Wish I would have done more summer Flagstaff area stuff when I was in Tucson. Only went a couple times for skiing in the winter. We did pretty much weekend on Mt Lemon in the summers. There’s a little Forest Service road called Incinerator Ridge that has a short-ish hike at the end with some awesome views and good spots to set up tents / hang hammocks. Didn’t have any neighbors most nights but not sure how true that is 7 years later
I really really want to get down to Tucson and Bisbee. Sucks being so close to Santa Fe, Durango, Monument Valley, Utah and the rest of AZ but not feeling like I can actually take advantage of it because of gas prices. Shoot it's easy to get to NV/CA. Surrounded by legal weed states and Utah hah
Gazelle T4 Plus arrived. Lol @ it’s packed size. Nearly 6ft long and 60lbs. Set up was as advertised. Took like a minute. Absolute unit of a family tent, and it made me want to overlook the size issue. But it was broken. One of the side hubs was completely trashed and couldn’t stay open. Pretty cool for $600. Very much on the fence about exchanging it for a new one or going a completely different direction. Quick overview video if you haven’t seen one of these before
REI return policy is so clutch. Bought new boots in April, small chunk broke off from the sole while scrambling this weekend. Bought brand new poles 2 days before the hike, fell in the snow and bent the F out of one on 2nd day using it. Both exchanged for brand new models, no questions asked.
Are vans allowed in this thread? Bought one a couple of weeks ago and already found three spots with good service within ~3 hours of Denver to work from during the week. Spoiler [/spoiler}
Nice. Were you able to finance the whole thing or did you have to pay cash for the difference between what the van is worth stock and what they were asking due to conversion?
I financed more than the van without the conversion is worth. I used Lightstream because I heard they will give you whatever you want if you have good credit. Seems true. Got the money deposited after two days.
Oh god. I kinda wish you didn’t tell me that lol. Our credit union would only finance up to NADA Average sell price, which means the van had to be on the books and not overpriced. Significantly narrowed the market. Had given up on the idea and made peace with it
I think there a few out there that will do that: Lighstream, BestEgg, and SoFi (I think) will all cover the conversion costs too since it's a personal/unsecured loan.
I use the F out of Lightstream. Have used it to partially finance two of my properties. Paid both loans off within 12 months, all gravy. Have another loan lined up as soon as an offer is accepted. What's your plan for the van life?
Gonna be part-time. Trying to hit some spots around Colorado and Utah this summer then plan some bigger national park trips next year. Also, music festivals and snowboarding.
I don’t think I’ve ever run for the 66 minutes it will take you to drive there in a car, or possibly even 66 miles total in my life. Good for them.
100 mile race. Will take some People +40 hours. Craziness. 23k in elevation gain. There was one out there last week with 33k elevation gain
On a related note, I like Mediocre Amateur on YouTube. Danny is a friend of Tyson Apostle from Survivor and does a podcast with him, which led me to his channel. They do trail runs and other cool outdoor adventures. Also had a short-lived show called something like 100 miles from nowhere where they have like 48 hours to make it 100 miles in the wilderness.
They started at 6 AM. Our station opens at 6 PM. First ppl will show up at 730 ish. Our station stays open until 10 AM. Take shifts sleeping in tents. Gonna be a lot of alcohol for us. Food is ramen from Uncle, a Denver restaurant. Elk and bison burgers. Local bread and charcuterie. I’m gonna eat my fill. Our station’s theme is tiki. Gonna be wild seeing these runners hit our station totally destroyed. Mile 66 has to be rough
When I climbed my 14ker in CO we had a girl pass us close to the top. We were in boots, rain jackets for the wind, hats, all that shit. She just pranced by like a sprite in spandex and trail runners. Every step hurt and we had to stop every 10 yards to catch breath. She smiled, said "beautiful day", and was gone right over the peak hauling ass.
A woman finished second overall and killed the female course record. Awesome stuff. I will post more pics later
No matter where you go, that never ends in Colorado. I met one sicko doing this when I was hiking Mount Yale years ago: Nolan's 14 The Nolan's 14 is arguably one of the most difficult Fastest Know Times to undertake. It involves connecting fourteen 14,000 foot peaks, which depending on the route taken, includes over 100 miles and 45,000 feet of elevation gain across rocky high alpine terrain.
Spoiler my favorite part was probably when it was dark and you could see the runners on the mountain from miles away with their headlamps on, running to our station.
