Beachgoers kill baby dolphin for selfies

Repost from The Daily Beast, but I have to comment.   This is terrible.  What I can't understand is why people would think that this is OK.  I suppose there's two possibilities, one is that the entire crowd was that oblivious and literally uncaring, the second is that they knew what they were doing was wrong, but no one person wanted to step up.  People will do things in mobs that they normally wouldn't do otherwise.  I could make a tenuous philosophical connection between this kind of crap and with the culture of a people with perpetually broken economy, but I won't.

(photo by martudilaz of Instagram)

"After being pet and pawed at by dozens of people, one of the small creatures was found discarded on the beach, its usefulness as a social-media prop at an end. It was left coated in sand and soon died slowly of dehydration. Several people continued to snap photos of it as it lay gasping, just feet from the water. "

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/18/rare-dolphin-dies-for-mob-selfie.html

Barrel stove kit installed - syrup season here I come

Every year I gobble up a few tanks of propane making syrup from the maples on my property.  Because I have mostly red and swamp maple, whose sugar content is in the .5-1.5 percent range, I have to boil a lot of sap.

Side note: I've planted sugar maple saplings that I bought from the Arbor Day people, but that's 8-10 years out.

Given the massive amounts of wood, brush, and a stand of girdled trees that I've slowly been harvesting, I have "free" fuel.   Boiling my own sap with my own wood as fuel using recycled parts gives me "free" maple syrup, manages brush on my property, is carbon-neutral, and is a great hobby.

I purchased the Vogelzang barrel stove kit from Northern Tool, and today took advantage of the 40 degree (F) weather and installed it.   Total time about 2 hours, and I only cut myself on the sharp metal once.   The kit has the cast iron feet, front door and an adapter/damper for a 6" pipe.
Tools you will need:
Drill with a small and a 5/16" bit
Jigsaw/Sawzall with a metal cutting blade (or 2)
Magic marker for marking your cuts
Beefy phillips-head screwdriver
Cleverness at filling in the blanks on the instructions

Total cost: free barrel (but look on Craigslist, $25-40 is the norm), $51 for kit incl. shipping, 2 bags of play sand and 2 lengths of 6" pipe, total $80.

Instructions were good, not even chinglish, but left many small details out.   If you've built things and are handy this is not a problem.   If you are looking for IKEA-like detail, seek help or look elsewhere.

Ear plugs are a must.   One thing I found is that unless you punch all the holes first, they'll have a tendency to 'walk' while you're drilling, and nothing will line up.   What I did was get the parts on with 2 or 3 screws, then used the holes in the Vogelzang castings to line up the drill - everything went together perfectly.

Once assembled, I put a few inches of sand in the bottom and lit it up.   Worked like a charm, exactly as I had imagined it would.   At one point the surface temperature was 800 degrees (F).   It had a pretty funky paint smell for a bit.  I let it burn down, I'll scrape the charred paint off later, and maybe hit it with a can of stove paint.  Next step will be to attach a shelf to hold the pan of sap (stainless steel steam-table tray).   I can taste the syrup now.

Front attached:

Feet attached:

Chimney adapter attached

First firing (note the smoking paint)

Nice and warm!

Looking to improve your hiking performance? Drop some weight

Gear
Most people, even active people, could stand to lose a few pounds.   While there's a lot of time spent on gearmongering and swapping steel for titanium, let's look at what weighs what.  "A pound on the foot is like 5 on the back" they say.   What about "a pound off the belly is a pound off the back?"

Looking at my pack weight thread here and my Google docs spreadsheet for my base weight is just under 15 lbs.

Personally, I could lose 10 lbs.   That means I could add 10 lbs of food and water to my base weight, and do an overnight with essentially an empty pack.   That's huge!

Also, generally the process of losing weight is going to build up your strength, which means more miles, and more, BETTER miles.   You don't want to drag ass into camp at dusk, miserable and winded.   A light pack and fit legs are the best way to do this.  Spare energy and a good attitude go a long way towards making it easy to Leave No Trace.   You won't be tempted to take shortcuts, leave microtrash or food crumbs, if you've still got something left in the tank at the end of the day.

Water
I generally start off with a 70oz Platypus and whats left of breakfast in a Nalgene.   Combined that's about 5lbs of water.   Want to carry that for free?  Lose 5lbs - it's really not that hard.

This winter and spring the focus will be dropping weight, for higher performing summer hiking.

