Change of Address

Hi all.  To any of my remaining followers - I wanted to let you know that I will officially be shutting down this blog and starting to post on my other blog The Woodsmoke Lodge.  Please feel free to go over to that page and follow there, as I am planning on getting this going again and starting to post on a regular basis.

Thanks and farewell!

Super Cat Stove

So anyway, what prompted me to get back on here and post again is that I wanted to share with my loyal readers (ha) my recommendation for trail stoves.  Most of the hiking I do is day hikes - anywhere from two hours to eight hours, depending on the trail and the goal and how much other stuff I have going on (which usually ends up winning out).

I do very much enjoy taking a stove and food along and cooking on the trail - whether it is as simple as a cup of coffee or tea, or making a full breakfast of a veggie omelette (ok, scrambled eggs with sauteed veggies), oatmeal, trail stew, etc. - I love to cook on the trail.  One other thing that factors into this - and those of you who know me long enough know this well enough - is that I am a cheap ass.  Not that I don't appreciate quality, but that I enjoy saving money and when it comes to the outdoors, even making my own gear.

So naturally it came to be that a purchased trail stove would just not be good enough - too expensive, too bulky, too environmentally questionable, etc.  I have been interested for some time now in the idea of making a stove from junk laying around the house, or specifically I should say, the recycling bin.  Anyway - enough with the introduction - let's get on with it.

My latest stove of choice is called the Super Cat Stove.  It is an alcohol stove.  I like the idea of alcohol stoves - fuel is easy to get, I don't have to throw away canisters of fuel like with a propane or white gas stove, I can use grain alcohol if needed which has it's own multi purpose uses (ahem), and it makes for pretty small and portable stoves.  The Super Cat Stove is made from, well - a cat food can.  Yes, you read that correctly.  A 3 ounce Fancy Feast can and a hole punch and you will have yourself about the lightest and possibly cheapest stove you can imagine, but one that works surprisingly well.  I've spent the last few months messing around with a bunch of other designs but I keep coming back to this one.  You just can't beat it for weight (next to nothing), cost (next to nothing) and simplicity.

If you are interested in building one yourself, I recommend doing so - the instructions will be provided at the end of this article because let's be serious - if I give you the link now, you're not coming back.

So how does it perform?  Not half bad... it's not going to perform like a Jetboil of course but did you really think it would?  No, me either.  With the tests I've done, I've been able to boil 24 oz. of water in about 11 minutes with just over an ounce of alcohol, and a cup of water in under 5 minutes.  Not the fastest but certainly not bad.  I can wait 10 minutes for my water to boil, and let's be honest - most times you don't need water at a rolling boil.  Damn hot will do, and this stove will get you there fairly quickly.

I'm not going to go into all the physics and other nonsense about the stove - how it's a pressurized alcohol stove vs. non-pressurized, etc.  Just check it out and if you happen to end up making and/or using one - drop me a line and let me know how you fared.

Here's the link for those of you enterprising enough to try it yourself (don't be scared - it's really not that bad):

http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/SuperCat/index.html

Till next time, happy hiking!

Welcome Back Blogger

It's funny - there are a bunch of posts on here now where I promise to write more and then I notice almost a year goes by between them. Take this one (September 1) and my last one (September 26 last year). Real life gets in the way I suppose. Anyway, it's about that time of year again where you get your annual bit of insight from the Gentle Outdoorsman. So let's get to it, why don't we...

Iced AT

So as usual I'm way behind on this blog.  Those are the breaks I suppose.  I wanted to post a few pictures and some notes about a hike my little hiking group did back in February.  Yes, I realize that is seven months ago.  What can you do...?

Anyway, back in February we decided to hike the AT section from Smith Gap to Little Gap.  It had snowed quite a bit up until a few days before the hike, so I was watching the weather pretty closely.  Brian had been up to the trailhead on Smith Gap road a day or two ahead of the hike and said he was able to get up there pretty easily with his truck and that the road was clear.  Anyone who has ever gone up Smith Gap road knows what a nightmare it can be in good weather, much less in ice and snow.  The word "road" is used in the loosest sense of the term.  So I figured if we could get up the road with no problem and get to the trailhead, we would be good to go.

