Wilderness First Aid Course

Just before the semester started up, I went over to the University of Missouri for a 2-day, 16 hour Wilderness First Aid course put on by Solo. We spent part of the time in the classroom learning basic anatomy and physiology as it relates to Wilderness First Aid and part of the time practicing assessing someone for injuries, splinting broken bones, taking vital signs, etc. For most simulations, our instructor used makeup to give us some injuries that our classmates needed to fine, like this sweet fake ankle bruise I got for one simulation.

The biggest difference between Wilderness First Aid and regular First Aid is the amount of time that you're away from help. In day-to-day situations in populated areas, regular first aid has a goal of treating and keeping someone alive for up to an hour, which is usually the longest it takes to get to a hospital. In WFA, that hour extends to a full 24 hours, and often beyond, as the time needed to get help to an injured person and then get the injured person to a medical facility greatly increases once you're away from roads. As a result, we talked a lot about assessing for more hidden injuries (my ankle bruise also came with a nasty big bruise on my back that indicated kidney bleeding) that may affect treatment in that 24-hour period in a way that they wouldn't if you were just waiting for an ambulance in town.

The other major difference was in learning how to use items in your pack to care for injuries. My hiking poles became a lower leg splint. Someone's vest helped hold a broken wrist. A bear bagging cord was paired with an inflatable mattress to immobilize someone from their ankle to mid-thigh. Stuff like that. I'm pretty good at making do with what I have available to solve problems (I fixed Jeff's bicycle mirror with a coffee stirrer and some duct tape one time), so the MacGyvering appealed to me.

We didn't cover everything I'd hoped to learn, but I am glad I took the course. I haven't completely nailed down my first aid kit for the trip, and I'll add a few things I might not have otherwise added as a result of the course, but in general, I feel better about assessing and doing basic treatment on myself and others who might get into trouble out in the woods. I may or may not use the knowledge from this course (hopefully I won't have to!), but taking it seemed like the responsible thing to do, particularly when I'm spending more and more time out in the woods.

Ultralight Mascots

Status: In the bag!
Weight: 2 g.
Mods: None, but need to figure out how to attach them to my pack
Alternatives: Sadness from not having a mascot

After Turkey Run, we spend an evening with good friends up in West Lafayette, Indiana, where I'd lived for a number of years during grad school. That visit doesn't have much to do with my hiking trip except that I knew I would be able to get myself an ultralight mascot there.

Von's Shops is a book/record/fashion/jewelry/card/bugs trapped in resin/geode shop at the edge of Purdue's campus. They have more beads than I ever thought possible, including many animal ones. For my 2006 trip, I carried a turtle bead from Von's with me across the entire country as a reminder that even though I was slow, I was getting somewhere. Actually, I had two turtles, intending to release one on the east coast and one on the west, but I forgot to release the east coast one and ended up giving it to someone else as a mascot in Damascus, VA.

I know it's silly, but I like having some sort of mascot. Here are the contenders for this year:

The koala is so goofy looking that I think it will have to come along. Perhaps the squirrel can be a talisman protecting my food bag from little critters, and if both the koala and squirrel come along, I can't very well leave the platypus home alone. In total, they weigh barely two grams, and if they make me smile a few times during tough days, they will have proven their weight. None of them have names yet, though...

1.5 + 5 mile hikes: Turkey Run State Park

Throughout November and December, Jeff had been working long days trying to finish a big contract for his work. It was due at the end of the year, so we booked a couple of nights in the Inn at Turkey Run State Park for the first of the year. The last time we had been there was during our attempted bicycle trip from St. Louis around Lake Michigan in 2012, one of the hottest summers on record. We'd been on the road only a week at that point, but heat, calorie deficits, and no room at the inn meant that we'd been unhappy campers when we arrived that summer. The restaurant's buffet and the inn's WiFi revived us on that trip, but we'd still been disappointed to not get to stay overnight in the air conditioned rooms, so we decided now was the time to go!

We arrived Jan. 1 and did a quick 1.5 mile jaunt on a couple of trails near the inn while we waited for the restaurant to open for dinner.

I'll take a brisk day with icicles over the kind of heat we had during that summer 2012 trip, but when we woke up the next morning, it was much colder than brisk and about 4" of snow had fallen, with more on the way. Temps were in the teens, which wasn't too bad if you were out of the wind.

After many years of trying, I have finally convinced Jeff of the utility of things like hats and puffy coats. He borrowed them from me for this hike and is finally willing to consider getting his own. I layered up in my long-sleeved micro-weight Icebreaker merino wool shirt, thrift store long-sleeved button up, and Ghost Whisperer wind anorak and stayed warm enough as long as we kept moving.

We went up one of the hollows but eventually decided to turn back because the trail was in a stream and we didn't want to get soaking wet feet when it was this cold.

Instead, we headed back to the flat trails along the river and went out to a covered bridge built in 1883 on one side of the river and came back to the inn on the other side. Snow was still falling, and we were ready to get back to our warm room, so we hiked fast on the way back.

I'm glad we ventured out even though it was pretty cold. The pack I carried helped keep me warm, but we were happy to spend the rest of the day at the inn playing in the game room and having dinner in the restaurant. I also spent part of the evening annotating the SHT maps with information from the guidebook to make them more useable, but more on that later :)

Camp Shoes

Status: 50/50--Evenly undecided
Weight: 234 g. (8.25 oz)
Mods: None yet--I might spray waterproofing on these if I decide to take them
Alternatives: No camp shoes

Camp shoes are shoes you carry with you to change into at the end of the day and wear around camp. Ultralight purists usually don't take any camp shoes and, instead, just wear their trail runners until bedtime. Some of them have rigged up 1 ounce camp shoes out of disposable insoles and a piece of string or foam duct taped into a sandal, but I don't think those will work for me right now. If anything can be called a "standard" camp shoe, it's the classic Croc, but they are so bulky, and I don't like having things hanging off my pack, so I'm considering taking these along as camp shoes instead:

I got them on clearance at Famous Footwear or someplace like that. At just over 8 oz, they aren't too bad weight-wise, and they squish flat, so they're easy to pack. The soles are pretty soft but strong enough to protect my feet around camp.

These aren't truly necessary, but if it's a wet spring, I would like to be able to get out of the wet trail runners at the end of the day and give them a fighting chance to get partly dried out while I'm in camp. Flip flops generally aren't good as camp shoes because you can't wear them with socks (unless you have those toe socks) and they do nothing to keep dirt off your feet, so these would be better than flip flops. I'd also like to have something other than my hiking shoes to wear in the showers at the state parks along the way. These are easier to slip on than hiking shoes for any midnight bathroom runs, too.

OK, maybe I've convinced myself to take them along...at least for now.

8.5 mile hike: Lewis Trail

I was kind of lazy the last couple of days, so it was time to go outside again today since it would be back above freezing temperatures and a bit more comfortable. I wanted to get a few small things at REI and try out some other meal-replacement bars for eventual potential use on my hike, so I decided to head to Missouri for the hike and run errands afterward.

This is an 8.3 mile loop along the bluffs over the Missouri River and up and down inland in various little ravines and across creek beds that are usually dry. There are a few overlooks just off the trail, so I'm rounding up to 8.5 miles carrying a 20 pound pack. It was 31 degrees when I hit the trail and in the mid-40s when I finished. Perfect for just a couple of light layers, and the pack felt good.

I was kind of dragging today, though, and wasn't totally into hiking today. The trail was frozen and rutty in some places, and there were quite a few trail runners out, but it was still a nice day to be out. I've met interesting people the two previous times I've been on this trail, but today, it was just trail runners who barely said hello and who inexplicably litter their tissues all over the place (probably unintentionally, but still...).

I should have been looking more closely for bald eagles at the overlooks, I guess. When I got back to the parking lot, a photographer with some serious equipment was headed out on the trail, and I assume that's what he was looking for.

Lewis and Clark passed by here during both directions of their journey over 200 years ago. The note for their campsite on the outward journey says that Lewis almost fell off one of these bluffs. I guess that would have shortened his trip significantly!

This is how I feel now--ready to curl up and snooze. My right foot is sore, my achilles tendons are tight, and I'm not going to stay awake long enough to welcome in the new year. I'm about ready for bed, and the 4 Hands Rye IPA in my hand will hasten that along! I'm going to stretch and do a quick session with this magical little foot massager first, though :)

Water: Sawyer Mini + Gravity Filter Mods

Status: 100% in the bag!

Weight: Filter--56 g (wet), Dirty water bag--42 g, NEW water scooper--18 g  8 g, Backflushing tool--36 g, Backup chemical treatment--6 g

Mods: 2 grams of cord/cord locks to make it a gravity system, New ziplock water scooper

Alternatives: I like the filter, but many people use Aqua Mira or other chemical treatment to save a bit of weight. I'm not 100% certain that this is the water scooper I will use, but it worked ok. New water scooper! See below...

In the last post, there was a picture of my planned setup for water treatment. Here's the system in more detail.

From the top, the system consists of a cord loop and cord lock attached to the dirty water bag via two tiny holes I cut near the bottom of the bag. The filter screws onto the dirty bag, and a spout goes to the clean water bottle. 

The loop on the dirty bag is about 4 feet of cord and a mini cord lock (both from ZPacks). It's set up as a loop so I can put it around a branch or small tree. When I pack the bag and filter, this loop also helps hold everything rolled up tightly.

This little loop is the part I really like. There's no way to screw the clean end of the filter to a water bottle, so this little loop of cord keeps them together.

