Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Trip Prep Minus Four Days

Last night I put together my trip notes and trail map and added them to the stack of backpacking stuff now in the middle of my living room. I tried to plan my driving route to the site as the Mapquest directions looked and sounded weird to me, so I decided to map my own quest. Unfortunately, my Pa. gazetteer is missing a page or two, including the one around the West Rim Trail. Well, the gazetteer was a good 10-15 years old anyway. So tonight I’m off to a bookstore to pick up a new one. I’ve decided that the best way to reduce the amount of gorp I’m taking with me is to eat a little bit of it each day before the hike until it looks/weighs what seems to be an appropriate amount.

The best news of all is that my knee is fine now. I sat down at the dinner table last night, and my knee made this little “click” sound. When I stood up the knee was perfect again. Well, as perfect as my knee ever gets, but still. So now I will be hiking healthy, though not in the condition I hoped for. I haven’t done much walking/prep for the last 8-9 days because of the knee, so I will be healthy but not fit. Ah, well, at least this isn’t a race.

The weather forecast for the hike looks very promising--near freezing at night and about 60ºF during the day. That’s almost perfect hiking weather, as far as I’m concerned, and almost exactly the temperature during my Chilkoot Trail hike in Alaska in late September.

No comments: