Being in the Woods

I recently got back from a two week backpacking trip with Aaron and some of the guys from his scout troop. Hence the complete lack of blog posts for so long. When I got back to work I made a comment to a friend that It was taking me quite a while to remember how to do my job after being in the woods for so long. He responded, “Isn’t it interesting how little time it take you to get used to being out in the woods?” I couldn’t agree more.
Here are a few pictures from the trip.

Our '76 VolksWagen Westfalia

I had a couple people ask why I hadn’t posted anything for a while. So I figured a little bit of an explanation was in order.
I have a confession to make. I've been having an affair with a high maintenance 34 year-old. She's really cute but she need a lot of attention. I've had to run errands for her on my lunch hours and she's made me spend most of my evenings with her lately. So she's been getting in hte way of some of typical blogging time.
Here are a few pictures.

Here she is. She's a 1976 Volkswagen Campmobile.

Eve loves to help me work on her. She's helping me change the fuel lines in this picutre.

Get Outta Town

I need to get out and backpack more often. It just really felt good to get several miles away from the car and well into the backcountry. The air just tasted different than it does around here.
Last Friday was a teacher work day for our county. In spite of the fact that I had passed a kidney stone the week before I really needed to “get outta Dodge” just to return to sanity. Aaron still needed to hike one 20 mile hike in a day in order to earn his Hiking Merit Badge. Most boys just do this as a day hike and don’t carry a pack. It didn’t take much convincing and Aaron agreed that we should do something bigger than that.
We broke out the maps and found several nice loop trails that would accomplish his goal. We eventually choose a 24 mile loop in the Smokies that covered about 6 miles of the Appalachian Trail on a very pretty section that I did in 1992.
We got an early start on Friday and made it up to the trail head around 10:00am. We started out at Smokemont Campground at about 2400’. The first 4 miles of the trail ascended gradually and hiked along the Bradley Fork River. The trail was wide and the river gave us constant great views of rapids and waterfalls.
A little after the 4 mile mark the trail left the river started climbing steeply for the next 4 miles ‘til it reached the Appalachian Trail at around 5700’. We weren’t quite making as good a time as we had planned but were still going pretty fast considering the terrain. In spite of the constant drizzle and overcast skies this was the prettiest section of the trail. The AT walks right along the Tennessee and North Carolina border on a knife edge ridge. At times you have drops of several hundred feet on each side of you. Yet the ridge itself doesn’t gain or loose much altitude. When the clouds would break Aaron would stop for several minutes just to admire the view.
Since we were going as little slower than we expected we stopped and made camp at Peck’s Corner shelter. The shelter was full so we set up our tent a little ways away. We had to put the food in a bear bag and it rained pretty hard on us all night. We stayed pretty dry but the gear was wet so our packs weighed a few pounds more than when we started.
We got up pretty early on Saturday and started hiking out in the dark. We wanted to make sure that we got to the 20 mile make before 10:00am so we could honestly say that we did 20 miles in one 24 hour period. Considering that the whole day was pretty much down hill we were able to get that done in spades. We were back at the car around 1:00pm and had 24 tough miles in the Smokies under our belts.
I really enjoyed just spending time with Aaron. At times when the trail was wide enough we were able to have some deep philosophical discussions. He’s a good kid and I can’t express how proud I was of him for sticking it out and finishing this merit badge the way he did. Most scouts do their 20 miler on much easier terrain and they do it without a backpack. I did mine in 8 hours just walking from my house to Stone Mountain and back.
The whole event inspired me to get outside with my family more often. Eve has been really bugging me to go camping too. I need to make this more of a priority than I have been. I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoyed just being around the mountains and the trees.

Monday at camp

Well the first day and a half was a little awkward for some of the boys but now that classes have started up things are settling down a little bit. This just reinforces my opinion that more structure is better; they actually enjoy it.
The camp is much better than last year. The cabins have been rebuilt and they didn't over-book it like last year either.
Aaron is doing a great job in his role as Senior Patrol Leader. It's hard in a situation that just involves the troop to inphasize that the boys are truly in charge. Up here at camp they totally rely on the boys to handle things. I went to a Senior Patrol Leaders Meeting and I was told that I could observe but that adults were not to participate. It's really good to see it run like it's supposed to be.
One of the jobs of an SPL is to assign duties for various camp tasks. One of the tasks is waiter. YOu have to set the tables up and help get the dining hall ready. Aaron always assigns himself to help as a waiter. First, because he thinks it'll be easier to ask other folks to do it if he's shown that he's willing to "mop up after them", literally. But it's not all self sacrifice. While they're setting the table and cleaning up, the waiters get to spend 15 to 20 minutes extra in the air-conditioning while the rest are just waiting in line outside.
One of the older boys who came to camp this year is very close to his Eagle. He just needs to finish a few merit badges and then a project. I could easily see him finishing by next summer. Walking home from the campfire last night, another leader and I gave him a lot of ideas. It turns out he hasn't had any real support from his official Varsity Team leaders. He didn't have even a basic idea of what the Eagle project was about. I made sure that this young man knew that I would always be willing to assist him towards his Eagle. He's going to be coming up to our campsite for one of his class hours just to discuss and plan his project and the write up. He's a good kid and I really enjoy helping him through the process.
When everything is flowing properly, I have a fair amount of free time. I've been catching up on my reading and practicing my guitar. In spite of the extra stress of having responsibility over 13 boys, most of my day has been rather relaxing.
I miss my wife and the three of my kids that didn't come up with me. She's holding down the fort pretty well while I keep track of these guys.
I'll blog again when I get a chance. Here are a few pictures of the guys.