It's long enough so the cord can slip around both the neck of the filter and the neck of the water bottle. I just move the cord lock down toward the bottle when they're attached to hold everything together. The flow rate isn't super fast, so if you don't want to wait, you can still squeeze the dirty water pouch to speed things along. Having it hung like this means that you don't have to bend over or balance everything together to make it all work. Just hang and squeeze!

You can put a few twists in the cord to tighten them together so the cord doesn't slip off the filter. If your cord is short enough, this doesn't matter, but it can help tighten everything together.

This little cord does, of course, put some stress on the bottom spout of the filter, but the thing seems to be really well attached. I'll monitor it to be sure the weight doesn't damage the filter long-term. I can also hang this low so the bottle (and the water weight in the bottle as it fills) is resting on the ground. The cord lock on the dirty bag gives me about 10" of adjustability.

Weight of modifications? 2 grams. Worth it.

Some water sources are really shallow or slow-running, making it difficult to get water into the small opening on the dirty bag. I originally cut off the bottom of a small dirty bag to use as a scoop (above left). Pros: It's stiff, water flowed in easily even when the water source was only about an inch deep. Cons: Another spout makes it harder to roll up the dirty bags with the filter (minor gripe), it takes a little juggling to open the spout while not spilling it out the open end and getting it into the big dirty bag, and I think I can make something lighter.

I shouldn't have trouble with low water sources at the time of my hike due to snow melt and rain, so I've modified a ziplock bag to use as a scoop and pre-filter instead. The pre-filter is just a piece of cloth that will help keep bigger sediment/particles out of the main filter. Most people just use their bandana as a pre-filter, but I'm opting for this little swatch instead. If the water source is flowing well enough that I don't have to use a scoop, I can still use the pre-filter cloth just by holding it over the opening of the dirty bag with the little loop of cord from the main filter.

This ziplock has a little corner cut off for the water to flow out. The mini clip will keep that opening closed when I'm scooping water. It can also help keep the pre-filter in place. Then I just have to hold the ziplock over the dirty bag and undo the clip. If the ziplock wears out, it's dead simple to replace, and it's easier to roll up and store with the filter, too! Weight savings: 10 grams.

Not pictured: Backflushing syringe. The filter comes with a syringe for forcing particles back through the filter to keep it cleaner and keep water going through at a reasonable rate. If you don't do this, the filter can get clogged. The syringe helps keep the filter cleaner and the water flowing. You can see that part here. Some people don't carry it because it's kind of heavy (an ounce!), but it's what keeps the filter healthy. I've seen a couple of people make their own lighter versions, but I'm not sure they will work long-term, so I'm going with carrying the tool for now. [edit: Realized that I can also use the backflushing syringe to irrigate open wounds, so now that I have a second use for it, I'm happier with it in the pack.]

I'll also be carrying a few Katadyn Micropur Purification Tablets for backup water purification in case the filter stops working or in case I have to use some really funky water. They are simple and weigh very little, so they make for a good backup plan. I'll probably take enough for 2 days of water treatment just in case.

Note: "Just In Case" is a phrase you're supposed to look out for when trying to lighten your load. If you have a lot of "Just In Case" items, you're probably packing too much stuff, but in the case of water treatment, which is a pretty important part of hiking, the "Just In Case" is prudent.

Some people experienced problems with Sawyer's earlier bags leaking. The bags have been improved, and I'm pretty gentle with my gear, so I'm not taking a backup dirty bag. I will have two water bottles with me that are compatible with this filter (Smart Water bottles), so if this dirty bag gets destroyed, I'll just use one of those bottles as a dirty bottle. On a different trail with limited water, I'd take another bag, but I don't need the capacity on this trail.

Gear Status Reports

I've decided to add a brief Status Report at the beginning of gear entries. It will look something like this:

Status: 80% In
Weight: 78 grams
Mods: None
Alternatives:

Status will be the percent of certainty that the particular item will be in my bag or on my person when I hit the trail. A few things will get 95-100%. 80%-ish means that I will be taking something from that category along but think that my current version may not make it (my heavy rain jacket is currently in this category. I will take a rain jacket. It will probably be my current one, but to save weight, I may try a different one). Anything less than 50% probably won't make the cut and is probably something I don't need anyway. This rating is mostly to help me make decisions on gear closer to my departure date and to decide where to spend money on lightening the load.

Weight is how much the item weighs. Duh. I'm going with grams for now because it's more precise.

Mods is a list of any modifications I have done or will do to the gear before departure. Sometimes the mods are to solve a problem, sometimes to add or remove a feature, or sometimes to cut weight.

Alternatives is a place for listing possible alternatives or options relevant to that piece of gear. I may also put contingencies here that may change my gear based on weather projections, injuries, etc.

I know all this may seem dumb or overly gear focused to some, but I enjoy planning big projects, so this is just a way for me to document that process.