It ain’t rocket science

Since I got back from Scotland I’ve had walking kit spread all over my office—stuff I took, stuff I thought I might take but didn’t, and stuff that was near the stuff I either took or thought I might take but didn’t. The floor has been covered, the extra chair has been unsittable under a mound of stinky polypro and shredded ensolite, and the fax machine and copier have been walled off behind lofted pots, soft goods, and enough first aid supplies to equip a hospital emergency room...if hospital emergency rooms used bandages, fluids, and meds packaged during the 1970s.

This accretion had been pulled out of the file boxes, drawers, closets, random duffels, and trash bags I’d been stuffing things in for years, and it was sitting around loose in my office taunting me because I couldn’t bring myself to put it all back in the stupid places where it had come from.

Last week I went out and bought four 18-gallon (68-liter) plastic bins, organized kit by type or use, put each group in a Jumbo Hefty ziplock (2.5 gallons/9.5 liters), stuffed the Heftys into the bins...


...and realized this obvious solution wasn’t going to work. The problem has never really been putting this mess away. The solution to that is just a closed attic door away—out of sight, out of mind. The problem has always been putting things away so I could find what I need when I need it.

The answer, of course, is to give over one of those bins to items I always take. It’s not that I’ve never thought of this before. It’s just never worked all that well. I’d always be pulling clothes out to wear around town, or in a heavy rain, or when I needed an extra layer in the winter. This time, I decided simply to leave the clothes out, just as I leave out the sleeping bag and the food. I’m keeping a few real basics in the pack itself, most of the usual suspects in the bin, and the clothes either in the closet, the mudroom, or the dresser. This system will break down, too. But in the meantime, I’ll have a summer of easy packing and a relatively clear office. Brief joy, but joy all the same.


Yesterday’s start and stop tunes from the shuffle Shuffle: “You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)”/“Cry Baby”. (Honky-Tonk Woman was in there somewhere, too. Isn’t Charlie Watts the best?)

Today: “Tracks of My Tears”/“I’ll Be There”.

VS2

My old training diaries, full of now antique, frequently hilarious, and occasionally appalling obsessive detail on distance, time, effort, weather, weight, pulse, and mood, are peppered with occasional days marked simply, VS². This was my common notation during recovery from an illness or a minor injury (or in one case a memorable celebratory binge), and it meant Very Short and Very Slow. Bookmark running. Show-the-flag running. Don’t-get-out-of-the-habit running.

I’m now engaged in some Get-back-in-the-habit running which, needless to say, is VS². It’s also turning out to be unusually satisfying. I am definitely and definitively not training for anything, even some sort of creaking elderly “special mile.” I’m not trying to get faster or go farther. I’m just out fairly early in the morning gently moving around this rather pretty town.

A few years ago, the great Gerry Lindgren, not much older than me but a boyhood hero all the same, was quoted as saying something along the lines of “I have a four-minute brain and a seven-minute body,” and admitted he was always getting hurt. My brain never had to get used to four-minute miles, but like many aging runners I’ve suffered a milder version of the same syndrome (I think it actually has more to do with rhythm or leg turnover than speed per se). For now, though, VS² is just fine, and as I wrote last time, I’m happy keeping track of tunes instead of times. Yesterday was girls’ name day: “Peggy Sue” and “Maybelline”. This morning, the Shuffle started with “Stand By Me” and finished me off with “Just One Look”. I’ll keep you posted on tunes. Times? Just figure VS.

Da Doo Run Run

Mildly chuffed am I. My first little shuffle since Scotland went all right. Just a couple of easy loops on a lovely morning, but the ankle felt good and everything else seems to work OK.

I’ve decided to try to stay casual about this by keeping track of iPod tunes instead of miles. I eschew jazz for my runs and load up the Shuffle with ’50s and ’60s stuff. This morning it decided to start me out with “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and finished me off with “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” (I’m not sure what I’ll do on the morning it tries to rev me up with “Nowhere to Run.”)

