Sunshine and Balls, a well known long distance hiking father and daughter team, had their water cache stolen yesterday. Apparently other hikers stole it. This is beyond comprehension. I hope the thieves read this. My message to you is that your are less than scum. What goes around comes around, and I hope you get yours in the end. You can read Balls’ post here.
I am a runner. I don’t run competitively any more, but I run. I am a student of distance running. And because I am a runner, two days ago I decided to visit the site of the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Until I got there, I wasn’t sure why I was making this trip.
A friend of mine sent a note saying that John Abela over at HikeLighter.com had posted a nice note about my Trailstar article on his Facebook page, and there were some comments that it is unfortunate that I don’t allow comments on my website. I can’t verify these comments, since I don’t belong to Facebook. If this is the case, then thanks for the consideration and kind words.
There are few reasons I don’t allow comments on this site
In the spring and fall the wind in our local deserts can get somewhat severe (gusts of 70+ mph). Along with the wind, gritty sand gets into everything: eyes, nose, ears, hair, gear, food, etc. As you can imagine, lighting a stove isn’t a simple thing to light or operate in this kind of weather. Over the years, my main shelters have been tarps or variations of a tarp (pre-determined shape without a floor). Above: Top row (L to R) poncho tarp, flat tarp, Gossamer Gear Spinn Twin flat tarp with a catenary cut. Bottom row (L to R) Chouinard Pyramid, Six Moons Wild Oasis, zPacks Hexamid.
Continue reading Trailstar Shelter by Mountain Laurel Designs
I think people should hike or walk every day. Few do. One does not need a wilderness trail to enjoy a good walk. Hiking around town can be fun. Joyce and I like to walk to downtown Palm Springs and back home, which is an 8 mile round trip. Of course, a walk downtown usually means eating once we get there. Today was Palm Springs’ 75th Anniversary of incorporation, the there was a big birthday party going on. Since no taxpayer monies were spent on the gala affair, we decided to walk downtown and check things out. The picture above is our view as we leave the house. We would end up doing right around 12 miles today.
Today Joyce and I did a hike in the area of Big Morongo Canyon. A day of hiking with Joyce is a great day. She doesn’t have the slightest interest in backpacking, but that is okay. For the past 4 weeks I have been away from home almost every day. Finally was able to spend some time at home with Joyce and promised to do some hiking. When I got up from bed this morning and went outside, the sky was overcast gray. Looked like smog. It is spring, and with spring come strong winds as the desert heats up. The gray was sand and dust in the air, and the Palm Trees were bending in the wind. Not great hiking weather.
Continue reading Hiking with Joyce at Big Morongo Canyon Preserve
One of the reasons we purchased our 2006 Fleetwood Niagara was because of all the extra storage it had compared to our much smaller 1992 Starcraft Meteorite. We were just tired of packing stuff for each trip and hauling it out to our tow vehicle on every trip. A large camper would allow to store just about everything we needed for camping in the camper itself. But the storage in the Niagara wasn’t optimal for our use. Here are a few things we did…
