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MMD3 posted:I just can't wrap my head around how something like that would wake someone up when you're sleeping outside with wind/rain/river/animals all around you making various noises. loving ravens man. Crows just kind of go "caw caw" but ravens make the most godawful screeching and gurgling noises when they're squabbling over a corpse of a mouse or whatever the gently caress. Ravens 
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Feb 6, 2013 04:25
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rcman50166 posted:Well that's the thing, I haven't a clue what I'm looking for. I don't anticipate having to hike far with the tent, so weight isn't too much of an issue. But I need something that would stay dry and not tear. My husband and I have been using an Ozark Trail tent that we picked up at WalMart for 60 bucks. It's not too heavy and he can compress it down to a tiny little ball and stuff it into his pack so we've even been using it on 3-4 day overnight backpack trips. We were planning to upgrade to something nicer (particularly something with two doors so no one gets stepped on in the middle of the night  ), but it's honestly been such a good tent we haven't felt the need to yet. It's been through some rain and wind and held up okay, but I'm fully expecting it to spontaneously combust at the worst possible time (in particular I'm expecting the poles to do something horrible one day). But if you're not doing difficult overnight trips it might be something to look for if you're looking to save some cash until you're certain you want to invest in high quality gear with better features.
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Jun 2, 2013 04:57
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I need some advice, Hiking thread. My husband and I have identical Osprey 3L hydration packs. One of them tastes great. The other one tastes like rear end. To be specific, it tastes kind of like smokey plastic, but they've both had roughly equal use. We've had them for a year and a half now, I think. How can we get the taste out of the nasty one? They both tasted plasticky when they were new, but the one cleared right up while the other one seemed to just get worse. We've run hot water through it but it didn't seem to help. I'm currently soaking it with hot water and baking soda to see if that does anything. We have a backpacking trip coming up in a couple weeks and he's just about ready to just go buy a new one and hope for better luck... but a new one is going to taste nasty too at first so I don't think it will help him much. [edit]They've had chlorine tabs in them too so I don't think it's a bacteria thing, but maybe I'm wrong.
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Jul 2, 2013 16:38
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Just got home from a quick backpacking trip up to Kristi Glacier, which is near McBride in northern BC (a couple hours out from Jasper). It was amazing and I recommend checking out the trails in the area of highway 16 if you're looking for something a bit more remote and less crowded than some of the popular trails in Jasper. The only issue is it's not nearly as well maintained as a national park trail, so we had to take our boots off and ford some creeks where the bridges had washed away  . Also there were some washouts on the road to the trailhead, and a rugged vehicle is probably necessary. I got a lot of great pictures though:  Kristi 76 79 pano by Tagracat, on Flickr  Kristi 113 pano by Tagracat, on Flickr
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Jul 8, 2013 04:28
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Are there any "on the trail" remedies to help prevent foot swelling? We have a multi-day hiking trip coming up in a few weeks, and when we did this last year my toes started to chafe at the very end because my feet had finally filled my boots. I bought some super padded hiking socks this time, but I'm not sure how much they will help. Our final day is the longest one so I just have to hobble back to the parking lot, but I'd like to know if there's anything extra I can do.
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Jul 8, 2013 17:10
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I have an Osprey Ariel pack, and it's super comfortable, but I notice that even when it's loaded (~35-40lb) the belt seems to ride up after a couple of hours on the trail. I end up undoing it and re-seating it several times over the course of a day, just to get it back down onto my hips instead of my waist. I know adjusting over the course of a day is expected, but is this normal behaviour or am I adjusting some straps wrong somewhere?
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Jul 14, 2013 20:43
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The Ariel is just the female version of the Aether, as far as I know. I was fitted at the store but it's possible the whatsits in the back isn't set properly... I could definitely pull it up and make the pack "bigger" that way. I'm kind of scared to mess with it in case it makes it uncomfortable though. I'll try leaving the other straps looser and see if it stays put.
