4/22/10 Post

I am leaving for my Zion/Grand Canyon hiking and backpacking trip on Friday. I will be away from email until Wednesday, May 5th. If you have any issues or questions while I am gone, contact Steve Payne (stevepayne@mindspring.com). He can handle any issues that come up regarding the class.

May Hike Signup:
May hike signup began yesterday and is going well. Hikes will open for more than two signups on Thursday, April 29th at 9:00 AM. Please be sure to sign up for your two required hikes before then for the best selection.

We have added another CHS 2 hike on May 22nd. Deborah Dickstein will be leading it and the destination is still to be determined (darn snow levels). Feel free to sign up for it as one of your two required hikes for May. Both the CHS 2 schedule and the May hikes description on the CHS web site have been updated with the information.

CHS Pictures:
John Connelly, our picture guru, has been busy posting the photographs you have sent him onto the Picassa web site. A link to this web site is available on the Class Resources tab on the CHS web site.

John asks me to remind you to please be sure to include the name and date of the hike as well as the hike leader's name in the subject line of your email. You can send your pictures to to chshiker2008@gmail.com for posting.

I look forward to telling you about my adventures when I return!

4/18/10 Post

I’m writing this blog from sunny Central Oregon. I came down here on Friday to celebrate my Dad’s retirement from 50 years of basketball coaching. Didn’t get any hiking in but did do some nice walks out in the sagebrush and sun with my stepmom. The sun felt great and it was nice being back in the area I grew up in.

I wanted to emphasize in this email the importance of taking care of your feet and body while you hike—no matter what the distance. Many times I find that folks are reluctant to talk about problems they may be having either with boots or with body aches and pains. Please don’t be shy about talking to the hike leader or First Aid person about any issues that you are having as you hike. Blisters don’t go away if you ignore them, they just get worse. Body aches/pains may be fleeting or long-lasting, but please say something if you have a problem that seems to be persisting. Your hiking partners can help you out and provide advice.

Kelly Gone Backpacking:
On Friday, April 23rd, I will be leaving for my Zion/Grand Canyon hiking and backpacking trip. I will be away from email until Wednesday, May 4th. If you have any issues or questions while I am gone, please contact Steve Payne, stevepayne@mindspring.com. I will post my blog for next weekend before I leave on Friday.

CHS Pictures:
If you took any pictures on your hike this weekend, please be sure to forward them to chshiker2008@gmail.com to post them on the picture site for everyone to view. Be sure to include the name and date of the hike in the subject line. You can access the picture site through the CHS Web Site or directly by going to http://picasaweb.google.com/hiker.chs.

April & May Hike Signup:
All April hikes are available for signup for more than two hikes now. There is still space available in the following hikes:

CHS1:
4/25 (Sun)—Anna May Brennan/Steve Payne, Point Defiance (9 miles, 100’ gain)
CHS2:
4/25 (Sun)—Ellen Purington & Cynthia Stevens, Tiger Mountain Leader’s Choice (7 miles, 2200’ gain)

May hike descriptions will be emailed tomorrow (4/19) evening—Sign up will begin on Wednesday, April 21st at 9:00 AM. At that time, you will need to restrict yourself to only signing up for two CHS 1 or 2 hikes based on the hikes you’ve done so far and how you would compare yourself to other hikers you’ve hiked with. If you need to talk to me about it, please contact me. Please limit your initial May hike signup to two hikes in the CHS group you’ve chosen (CHS 1 or 2); do not sign up for hikes in both sections.

Some notes on May hikes:

• We will be offering a few "Grads Only" hikes in May at both the CHS 1 and CHS 2 levels. This means that only graduates who are not participating in the course this year will be able to register for these hikes when they open for registration on April 21st. If they do not fill up by the Thursday before the hike, then current year participants (some of whom may also be past-year graduates) will be able to sign up.
• Steve Payne and Heidi Walker are offering a photography hike on May 2nd. This hike is not group specific and is open to participants in either CHS 1 or 2. It does not qualify as one of your required May hikes however. It’s strictly for fun.

4/11/10 Post

It was so nice to have spring show up again this weekend! I did a hike with my 30 lb pack with a couple of my backpacking friends to Wallace Falls today and we were delighted by the weather. We ran into a group of CHS 2 hikers at the trailhead who were doing the same trip. It was such a nice day that the CHS 2 group decided to extend their trip several miles and include Wallace Lake as well. My threesome turned back at the upper falls as we had other things to tend to that day. But it felt so good to get out in the sun again. Hope you were able to get out on either of these fabulous weekend days.

