the easy trails that I found and explored.

It wasn't a long ride by any stretch of the imagination, but it got my heart rate up and I burned more calories that I would have sitting at home blogging about riding, so I guess it was a "win". I went around Salisbury: the Marsh Trails and some random dirt roads and trails that I found that led down to the river. The one really interesting (and smelly) thing that I did find was a huge pile of clam shells, like a commercial clam-shel dump. Out in the middle of no-where. It was kind of creepy actually.

Hopefully yesterday was the first ride of a re-kindled love affair. Bikes are fun!

Willowdale Death March

I set out to the lovely town of Ipswich MA to tackle the Willowdale State Forest portion of the BCT. Actually, I don't know if Ipswich is lovely or not. I know next to nothing about the town except that it's NOT Gloucester and there are Wolves there. And the "Forest" which I might clarify more as "woods", like most of the State Forests in Eastern Mass. I parked off of Line Brook Road and set off with my new Deuter ACT Trail 32 pack, which I like very much. The bag is definitely large enough to carry a LOT of stuff, including a can of bug spray. Sadly, I didn't put one in and soon was getting eaten alive by a bazillion mosquitos and other similar insects. I turned back. I made it about two or three miles total. It didn't feel like I went very far. I bought bug spray.

I returned the next day and took to the trail, slathered in DEET. I made it past the point where I had to turn back the day before and quite quick thereafter ran out of Forest. The path of the Bay Circuit Trail seems to consistently take a very wide and direct route through wherever it goes. This was no exception. Basically a dirt road running down the middle of the forest. I passed a couple of quaint ponds and had to find my way around a few muddy puddles and a lot of piles of horse poop! I crossed the road at the end and poked around the northern part of Bradley Palmer where the foot bridge over the Ipswich River is. Turning back, I thought that I would try to go a different, more interesting way. There is a fairly large pond running right down the middle of Willowdale. The BCT runs down the western side of the pond. I took the first trail heading east that I could find after getting back into the forest. It would up and around a pretty god hill. The forest was much thicker here and more interesting to look at with old stone walls, fern-covered glades and babbling brooks. I ran into two girls riding their horses out here. I tried to find a Geocache out there but it was too well hidden. Apparently NOT having people find your cache and getting frustrated and pissed of is WAY better than having them find it and having a fun outing. Whatever. Nerds.  It took a lOT longer than I though it would. The BCT portion was only about three miles (I made it  a LOT further under bug-attack the I thought on day-1). Coming back up the east side of the pond made the hike about 7 miles long and the east side is definitely more challenging, although it's "nothing" compared to a mountain hike! As straight as the west trail is, the east trail is winding and has many branches to explore. I would like to get back in there and go through the rest of the forest, or at least the "interesting" side!

Bay Circuit Trail, just keep walking....

Earlier this year my doctor told me that I was fat. Fair enough. I am. She told me to loose weight. OK. I took a walk. A hike actually. I had recently read about an ambitious greenways project here in The Commonwealth called the Bay Circuit Trail. Like any ambitious project there are real and theoretical ideas about it, most importantly to me, where it starts. Theoretically, it starts on Plum Island in Newburyport. As far as I can tell, you have to walk along the roadway for quite some time before getting on a "trail". There are a lot of "proposed" and "temporary" sections up there until you get to the Rowley area, where the trail goes into the woods and stays there until Boxford.

It was an easy jump for me to choose "Section Hiking the Bay Circuit Trail" as a goal for this spring. I did so for numerous reasons including:

• Health and Fitness (loose some of the weight)
• More Outdoor activity
• Train like you fight: I wanted to do more mountain hiking and even some backpacking this fall)

I set out from the doctor's office to the trail that very same day. It hurt but I did several sections of trail over the next two weeks. Each section was about three miles. What I did was park at a trail entrance and hike until the next major road crossing, where I could later park and continue on. My leg and food really hurt doing this, but that was not unexpected as I was recovering from a minor motorcycle crash ( the reason that I went to the doctor to begin with). What I DIDN'T expect was to find out that the reason it hurt so badly was that I was in fact, hiking on a broken leg!!

So I took a couple months off to do physical therapy and let my leg heal up some. 

This week, I decided that I would fill in some of the gaps of trails that I missed on the north-easter portion of the trail before I had to do the portion that is a Road March between Boxford and North Andover.