First Bikepacking Trip

 

My kingdom for a pair of scissors!   More on that later.   Actually I'm ordering these fiskar ones to keep in my tool bag.     I trust myself with scissors but not a small knife in the middle of nowhere out in the woods.     https://a.co/d/6AycWwH     

The trip was fun and a success.   i didn't forget anything (see previous blog packing list); i've just realized having a small pair of scissors would be very useful for trimming tire plugs and opening stubborn dehydrated meal bags.

Sunday night

I camped in the truck's GFC camper at one of my favorite spots near where my bike trip was going to start.   I wanted to get an early start Monday morning which is easier when you're just a 15 minute drive away vs 3 hours.    And no I'm not posting online where my preferred camping spot is because it's mine, ALL MINE!!!!.    jk, but yeah, on principle it's silly to list your favorite spots online imho.     The sites are first come, first serve, so I don't really want more competition.   If you're a friend, that's different, ping me.

Anyhoo, the site is actually small (2 vehicles max), no views, but it usually has a nice breeze, there are no bugs, and there's great 5g reception for my phone.  I did pass the brook site Jeff likes, but some aholes left 5 bags of garbage by the road next to its entrance.    I didn't want to be near the potential bear/racoon bait.     They also left their fire going with everything super dry.    Absolute Morons.  Grrr!!!    Took me two trips from the nearby brook with my 5 gallon bucket to put the fire out.   2!!!   It was throwing off tons of heat when I was trying to decide if i wanted to risk camping there.    A circle of stones won't do anything to stop embers from flying off if the wind kicks up.

Future jump...Tuesday drive home side note: 

On the way home after the bike ride was over, I drove back to see if the garbage was still there, and it was.   I put it all in the back of my truck.     At least they used the expensive hefty flex bags or I wouldn't have risked it.     When I got home, I put on some heavy disposable gloves and pulled out all the recycling.   there wasn't actually that much garbage other than left over corn on the cob.   So the 5 garbage bags were reduced to just 2, most of it was recyclables.    Apologies to Jacqui for a stinky garage until next Monday.      But I'd like to say here, what stupid aholes!     Who does that?    There is no Trash Fairy (except me I guess).         Maybe we need drones that check the sites daily, so when people do dumb stuff like this, there are consequences.   I fear by helping with litter cleanup I'm just sending the message to the aholes that it's ok; someone else will clean up your mess.   

Anyway, back to Sunday night,  I setup my hammock for the first time to make sure it was worth bringing on my bike.  It's just a cheap one from Amazon for $30.    packs small and only weighs 1.25 pounds.   I liked it, so I brought it on the ride.   That had some funny unforeseen consequences, but more on that later.

Monday morning

 slept well in the truck and used the truck camper's inverter and LFP batteries to run the induction cooktop for some pancakes (carbs) and eggs.    I haven't been eating carbs for breakfast, but wanted to fuel up for the ride.

After breakfast, packed up and drove to the starting point.

Here are some photos of the parking lot setup before I headed out.  I left my truck at the trailhead parking for the appalachian trail.   I figured the truck would be safer there than leaving it alone at one of the dispersed sites.    start and end point is near the red marker at the top.

yeah,  and I'm not too proud to admit it, the empty gatorade bottle on the back of the bike is for the tent later.    Pee jug ftw!

Starting the ride, it was mostly downhill the first few miles (good warm up), but then I hit the hardest part of the day.   I planned for this.   I wanted to get the hard part over with early.   After getting on rt100 South, it immediately starts a 3 mile long, 1000ft climb.   My bike computer also warned me, and helped track my progress up the hill.   Took me about 50 minutes 

Hamming it up at the top of the climb.
 

 

After the climb,  rt 100 is mostly downhill all the way to Wilmington Vt.   So that 10 miles goes pretty fast.    Through Dover there was an interesting looking pizza place that was tempting,  American Flatbread.    But I had my heart set on trying The Village Roost in Wilmington Vermont.    In the future, I could bike to Wilmington from Somerset Airfield when I'm camping there with Jeff.   Roundtrip is just 20 miles and not too much climbing.   The road noise on rt9 does kind of suck though.

https://www.villageroost.com/ 

I got their vegan sandwich, some chips for the salt, a water, a beer, and a slice of carrot cake.   The vegan sandwich used their homemade sourdough bread, tasty.   It also had pickled beets, hummus, shredded carrot, bean sprouts, and caramelized onions.  It was awesome.    I need to steal some of the ideas for my health kick at home.   It hit the spot.    And the main thing I'm noticing about vegan/healthy food is that you don't want to crawl into a dark corner, curl into the fetal position, wishing for death after inhaling your food.     A burger and fries would have been tastier, but I still had to bike another 15miles in the afternoon heat and sun.   Not worth it.