All hikers need to be familiar with Leave No Trace (LNT) principles. These are guidelines for non-impacting conduct in the wild areas we will visit during the course of this program. If you are unfamiliar with these tenets, please review them at: http://www.lnt.org/programs/principles.php.

I especially want to stress the first tenet: dispose of waste properly. If you’re squeamish about reading about these types of issues, get over it now and learn the proper way to deal with your waste in the backcountry when no toilets are available.

Even if you’ve managed to somehow avoid going to the bathroom in nature up to this point, it is a certainty that you will not be able to hold it long enough to complete some of the longer hikes we have planned this summer. In this case, it’s important to have a prepared toilet kit with you. The idea is to leave your pack on the trail and take your toilet kit with you to do your business. My toilet kit contains:

· Toilet paper

· Small plastic waste bags (the kind you use for picking up dog poop)

· Plastic trowel to dig cat holes

· Small bottle of hand sanitizer

· Cotton bandana

Ladies, I use the cotton bandana in place of toilet paper when I have to pee. That way I don’t have to worry about handling and packing out toilet paper on most trips. Urine is sanitary, and I keep the bandana in a plastic bag in my toilet kit—washing it after every trip. Hand sanitizer completes the process. Gentleman don’t seem to need the bandana for this particular bodily function.

If you need to poop in the backwoods, that’s when the toilet kit really comes in handy. In most backcountry places, the process involves digging a cat hole with your trowel, making your deposit in the hole, and then covering it up with the dirt dug out of the hole. The trowel is only intended to touch dirt, not human waste. Any toilet paper that you use goes into your plastic waste bag for you to dispose of at home. Do not bury toilet paper in the cat hole! Even the biodegradable kind takes a long time to decompose. Some people are in the habit of using natural toilet paper (such as rocks, twigs, leaves, and so on). In this case, you can put those items in your cat hole before you fill it back up. Then use that hand sanitizer after you’ve packed everything else back into your toilet kit.

In some pristine places, unless there are backcountry toilets available, all waste must be packed out. Yes, that means your poop too. One such place is the Enchantments area in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness near Leavenworth. Your small plastic waste bags are good for that chore too. Several CHS hikes go into this area, so be sure to prepared when going on these hikes. Your hike leader can demonstrate the process of using the bags to pick up poop. Even if you know how to do it, the demonstration is still good for a laugh!

Participants & Volunteer Rosters:

The current participant and volunteer rosters have been posted on the CHS Forum. We decided to place it here so only CHS participants can view it. You should have received an email invitation several weeks ago to join the CHS Forum. If you haven’t done that yet or have lost your invitation email, please let me know.

The CHS Forum is separate from the CHS web site. However there is a link to the Forum on the CHS web site on the Class Resources tab>CHS Hiker’s Forum section. You must be a member of the Forum for the link to work for you.

Once you’ve gotten to the Forum home page, scroll down to the Files section and you’ll see a link to both of the rosters. Please check your information and let me know if anything needs to be updated. If you are unable to view Excel documents, please let me know.

WTA Work Party Signup:

We now have the links available for you to sign up for the trail maintenance work parties being held later this summer in conjunction with WTA. If you love to plan in advance, here’s you’re opportunity to schedule your day now. I have posted the WTA document with the links on the CHS web site>Class Resources tab>Course Documents section>2010 CHS Trail Maintenance Flyer link. You can view the date and description of each trip as well as click on the link to sign up for them.

CHS Pictures:

If you took any pictures on your hike this weekend, please be sure to forward them to chshiker2008@gmail.com to post them on the picture site for everyone to view. Be sure to include the name and date of the hike in the subject line. You can access the picture site through the CHS Web Site or directly by going to http://picasaweb.google.com/hiker.chs.

April & May Hike Signup:

May hike destinations will be finalized soon and will be advertised in my next blog entry. Signup for May hikes will begin on Wednesday, April 21 at 9:00 AM. If you want to see how the schedule is shaping up, feel free to view it on the CHS web site.

All April hikes are available for signup for more than two hikes now. Feel free to go on as many hikes in your pacing group as you want. There is still space available in the following hikes:

CHS1:

4/25 (Sun.)—Anna May Brennan/Steve Payne, Point Defiance (9 miles, 100’ gain)

CHS2:

4/24 (Sat.)—Barbara Folmer/Jan Pecoraro, Little Si (5 miles, 1,200’ gain)

Have a great week and I’m looking forward to hiking with you sometime soon!

