Friday: Park and walk for about 6 hours straight. The longest break was 4 minutes or so to eat. Got to the shelter, put up the tarps, made the fire. We both crashed out at about 8pm. 8.5 miles or so covered.
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| From Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail 2011 day 1 |
Rolling out of the lot.
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Broke a lot of trail. More snow than anticipated.
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Bob is good at sleeping and not super good at carrying wood.
Saturday: We managed to keep the fire going all night, which made for an awesome morning. 12 miles or so of hiking. The hardest few miles were all uphill, with knee to waist deep snow. No snowshoes. Brutal. 8 hours. 12 miles of walking. All of the streams were frozen, so we both made the day on a quart or so of water each. Not awesome. Thankfully somebody had snowshoed the final two miles. Bob was incapable of carrying firewood to the shelter. I carried maybe 40 logs 300 meters or so. Sucked.
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Kept the fire going all night, stayed warm all morning.
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Left some dry wood for the next people. That is going to make somebody's day.
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We walked through the rocks just to get snow all over us.
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Bob would have given anything for snow shoes here. Hardest mile of the trip.
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We walked along this ridge the entire long mile. I got tired of seeing this same thing for over an hour.
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Not yet winter.
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For the last two miles, somebody awesome broke the trail with snowshoes already!!!
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No water all day, I went right ahead and ate some icicles.
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Bobby found a way to not get covered in snow.
Sunday: The low Saturday night was about 3 degrees. This made it cold, even with the fire going all night. Not intolerably cold, but cold enough that when I woke up I really didnt want to get out of my bag. I will admit to taking pictures with my iphone and looking at them in my bag rather than sticking my head out. We had our best average speed of 2+ mph. The snow was less heavy, and more airy. We cruised all day with less effort. 14 or so miles.
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| From Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail 2011 day 3 |
Stoked that this stream was running... or trickling.
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Heading out from our shelter for the night. Low was 3 degrees or so.
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Bob took a photo of me.
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I am against natural gas drilling, but this thing was so warm. It gave us a place to sit and we could warm our hands.
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The trail.
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| From Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail 2011 day 3 |
View down to the river, and Johnstown. We descended like 1400 feet in less than 2.5 miles after this.
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| From Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail 2011 day 3 |
Me and Bobby at the Norther trail head.
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| From Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail 2011 day 3 |
Our ride home. The Chew Man! showed up in perfect time.
On the last day we found a set of car keys. I couldnt imagine hiking all day, and then getting back to the car and realizing that the keys are missing. That would be the worst. So I took them, and called the gym where the keys owner has a membership. I asked to have the owner call me. Anyway, I talk to the dude for a few minutes. Apparently he was hunting BOBCATS. No seriously. And coyote? And he lost his keys. He didnt realize until he got home, as his friend drove. Lucky him. I told him that I would mail them to him and start to take down his name. Turns out I graduated with him. We played baseball on the same team when we were six years old. What a small world...
6 comments:
Are you disappointed your life led you to bike racing and not hunting bobcats?
Next time, plan the trip in the opposite direction...so you can risk being eaten by Bobcats & Coyotes when you are fresh, fed and hydrated!!! ...you will taste better that way anyway :)
Mayhew...you can do both (hunt and ride bike). I've hunted Elk in Colorado via bike.
Idea for a "reality show".....I'll take you 2 guys hunting and film it. Sort of like "queer eye for the straight guy"...but we can call it "Redneck'd for the city yuppies"
Hey Steevo - Did you run in to any mice in the shelters? Some friends and I are headed up for a full transect of the LHHT in January and I was wondering if you had a problem with critters in the winter?
Also, thanks to your blog, it looks like we are going to take snowshoes. Any other advice?
dave, sorry for lack of response.
NO mice. I heard that they are gnarly in the summer. Bring tarps and rope or bungees to seal up the shelters. Maybe a garbage bag to put your pack in so you can jam it into the bottom of the shetler where there are holes to stop warm air from escaping. Bring fire making materials. The logs are SUPER wet under allt he snow. Its hard to get a fire going. Have fun
Hey Steevo - We finished the whole trail, 70 miles in 5 long days. It was a haul to say the least. We actually did see mice, only once, at the Ohiopyle Shelter. It got in to everything overnight and was a really big problem. Didn't see any mice after that and kept everything strung from rope in the shelter. We brought plenty of firemaking stuff and found good kindling in the woods. Thanks for the advice.
Dave
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