Backpacking Awesomeness: Trayfoot Mountain / Paine Run Loop

This past weekend we hiked the Trayfoot Mountain / Paine Run loop in Shenandoah. It's a testament to the number of amazing views and trails in Shenandoah that this hike isn't higher rated. For our purposes, it turned out to be an ideal overnight backpacking route.

At 11am, we parked at the trail head, hoisted our packs and were on our way. After about a mile of uphill we reached Blackrock Summit. The summit is a boulder pile that's just crying out to be explored. For reasons I can't fully explain, my fear of heights didn't kick in while playing on it, which made it even more fun for me. We enjoyed a perfect lunch with an amazing view. This was B's first backpacking trip, and it was ideal to start it off with such an awe inspiring view.

After lunch it was time to knock out some miles. We did another mile, including some steep uphill, to reach the view-less summit of Trayfoot Mountain. A couple of the maps I found online indicated there was a lookout tower there, but alas, I could not find any evidence of it. From there, we walked about 3 miles along the ridge of Trayfoot Mountain, with a healthy dose of downhill. M and B lead the way, often leading Shira and myself by hundreds of yards. Oh, the boundless energy of youth! The fact that their packs weighed a third of Shira's and Mine didn't hurt either.

At the end of stretch on the ridge we found another overlook, though it wasn't as impressive as the first one. And before we few knew it, we were making our final descent from Trayfoot Mountain into the area where we would camp for the night.

As we trudged down hill I noticed a small brown'ish snake curled up and snoozing. It was almost perfectly camouflaged with the trail's muddy sidewall. I didn't grab a photo, and of course, now I wish I had. From looking at this list of common snakes in Shenandoah, I do believe we saw a small Copperhead. Though, without a pic, that's just a guess. I know that when we arrived in camp, we did see another snake, which was clearly a garter. The snakes, plus a couple of toads that B spotted were all the wildlife we'd see during the trip. Though, given all the fresh bear scat, we knew we weren't alone.

After about 6 miles of hiking we arrived at our campsite. The campsite had a massive tree bisecting it, so every time we wanted to go from the tents to the cooking area we had choose between the limbo or hurdles. Still, it was a solid campsite and we had it all to ourselves.

We arrived at the campsite early enough that we had time to explore the 'waterfalls' and 'swimming holes' that were .3 miles away. Perhaps it was due to the volume of water, but the area was just a stretch of fast moving stream. Still, soaking our toes and chilling on rocks was heavenly. This is what backpacking is all about: put in the sweaty 6 miles, earn yourself glorious moments of camaraderie and relaxation.

After an hour of splashing around we returned to camp to cook dinner. It was during dinner that we ran into the fail of the trip. One limitation of Shenandoah is that fires aren't allowed in the backcountry. We had planned for this, and prepared to boil our hotdogs rather than cook them over an open flame. After 20 years of using the same pot, I decided it was time for an upgrade to something more modern. I filled the brand new pot with water, set it on the stove, and watched with horror as the pot slid off the stove.

The problem: our new pot was non-stick, which included a non-stick outside. The coating was so good that the stove legs couldn't get a grip on the bottom of the pot and it kept sliding off. D'oh.

We ended up solving the problem by propping a large rock next to the stove, which provided just enough support to keep the pot in place.

While I obviously need to find a new pot solution, I wasn't particularly upset with the experience. Another key aspect of backpacking is that things don't go as planned. That's more feature than bug. It's this unpredictability that leads to amazing things: like breath-taking views and (supposedly!) copperhead snake sightings, and by necessity it has to lead to some less than stellar experiences as well. Sanitize the experience enough and you'll lose the good with the bad.

For the record, the hot dogs were delicious! For Kashrut reasons we cooked them in True Liberty Bags, which worked out quite well and cleanup was a snap. We also roasted marshmallows over a backpacking stove. This wasn't quite as romantic as cooking them over an open fire, but it got the job done.

While the sun was still in the sky, we went to our respective tents and called it a night.

We all made it through the night without incident; most importantly nobody froze despite the temps dipping down into the high 50's (which feels much colder than it sounds). I polled M and B about their night in the woods. They both said the same thing: it was so dark! And B noted the amazing blanket of stars in the sky. I had taken in this view too at 3:00am, but it was too cold to stand around an enjoy it. As for me, I slept well and woke up without much soreness, thank heavens for Vitamin I (aka Ibuprofen).

After a breakfast of hot chocolate and oatmeal we packed up camp and trudged the 3 miles uphill back to our car. Again, the kids rocketed ahead of us. It was along Paine Run that we saw quite a bit of bear scat, so they were definitely in the area. We also saw a large number of blueberry bushes, though they weren't in season. If you were to hit this trail at just the right time of year you'd be in for quite the blueberry treat.

And just like that, we popped out of the forest and arrived at the car. We dumped our packs, changed our clothes/shoes and before we knew it, we were driving away with the air conditioning blasting.

Taking newbies backpacking is all about balance. Make the trip too easy and they miss out on the joy of the accomplishment that comes from facing a real challenge. But overdue it, and the blisters and exhaustion cloud a good time. Combining Trayfoot Mountain / Paine Run loop with two fit teens and perfect weather made for just the right balance. M and B got to see the views, a tiny bit of wildlife and the joy of taking off a pack after 6 miles of hiking. Thanks to their fitness and a bit of preparation, we managed to dodge blisters, exhaustion and a laundry list of other things that can mar a trip. In short: it was blast, and I'm already starting to plan next year's adventure.