4/04/10 Post

I thought that April was supposed to come in like a lamb, but it's sure managed to be pretty fierce so far weather-wise. As I mentioned in last week's blog, Matt and I scouted a hike that I was co-leading this Saturday with another hike leader—Goat Lake. At that time it was totally snow-free. However with the wild weather we've been having this week, a lot of snow dumped on lower elevations and on Friday when I went to check and see if I could get the to the trailhead, the road just past Barlow Pass had almost a foot of snow on it and the white stuff was still falling! I couldn't even get to the trailhead safely. So reluctantly we chose another lower destination—the Lime Kiln trail just out of Granite Falls. For all of the wild weather we had on Friday night and the gloomy-looking skies on Saturday morning, we had a remarkably dry and lovely hike on Saturday morning. The Stillaguamish River was raging in its bed and was a lovely silty gray color. We enjoyed listening to it as we walked along the old rail trail, past the abandoned lime kiln and to the end of the trail where the old railroad bridge over the river is long gone. We sat by the river and had a snack and took many group photos. We were done around noon and headed for a snack of pizza at Omega Pizza in Granite Falls. A lovely morning spent hiking with new friends!

The volatility of this last week's weather spawned the subject of my blog topic this week—hike safety and enjoyability. The best made plans can sometimes be interrupted by events outside of human control—severe weather patterns, damaged roads and trails, high water, bad traffic, and other factors. It’s always best to have a Plan B when unplanned circumstances arise.

Yes, Goat Lake is a great destination and I'm really sorry we couldn't go there, but taking a chance to go there would've meant the potential for folks to get stuck in the snow driving the trailhead; or even if we could make it there, losing the trail in the snow and getting lost or having someone get injured in cold and windy conditions. The pain of these possible bad outcomes overshadowed the benefit of going to Goat Lake. When you find yourself in a situation where you are weighing whether to go with the original itinerary or finding a fallback destination, always be sure consider the risks versus the benefits of either plan. If the risks are probable and outweigh the benefits, then make another plan that will achieve the same benefits without the attendant risks.

Several years ago, Matt and I had a plan to hike the Walt Bailey trail off of the Mountain Loop Highway. We'd never been there before and it sounded like fun. We drove all the way up a long dirt road to get the trailhead. We were all geared up, about ready to head up the trail, when other hikers came back down the trail and announced that they had just seen a mother bear and a cub sitting on the trail not far from the trailhead. Normally I don’t fear seeing a bear on my trips—I have seen them several times, but they weren’t a mother/cub pair sitting right on the trail. We weighed the risk of running into the pair (fairly likely given the information these hikers were telling us) versus the benefit of hiking a new trail we'd never been on. We realized that there were other trails nearby we'd never been on that we could easily backtrack to, thus avoiding a possible encounter that may not have ended well.

Much of my knowledge of risk/benefit analysis in wilderness situations is learned from author John Graham in his excellent book, Outdoor Leadership. I have even borrowed some of his terminology in this writing. Even if you're not interested in ever leading any type of group out into the wilderness, this book has a lot to teach you for your own private trips and I highly recommend it. The chapter on Making Good Decisions is one that I read over and over again.

Good decisions are made before you even step out the door to drive to your hike. The decision to always carry full gear in your pack (Ten Essentials—including the map—rain gear, warm clothing, and adequate food and water) is one you should always make regardless of the trip you are going on. Your hike leaders will be emphasizing pack gear this month. Be sure to use this information to assess how you can improve your preparedness with the gear you carry in your pack.

CHS Pictures:

If you took any pictures on your hike this weekend, please be sure to forward them to chshiker2008@gmail.com to post them on the picture site for everyone to view. Be sure to include the name and date of the hike in the subject line. You can access the picture site through the CHS Web Site or directly by going to http://picasaweb.google.com/hiker.chs.

April Hike Signup:

All April hikes are available for signup for more than two hikes now. Feel free to go on as many hikes in your pacing group as you want. There is still space available in the following hikes:

CHS1:

4/11 (Sun.)—Heidi Walker/Michael Walker, Greenwater Lakes (5.5 miles, 500’ gain)

4/18 (Sun.)—Shep Griswold, Carbon River Road/Ranger Falls (8 miles, 1,000’ gain)

4/25 (Sun.)—Anna May Brennan/Steve Payne, Point Defiance (9 miles, 100’ gain)

CHS2:

4/08 (Thu.)—Sue Shih/Jan Davis, Lime Kiln Trail (6.5 miles, 450’ gain)

4/24 (Sat.)—Barbara Folmer/Jan Pecoraro, Little Si (5 miles, 1,200’ gain)

Have a great week and looking forward to hiking with you sometime soon!