What to pack for 6 weeks of walking????

Aah - the joy of trying to decide what to bring and what to leave home when you have to carry every single thing, on your back, for 500 miles. I have it down to about 12 pounds, which includes the backpack itself.  Sherry's load is about 8 pounds because her clothes and shoes are much, much smaller than mine. This will be everything that we have with us for over 6 weeks of travel. There may be some last-minute changes, but the basics are in the photo. Missing items are a simple plastic water bottle that we will probably buy along the way, and my phone which I am using to take the pictures.

We don't have to carry a tent, sleeping pad, cooking gear, or food. We will be buying food at the small towns that we pass through. For lunch and snacks, we'll probably carry a little bit of food for eating during the day, but we won't need much. We are not bringing sleeping bags, because the albergues are generally heated, so we just have a sleeping sheet and some warm clothes.

The Foot Kit: 
Callous scrubber, blister pads, duct tape, white athletic tape, body glide, a small tin of waxy goop, bandaids, toenail clippers, neosporin and fungus cream should keep our feet in working order, Hopefully, some of this will be scrapped along the way as we toughen up.

The Ditty Bag:

Lots of little things in their own little bag:
Safety Pins for hanging laundry, fixing stuff, and for their general utility
String for a clothesline and for tying things to the packs
Sewing kit for tears and missing buttons
Chapstick
A tiny headlamp and extra batteries
Toilet paper
A European-plugged 2-port USB charger and two USB cables
More duct tape
Bandana
A little knife
NSAID for my knees

Nighttime needs:

A hat that pulls down over my eyes
A silk sleeping sack
Eye shades and earplugs
A clean and soft T-Shirt
Wool long underwear

Shower time:

A small plastic bag with soap slices plus other things that you can easily identify yourself.

Rainy Days:

Lightweight umbrella, rain pants, rain jacket

Socks and Underwear:

3 Socks
2 Underwear
1 sleeveless T-Shirt for the hot days
Zipper bag to hold all of my clothes.

Shirts and Jackets:

Short-sleeve cotton shirt
Long-sleeve travel nylon rayon shirt
Wool t-shirt
Puff jacket

Below the belt:

Long pants, and shorts

The backpack and city shoes:

Odds and Ends:

Gaiters, sunglasses, Kindle

On my feet:

My actual walking shoes.

Camino de Santiago in May 2015

We have had a few "training hike" posts, but I don't think that we posted what we are training for. Our next adventure will be hiking the Camino de Santiago, starting in May. It is a 500 mile pilgrimage route in Spain. For us, that's like hiking from DC to Boston (or from DC to NYC and back again). You can go to Netflix and watch the movie "The Way" ( view the trailer here)  to get an idea of what we are about to do, or there are numerous web sites that have information about the Camino.

I am giving an oral presentation to my French class pretty soon, and the slide show that talks about the trip is here at this link. There are a number of trip details in the presentation and some good photos and maps.


The big picture plan for our trip goes like this:

1) Fly into Paris and spend 5 nights there
2) Take the train down to Saint Jean Pied de Port near the border with Spain
3) Walk 500 miles, heading west towards Santiago de Campostella
4) Fly to Madrid and then fly home, 7 weeks after arriving in Paris.

We have made very few reservations so far, because during the hike we will have no reservations. We just show up in the small towns along the way and hope that there will be some beds left in a decent hostel (called Albergues). We have plane tickets into Paris and out of Madrid courtesy of United frequent flier points, we will have an Airbnb apartment reserved in Paris, the train tickets from Paris to the starting point will be reserved, and we have a flight from Santiago de Compostella back to Madrid. Other than that, we are at the whim of the travel gods.

We have been doing a series of training hikes, and have been fiddling with our packing list. We will have to carry everything on our backs during the hike. We will have more posts later, but we felt that the larger plan needed to be stated so that the subsequent posts made sense.

Training Hikes in Whistler and Our First Hike with Packs

We spent the week in Whistler BC as we do every March- part ski trip, part family reunion. There was shockingly little snow, and no new snow on the way, so we spent more time doing things like hiking and visiting the amazing Scandinave Spa. First, we walked to the Spa and back - probably a 5 mile round trip. The next day, we got more ambitious and mapped out a longer hike up into the hills. It included a stretch of the "Comfortably Numb" mountain bike trail. Here is the route:

We had some stream crossings in the early part of the hike.

These trails are part hiking, part mountain bike. This is a typical construction along the trail that allows the trail to traverse some swampy grounds.

Everything was sooooo green. If there was no moss, it must be the trail. Navigation was a bit sketchy in places as the trails are not marked in any way and they snake through the forest.

Another structure for mountain bikers and hikers.

It is always hard to capture the more extreme variations in terrain using a camera. This photo below shows the mountain bike trail going up and over an incredibly steep and tall section of rock.

The photo below shows the trail going straight down, over a boulder, and then down even more. The wooden slats are so steep that we couldn't walk down them and had to climb down along the side of the ramp. You can see the groove that the bike tires have dug into the boards as they brake on the way down.

A few days later, we hiked just a few miles to "Train Wreck" where seven train cars are sitting in the woods. There was a train wreck in the mid-50's and they just towed the wrecked cars off of the tracks and into the woods. Now, the cars are used for graffiti and as obstacles in a mountain bike course.

Finally, back home, we hiked 7 miles on April 4th around the Billy Goat trail in Carderock, Md. This was our first hike with our backpacks and we are both a little sore today. Sherry is carrying all of her stuff for a 5-6 week hike. We will be doing laundry.