Trying to summit Dragontail Peak on Sunday. 6,000 ft of gain, last 2-3 miles is a huge boulder field straight up. Should be pretty gnarly https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/washington/dragontail-peak-via-stuart-lake-trail Then next weekend leave for Section K, so stoked. Last few days are gonna be intense. GAIA app is clutch:
One of my hardest days of hiking on Sunday. Clocked 19 miles and over 5,500 ft of vert. Drove to trailhead Sat night, wake up with 4:30 alarm, on the trail at 5:00 AM. Back to the car at 6:30 PM. Of those 13.5 hours, over 12 moving. At least it was a daypack and not full gear. Second time going up Aasgard Pass, still sucks. Just over 2,000 ft of gain in 0.75 miles. Going down was even worse. But Colchuck Lake makes it worth it, especially before the sun hits (Aasgard to the left, Dragontail Peak in the center): Spoiler We get to the top of Aasgard, take one look at the snow field up to Dragontail and immediately know it's above our skill level. If you zoom in you can see a person on the boot path going diagonal upwards right-to-left. We had ice axes and crampons, but the snow gets mushy immediately when the sun hits and it was just too gnarly. Spoiler Called an audible and did Little Annapurna Peak at 8,440 ft. The one in the center is Glacier Peak (10,541 - 5th highest mountain in WA), snow covered peak in the back and to the left is Mt Baker (10,786 - 4th highest): Spoiler Legend has it that if you see goats on your thru hike, then you'll get lucky and get overnight permits for next year. We saw like 10-15 mountain goats, so if I don't win the permit lottery I'm going to be pissed: Spoiler
Had some sweet colors in the pines and rocks this morning. Saw there'd be storms today so got to the trailhead a little before sunrise and was at the lookout about 7:30. 62 degrees with no humidity and a light breeze, the ideal way to spend a Sunday morning iyam Spoiler
Due to a myriad of reasons, can no longer do Section K. But still leaving tomorrow AM for 6 or 7 days on the trail, solo. Trying to summit two 9,000 ft peaks around Glacier Peak. Spoiler Pack only weighs 44.2 lbs, but not bringing any alcohol -- funny how that works. My last day is either a brutal Saturday of 17-miles / 4,000 ft of gain and 2,500 of loss, or if I'm feeling good two 7.5 mile days and walk out on Sunday. Got enough food for 7 days regardless. If you haven't heard from me by Sunday PM, ruh roh. (I have friends with my itinerary and they know the deadline to call for help)
gas prices falling to a meaningful extent is super exciting going to look into must-do trails in Kaibab National Forest, Prescott NF, Tonto NF, Apache-Sitgreaves NF and Coronado NF. Labor Day will be here before we know it. Also still need to hit up the Mogollon Rim trails in Coconio NF the Forest Service website seems to have had some domain name changes recently? Lotta bad links on the forest pages
The forest service has a site to download topo maps for free. Can load them into avenza for a georeferenced map https://www.fs.fed.us/mapfinder/
Shit, wrong link. Here's the link to free quad topo maps https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/rastergateway/states-regions/states.php
Limped out yesterday after 5 days/4 nights. Unfortunately hurt my right hip somehow, had to abort -- didn't want to get 20-30 miles away from a trailhead and be unable to walk. No idea what happened, didn't trip or fall or anything. Maybe just took an awkward step. It's a deep, throbbing pain across the front of my right hip, sort of going back into my right buttcheek. Feels better today but still pretty sore. I was struggling on my way out yesterday morning. Hoping it's not serious, will wait and see. Overall was great, but had to deal with some shit weather. Rained ALL DAY on Tuesday, got soaked. Had to sleep through a thunder and lightening storm at 6,500 ft on Wednesday night, which was absolutely terrifying. But going solo for 4 nights in the backcountry was pretty damn cool. Lot's of reflection and time with my thoughts, real glad I did it sober. And of course views for days. First day hiked in 10 miles and 4,000 ft of gain, no problems. Dropped my pack and did a mini-scramble to Carne Mountain, just over 7,000 ft Spoiler Got a nice campsite next to a stream to shower and get water from: Spoiler Day 2 woke up at about 7, ate breakfast, and right as I start to leave it starts pouring. Plan was to cross a 7,500 ft pass and try summit Mt Maude at 9,000 ft, but that was not happening in the weather, especially by myself. This was the route down the pass, about 300 ft of scrambling down, did not feel safe: Spoiler That was the only way over, so I had to backtrack all the way back to the trailhead -- about 12 miles and down over 4,000 ft. In pouring rain. Shoes were soaked, was not in a good place. Strongly considered walking out when I got to the trailhead, but kept going and hiked in 5 miles to spider meadow. Clocked like 17-18 miles on Tuesday. My hip could have just been sore from over-exertion and carrying such a heavy pack for such a long time. Spider Meadows always gorgeous
Day 3 decided to take it easy after a shit day on Tuesday -- slept in, did some laundry, read in the sun for about 3-4 hours. Was awesome. Started hiking about 1:00 PM over Spider Gap, about 2,500 ft of gain and then down another 1,500 to Lyman Lakes. Awesome day Spoiler Right when I got to the top of the gap, I noticed my hip was feeling weird. Didn't misstep or anything, just was like "ouch." Hiked 2 more miles and down 1,500 to the lake to camp, and by the end I could barely walk. Was pretty concerned. Was able to get a dope campsite tho. Spoiler About 9 PM, right as the sun goes down, wind picks up and clouds start rolling in. Doesn't get bad for a while, but around midnight a huge thunder bolt wakes me up. Proceeds to pour rain, thunder and lightening, for about 2-3 hours. Tent shaking from the wind. Fucking terrifying. In the back of my mind, I know there's little chance to get injured or "blow away." Like looking back on it now, I wasn't in serious danger -- I don't think the lightening was right on top of me (judging by the "seconds you hear thunder after seeing lightening," the closest it got was 5-6 seconds, which I think is approx 5-6 miles away?). But that doesn't make any less scary in the moment. Woke up and my hip was sore, but I could walk. I was about 8 miles from the trailhead, but had to go back over that huge pass. Backtracked over Spider Gap and slept in the meadows again, woke up early Friday and walked out. Hip was hurting at the end of both days, much more on Friday. Is feeling better now, tho. Spoiler Even with the weather and injury, was still fucking incredible.
Awesome and good for you man. If you have buttock pain could be piriformis or even a lumbar problem. Either way some rest and light stretching and you'll probably be good. My profile pic is looking at Lymen Lake/Glacier from Cloudy Pass. Attached weird but whatever
Had no idea that was your pic! I camped at upper Lyman on the third night. Plan was to go up Cloudy Pass and down thru Buck Creek Pass. Will definitely return and complete the loop.