They have this nice room to sit in too.    They give you a little number placard for the table and bring you your food when it's ready.

 

After the Roost, I headed west on rt9, until the turnoff for Forest Road 71, about 5-6 miles from town.   Before the turn off for FR 71, you cross these brooks/rivers.    The water was shockingly low.   They've not had a lot of rain

 Didn't take photos of the forest road, but I went past the old airfield camping area.   The old field is  popular with campers that have large rigs/trailers or stargazers like Jeff.      I forgot to take a photo, but found one on google.   just one of the site areas,  this goes on for about 300-400 ft, with occasional trees to break things up.   When I biked by, someone had a giant schoolbus converted into a camper.

 

 

 

I pedaled past the old airfield camping area, heading north, looking for more solitude.     Immediately after the main camping area, there's a 1 mile stretch that doesn't allow camping.    Right after the no camping section ends, there's this spot by the brook.   It's not an official camp spot.    I setup my hammock and hung out for a couple hours.   I brought my jammer swim trunks (they look like bicycle lycra shorts, but they're thinner)  They pack small and are lightweight, and I didn't want to get my bike short's chamois pad wet.    The brook was low, so I sat in the water for a bit, but it only came up to my belly button.   Lots of little fishes.    Felt weird when they nibbled on my legs, but it didn't leave any marks so I let them be.

 

I did make one big mistake, I laid in the hammock watching some previously downloaded TV episodes on my phone after cooling off in the water.   Having my legs up felt great, but i didn't eat a snack or drink any electrolytes before sitting and I probably sat too long with my legs elevated after biking so much.   When I got up an hour later, I got a wicked charlie horse in the right leg and then the left leg joined in and down I went.   The cramping kept going, so I literally crawled over to my bike fished out a LMNT electrolyte packet, dumped it into a water bottle (while laying on the ground),    drank down the 20oz and moaned for another 5 minutes until the muscle cramps stopped.    I had the swim trunks on still, so once I could stand and walk again, I went down to the brook and washed off the debris from crawling around.    So idk, maybe the hammock is a bad idea.    Draining the blood from the legs for an hour was probably dumb.    Maybe I'll just bring a zrest foam pad to sit on and lean against a tree.   I'm still too heavy for the lightest helinox ultralight chair, but they do have a new model that would work.   I'd have to leave the large nalgene water bottle at home, but not sure I need it anyway.   another advantage to the chair would be sitting in the brook with it.   https://helinox.com/collections/ultra-lightweight-chairs

are ultralight chairs worth it when backpacking?   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZgYxiS8d3E 

     

The hammock spot didn't have anywhere large enough for my tent (except for one spot with a rock right in the center of where i'd be sleeping), so I packed up and pedaled onward.    Found a decent site with better cell signal further up.

After finding my camp spot I finally stopped the bike computer.   I'd biked 35 miles and almost burned a pound of fat worth of calories (which is 3500 btw).     I was pretty spent by the time I stopped, and while I "only" biked 4 hours, it felt like I'd biked longer.

 

First thing at my site for the night, I set up my tent.   I forgot to take a photo, so stole this one from online.   The site wasn't scenic, just an open flat spot amongst the trees, no views.   but this is what my tent looks like, and it actually looks similar to the camping spot I'd found.   The tent is big enough for me, no guests.   Sorry Jacqui, I guess that means you can't go bikepacking with me (lol, I crack myself up; my wife isn't the outdoorsy type)

 

