I Confess My Lack of Personal Responsibility in Utah

In this email I'm going to admit to violating a basic tenet of the CHS Way on my trip to Utah and in retrospect I feel like a total heel for doing it. The overarching tenet is "We bring personal responsibility to the group." I am admitting here and now to what I did on the Utah trip in the hopes that others might learn from it. I admit to: treating my hike leader (in this case my friend who was organizing the trip) as a tour guide whose personal mission was to make sure I had a good time. There, I've said it! 

How did I do this? By not finding out a single scrap of information about our hikes or our backpack trip beforehand. Heck I didn't even  buy a damn map of the area or look at a single hiking book that described the trips even when I had them sitting in front of me! Instead I followed my friend around like a sheep expecting her to tell me all about the trips and what challenges I might expect. As you might remember from my last posting--this plan turned out kindly of poorly for my feet. It also meant that we when we got the trailhead for our backpack trip, I didn't have a friggin' clue as to which direction our trail was supposed to go from the trailhead. If you haven't hiked in the desert before, I can tell you that washes sometime look like trails and the terrain all looks a lot alike. 

So needless to say, we headed off in the wrong direction and spent about an hour trying to figure out what we were doing. I wasn't any help in the trail navigation because I was the only one in the group that hadn't read any trail beta. When we finally got back to where our car was parked to regroup, I was feeling pretty sheepish and admitted to my friend that I was guilty of treating her as my tour guide and resolved to behave differently. I still didn't have a damn map of the area, but I did pay attention the route for the rest of the trip and made sure we were on a trail on our travels through the desert. 

Oh sure I have lots of great excuses as to why I behaved this way--I was really busy at work before the trip and had been dealing with a lot of stress beforehand, blah, blah, blah. But none of it counts for a hill of beans. I should have been more prepared. I should've bought a map of the areas we were going to beforehand and I should've read the trail descriptions so I could provide meaningful input to the group's decisions on where to go. 

So this is my advice to you: be an active participant on all of your hikes. Don't be guilty of treating a hike leader or a friend (if you're going on a private trip) as a tour guide, expecting them to know everything about the trail and destination. Bring a map and read up on the trail before you go so that you can provide meaningful input on navigation or route finding should the need arise. Plus it's just really nice to know about where you're going should adverse circumstances arise (I'm sure you would never plan to get lost would you?).  

So be sure to bring this up next time you're with me on a hike. I deserve it. But I won't be behaving that way again in the future, you can count on it.

Anticipating conditions

I've been out of town for awhile, going on a hiking and backpacking trip in Utah with some CHS girl friends. We had a great time and saw some pretty amazing sights. And I spent some of my time doing some research for a return trip with Matt. And of course, I had a few experiences which should provide some good subject matter for this blog. I'll relate them over the next couple of weeks.  

I like to think of myself as pretty experienced hiker and backpacker. I try to anticipate things that can go wrong and mitigate them in advance. For this trip, we were going to be spending some time walking through water and sand, so I bought a pair of non-Gortex trail runners to wear for the trip. The idea was that they would easily rid themselves of water and dry out quicker--especially in all of that dry desert air. I made sure to break them in on several outings in the weeks prior to the trip. Plus a also brought along a pair of lightweight shoes I could wear to cross the rivers in. The idea being that I would change into these when we crossed the river, then would change back into my trail runners for the hiking part.  

On our first hike trip, we crossed the Escalante River about ten times going to and from a place called the Golden Cathedral. It was an awesome place to visit--well worth the trip. However we ended up crossing the river so many times that I abandoned my idea to change back into my trail runners and instead opted to keep on my water shoes for the multiple crossings there and back. I also discovered that not only does water get into your shoes, but sand as well, creating a wet gritty environment around my feet. Once I put my trail runners back on, I also discovered that sand got into my shoes pretty easily--creating a nice gritty environment.  

It was this way for five days in a row as we day-hiked two days and then went on a backpack trip into Coyote Gulch for two nights. On our second day, guess what I developed between my big toe and the next toe on my left foot? You guessed it, a big, raw blister. Water weakens the skin's toughness and the grit worked away on the tender skin between my toes. There was really nothing I could do but grin and bear it if I wanted to go out on the trips. Taping it helped somewhat, but the wet environment would eventually destroy the adhesion of the bandage and then the lovely sand would come on it to scour it out some more.  

The only real solution was to stop hiking, so after our backpack trip, I decided that I shouldn't do any more hiking and just wear flip flops so the blister could start to heal. At that point we were  heading to Capitol Reef National Park. I made the most of though, dropping my friends off at a trailhead and then checking out some cool sites I could drive to. Later I picked my friends up at a different trailhead. I also got a lot of reading done and basically enjoyed some time by myself--which I enjoy greatly. 

