.the gpb kids. » Nature

The Perils of Backpacking

Mike — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:30:21 +0000

Recently Jules and I traveled to the far reaches of King Range to go on another backpacking trip. This one was planned by a friend. The route followed roughly 21 miles over three days. The Buck Creek Trail is supposedly “infamous as having one of the steepest grades of any Northern California trail” with a 3,300 ft elevation change over 4 miles. We hiked up it and out on the last day. But what I really wanted to talk about are ticks!

Bloooooooood.....

Look at that guy, doesn’t he give you the willies? I’ve gotten a few ticks on me from time to time. I catch them them on my clothing and flick them off and that’s that. On this trip, however, the buggers finally got me.

Day two of the trip. We make our first creek crossing. I get to the far side, and take off my socks to ring the water out of them. First tick caught crawling on my arm! Flicked… done.

Day three. We’re climbing up the infamous trail and beating back the encroaching foliage. I find another tick on my arm. Flicked again!

Day three… still. We’re out of the woods and heading to a small pizza joint. My hip chafes a little. I think it might be from the hip belt and rub it. There’s something there! It’s a tick! Arrrrrrrgh!

Where's its head? It's inside!

One of the other guys we went with brought a tick key which we put to good use to pull him out. Minimal damage. Tick survived intact. Jules put him in a bag. Continued to pizza which was bad, but that’s another story.

Day three… again! We get home and prepare for a relaxing shower. What’s that under the band of my boxers? Another one?!? Blargh! This one I carefully pull out with tweezers. He didn’t survive but all of his body parts were there. We put him in a bag too.

We did some reading online and Jules called one of the nurses at the health center. Less than 1% chance of getting lyme disease but we’re on the lookout for the early warning signs. Constant vigilance!

PS. Neither of those pictures are of the actual tick that got me, they’re just borrowed for effect. But here’s a video I took of another guy in our party pulling out a tick.

Backpacking at Henry Coe State Park, Round II

Jules — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:55:10 +0000

Mike and I were planning to go to the DMV to take care of car stuff on Saturday, as well as visit Mike’s parents. However, the visit got moved to Sunday late afternoon, and on Friday night, we learned that the DMV suspended Saturday service. So what did we do? We planned a spur-of-the-moment backpacking trip! Is that an oxymoron?

This time around, there was a lot of water, and many flowers in bloom. We had a great view from our camp site at Willow Ridge, on the border of the Western Zone of the park (~7.5 miles from Coe Headquarters). We made it out of the park 30 minutes before the storm rolled in, and in time for Easter Sunday hanging out/dinner with Mike’s family (did I mention that we are all atheists? I don’t know what’s going on). We are backpacking ninjas.

Mike moving a log bench for a scenic lunch

Turkeys!

Navigating The Narrows

A hitchhiker

Drying off after Mike helped me dunk my right foot in The Narrows ~_^

Almost Home

Quick Jaunt to Briones

Mike — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:03:03 +0000

Jules and I picked up my mom and headed to Briones Regional Park for a quick hike to try out one of the new backpacks and the Garmin Rino GPS device. I wasn’t able to load the a topo map onto the Rino before we left so all we could see was a dotted line (our track) in a sea of tan, but it was interesting anyway. Here’s a short video I posted on youtube.

New Backpacking Gear!

Mike — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:01:04 +0000

Recently Jules and I have acquired some new backpacking gear in preparation for some epic trips this summer.

Plotting the Course

First on the list is a fancy GPS device. Jules did some research and came up with the Garmin Rino 530HCx GPS/Two-Way Radio. After last year’s trip to Snow Mountain where we lost the trail a few times, we thought it would be a good idea to have a backup plan. We were never really lost while in the Snow Mountain area, but a few times we didn’t know how to proceed. When I say we lost the trail, we could still go back, just not forward. So with this handy device we can plan our route ahead of time and bring it out every so often to make sure we’re on the right track.

Garmin Rino 530HCx

Disclaimer: A GPS device should not take the place of a map, compass and planning. Always let someone know what your plans are.

Setting the Sails

Right around when I graduated from college I decided to get a framepack for all of the backpacking I was sure to do. Unfortunately I didn’t put any research into it and didn’t even test the fit. Despite all that I’ve been on many trips with it and it’s all worked out just fine except for a little chafing and perhaps a little more strain than was necessary. So Jules thought it was a good time for an update.

Osprey Aether 70

Enter the Osprey Aether 70. This 70L pack should get me through the long trips with comfort. I’m planning on taking it on my honeymoon. For those shorter weekend trips she got me something lighter and more agile.

Osprey Kestrel 48

Aren’t they pretty? I’m pretty excited to get out on the trails and start breaking these guys in. I’m tempted to take them in to work and just go on walks for lunch. Maybe I’ll try that this week

Eagle Creek

Mike — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:16:48 +0000

Just some pictures from a recent hike up Eagle Creek with Jules.

Dispatches from Borneo

Mike — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:28:34 +0000

Renan Ozturk does dispatches from his expeditions. He describes them as “Episodic & on the fly creative content cut in the field and sent with satellite technology.” They’re pretty amazing. Here’s a series from a trip to Borneo.

Snowshoeing

Jules — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:57:15 +0000

Who’s that weirdo on the end???

Happy Snowshoers?

Oh yeah, that was me.

For some reason, I couldn’t get the rest of them to display much enthusiasm. Though my P.I. did raise his hand.

Mother of Thousands

Jules — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:30:59 +0000

So I acquired a baby plantelet from Kalenchoe (Mother of Thousands) from one of my classmates several months ago. It’s a cool plant that they often use for tumor research. I used to have one in undergrad. It’s currently growing on the window sill right next to my desk in lab. It is now producing little plantelets along the leaf margins. Soon they will ring each leaf, with little dangling roots. These will soon drop off into the soil to sprout up into new Kalenchoe clones. Woot. It’s pretty nifty.

Japanese Maple in Autumn

Mike — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:32:11 +0000

Japanese Maple in Autumn

Originally uploaded by ** Krissy **

I miss visiting Portland with Jules. Maybe we should take a trip soon.

Huckleberry Preserve

Mike — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:42:21 +0000

Jules and I went on a hike up in the hills yesterday. I brought my video camera and shot random things during the trip. Here they are:

Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve from Mike Horn on Vimeo.