Saturday morning came and Larry, Brian and I met at the Little Gap trailhead.  Brian and Erin were meeting us at the Smith Gap trailhead, where we agreed to start from, because we figured going up the rocks at Little Gap would be too treacherous in the ice and snow.  We got started about 8:30 from the Smith Gap trailhead.  As soon as we hit the trail we noticed that there appeared to be anywhere between 8 to 18 inches of snow in any given spot.  The snow had a hard pack on top of it - not quite thick enough or glazed over enough to be solid ice, but not quite strong enough to support one's weight in all spots.  The pace of the hike quickly fell into a rhythm of ten or so steps on top of the ice, then a slight shift of the body ended with a foot breaking through and into the soft snow underneath, followed by the other leg breaking through the ice, et cetera et cetera. 

I have never had a hike take quite so long for the distance hiked (we finished in about 5 1/2 hours for 7 miles) or kill my legs quite as much as this one did.  It felt like the trail would never end.  Larry fell and broke his finger.  This while wearing Yak-Trax, which are supposedly great for this sort of terrain.  I fell countless times.  Mat fell countless times.  And this was Erin's first hike with the group.  Oddly enough she has not been back.  By the time we got back to the car I was dead tired and soaking wet.

The sheer agony of parts of the hike were rewarded with occasional spots where we'd stop and just enjoy the peaceful silence, or to take in some falling snowflakes and catch a breather and a sip of water.  All in all it was a most memorable experience, even if I can't say I'd like to repeat it quite that way.

The highlight of the day was getting home, taking a long hot shower, getting into warm dry clothing and kicking back on the couch with a bowl of hot soup.  A memorable day indeed.




A BALANCING ACT


SILENT BEAUTY


DOWN GOES LARRY


OUT COMES THE SUN


LOOKING DOWN ONTO PALMERTON

The full set of photos for this hike can be found here.

Gentle Outdoorsman Is Back

Hello loyal followers... all three or four of you.  Well it seems the spring and summer got away from me with my new job and I have not really had the time to post anything here.  As we find ourselves entering the fall season, I decided I wanted to try to get this blog going again.  I have a lot of things to post and talk about; now I just need to find a few minutes here and there to update this site.  Anyway, look for some new posts in the coming days and weeks about other hikes I took and some other thoughts.  Cheers...

Púlpito del Diablo

Greetings again - this particular entry is about a hike we did back in November.  I know I'm a few months behind, but I felt it was a worthy hike to write about.  Our destination was Devil's Pulpit, which is found off the Appalachian Trail just south of Lehigh Gap in PA.  I had never been to Devil's Pulpit before and this one did not disappoint.

We started off from the parking lot at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center, which can be gotten to off of Route 873 right on the outskirts of Slatington.  It was a nice clear day and a bit on the cool side, but not too cold.  We got started and made our way through the deciduous forest at the base of the mountain.  A half mile or so up we met up with the George Outerbridge shelter.  A few guys had been camping there overnight and we walked past them, greeting them and their breakfast fire, which smelled pretty good and inviting.  We wound around the trail and met up with the top ridge of the mountain, then began heading up the North trail.  There were a bunch of spots along this trail where beautiful vistas opened up to the valley below, offering a full view of Slatington and Walnutport.  All of these spots also offered perfect photo taking opportunities.  We were able to see all the way to the Pinnacle from where we were.

As the trail wound around and continued north, we passed a few more hikers who appeared to have had quite an interesting night the night before.  They were laying out on the ground, covered with afghans, and there was a boom box and empty beer bottles scattered around.  They had to be cold - it was probably around 30 degrees out when we were hiking if I had to guess.  Once we got past them, we ended up on top of the mountain ridge, looking north to the old zinc plant which was responsible for the stripping of this entire section of mountain.  We were also able to see down into Palmerton from there too.  As we made our way further along, we started the descent.  I did not realize that we were not yet at the pulpit, so I thought we were descending back down the mountain but I soon found out we were actually making the descent to Devil's Pulpit.

The descent itself was fairly steep and wound through pine and other evergreen trees.  After about 15 minutes we were down at the Pulpit itself and the view from there was nothing short of awesome.  A look at a few of the pictures below will give you a good idea of the visuals.  We hung out for about 25 minutes just soaking in the view and then it was time to get going.  Mat and Brian who had been on the hike before let us know that we either went back up the steep hill we descended on, or we could go back down the side of the mountain.  The thought of going back up that steep unstable path was not appealing, so we opted for down the side of the mountain. This would prove to be an interesting adventure, to say the least.

