Two-Heel Drive, a Hiking Blog

Generally I think it’s impolite to bore folks with stuff related by my day job, but a few threads of note showed up at the Trailspace Forum that seemed to merit an exception:

• Goat packing: Turns out goats are a viable alternative to llamas, horses and burros. Not as strong individually, but two or three might support a single backpacker. This thread at Backpacker magazine has more.
• All-time least favorite meal: Freeze-dried dinners are deeply implicated, along with military MREs and just plain nasty contributions from would-be camp chefs. Tales of indigestion and flatulence abound.
• How do you dry out when you’re totally drenched? Last week’s wet hike inspired me to pose this question to the forum’s experts, who were kind enough to avoid saying “don’t get wet to begin with.” Lots of great tips here, chief among them: take an extra set of clothes along and do all you can to keep them dry, even if it means changing back into your damp clothes for the next day of your trip.

Long as I’m the subject of Trailspace: We added a forum for canoeing and kayaking awhile back. Nice place to figure out which boat to get if you’re on the verge.

Barbara Egbert’s fourth and final missive on planning a through-hike is posted at Trailspace.

This time she talks to trail angels who have seen hundreds of hikers — and all their follies — in the course of giving them rides to trailheads and places to bed down and recover from trail traumas. Says Donna Saufley: ““It’s amazing to me how many people plan a four- or five-month walk but don’t get physically prepared for it ahead of time. Walking all day, every day, is a lot to ask your body — and your poor feet — to do, and without conditioning you risk all types of physical breakdowns and the premature end of the journey.”

Links to the rest of the series:

• Part 1: tips on choosing a trail, gear, training, and resources.
• Part 2: What am I doing out here? And what am I going to eat and drink?
• Part 3: advice from Triple Crown through-hikers.

Gear Junkie Stephen Regenold had much more fun writing this piece for the New York Times than he had hiking the 27 miles (and 14,000 feet of elevation gain) in the notorious Devil’s Path west of *West Saugerties, New York. He describes gnarly, straight-up the mountain climbs, getting caught in the rain, having fogged-in views of the peaks. This Flickr slide show offers a few clues on what he might have seen:

This 1999 Backpacker Magazine article features the path on a list of 12 devilishly brutal trails.

I have an alternate theory on the origin of the name: Ol’ Beelzebub dabbled in trail design before finding other ways to try men’s souls. How else to explain a route that regards the fall line as suitable trail bed, or demonically follows rocky ledges you scale using both hands as well as feet?

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Credit: Gary Chambers

Barb, last seen advising on how to take a babe in arms on an overnighter, has the second in her four-part series posted at Trailspace.com, this time on the 2-to-5 years.

These can be the crazy years, she notes, given that ambulatory kids have two speeds: “hell no, I won’t go” and “now where the hell did she go.” But if you’re determined enough, these years offer the best chance to imprint a love of the outdoors on your kids that will last a lifetime.

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Barbara and 1-year-old Mary at the Grand Canyon. Credit: Gary Chambers

Shop for baby carriers at REI.com

Barbara says it’s not crazy at all to take your infant backpacking; in fact, it gets a bit crazier later when they can walk. Her piece at Trailspace has all the poop on backpacking with baby. Barbara has ample experience on taking kids on overnighters: she and her husband, Gary Chambers, took their 10-year-old daughter Mary along on their through-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail (recounted in Barb’s book, “Zero Days” — check it out on Amazon). Mary, AKA Scrambler, has been camping with her parents practically since birth. (more…)

Update IV: A Florida man was found dead Monday, apparently having fallen from a cliff near Mirror Lake in eastern Yosemite Valley.

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UPDATE III: A
friend of a couple who witnessed the accident posted this account.

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UPDATE II: Rick Deutsch of Hike Half Dome was on the dome Saturday. He was well on his way down — hiking in full rain — when he saw the rescue helicopter heading toward the peak. “I knew this was not a training mission.”

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UPDATE: The hiker who fell to his death has been identified: Manoj Kumar, 40, of San Ramon. More on him in the Chron. (more…)

Thumbing though my copy of the The Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Book this morning, I stopped on a page devoted to Andrew P. Hill, a San Jose painter and photographer responsible for securing protection of the stand of old-growth redwoods at Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

This page from a book on the history of Santa Clara County recounts Hill’s efforts. While I was dimly aware that some guys formed the Sempervirens Club to save the trees at Big Basin, I never really knew what was at stake, and Hill’s singular role in saving the old trees.

