HighLine Trail 2017 Day 2

HighLine Trail, High Uintas Wilderness, Utah
25 July 2017, 20:00

Location: Summit Park - N40.79136°  W109.74796°
Elevation: 9824'
Ascent: 2404' (Total: 3542')
Descent: 1593' (Total: 1927')
Day Distance: 17 miles (Total: 22.48 miles)

What a day.  About 01:30 a storm started blowing in with high winds. By 03:45 it was raining, and it has continued to rain all day.

By the time I struck camp and hit the trail, my feet and pants below the knees were completely soaked. Since it continued to rain all day, my feet stayed wet the entire day. This was my first outing using trail runners and the wet feet were a new thing for me, but with the wool socks my feet never got cold. I kept worrying about blisters but that did not happen today.

I have never been able to find the right rain gear. I sweat and any rain gear just holds that sweat in. No matter how much the manufacturer claims about breathability, I still get as wet on the inside as the outside. I have tried ponchos and rain jackets all with the same result.

The previous afternoon I had heard chain saws, so I figured that trail maintenance was being done. Sure enough, throughout the day I kept seeing fresh cuts where the trail had been cleared. In one short section there had been a blow down, and there were over thirty trees downed trees that had been cut to clear the trail. This section of the trail crosses multiple dirt roads and you need to be careful at the crossings because the trail often jogs on the road for a few dozen yards before re-entering the forest. The re-entry point is not always clearly marked and seldom does the trail cross straight across the road.  In fact, I finally encountered the trail crew about four miles from Summit Park. They told me that there was a hiker they encountered the day before that had become lost, or lost the trail, when he had missed one of the crossing and had hiked the dirt road for a while. There chains saws brought him back to the trail.

My destination for the day was Summit Park. Summit Park has what is officially classified as an intermittent stream. But last year during the drought I had hiked in to check the stream, and verify the stream had water. This year it had about the same amount of water flowing. However Summit Park was one big soft boggy meadow this year, while the previous year it had been mostly dry. Summit Park was/is the first chance to refill water after leaving East Park.

In summary, it had rained all day, all the way from East Park, to Summit Park.  Some 17 miles of trail with 2400' of ascent, 1600' of descent, taking 10 hours, including lunch, refueling breaks and an extended chat with the trail crew.

I had my first break in the rain as I was scouting and deciding on a camp site. I was able to setup camp, filter water, prepare and eat dinner, call home, and climb into my tent before it again started to rain.

Highline Trail 2017 Day 2

HighLine Trail 2017 Day 1

HighLine Trail, High Uintas Wilderness, Utah
24 July 2017, 20:00

Location: East Park Reservoir - N40.79394°  W109.54566°
Elevation: 9024'
Ascent: 1138' (Total: 1138')
Descent: 334' (Total: 334')
Day Distance: 5 miles (Total: 5 miles)

The HighLine Trail has three eastern trailheads accessible for drop off by vehicle.

• Chepeta (N40.77997°,W110.01377°) about 75 miles from the western terminus
• Hacking Lake (N40.77732°, W109.81484°) about 90 miles from the western terminus
• McKee Draw (N40.79330°, W109.47627°) about 120 miles from the western terminus

I started my trip at the eastern most trailhead, McKee Draw, just off highway 191 near Flaming Gorge Reservoir.  Leaving the Salt Lake City area around 06:00, and after about a four hour drive I arrived at the trailhead around 10:00, the temperature at the trailhead was 87℉.  There is a composting toilet at the trailhead, but no water.  My plan was to hike the 120 mile trail in ten days. Since most of the trail is above tree line (above 11,000') I was planning a slower pace. The only drawback to a slower pace was that I would need to carry more food.  There are nine passes on the trail that reach near or above 12,000' elevation. Typically, there is a daily afternoon thunder shower in the High Uintas. This meant that I could get stopped behind a pass, short of my daily goal, pinned by a lightening storm, and adding days to my trip. With that in mind, I took provisions for 14 days, an extra 4 days.  As it turned out, this extra food was not needed, but I had some extremely great luck with the weather and passes as you will see.