One man's trash ... is another man's trash

Microtrash is always a big problem, and rare is the trip I take without coming home with a cargo-pants pocket full of it.  Common offenders are cigarette butts, corners of Clif/Snickers/Nature Valley bars, crumbs of those ubiquitous blue foam pads, and the occasional bandaid.  Note, I never pick up toilet paper, so ladies, please try and pee farther away than right next to the trail.

Macrotrash is a little more of an interesting dilemma.   You see either modern dumpsites at trailheads (tires, beer cans) or you find 'historic' items rusting away at an old cabin site, or the remains of a can dump at an old shelter.   Sometimes its piles of trash, and unsightly, or its in high traffic areas where it encourages more trash.   Here's a case where a very busy caretaker in the Maine Applachian Trail Club cleaned up a massive amount of really bad trash.   I helped carry down some big rusty iron bits on my way down the Firewarden's Trail (totally overwhelming my pack's suspension, but worth it).
http://www.matc.org/assets/Resolved-Refuse-Removal-ATJourneys-MarApr2014.pdf


I can live with some of it, things like this I found in the desert of southern California.   It adds a certain atmosphere, and has some historical value.   This area was actively mined for gold.

But what kills me is the modern "woodsman's" trash.  Plastic garbage bags left behind.   Propane cannisters.   Toilet paper.  5 gallon buckets of poop.   Benches, tables, chairs hacked together with local lumber and plywood.   When I was a caretaker on the AT in Maine, I once packed out nearly a full black trashbag, just from a single hike ~40 miles and hitting 3 shelters.  Unacceptable!

These are the things that say "This area is actively used.   It is not wild, whatever you thought you were going to see.   It's a campsite, a playground, a city park.   It's to be used and consumed, not preserved or saved for the next person.   We beat you to it, so suck it."

Leaving no trace in paradise

Digging through some old hiking photos from Hawaii, I was struck how similar the trail is to New England, despite having probably 1/100 of the traffic.   That volcanic soil just can't take the abuse, similar to the thin layer of soil on top of the mineral soils covering the mountains of the Northeast.  Just like how in alpine zones like Marcy, Washington, Saddleback and Katahdin one step off the trail does irreparable damage, the terrain on relatively 'new' land like the Hawaiian islands is fragile.

First you have jackasses like this.   Despite a marked trail, an easy trail that doesn't need poles, a sign to stay on the trail, these  two decided to take a break off the trail to adjust.   The terrain seems hardly fragile, but it's the sense of wildness you're looking to preserve.   If you end up with footbeds all over the lava, then its not a cool dormant crater anymore, its a city park.

On Kauai, in the Waimea Canyon park, there's a long trail that runs through jungle then along the coast.    Here you have a hip-deep trail, and a "bonus" trail along the side, probably created by sneaker-wearing hikers in the wet season.   If you #PlanAheadAndPrepare you have the right shoes.

When the trail is eroded like this, you want to stay on it - and you can see the subtle psychological pressure to keep away from the edge; the soil is getting compacted as the trail erodes.

These are the only legitimate ones allowed to go off-trail.   Partially because they live here, partially because they have four wheel drive.

It's important to leave the land in the condition you've found it, as you owe it to the guy behind you.   Let him have his experience, just as you had yours, and perhaps next time, someone will leave something for you.

And then there were three

A northern white rhino has died in a zoo in the US, leaving 3 left in the world (in Kenya).

The remaining ones are locked away in a preserve, so that men with small penises will not kill them and consume their horns.

http://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/wildlife/rhinos/northern-white-rhinos/

How many is enough?    Consider supporting the Ol Pejeta Preserve.

November hiking - Ampersand, Seymour, Tabletop and Rocky Peak Ridge

Hitting the summit of Rocky Peak Ridge on November 17, 2015, I finished all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks.   24+ years in the making, done.   I can't believe it, but I'm already planning my next trip - a 5 day traverse of the whole High Peaks region, from Coreys to Elizabethtown.

I arrived at the Ampersand trail head at around noon on Saturday, and immediately was struck by the cold.  I brought both spikes and snowshoes, not knowing what to expect.  The first section of trail was easy, smooth sailing over the frozen mud.  And then the climb began.   I switched to spikes about halfway up.

 

The summit was brutal, I met a bunch of other hikers on the way who didn't go all the way up.  Wind and fog, rime ice everywhere.

Back down around 3, just enough time to head to the cafe in Lake Placid for a sandwich, then back to the trailhead to camp.   There's a supposedly pay campsite on the shore of Middle Saranac Lake, but it was off-season.  An easy .6 miles (wearing orange because it's hunting season, and I found a nice out-of-the-wind spot for the tent.   The wind off the lake was chilly, to say the least.