Snow

So what do "normal" people do on a Friday night when there are winter weather advisories? In Georgia the trend seems to be to panic and run to the grocery store as if snow in Georgia were one of the first horsemen of the apocalypse and somehow having a pantry full of bread and fresh milk in the fridge will allow the destroying angel to pass over your house.
Well I wasn't about to have any of that. Instead I went ahead with our normal plans for a Boy Scout backpacking trip that we'd planned weeks ago. Earlier in the week, when I realized that the weather was gonna be rough I sent out an email warning everybody that I had no plans to cancel just because of a little snow.
We hiked to the top of Tray Mountain on the Appalachian Trail. Since we have to leave after the boys get out of school we didn't start hiking until it was dark. But the snow on the ground reflected enough light that we didn't need to use any flashlights for the hike up. We set up camp on a few inches of snow on the summit.
Saturday morning we packed up and started hiking back. Soon the snow just started coming down. It was interesting hiking out. Over the past week the ice that had formed on the branches of the trees had fallen and it felt like we were walking on piles of batteries of all different sizes. By the time we got back to the car the snow had piled up several inches on everybody's head and shoulders.
The drive back down was a little dicey. The roads had built up a fair amount of icy spots. But we all made it home safely and had some great stories to share. All of the boys who went said it was their first time hiking and camping in the snow. I'm glad they all paid attention at our recent, "How to stay warm" clinic.

Staying Open-minded

I worked in the outdoor retail industry for nine years. And I'm a self confessed "gear junky". I really like the latest high tech gear. Having to schedule and participate in vendor clinics for years really gave me the inside scoop on the technology of camping and climbing.
A few years ago I had a friend build an alcohol stove and he was really singing the praises of it. I told my friends in the industry about it and asked them why there were so few alcohol stoves on the market considering how light the finished stove turned out. They explained that the heat output was so low for alcohol that it just wasn't a feasibly option for more than just and overnight trip.
Recently I had another friend show me a simple alcohol stove that he uses. I have trusted this friend before so I opened up my mind and decided to give the fuel another shot.
I found a great site online that had several different models and complete instructions on how to build them with nothing more than 2 Pepsi cans and a little bit of epoxy. I spent most of Friday night and Saturday morning building and testing three slightly different models of one of the stoves. I experimented with different sized jets; different amounts of jets and different spacing, etc. The best model was able to boil 8oz of water in 6 minutes. The catch was it burned a lot of alcohol, about 2oz, in the process. The stove was exceptionally light; however the fuel efficiency would only make it practical on a very short trip. I own an MSR whisperlite that I've had for 20 years. I have hiked for 7 days and 84 miles even boiling my water to purify it and only used 12oz of white gas for the whole trip. If I'd have tried this with the alcohol stove it would have require close to a gallon of alcohol. Once the fuel weight is taken into account this stove may actually turn out to be quite a bit heavier than my whisperlite.
One of the driving forces behind my experiment is that my scout troop is planning a 50-mile hike for April. I wanted to give the scouts a practical inexpensive alternative to high priced commercial stoves. During one of my tests today I found that I couldn't tell if the stove was still burning or not. I had to look at the distortions of the sunlight in the shadow of the stove to see if there was heat rising from the stove. Alcohol burns almost invisible in the daylight. Last night I could see the flame just fine, but in the daylight I was almost impossible. That was the nail in the coffin for me. There is no way I am going to encourage our scouts to make fires with a fuel that they won't even be burning. It's just too much of a safety concern. The photo above shows the stove while it is burning.
At any case I'm glad I gave it a good attempt. And realistically my only investment in the experiment was a can of denatured alcohol and a bunch of cans from the recycle bin.
Incidentally, if anybody else would like to try to build one of these I found that by using Dr. Pepper cans for my upper and Dr. Brown's cream soda cans for the lower that there was no need at all to dilate the lower can. It was a snug fit without all of the trouble of having to try to flare out the can.