This was vaguely terrifying to learn: Lumber companies owned all the land now occupied by Big Basin, and the only thing keeping them alive — till Hill came along — was the landowners’ best guesses on lumber demand: presumably they’d never cut more than the market would bear.

And there was the timing: Hill did the deed in 1901. In 1906, the San Francisco earthquake caused a fire that burned the city to the ground. Massive logging operations clear-cut vast swaths of the coastal mountain ranges to rebuild San Francisco. If the quake had happened seven years earlier, there’d most likely be nothing left of the ancient trees at Big Basin.

Hill was a canny operator, well-connected networker and master of the mass media of his time. When he took it upon himself to save the redwoods, he wasn’t even aware of the stand at Big Basin. A botanist had surveyed them all; once the botanist took Hill to see the trees in person, a Cause was born.

Hill bent the ears of everybody who was anybody in the South Bay at that time. He raised money, cajoled legislators, even convinced a San Jose Mercury editor to pen an editorial in the middle of the night to help sway the governor to pass the $250,000 appropriation required to buy the land from the lumbermen. Then he orchestrated a statewide telegram campaign to swamp the governor with electronic demands to save the redwoods.

Hill wasn’t the only guy trying to save the ancient redwoods — the article linked above alludes to a competing save-the-trees bill in the state legislature that might’ve been passed. So maybe he wasn’t the trees’ last hope. But he definitely was their best hope.

The Victorian Preservation Association has another nice summary of Hill’s efforts.

Start hanging around at Postholer.com, of course. Postholer gives TrailJournals a serious run for its money, especially with cool ditties like this Google Map of the entire Pacific Crest Trail. Here’s a priceless entry from Ellie Thomas, currently northbound on the Continental Divide Trail:

On a side note, and among my many early hike ailments, I have a new one to add to my lengthy resume. Last night I spent an hour and a half sewing two patchs on the butt of my shorts with my handy dandy dental floss. Well, the shorts again ripped as I slid into the tarp, so I applied a piece of duct tape to the outside, and also to the inside so it would not stick to my delicate skin. As I sat journaling, it appears my body heat caused the tape adhesive to leech through the tape and adhere to my skin. Upon removing my shorts before bed, I almost fainted as I also removed a large strip of flesh. I could not sleep on my back, nor let the sleeping back touch the sore spot. This morning I shoved the user’s guide for my camera down the back of my shorts so my shorts would not stick to my fanny. So now, 6 large blisters, 3 pack sores, 1 spider bite, 2 black toenails, 1 sliced finger, had half a fanny cheek later, the trail has once again put me in my place.

Side note: I interviewed Ellie in my profile of ULA-Equipment at Trailspace.com.

Postholer has an easy-to-use journal search function. Here’s everybody on the Pacific Crest Trail, in order of recent posts. Journals have little bio-boxes that let the writers enter their hometowns. I went scanning for NorCal hiker types and found a few:

Matthew Edwards says he’s from the “Santa Cruz Mountains,” local enough for me.

I have had this same reoccuring dream ocasionally for the past year.

I am being chased by a large angry bear.

I run into an old farmhouse with the bear at my heels the whole way.

I reach the kitchen and open the door to the pantry and close myself inside just in time.

The bear claws and sniffs, growling at the crack between the door and floor.

Just days before I set off on this PCT trek I had that dream.

Only that time I simply opened the door and though the bear was every bit as big, and it’s claws were just as sharp, it took on the aspect of a Labrador dog.

I reached out and felt the fur on top of it’s head. Though I still dream of it, that was the last time the bear chased me

Giggles is a hiker guy from Sunnyvale.

Back on the trail today. A little sore still from Friday’s walk and a little hungover from last night’s debauchery. Saw one tiny rattlesnake, a ton of lizards. Fortunately I didn’t volunteer for the lizard count. Hiked to small campground that has plenty of water but no promised shower. Met lots of fascinating folks and am now camped with Kung fu although she has yet to accept the name. Went a little slow today. Will continue to do so until I feel like going faster.

The most-read journaler on the PCT this season is Katalina from Minneapolis.

After the Picnic Area at Mt. Laguna there is NOTHING until Pioneer Trail TrailHead (mile 53) and that place is super windy. I last saw BabyFace there, all bundled up at a picnic table trying to stay warm. We moved on after filling up at the water cache there. And– did I mention the wind? There was another 6 miles of just brutal, cold wind and we were hoping to find respite at Sunrise Trailhead at mile 59. But when we got here around 6:30ish- we found out it’s at the top of this saddle and it’s WINDY!! We had 3 options: (1) Walk all night in the wind (camping wasn’t an option because we wouldn’t be warm in the wind) (2) Sleep in the nasty, rat poop infested pit tiolets at Sunrise Trailhead, or (3) Hitch to Julian from the road we were on. No brainer: Option 3 won out…that is until we sat there in the wind (45 degrees out with 30-40 mph wind) and no car came by. The sun was going down (7:30 pm)- so we went to the pit toilets and did some spring cleaning. Yes, we slept in the rat-poop infested pit toilet with poop on the toilet- yum….but, at least, it was warm & not windy.