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Jul 15, 2013 00:03
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I feel compelled to tell my grizzly story. There were 5 of us on a day hike, and we hadn't gone very far yet, heading up an overgrown logging road that led to the hiking path. There was a little clearing with a pond that was teeming with larvae mosquitoes so we all stopped and had an obligatory "eeeewwwwww" at it. Then the one girl in our party says "Guys. There's a... bear..." We all looked up and at the edge of the clearing, not many feet away (about the length of a larger room, I want to say) was a HUGE grizzly, clearly very mature, big ol hump on its shoulders. It had just walked out of the trees onto the trail. It looked at us, we looked at it, and then it went "oh poo poo" and spun and tore off down the trail before we all really had a chance to register what we had just seen (I even had my camera in my hand and didn't think to snap a picture of my impending demise...). Everyone pulled out their bear spray. One of our friends had his hunting rifle with him so he pulled that out too. We all stood there, armed, staring at the trail. We eventually decided if it had wanted to mess with us it wouldn't have run in the opposite direction (and we'd be dead...), decided to start making more noise than we apparently had been, and we had no further bear encounters on the hike (although on the way back there was a huge pile of fresh poop at the same spot that I'm pretty sure wasn't there when we passed through. We joked that it had come back and was all "I'll show THEM" and left us a present.) On the drive back down the logging roads we saw six different black bears, AND what we're pretty sure was the butt and tail of a cougar slipping into the bush. It was basically just a silhouette so it was hard to be sure, but it was a very cougar-like tail. Then we had to drive through a washout It was really cool and equally terrifying at the same time...
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Jul 15, 2013 22:26
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Hiking thread! We might be going to the Seattle area next year and are wondering what the best options are for a backpacking trip (~3 or 4 days in length maybe. We might decide to do a bunch of littler ones to see more landscape, since we don't head down there often). We like mountains, but we are spoiled by the northern Rockies. We are also Canadian so any tips about your parks/camping systems and permits might be helpful. We've mostly been looking at stuff around Rainier and Mt St Helens, mostly because we don't know anything else. Which trails do you recommend we look into?
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Jul 27, 2013 02:28
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Bud Manstrong posted:When are you going to be there? Whenever we have to be  Probably late July-ish though. We have a year to work out vacation times and whatever so it can flex. [edit]Ooh Enchantments looks good
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Jul 27, 2013 02:32
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Time Cowboy posted:Sadly, something I'm doing in the gym has not been kind to my knees. I've had bad knees for almost eleven years now, and this hike caused the worst pain I've gotten from them in a long long time. Elliptical machines and recumbent bikes shouldn't make my knees hurt on the trail... right? How is your arch support? Without proper inserts the cartilage under my patella gets irritated and hurts like hell during extended treks. The recumbent bike does irritate it unless I'm really careful about how I'm holding my legs to make sure the patella keeps tracking properly.
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Dec 23, 2013 00:26
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Time Cowboy posted:Have I missed any good books about hiking the big trails? I haven't read it, but my husband got "Blisters and Bliss" about the West Coast Trail and now that's all he wants to do.
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Jan 4, 2014 02:39
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Has anyone here used a backpack guitar? My husband really really wants one but none of the local stores have one to try out. He realizes he's paying for a gimmick and it won't exactly be the most amazing guitar he's owned, but it would be nice to know if any of them are not complete poo poo before he orders one online. cov-hog posted:Every resource I read about this trail, though, says to not do it if it's your first hike. Has anyone here hiked the WCT? What would I be getting myself into, if I can even score a reservation slot? Am I an idiot for even considering this hike? I'm in love with it and I have the time and a little bit of money to make it happen. That's pretty ambitious for your first attempt. You might want to do an overnight on something like Berg Lake (~21km, and you can break it into chunks for a longer trip with easier days) first and see how it goes before investing into a 5-7 day trip.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:20
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 02:15 |
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I love my poles (cheap Black Diamond ones). The only real tip is make sure you get a clipping lock and not those lovely screw locks that strip the 5th time you unlock them (I bought the BD poles after my original lovely pair stripped on like our second trip out...). Other than that it's all personal preference for price/weight ratio, and my cheap rear end poles are pretty light. -- Has anyone here backpacked in Iceland? I've wanted to go there for awhile just for photo opportunities, but it's recently occurred to me that we could also find a backpacking trail there and get pictures of volcanic glaciers that not all 99.99% of tourists also have... and that is very appealing to me.
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Jul 30, 2014 15:40
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