I never noticed before how many good runners’ titles there are in my list, beginning, of course, with “Get Ready”: the atmospheric “Lonely Avenue”; the cocky “Come Go With Me”; the aspirational “Rip It Up“; the existential “Cry Cry Cry”; the supportive “Lean On Me”; the directive “Get up, Stand Up”; and the plaintive “Maybe”.

“Stagger Lee” would often fit me well, too.

Busted

Looking at my last post reminded me of a funny thing. I’d start that walk at the end of a dirt road within the township of Twin Mountain, New Hampshire. Many years ago, I was stopped for speeding on Route 3 in Twin Mountain, by a local policeman who was clearly on the lookout for “foreign” cars and had spotted my Connecticut license plates. He had to follow me for quite some time, because I slowed and pulled over to the side but kept rolling, assuming he needed to get by me to chase someone who had actually done something wrong. It took me long enough to realize I was his target that he was more than a little peeved when he strolled up to my window. I’ve actually been stopped three separate times in the Granite State (unironic motto: “Live Free or Die” — take that you Brits) by policemen who were—what shall we say?— enforcing the law in a selective manner. I love it up there all the same, and eventually may myself be living free until I’m pulled over at that final speed trap in the sky. (Living out Vermont’s calmer and more optimistic “Freedom and Unity” might be a little less stressful.)

[Time out: Connecticut’s motto, “Qui Transtulit Sustinet”— “He Who Transplanted Still Sustains” seems like a suspiciously unpatriotic reference to Britishness and what those vile dogs of Tories called “the freedoms of Englishmen.” However, a 19th century worthy suggested instead that it comes from the 80th Psalm: “Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.” Which, of course, is much better. There’s an episode in my town’s history of a minister in the 17th century walking out his back door, seeing an Indian “skulking” in some nearby bushes, and shooting him dead. What else would be the Christian thing to do if you were busy casting out the heathen so you could either Transplant or Sustain?]

Anyway, a year or two after this experience, I was at the funeral of the parent of an old friend, whose eldest brother had come down from St. Johnsbury, Vermont, for the service. As we were chatting, he stunned me by saying, “So, you were stopped for speeding in Twin Mountain a while back.” I, of course, replied, “How the hell could you know that?” Turns out that because St. Johnsbury is on the Vermont-New Hampshire border and there aren’t all that many people in Northern New England, its newspaper included the police blotters of even distant New Hampshire towns in its coverage. And as he said, “I didn’t think there could be more than one Mark Alvarez in this part of the world.” So I was busted. Twice.

Prospective loop

As I’ve written before, the trails in the White Mountains, where I do most of my walking, are mostly below treeline. They are also almost always clearly marked by blazes on trees or rocks. Route-finding is seldom a problem.

I’m planning a walk in three weeks or so, and I’m thinking of one that will incorporate a long-abandoned route off the top of Mt. Hale, a path known as the Firewardens Trail, that observers used decades ago to get to and from Hale’s long-gone firetower. The trail is unofficially maintained by backcountry skiers (there are some wonderful glades to play in), but gets a bit overgrown during the summer. I wouldn’t expect it to be a navigational challenge, even for me. Using it would make my two-day walk a loop and save me a dreary combo walk-hitchhike.

Much of this walk would actually be above treeline. The last mountain of the route, Hale itself, is 4,054 feet, and just pokes above the trees. I’d start with a stiff climb up North Twin (4,761), and from there would stay mostly above treeline as I wandered generally south to South Twin (4,902), along to Guyot (4,580), and onto the spectacular ridge that encompasses the Bonds: West Bond (4,540), Mt. Bond (4,698), and Bondcliff (4,265). I’d probably spend the night near Guyot Shelter, preferably in the beautifully-sited overflow campground above and behind the shelter proper. (There shouldn’t actually be an overflow...I’d be doing this mid-week.) On the second day, I’d retrace my steps to Guyot, then turn east along the Twinway, bypassing Zealand Mountain (4,260) and taking in more great views along Zeacliff until I dropped down toward Zealand Falls, connect to the Lend-a-Hand trail up Hale, and found the unofficial path back down to the trailhead. Totals: about 23 miles, ascent about 5,300 feet.