The B and C sections of the trail, with the C&O Canal connecting them. 

Training Hike #3 - Maryland Heights with Pat and John

We are training to hike the Camino Santiago in Spain this coming May. So far, we have hiked the Potomac Heritage Trail and Rock Creek Park. This week, we headed off to Harpers Ferry.

On Saturday, we did a quick 5-ish mile hike in Maryland Heights, just opposite Harpers Ferry. The trail is a long skinny loop, going up then down.

We hiked with our friends Pat and John. As you can see, there was still a lot of snow on the trail as we got higher on the ridge. At the top, the sun came out and we paused for wine, chocolate, paté, cheese and fruit before starting the descent.

Next hike will be in Whistler, BC.

Bonaire Spring Break 2015

Hunter and Mike both had Spring Break on the week of March 8th, so we headed down to our favorite scuba location, Bonaire. We decided to stay at the Black Durgon, mostly on price. The Durgon is more of a hostel than a hotel or resort, but it is right on the water. Below is a typical scene - our pickup truck loaded with scuba tanks, getting ready to drive off to a nice shore location to go diving.

The dock at of the Durgon is the bottom one in the photo. The lighter-colored water is the sandy bottom that is about 10 feet deep at the dock and about 20 feet deep where the water turns dark. The reef starts right where the water turns dark blue, and it drops off to about 100 feet. At any time of the day or night, just walk out onto the dock, jump in, go diving, and come back. Couldn't be easier.

This is a photo of the dock at the Black Durgon.

Here is a typical shore dive scene. Casey got Sherry a solar shower for Christmas and it is sitting on top of the truck so we have warm, fresh water to rinse off with at the end of the dive. On these dives, the entry can be a bit tricky. There is usually a little bit of surf, and the entry requires walking over old coral while wearing a lot of heavy gear. Often, Mike or Hunter will carry Sherry's gear out to waist deep so Sherry doesn't have to walk over these rocks while wearing half her body weight in scuba gear. Sherry hangs out in the water while we go back to the truck and gear up ourselves.

Actually, this dive turned out to be the Dive from Hell. Three of the six tanks were defective (leaky o-rings, broken knob) and then Sherry's gear fell off of the truck and she blew out an o-ring leaving us with just 2 tanks, so we drove back to the Durgon to get a new tank and drove back to the dive site. After the dive, when Hunter was getting out of the water, he rolled his ankle and sprained it pretty badly. The local medical supply company lent us a pair of crutches for a few days to help him heal.

We decided to learn to hunt lionfish. These fish are beautiful, poisonous, and invasive, They are relentless hunters and they are eating all of the small fish on the reefs in the Caribbean. Hunting of any kind is strictly monitored in Bonaire, and lionfish hunting is no exception. We had to take a class first, and then go with an approved guide.

First, we had to learn to use the "ELF" spear. ELF stands for Eliminate LionFish. So, we swam around in shallow water shooting at plastic water bottles for an hour or so and were deemed Licensed to Kill.

Next, we went off on a boat to Klein Bonaire, the island that is about a mile off of the the main island. There were five "hunters" on the boat and we got five lionfish on the first dive and seventeen on the second dive. The non-hunters on the boat were good at spotting the fish and pointing them out to us.

Here is the bounty from the second dive. After the boat came back to the dock, we de-spined the fish and then cleaned them. We took about seven of them back to the Black Durgon and made lionfish ceviche out of them. Delicious as always. Lionfish is a very mild and tender fish and it makes for a great ceviche. 

To take a break from diving, we rented scooters to tour the island. Hunter had a 50cc scooter and Sherry and Mike shared a 125cc. We took them on paved roads, dirt roads, sandy roads and muddy roads.

Bonaire has a few good blowholes, and we rode scooters to the end of the earth to find one of them. Here is a series of photos showing the blowhole doing it's thing.

Scooters at the end of the world, There were a few squirrely moments while riding the scooters over sand to get here. I think that I still have Sherry's fingernail marks in my shoulder. 

Ready for Bonaire!

We are packing our scuba gear while we watch the snow falling.  It has been a long and cold winter with more snow than we have had for years, but Hunter, Sherry and Mike are heading down to Bonaire on Saturday morning for a week of sun and scuba. The first question we get is "Where is Bonaire?". Well, it is part of the Dutch Antilles, along with Aruba and Curacao, and on a clear day, you can see Venezuela. The map below shows the location.

The great thing about Bonaire is that you can dive right from the shore. Most dive locations require a boat trip to get to the dive sites. If you dive from shore, there is just endless sand - pretty boring. In Bonaire, the reef is just a few feet to a few hundred feet from the shore, so you can just swim out to it. Also, Bonaire has had a marine preserve for a very long time, so the fish and coral are still plentiful.

We have been to Bonaire quite a few times, and we know where to buy fish from the local fisherman, where to get the good vegetables, and which bar has the best bartender. It is our go-to vacation. 

The downside of travel: Getting sick.

We have both been really sick this week with flu/cold symptoms of coughing, running nose, the whole disaster. These are the consequences of being stuffed into airplanes and buses with people from everywhere. It has been a completely lost week for us, mostly sleeping, taking drugs, watching TV and trying to recover the best we can.

The only bright spot is that the weather here in DC has been really cold and the roads are icy so we wouldn't have been riding bikes or doing anything outside anyway.