I’m late getting to this blog, but the weekend before last held a sweet little backpacking jaunt to Lake Itasca State Park in MN. My buddy Ty and I decided flight instructing could take a break for a couple days and headed out to the woods. Ty recently picked up a new Gregory Palisade pack and some other goodies, and need to take the recently aquired goods on their maiden voyage. They did well. As did my trusty Dana Design (now bought out by Marmot) ArcLight Swiftcurrent pack. It’s been since last year’s trip to the Superior Hiking Trail that I had my big red friend out of the dusty closet. It’ll be out again soon, cuz we sure had a good time. It’s nice to get out and walk through the woods and relax. The cooking was new this time. I’ve been searchin’ through a couple backcountry cookbooks of mine, and decided to whip up a batch of backcountry burritos, using organic lentils, rice, various spices and dehydrated vegetables. Pretty good in the end. I forgot the tortillas though, so they were naked burritos, eaten with a spork. Our campsite was pretty decent, but not quite the one we were heading for. We were told that there was only one other registered backpacker that night, so we never expected to see anyone, but when we reached the backcountry site we were going to use, guess where he was. So, we just backtracked a bit to a shelter site and camped in front of it. We slept very warm in the REI Mountain 2 tent, but I’m sad to say my winter sleeping bag is a cheapo. Although I stayed warm, it tore at the zipper in one place when I simply rolled over. I guess that’s what you get when you only pay 99 bucks retail for a 4 season bag. Something for nothin’ doesn’t seem to work very often. I’ll have to sew it up and deal with it until I am a rich man. All in all the trip was much needed, and we will return to the woods soon. Maybe even to the SHT. (Superior Hiking Trail- it always reads somewhat dirty when using the acronym- for example- sections of the SHT can get quite wet, so wear waterproof boots. Terrible.) Anyway, I suppose pictures will do more to motivate you all into the woods than my rambling:
Ty relaxin' over dinner...
Me and my big red friend enjoying some air...
Campsite airing out after sunrise...
1 comment:
You should bring your big red friend and your wife to Idaho. Then you should tell Kelly to get off his freakin' butt so we can all go wilderness airplane camping. Those are some wicked river pics. I definitely don't miss that... nasty muck water. Were you there that day when those women drove that Neon into 10' of water at like 30 mph??? I can't remember. I liked when you put your stuff on Myspace, because I got a little note saying that something new was there.
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