What did I learn? It probably would have been better to either wear some sort of water socks that would keep the grit out from around my feet. Or I should have been a little better about getting the sand out of my shoes each and every time I emerged from the water. Proactive taping before the river crossings might have been helpful too.  

Moral of the story--make sure you understand all of the conditions involved in your trip and how it might affect you. I was a bit lazy on this part--not quite catching on to the fact that we would not only be crossing water, but dealing with a lot of sand as well. The friend who planned the trip mentioned this beforehand, but I kind of forgot about it or didn't think it was important. Now I know better! 

How do you apply this on your CHS trips? The Ten Essentials provide you with a good start--making sure that you have items with you to help with both warm and sunny or cold and wet conditions. But think about other things that you can bring to improve your experience and mitigate unpleasant conditions. Would an umbrella keep the rain or sun off of you? Would some extra water or food make your day better? How about an extra pair of dry socks or shirt to change into at lunch? Would some chemical hand warmers make that cold, wet day a little better? Think about these things as you pack for your day hikes. 

Hope to see you on the trail soon! 

Enjoying the Process

Matt and I spent some time this weekend talking with a couple who is planning on hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT) later this summer. This is a 210 mile-long trail in the California Sierra Nevada region. It starts in Yosemite National Park and ends at Mt Whitney—the tallest peak in the continental US. As Matt and I and a friend are planning on doing our own trip on this trail next summer, we were talking to them about the permitting process and planning for daily distance, pack weight, food, and other gear considerations. All that discussion got me musing about the experience.

I wondered what would it be like for me to start at in Yosemite and end at the Mt Whitney Portal approximately three weeks later? What would I think about as I walked? Would I enjoy my food each day? Would I be able to overcome fatigue and pain from my exertions? Would I feel mostly positive as I walked, or would I occasionally succumb to feelings of melancholy? Would I always want to walk together with Matt and our friend or would we want to walk alone sometimes?

I have often said that one of the keys to success in long-distance day hiking is enjoying the process. This is the ability to find joy and meaning in something as simple as walking and being in nature. The goal of reaching the destination becomes secondary to enjoying the trip and each moment you spend doing it. I often compare it to working on a puzzle. People such as myself who work puzzles of many thousands of pieces don’t do it just see what the picture looks like when it’s done—we can look at the box to see that. We do it because we enjoy the process of examining each piece of the puzzle to see where it might fit in the whole. We like to experience the work in progress as we build slowly to the completed image.

I think the same experiential desire works for long-distance hiking whether it is for twenty or for several thousand miles that is involved in doing a hike like the Pacific Crest Trail.

If you are unable to cultivate an enjoyment of the hiking process, and instead focus mainly on reaching your destination, you may find longer hikes frustrating and boring. If the weather is less than stellar, if thunderclouds threaten, or if one of your companions develops a serious injury—turning the entire group around before reaching the destination—you may become angry or feel cheated from reaching your goal.

But if you enjoy the process, you will enjoy the beauty of the trail and scenery, the conversation of hiking partners, the taste of your food and cold water, and even the feeling of your body as you move on the trail. Reaching the destination will be an added pleasure—not the only one.

CHS 2013 Orientation is a Big Success!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the orientation for the participants of the 2013 CHS group. It was a lively group, with lots of conversation happening in the breakfast/lunch break portions of the day. Participants also asked lots of great questions of our presenters. The carpooling arrangements went a lot smoother this year. Which was good, because a lot of the parking areas were covered in quite a bit of snow, making parking a bit difficult for low clearance vehicles. It was nice to have cut down on about 20 extra vehicles if carpooling folks had come separately. Volunteers Francis Rondestvedt and Craig Illman directed cars to the right place to park. 

Recent snowfall was evident at the Cedar River Education Center, which got around 8 inches of snow on Friday. It fell off the Center's roofs in great loud clumps as the sun warmed up the snowpack.  

We also had a new presentation on Stretching from 2012 graduate (and current year participant!) Lindsey Mcleod. Participants learned about the benefits of stretching along with the usual presentations on Leave No Trace (Sarah Krueger) , WTA (Alan Mortimer), and Conditioning for Hiking (Ed Kula). I talked about the CHS Way complete with scenarios of a naughty hiker who looked a lot like Steve Payne. Matt Cleman ended the day with his stirring recitation of Robert Service's poem, The Call of the Wild. 

Here's a picture from the day. If you haven't been to the Education Center before, it's really a great place to hold our event. It has a large kitchen, which was staffed by CHS volunteers, Debbie Doutlick, Laura Winger, Jackie Kiser, and Debbie Graham. They put out a lovely spread of endless coffee and food and snacks brought by participants. 