It ain’t the Challenge, but it’s great walking...and I’d take along a small flask of the Macallan for the memories.

Hoopscotch

I’ve written about my only real rooting interest in sports these days—the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team. I’ve been a big fan of this admirable program for well over a decade. In 2002, the squad was perhaps the best in the history of the game. On their way to the national championship that year, they played a famous “perfect ten minutes” against another annual contender, Old Dominion University.

I just read here that ODU has recruited Maire Buchan, of Dunipace, who will be the first Scot to win an athletic scholarship (I know it’s a contradiction in terms, but she sounds like a good student, too) to play women’s hoops US. She must have a lot of potential to interest the Monarchs—ODU has won its conference championship every year since 1992.

She undoubtedly will find the experience intense and challenging, perhaps at times a little overwhelming. I expect she’ll also find it welcoming, encouraging, and stimulating. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for her. Very best of luck to Maire!

Hot stuff

The weight of my pack had nothing to do with the ankle problem that required my retirement from the TGOC. Nonetheless, I’d like my pack weight to approach zero, and I’ve been noting the best ways to edge in that direction. One of the obvious areas is cooking gear.

Actually, I don’t really cook. I boil water to rehydrate prepared meals in plastic bags. This year on the Challenge I carried a JetBoil. It boils water really fast, which saves fuel, which in turn can have a variable short-term effect on load weight. Natural sloth makes me a fan of the piezo ignition. The Jet’s a well-engineered system, breaks down and stores efficiently, is not as unstable as it looks, and was designed by Dartmouth-connected guys from Northern New England. It weighs 15 oz (425 g.). Its little canisters register 3.5 oz. (100 g.) when full. Not including my long Ti spoon and plastic mug, the total package is 18.5 oz. (525 g.). I like it. I’ll certainly continue to use it often But it is much heavier than alternatives that would be reasonable for a walk like the TGOC, specifically the new breed of homemade and cottage-industry alcohol (“meths” in Britain) stoves.

I’d used the traditional small, brass, Swedish Trangia alcohol burner a few times, and recognized its attractions, but over the past few years, inventive outdoor people have been creating lighter and lighter stoves using soda cans, juice cans, cat food cans, tuna cans, and seemigly anything else mommy brought home from the store. There’s been debate over wicks vs. no wicks; size and location of ports; pot holders; windscreens; and other arcana that has given hikers excuses to touch off balls of fire on their kitchen counters. Burners have been weighed to the fraction of a gram, and boil times have been published, with much dispute about what “boiling” actually means: When do you stop the clock? How cold was the water when you started? How much wind was blowing? If any, did you use a windscreen? If so, how did you deploy it? And wonderfully on and obsessively on.

This stuff is all over the internet. (Start on WhiteBlaze and bpLite, then follow your nose) For the past few weeks I’ve been cruising the web, looking at all sorts of alcoholic offerings. Among those I found most appealing were the Caldera Cone system, the Ion Stove, and the Blackfly and Coolfly stoves from the ingenious Tinny at MiniBullDesign. The one I’ve chosen, though, is the StarLyte, from Zelph’s Stoveworks at bpLite. Very light (well under an ounce, including pot stand); simple to use, even in temps well below freezing; and spill-proof, which makes it reasonable to use in a tent if weather forces the issue. (This is useful to me, because my Stephenson Warmlite doesn’t have a vestibule.)

To boil the water in, I’ve decided to go all the way and try the wildly popular modified 24-ounce Heinekin beer can. There’s lots of info on this do-it-yourself project and possible results at the wonderfully named “Pimp my Heine” forum at bpLite. The appeal? The cool factor: it will give me the trail cred I so urgently desire, but that the size of my belly keeps denying me. Actually, it’s just the fun of joining all the other guys who are pimping their Heines...but I also wind up with a pot that comes in well under 2 ounces. Add a heavy foil windscreen, and I’ve got a personalized cooking system that saves me almost a pound.

And that trail cred.