All my food and the cooking setup fit in this kevlar ursack bag.    The idea is you tie the bag to a tree and the critters can't get into your food.    I mostly bring it for the mice, chipmunks and squirrels that are often surrounding camping spots.     I think bears can still rip it open though.    hence the "resistant" verbage.     It basically only slows the bear down enough so you can run away or scare off the bear with some bearspray.    I believe you still have to use the heavy, hard plastic containers in areas that require bear vaults.   I wasn't in an area like that, but when I drove in Sunday, I did see a very small black bear cross the road in front of my truck.      Anyhoo, ursack.com   if you're interested

 

It was around 6p.m., dinner time.   my cooking setup fits in this reflectix bag I made.   I brought a dehydrated meal.   You boil the water amount they recommend on the bag, pour boiling water into the bag, mix, reseal the bag, and then I put it in the reflectix bag and it stays nice and warm while the hot water reconstitutes things.    Lukewarm dehydrated food is kind of yuck, and heating it back up in the pot makes a mess you have to clean, so the homemade reflectix bag avoids all that.

  

 

And this is when I made my Blood God sacrifice for a successful trip (no blood actually...the Ouch/Owwie God?).   

I've used this little stove a few times, but I must have never boiled water with the burner running wide open.       It actually threw enough heat that even the tip of the extended handles were scorching hot too.    And I'm always careful to grab the very end of the handle furthest from the flame.   Burned my left hand's thumb and forefinger.    But not bad enough to lose sleep, probably mild 2nd degree burns.   

 

I brought some neosporin, gauze, and leuko tape with me, so I wrapped up the blisters.     It was a PITA tearing up the gauze into small enough pieces with the flathead on my multitool, hence my wish for scissors at the top of this blog.    When I burned myself, I quickly let go of the handles and let the boiling water dump on the rock to minimize the burn time; some people end up dumping the boiling water on themselves too, so it could have been much worse.   When I re-positioned things for the 2nd boil, I discovered the red butane container was nice and cold (lowered the pressure in the container, so the fuel can temp lowered too.   PV=nrT baby).   It made a nice impromptu ice pack before I tried cooking again.

 

I'll post photos at the very end of the blisters, so people can skip those if desired.

2nd boil went fine, dinner was good.     The only other weird thing I did was use my teeth to chop up some leftover rye bread to mix in with the coconut curry chicken meal.    I probably looked like a deranged rabbit spitting bread chunks into the dehydrated meal bag.    I added a little extra water so it'd be a little soupy for the bread.   worked awesome and made the meal more filling.     I should have brought a small oil bottle for some fat too.    Dehydrated meals have almost no fat in them.    Fat goes rancid quickly if you try to dehydrate it (shelf-life wise), so a lot of thru hikers add some oil to their meals for the calories, and your body desperately wants some fat after hiking/biking all day.   

  

Before dinner, I set up the hammock again, and hung out for a bit before bedtime.   No muscle cramps this time.    I also made sure to let my legs hang off the sides every 10 minutes or so.    It was a nice hangout spot at the end of a long day.  No bugs.

 

Here's the tent from the inside.    It breathes well, so definitely not for Winter camping.   The photos hopefully show the tent's bathtub floor design and the gap between the walls with no-see-um mesh.   Helps the tent breathe well so you don't have condensation dripping on you early in the morning.    I remember buying the tent during Covid while suffering from a bout of cabin fever, dreaming of big adventures.   Sadly this was the first time I actually used it.   hope to use it a lot more now that I'm getting in better shape again.

 

 

I read a little bit and fell asleep no problem.    I did wake up hungry as heck at 3a.m., but I managed to fall back asleep without having to go find my feed bag.   And pee jug for the win (saved me from a trip at 10p.m.,  3a.m. and 5a.m.)    I stayed warm all night too, pretty sure temps got down to mid 40's, so the last thing I wanted to do was throw the warm goose down quilt off to go walk 100ft in the dark.   

 

I also brought my enlightened equipment torrid hood.   When I went to sleep it was 60F something, so I waited until I woke up with a cold head in the middle of the night to put it on.  Works so much better than trying to use the hood of your quilt/sleeping bag, and it eliminates the risk of you breathing condensation into your bag, getting it wet, and lowering the insulation. 