The day ended with the round table discussions: Map and Compass Basics led by Bill Schecket and Hyla Dickinson; Nutrition and Hydration led by Arin Cole, and What to Bring in Your Pack, Clothing, and Footwear led by Matt Cleman. 

Our pacing hikes for the afternoon were led by Anne Ward-Ryan, Jennifer Lekisch and Steven Fogg, Lynne Dial and Stacey Lissit, and myself. Our pacing hikes had to be a bit curtailed as it was difficult to get to some trails due to snow. The group that I led up to Cedar Butte learned all about the benefits of Yaktraks and other traction devices on steep trail covered in snow. We did have awesome views though and the sun and warmer temperatures were melting the snow as we walked under the trees, dropping it on our heads and down our shirts! 

Other volunteers helped out as needed including Courtney Caryl, Jan Stephens, Leigh During, Lynne Dial and Jennifer Lekisch. I'm sure I've forgotten somebody. It was so great that there were so many folks there to help out! 

And of course CHS Administrator Steve Payne coordinated everything and kept all us doing what we were supposed to be doing. He did so much that I can't mention it all here. Many thanks to Steve for making the day a great success.  

CHS 2013 has officially started and I am certainly looking forward to another fun-filled year. I hope you are too! Let's get hiking! 

All You Need is a Little Motivation!

Today I want to talk about figuring out how to motivate yourself to meet a goal. When I've talked to CHS participants over the years, many of them have mentioned that part of the reason they liked the course was that spending the money forced them to get out and hike more. Now of course we don't literally force you at gunpoint to come out and hike with us when you join, but to some extent, spending a not-insignificant amount of money to join CHS can provide some people with the right motivation to finally set and meet some physical goals for themselves. The expectation that participants hike at least two hikes per month is also motivating to many CHS participants. 

Personally I am motivated to meet my goals by announcing them publicly, thus risking humiliation and defeat in a public arena if I fail to meet those goals. I am most successful in meeting goals if it means that my lack of meeting them will be noticed by people whose opinion I care about. And aside from a half-baked attempt at doing the Seattle to Portland bike ride about 20 years ago with my then-boyfriend Matt, I have succeeded in meeting my goals when I announce them to my friends and family.  

My most current success was taking up the sport of running in order to stay in shape during the non-hiking season. I don't know if a lot of hikers do this, but when it's rainy, cold, and yukky outside, I like to sit on the couch and watch tv. My weakness is for football. And not just watching a game or two, but all of the college and professional games that are on during a weekend. I can sit on my behind for a whole weekend and not do much but surf the Internet and watch one game after another. Plus I tend to enjoy food such as pizza and other calorifically carbohydrate-based foods like that. 

Lack of exercise + eating too many calories = weight gain. 

In the spring, I would struggle from the extra pounds I had gained and my lack of conditioning  over the off-season and have to get back in hiking shape if I was to keep up with all the new gung-ho participants. It was a pain. I needed to find a way to keep in shape in the off-season that would allow me to still watch football in the winter, yet would burn enough calories so I didn't gain weight and get out shape. I'm not much of a gym person, and the thought of walking on a treadmill or some other exercise contraption wasn't motivating.    

In March of 2012 after yet another season of couch-potatodom, I was talking to a hiking friend who was planning to run a half marathon in Moab, Utah in October of the same year. It sounded like a cool thing to do in a cool place, so I decided that I wanted to run that half marathon with her. I was not a runner in any shape or form at that time. I'd done a few 5K runs, but that was it. So I hired a personal trainer who would help me build up the mileage gradually and announced to all of my friends and family that I was going to run a half marathon in October. Every time I saw these people they asked me how my training was going. I couldn't let them down by saying that I'd ditched it--even though some days I felt more like a wreck than someone who could successfully run 13.2 miles by October. Some days the thought of admitting defeat to these people was the only thing that kept me going out and running. 

Then my motivations starting building on top of the initial one of avoiding humiliation. And you know what, I actually started enjoying running. Not necessarily every time I went out, but more often than not I felt pretty good after my run and that was motivating. I even bought myself a cute outfit (which is saying something for me) to wear for the Moab race and the thought of wearing it was motivating too! I also saw some of my extra weight drop off and got a little firmer in the behind area and that was motivating also! With so much motivation going on, it was easy to go out and meet my goal of running that half marathon--and it was actually fun too. 