The Joy of Flex - A Useful Tool for Understanding Flexbox Layouts

I've recently found myself implementing a number of Flexbox based CSS layouts from scratch. There are tons of resources out there that attempt to explain this versatile layout strategy, but it's been this one that's been my go-to reference: Flexbox: A friendly tutorial for modern CSS layouts.

It's amazing how many historic problems Flexbox manages to solve (vertical centering, anyone?). So yeah, there's been a learning curve to mastering it, but it's absolutely worth it.

Explosive

Happy 4th of July y'all! Stay cool out there!

Getting out of the Paper Map Mindset | The Joy of Digital Maps

On my TODO list for our next backpacking trip is to download relevant trail maps to my phone. I opened up Backcountry Navigator, zoomed to the area we'll be hiking and started marking sections to download. Out of curiosity, I switched from Thunderforest: Outdoor to US Forestry maps and was surprised by the amount of detail shown. Switching map tiles was promising, so I flipped through a number of other choices, including CalTopo and USGS Topo. Here's all four views side-by-side:

I have to say, that's so cool. I'm still used to old school paper maps where you get what you get. Here I can choose the US Forestry maps to see copious amounts of detail, or switch to Thunderforest for a clean view of the topography. And there's no reason to rely on just one view; I can bring them all along.

One type of map I won't be needing this trip are historic maps. The USGS makes these available and there worth checking out. For example, here's a an 1889 map of the area we'll be traversing:

Speaking of exploring, I was delighted to see that the area we'll be hiking is peppered with geocaches, many of them right along the trail:

As long as I'm caching data for maps, I decided to store these locally as well.

I can hear fellow old school hikers groaning about all this talk of e-maps. What if your phone gets misplaced or damaged they'll ask? To which I'd reply: Nu? You can't lose or damage a flimsy paper map?

Oh yeah? Well, does your flimsy map ever run out of batteries? A fair point I'd concede, but not an insurmountable challenge. I carry an extra battery pack, and both Shira's and My phone will have cached versions of the maps. That's a nice bit of redundancy. But wait, there's more!

It occurred to me I could add another backup. Shira is planning to bring her Kindle for camp downtime. A little research showed that Kindles support PDFs. I grabbed the printer friendly PDF of the route we're taking from Hiking Upward and dropped it into Shira's Kindle. The device had no objection to opening the document and letting me peruse the embedded map. Sure, zooming and panning is painfully slow, but as a backup it works great. Best of all, the Kindle's e-ink based tech has legendary battery life.

If you don't have access to neatly formatting PDFs like the one Hiking Upward provides, you're not out of luck. Head over to the USGS maps download area. You can select areas to download and the site will provide them as PDFs. They're even slower to load and zoom in on than the Hiking Upward document, but they're still quite functional. Here's a few Kindle map reading action shots to prove the point:

I'm sure there are many surprises in store for us on the trail, but not having a trustworthy maps shouldn't be on of them.

Lessons Learned from Celebrating the 20th

After 20 years of marriage I can say this: it's been educational. So it was appropriate that celebrating this milestone would leave me with lessons learned.

Lesson 1: The Blueberry Picking at Homestead Farm is top notch

Over the years we've picked a variety of fruit at a variety of farms and the results have been mixed. The blueberry picking at Homestead Farm, however, was off the charts good this year. Everywhere we turned, there were plump perfect berries just waiting to be picked. As a bonus, the berries have stayed fresh in our fridge for the last couple of days.

Mmmm...blueberries on everything...yum.

Lesson 2: I'm Not Really a Pedicure Guy

When Shira suggested we celebrate our 20th anniversary with a couples' pedicure, I have to admit that my inner 10 year old boy protested. Eewww, pedicures are for girls is what my internal voice said. Luckily, my 20 year husband voice won the day, and I responded that's a great idea! You know I love trying new things! So I manned up and we got pedis.

I felt quite the range of emotions during my 25 minute experience, including: superiority (look at how cultured I am, I'm a man getting a pedi!), relaxation (ooooh, warm bath water), apprehension (should I really be enjoying a public bath?), uneasiness (uh, what's she going to do with the blue goop?), discomfort (why am I paying someone for the privilege of using dental tools on my toe nails?), and of course joy (Shira was happy, so I was happy).

And can I just say, my toes look awesome! They've never been so beach ready. And my gosh, my calves are so moisturized!

Ultimately, I still can't claim to get it. The experience was OK and all, yet I'd hardly call it luxurious. Maybe it's an acquired taste and I just haven't acquired it yet.

Lesson 3: I'm never going to out project Shira

I'm proud of the gift I made for Shira for our anniversary. It was a photo book that required hours of sorting through pictures, songs and composing text. It took me weeks to put together. Of course I knew that if the gift didn't work out, the effort would be appreciated. When Shira took the book out of the packaging, I knew the project was a success.

Then yesterday, I got my gift from Shira. It makes my effort look like I phoned it in.

She presented me with a 4x4 foot canvas covered in over 100 painstakingly placed photos; all aligned to the millimeter. She spent the last *year* reviewing the thousands of photos we've accumulated from our travels. A special thanks to our friend Dawn for being her partner in this endeavor and for finishing up the last 1/2 of the project on her own. The project is amazing. I was informed that for our 40th, I'm getting a watch.

I'm telling you, I thought I had Shira with my book idea. Little did I know that I was thinking so small.

Happy 20th babe, here's to many more lessons learned!