 

Tuesday morning 

 

After a good night's rest, I managed to cook some dehydrated peach cobbler without burning myself.    Walked down to the nearby brook to get some water to filter.    I use a sawyer filter and a 2 liter cnoc bag, which makes it easier to scoop up water and you can hang it.   https://cnocoutdoors.com.   I was able to rig things up, so I could do other stuff while the water filtered.   So the nalgene may be worth the extra weight for this reason.   But I could just use my 1 liter cooking mug and check in more often.     The water looks yellowish from the tannins in the water (mostly from dead logs).     When you buy a sawyer filter it comes with a syringe so you can back flush it with filtered water to push some of the debris back out.   I do that.   The filter lasts a lot longer then.    

 

The orange strap i used to hang it is from the Modl.com  kit I bought to strap stuff to the bike.

 

 

Before leaving the site i did some cleanup.    Some nasty girls must have recently camped there.   Wads of toilet paper left on the ground everywhere on the surrounding pee/poo trails leading away from the site.    Guys don't use TP after peeing, and there were no poo piles lying around, so that's why I'm assuming it was some ladies.     Previous campers also left a 5 gallon poo bucket behind too.    Aholes.    Amidst the garbage left out on the pee/poo trails surrounding the site,  I found a couple plastic shopping bags, so I used one of my small ziploc bags as a glove and went about picking up all the TP i saw.     The pee/poo trails were bad, the site itself was ok.    I dumped all the collected stuff into the poo bucket they left (which thankfully didn't have much poo, 1-2 liters probably).    When I drove back for the aforementioned 5 bags of garbage, I also picked up the poo bucket with collected litter.  I had some trash bags of my own, so I double bagged it.      I'm not going to try cleaning the bucket to recycle it.      I've done enough for Mother Nature on this trip as it is; it'll just go to the incinerator as garbage.

 

Finally it was time to bike back to the truck. 

 

I didn't have much biking left to do, only about 7.5 miles, but there was 750ft of elevation gain.    In theory, I could have done it all the day before, but i would have been miserable doing that last climb.    My legs were shot when I got to the campsite as it was.   43 miles round trip doesn't seem that long in my mind, but I was pedaling with another 20-25lbs on the bike, and I'm still heavy, even though I've lost ~30lbs since May.   The long term goal is to lose 40lbs more.  The terrain was challenging for me with the loaded bike for sure too.    Glad I broke it up into two days.      

 

At one point an Ambulance zoomed by on the forest road; they chirped their siren before passing.    It's a wide vehicle, and they took care to not run me off the narrow forest road.  Good to know their services are available out there, but i prefer to plan as though they aren't.

 

Got some nice views on the ride back to the truck 

Once back at the truck in the Appalachian Trailhead parking lot,  I met a couple of nice thru hikers passing by while i was packing up.   Gave them my leftover tahini rum chocolate chip walnut oatmeal cookies.    Continuing the trip's theme, I took their garbage for them (i offered).   They didn't have much but it saved them the hassle of continuing to pack it out.  It was just empty dehydrated meal bags for the most part.    It was early in the day so they didn't want a beer or food; it was 9a.m. ish..     They had a mt to climb, so they didn't want the beer weight either (I offered them a can each to take with them), don't blame them.   And I think maybe they were going to be in Stratton soon anyway, and could get a cold beer there.

 

The younger 20 something lady asked me about WeBoost vs Starlink when she saw the antenna on my truck.  At this point I said I'd probably do the Starlink if their camper's battery system can keep up with its bigger power draw (20-40 watts vs 8-10 for the weboost).    And yeah, pretty much no one wants to give money to Musk right now, but the limiting thing with the WeBoost is not only do you need a weak cellsignal to boost, you also have to keep the transmitter puck close to your phone, and it's on a 10ft cord.    With the starlink you just need some open sky, and it transmits a wifi signal for multiple devices (just like home), so you can move more freely around the campsite with your devices.   You can do temporary monthly plans for a reasonable cost.   Roam is $50/50gb per month right now.

Welp, I've put it off long enough, here are the blister photos, stop now if you're squeamish at all.    And no I don't need to go to the doctor.    The skin and blisters are intact, the leuko tape will protect the blisters while the skin heals and and it'll minimize movement.   I'll change the tape and gauze daily for the next week or so as things heal.  Sadly, not my first rodeo burning myself.   I've done worse cooking at home.   I could fully extend and curl the fingers, so no under all the skin layers damage.