We made our way south a little bit and around a small patch of evergreens, and to the left the ground dropped off quite steeply, probably at least 20-30 feet or more.  We got to the end of the little path we were on, and had to start shimmying our way down the mountain side.  By this time of year we were deep into autumn, so the floor was covered with leaves, and the ground underneath those leaves was pretty loose and crumbly. Shortly into our down-the-mountain journey we had ended up unintentionally splitting into two groups.  Mat and Jen had taken off ahead of the rest of us, a little more sure of their footing, while Mel and I hung back, taking our time going down.  Brian hung back with us too, but I think just to be the one bringing up the back of the group.  Soon enough we were on our butts, sliding down over dirt, leaves, and rocks.  I didn't feel safe enough walking down the mountain with the pitch of the ground, so I decided to stay on my butt the whole time.  It was a bit more challenging than I was thinking it would be, but we made it to the bottom in about half an hour.  My jeans were covered in dirt, but we were at the bottom.  A short stroll south from there along the old railroad track and power lines and we were back at the Nature Center.  Total hike time was about 3 hours. 

If you've never been up there, I highly recommend going.  I probably would not do this one in the winter, but once spring and summer roll around, definitely go check it out.

Happy hiking!




LOOKING SOUTH TO THE PINNACLE


LOOKING DOWN INTO SLATINGTON


UP TOP - LOOKING NORTH TO THE ZINC PLANT

 
VIEW NORTH INTO PALMERTON

 
JEN AND MEL PAUSE BEFORE THE DESCENT TO THE PULPIT


PALMERTON


BRIAN AND MAT AT THE EDGE OF THE PULPIT


LOOKING OFF THE EDGE OF THE PULPIT TO THE LEHIGH RIVER


FROM THE PULPIT ALONG THE RIVER INTO PALMERTON


THE SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN WHERE WE CAME DOWN



Complete photo set online here.

Pack Rat

So I was going through my hiking gear in preparation for a post I wanted to do about my basic gear I've been taking along on my hikes lately and I got to thinking about how a lot of the stuff I use is stored in containers and such that I have saved. I tend to be a bit of a pack rat - if anything looks like it might be useful at a later date, I don't throw it out. This of course drives my wife nuts, but I've acquired a good closet shelf or two full of old jars, bottles, tins, etc. I've used a bunch of these types of things as part of my outdoor gear. Some examples are:

• Altoids tin - probably my most re-used item.  I've used these for survival kits, holding boxes of matches, a small portable alcohol stove, repair kits, etc.
• Glass pill / vitamin jars - makes a good way of transporting fuel for the alcohol stove mentioned above.  Also good waterproof containers for matches or other things you don't want to get wet.
• 35mm Film Containers - you don't see these quite as often as you used to with the whole push to digital photography, but I've used these for years to store miscellaneous odds and ends.  I have a few with matches, cotton balls and wax paper for fire starting, another one that holds basic survival stuff in it, and I have at least three of them in my fishing vest for sinkers, swivels and other assorted nonsense.
• Plastic Grocery Bags - kind of self-explanatory but I never leave on a hike or outdoor excursion without 3 or 4 of these.  I guarantee you will find a use for them, even if it's just picking up trash you find along the trail (Leave no Trace and all, you know...)
• Metal Coffee Cans - also can be crafted into stoves, or for carrying smaller cookware type items inside.
• Tin Cans - don't use the ones with the plastic lining (like you get diced tomatoes in) because of the BPA leaching, but standard tin cans make great cookware for nothing.  Cut a coat hanger to make a handle for the top of them.  If you have one of them there fancy can openers that removes the lids at the canning seam, you can also save the top as a lid to your pot.
• Hard Lexan Cutlery - those hard plastic spoons you get at picnics and such - next time you see one, grab it and throw it in your pack.  Almost indestructible (unless of course you sit on it), they will last a long time and are good for lunch on the trail or mixing cocoa or coffee.  Don't waste your money on fancy trail cutlery sets.
• Old shoelaces - if you have the thicker braided laces like you get with boots, chances are at least part of it is still in good shape.  These can be useful as emergency cordage - for fastening things to your pack or basic repair type stuff.

There are probably dozens more I am not thinking of at the moment.  The point is - give some thought to what you throw out.  Whenever I see something ready to go into the recycling can, I think to myself "what could I use this for outdoors...?"

Happy hiking!