The point of all this expository writing is not that you should announce to friends and family that you're doing the CHS course and will be doing long distance hikes with a hefty amount of gain by the end of the season. You're certainly welcome too, but that may not be motivating to you. Figure out what does motivate  you to complete the course and make sure you build that motivation into your life so that it keeps reminding you over and over again why you're getting up at 5:00 am on a Saturday to go walk 15 miles in August when you'd rather just sleep in. Just paying good money to join the course may not be enough to provide enough motivation for you to meet the goal of completing the course. Like me, you may need something more. Figure out what that more is and build it into your summer plan!

Welcome to CHS 2013!

Spring is just around the corner and so is the start of another CHS season! Soon we'll be putting on our boots and spending a summer together hiking to some pretty cool places. Needless to say, I always look forward to this time of year--especially after enduring another cold, soggy winter. I realize that spring in the Northwest can be cold and soggy as well, but once I'm out on the trail, I don't seem to mind it so much anymore. That's what an umbrella is for. 

Hi, my name is Kelly Cleman and I'll be writing the blog entries for CHS this year. If you don't know who I am then let me introduce myself. I am the original creator of the CHS program. I floated it as a trial course in 2005 and got around 30 participants. Myself and another leader, Karen Sykes, led most of the hikes and about 15 people  graduated from the course that year. The course has only grown bigger each year! Last year I handed course administration over to Steve Payne's very capable hands. I continue to help out by leading hikes, keeping up the web site, and this year, by writing the blog entries. In the picture to the right, that's me on the left sitting with my husband, Matt on Shi Shi Beach at the CHS beach cleanup event in 2012. 

I always have lots of pontificate about, so I'll try to put up an entry each week except when I run off on adventure. Sometimes I will duplicate information I have put out in a blog from another year, but some of the topics are timeless and should be put out there each year for people to think about.   

Reading this blog is optional, but I hope you do decide to check it out throughout the summer. If you have a request for me to write on a particular topic, let me know either by email or by replying to the blog! Ideally this blog covers information and ideas that you're interested in as a hiker in the Northwest. Also feel free to post comments to the blogs. On the blogs that I follow I usually find the readers' comments almost as interesting as the blogger's writing. 

Looking forward to a fun and challenging year with you in CHS! 

kc

First Aid Training Options

July? Already? And when will the weather begin to match the calendar? Hmmm...

This week's CHS blog entry comes to us from alumnus Tom Davis:


Hi everyone, this is Tom Davis from last year’s CHS class.  I just signed up to lead CHS hikes this season, so you will be seeing a little more of me in the near future.  

I recently took the Mountaineers AFA (Alpine First Aid) Wilderness First Aid Class.  Remote Medical International, a leader in wilderness medical training, teaches this class for the Seattle Mountaineers.  For the general edification of the group, I thought I’d briefly pass along some of the things I learned in this class.

In an urban setting, an emergency response to a medical emergency can be provided in minutes and transfer, if necessary, to a highly competent hospital trauma center can occur very quickly.  However, in the wilderness, this type of treatment can be hours or days away.  Of critical importance is the “golden hour”, the period of time shortly after a traumatic injury, during which the patient’s chances of survival are greatly increased by prompt and competent medical care.

Not coincidentally, “wilderness” is defined as “one hour or more from definitive medical care”.  “Definitive care” is further defined as care in a hospital setting, specifically one with an emergency department.  On Mountaineer hikes, we are regularly, of course, more than an hour from definitive care.

The Mountaineers WFA (Wilderness First Aid) class provides 16 hours of instruction and can be taken over a two-day weekend.  Also required is a four-hour practice session, usually conducted on a weekday evening.  In a WFA class, you will learn techniques that will help you protect yourself and prevent further injury to your patient.  You will also learn to quickly address life-threatening injuries, evaluate the patient’s health status and communicate this information to rescue personnel.  You will also learn techniques necessary to treat non-life threatening injuries.

Note that most of you have undoubtedly heard Mountaineers make reference to “MOFA” or Mountain Oriented First Aid.  MOFA was developed over many years by the club and, until recently, it was the standard first aid class offered to Seattle Mountaineers.  The Seattle branch now offers WFA.

Thousands of Mountaineers have been trained in MOFA and it is still offered by some Mountaineer branches.  Both MOFA and WFA use a similar set of techniques for achieving the same purpose: providing first aid in a wilderness setting.  However, not all of the terms used in WFA and MOFA are interchangeable.

Injuries are not uncommon in the outdoors.  If you have not done so, please consider taking the WFA class .  If you have taken a first aid class, make sure your skills are up to date and that you are familiar with the new WFA terminology and procedures.  To remain current, the class must be retaken every 2 years because skills get rusty and first aid procedures change.  

Even though completing a first aid class is not a requirement for graduation from CHS, it’s a very good investment of your time that may well provide for your personal safety and the safety of others.  And hey, haven’t you always wanted to be a hero anyway?