She’s hiking with one of those SPOT satellite messengers; there’s a link on her sidebar that shows where she last checked in.

Postholer is pretty groovy, though photo albums are much easier to find on TrailJournals. In any case the competition should make both sites better.

Henry Coe State Park is the only park in the Bay Area that allows camp-where-you-wanna backpacking. All the rest require reservations, and good luck getting a Saturday night at Big Basin or Sunol Wilderness if you haven’t paid for your site a couple months in advance.

If you’ve never been to Henry Coe, be warned: the hills that make the park so wonderful often must be traversed by old fire roads built for combustion-engine vehicles. While the park has a fair number of single-tracks that are nicely zigzagged, most destinations require serious, punishing climbs. This scares off a lot of people, but it leaves more park for the rest of us. Most famous Henry Coe saying: “People don’t come to Coe to train for the Sierra; the go to the Sierra to train for Coe.”

Henry Coe has a bunch of established campsites at Los Cruzeros and Poverty Flat, but these’ll also fill up fast on a weekend. Forget about the prized campground at China Hole on a weekend, somebody always seems to get there first (the other reason to forget China Hole is that it gets well-digger’s-ass cold in that canyon overnight). There’s a nice little campsite called Hidden Spring that I stayed at one autumn weekend a few years back that’s quiet and off the beaten paths. This page at Coepark.org describes all the established sites.

The main advantage of established sites: most have a spring or creek nearby. The main disadvantage: near major trails with lots of hikers and campers tramping through.

Henry Coe’s Hunting Hollow entrance is my favorite trailhead for backpacking — though the remote Dowdy Ranch entrance has its charms (I haven’t tried it yet; it opens May 2 for the 2009 season). Hunting Hollow starts out in a valley where you can either take a gradual slog to the top of the nearby ridges, or you can just pick a ridge nearby and start fighting your way up it.

Camping near Coit and Kelly lakes is an excellent option, though they do attract a fair number of fellow campers (and they require 8 to 10 miles of strenuous hiking to reach them). Also, rangers try to limit the number of campers near the lakes. I camped next to a nice little pond near Coit Lake.

The Grizzly Gulch Trail also has a couple nice ponds worth checking out. I saw a bobcat once along this trail, which is one of the nicest at Coe.

Here’s a Google Map of the major Henry Coe trailheads and lakes.

View Henry Coe State Park Lakes and Trailheads in a larger map

The dot at the upper left is the Dunne Avenue/Park Headquarters entrance. Bottom left is Hidden Hollow; far right is Dowdy Ranch. From top to bottom in the middle are Mississippi, Coit and Kelly lakes.

Henry Coe’s Orestimba Wilderness is worth a look if you’re an ultralighter who can put in over 15 miles in one day.

You’ll want trail maps. Many options at Coepark.org. The big, plastic-coated map most people buy is nice to have, but it’s heavy. They’re available for $8.50 at the Dunne Avenue park HQ.

Henry Coe usually can be backpacked from late October through early June. The rest of the summer will be far too hot, and most of the creeks will be dry. Always ask the rangers about how the springs are running before you head out. You don’t want want to be 12 miles from a trailhead with no water at Henry Coe.

Backcountry camping is $3 a night per person, plus the cost of parking ($5 a day at Headquarters or Dowdy Ranch, $4 a day at Hunting Hollow).

Check out all my backpacking-related posts for Henry Coe.

A reader asks for recommendations for a California backpacking trip. The requirements:

• Leaving in June.
• 4-5 hours from the Bay Area.
• 25 miles in 4.5 days.

The reader has hiked part of the Lost Coast and may decide to finish it on this trip (that would simplify things; you can’t go wrong on the Lost Coast, except getting stranded at high tide). Also, Hetch-Hetchy at Yosemite was hiked last fall so it’s off the list.

I had a couple thoughts:

• Yosemite High Country would be awesome, but the water could be running so high that many of the creeks would be impossible to cross.
• Trinity Alps springs to mind, though I don’t know how much snow they got up there this year.

More suggestions welcome; you guys get out a lot more than I do.