Upcoming Trips & Events
2024
- Backpack in Channel Islands
National Park, CA - also hiking, kayaking, & scuba diving
- Backpack on the Sunshine
Coast Trail, BC
- Lancaster Covered Bridge
Metric Century Bike Ride, Lancaster County, PA
Other Outdoor Experience
Wilderness First Aid Certified 5 or 6 Times
Taught a weekend Backpacking Course at REI for 5 Years
Took sailing & scuba diving courses at Penn State, and was active in Nittany
Divers
Was active in the Cal Sailing Club at the University of California at Berkeley
I've been hiking, backpacking, and canoeing since I was in Boy Scouts & Explorers
Backpacking &
Backcountry Skiing Trip Fitness Preparation
These week long trips are physically difficult and require
quite a bit of physical conditioning to get ready for them. This is what I do in
a typical year:
Ride 1500 -2500 miles on my road bike
Hike 500 miles
Backpack 100 miles
Backcountry ski 50 miles
Swim 75 miles
Gym weight machines 150 times
Participants do not have to do this much, but you will have to work out a
minimum of 4x per week for 3-4 months to get ready for these week long multi-day
wilderness trips. Backpacking, backcountry skiing, or mountain climbing - all
day, is calorically equivalent to running a marathon.
Multiday Wilderness Trip
Technical Complexity & Physical Difficulty
These week long (or longer) wilderness trips are exponentially more technically
complex, and physically difficult than dayhikes. For the trip leader, or solo
participants, they represent a huge amount of research and logistical planning
for: the larger trip location region; detailed daily navigation planning, buying
or creating maps (usually both); selecting, checking, and preparing gear; determining
a menu, and preparing/packing food, protecting food from animals - are bear
canisters required; to name a few things to be done. You have to consider
hazards such as: river crossings, permanent snow field crossings, high & low
tide at headlands on coastal backpacks, crossing or skirting bogs, quicksand, difficulty of
trail treadway, any class 3 trails, and avalanche terrain just to name a few.
Through hikes on longer trails are usually broken down into week long segments
as 7-8 days of food is usually the maximum that people want to carry. How and
where do you resupply on longer trips? Because this does represent a
considerable investment of time, I leave the details on my website so it can be
helpful to others - at least as a good starting point for your own trip
planning.
See Previous Trips link below for
details on some of my previous trips.
Wilderness Navigation
Tools
I have been creating my own custom
topographic maps for well over 20 years, and always carry the following
navigation tools on these trips:
- Large scale paper topographic
map of the region, like Trails Illustrated, which show the big picture for
unexpected, but now necessary route changes, and road access
- Small scale (1:24000) custom
created and printed paper topographic maps for daily detailed navigation
- A real compass with baseplate
and mirror, readable to 2°,
estimate to 1°
- Altimeter
watch to track daily elevation gain & loss, must set sample rate
sufficiently high to not skip ups and downs
- iPhone
(or Android) replaces a dedicated GPS receiver as it is lighter and can hold
numerous apps & related information
- iPhone
apps: GaiaGPS + map, AllTrails + map, Compass, Theodolite
- iPhone
maps: must download any required maps at home in advance with internet
connection - won't have access in the wilderness
- Mapping
software: Topo CD's, AllTrails, CalTopo, GaiaGPS - all great tools, use these to plan
the detailed route and print (store) small scale maps
Annual Bike Rides
See
www.LancasterFarmlandTrust.org
for Pedal to Preserve bike ride details (no longer run)
See www.LancasterBikeClub.org
for Covered Bridge Metric Century bike ride details
See Annapolis
Bicycle Racing Team | 2007 Bay Country Century
for Bay Country Century bike ride details (no longer run)
See Baltimore Bicycling Club
for Civil War Century bike ride details
See Sea Gull Century for Sea Gull
Century bike ride details
Previous Trips
See Previous Trips descriptions for my
multiday wilderness trips.
Required Dayhiking Gear
For dayhikes wear hiking boots or hiking shoes and bring
lunch, energy snacks, two quarts of water
(more if hot), raingear, extra clothes, sun block,
sunglasses, insect repellent, map, compass, pocket knife, and
a small flashlight.
These are the ten essentials - you don't
carry them for the 95% of the time you never use them, you carry them for the 5%
of the time you need them desperately.
It's also
important to bring a positive attitude and a sense of humor -
they will still work after everything else has failed.
You carry plans B, C, and D in your pack.
It's only a dayhike if you make it back at the end of the day.
"Working on the 'Tudes"
Latitude, Longitude, Altitude, &
Attitude
Get the first three right, and the last one takes care of itself!
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