The next morning I drove through Coreys and parked.  Surprisingly, there were people there ahead of me.   The 5.4 miles into Ward Brook Leanto were a cakewalk - frozen trail, beautiful sun on the frozen trees, milder weather, no wind.  Really just perfect hiking.

Then the fun began, the 'trailless' climb up.   It was mostly obvious, I got turned around only twice.

The ice on the blown out rock slides was vicious, some places an inch thick.  Thank you Microspikes!

Back down, only wiping out once or twice, and back to the car by 4.   At this point I drove back through Lake Placid to the Ausable Inn in Keene Valley for a beer and some dinner.   Then on to Meadows Lane outside the Adirondak Loj, where I tented alone, and in the dark under headlamp.   It's free camping on DEC land, this time of year totally deserted.  Normally the sites are all taken, as you can't camp at the Loj.

Parked at the Loj and started in on what might be my last hike for a while.   Mixed emotions when I got to Marcy Dam and remembered how it used to be a beautiful lake. 

Up the Van Hoevenberg highway to the 'unmarked' trail (complete with sign) to Tabletop.   Hop skip and a jump up, and I was there.    Great weather, little wind, bright sun.  Awesome views.

Back to Indian Falls right around noon for lunch, where again I had mixed emotions.  How many times had I drawn water there, or stopped and rested for lunch?

Back down the highway to the Dam for a long rest in the sun.   By now it was close to 50 degrees, and the trails over the last few days had turned into swamps in the afternoon sun, so the boots were soaked.  Took about an hour rest including a nap on the old dam, while my feet dried.   Sadly saddled up, and took a slow stroll back to the car, right as the temps really started to sink.

A hiker told me "tonight the temperatures are really going to drop" - no way I was camping in the cold again, so I hit the hostel in Keene Valley.   At this time of year it was empty, but they also hadn't done laundry, and the beds weren't made.   Weak, for $25, if you ask me.   At night, and on Monday nights especially, the town of Keene Valley essentially closes, so it was a quiet dinner of mac and cheese in the hostel.
Up at 6, on the road by 6:30, I got to the Chapel Pond trailhead for Giant at about 7.

Climbing Giant is like doing a 3 mile stairmaster, it's 3 miles and 3000 feet up.   That qualifies as 'steep' in my book.

Here's the Washbowl, frozen.  Up, up, more up, some great exposed ledges where the sun was melting the ice, and up some more to the junction.   A sharp right, and you head down a goat path towards Rocky Peak Ridge.   Took a serious wipeout on the way down, as the spikes failed me, and I went head over heels and crashed at the bottom of a rock face.   Ouch.   Pretty icicles though.

Through a nice col and a short climb up, and I hit the summit.   Done!   After 24 years, I'd hit all the High Peaks.   Beautiful weather, 45-50, not a breath of wind, no clouds.

This is why I saved this for last.  This exact scenario.  The view of everything.

On the way down, again skipping Giant (having done it), I took a page from Frost and from Baggins, and took the Roaring Brook Trail down towards St. Huberts.   Much easier, and beautiful hiking through immense pines.   Highly recommended over the Zander trail.   Got to the parking area near St. Huberts at around 3.   5 minutes and 9 cars later, my hiker trash karma kicked in, and I got a hitch back to my car, and then signed out.   At this point, so tired, so hungry.  And by now the sun had dipped behind the peaks, and it was FREEZING.  I had 1 more thing to do on the way to Keene Valley for dinner; there's a huge waterfall on the road near St. Huberts, but the sun almost never hits it - that is, unless it's late afternoon.   Perfect timing!

Boy the Adirondacks are beautiful.
 


    Upon the hearth the fire is red,
    Beneath the roof there is a bed;
    But not yet weary are our feet,
    Still round the corner we may meet
    A sudden tree or standing stone
    That none have seen but we alone.
--Bilbo Baggins


Fall and late Fall hiking are now my favorite time to be up there - despite the cold, you have the trails to yourself, there's no bugs, and if you catch the weather right, there's nothing better.

It's been amazing, boiling water at Lake Colden back when you could have fires there, climbing the Trapdike, doing the Dix Slide as my first trailless peak, finding out after I did it that there was a thing called The Great Range, watching sports and arguing politics with people in the Ausable Inn, and having summit after summit to myself over the years.  A great adventure.