My first day goal was East Park Reservoir, about five miles from the trailhead. East Park Reservoir is the last water source until Summit Park.  Summit Park is about 22 miles from the trailhead.  With my late start, and not wanting to carry water for a dry camp, I was going to hold up short, and get an early start the next day with enough water for the 17 mile day to Summit Park.

It threatened rain all day, and did periodically rain lightly throughout the day. The section of the trail between McKee Draw and East Park alternates from a single track, no motorized vehicles, to an ATV trail. This section of the trail also crosses several, well maintained dirt roads.  The few miles is a Black Diamond ATV trail, (steep and rocky).  Near the top of the climb and down the back side I had to skirt several deep mud holes that spanned the entire trail, and were conveniently located at choke points with several down trees on both sides of the trail. At one point I walked on down trees for about 20 yards, going from trunk to trunk to get around a mud hole. Before skirting the mud hole, I had stuck a pole into the hole and the mud was over 12" deep.

I arrived at East Park Res. in the early afternoon and had my camp setup, and water gathered by 14:00.  Conveniently, it only began to rain hard after I ate lunch and had all my gear stored at about 15:00.  It rained hard for about an hour, then cleared slightly but with dark clouds to the east.

Note: there is a re-route of the trail during this first short section.  The TOPO's do not reflect this re-route that avoids a steep loose section that is beginning to erode.

Highline Trail 2017 Day 1

Boil time for pots made from different metals

For years I have heard that aluminum pots are better for backpacking. While the aluminum weighs more than titanium, aluminum will conduct heat better and thus boil water and save fuel. Less fuel means less weight overall.

I decided to test which whether what I have heard actually proves out.

Here is what I did. I setup my MSR WhisperLite Internationale stove on my back patio.

Altitude:             4500ft
Ambient Temp:  48ºF
Water Temp:       37ºF
Water Amount:   500ml
Wind:                  15-20 mph

Pot	Weight	Boil Time (hh:mm:ss)
Peak 1 Stainless Steel	341g	00:04:30
MSR Quick Solo Aluminum (Hard Anodized)	220g	00:03:30
Optimus Terra Weekend HE (Hard Anodized)	278g	00:03:20
MSR Titan (Titanium)	341g	00:04:30

Weights listed are just for the pot, lid, and the pot lifter for the Titan pot as seen in the video.

Extending the Sawyer Squeeze

As spring struggles to make an appearance, I have begun taking short excursions in the foothills that surround my home. I generally tuck a Sawyer Squeeze into my hydration pack, just in case those ice cold mountain stream calls to me.

After my most recent trip, while drying the squeeze pouch I began to wonder about using the Squeeze as a gravity filter.  With the Squeeze connected directly to the two liter pouch the water flow using gravity is minimal. I retrieved from my gear, my Sawyer Inline Hydration Pack Adapter, and a replacement MSR AutoFlow hose. I removed the connector from the 12 inch AutoFlow hose piece. Placed the hydration adapters on each end of the 12 inch piece. Removed the bite valve from the squeeze and fit the long hose onto the nipple under the bite valve. Used the included pinch clamp to shut the hose down, and attached the completed squeeze/hose to a two liter Sawyer pouch. I essential built the same configuration that every gravity fed system uses. I released the pinch clamp, and started a timer. It took 1 minute and 26 seconds to empty the pouch.

My fastest gravity filter takes 1 minute and 15 seconds to empty a two liter pouch using a .2 micron nominal hollow fiber filter. The Sawyer Squeeze is a .1 micron absolute hollow fiber filter.  My gravity filter is rated at 1,500 liter cartridge life. The Squeeze at 1,000,000 gallons cartridge life.

A little nostalgia

Over the weekend I had the time and inclination to dig through my accumulated backpacking gear. It is amazing to see the changes in gear. I started backpacking in the early 1970's with a home made pack, pup tent, rectangular flannel sleeping bag, and an old aluminum mess kit. Dehydrated food was either too expensive, too tasteless, or unavailable.

My home made pack, gave way to an H-frame without hip belt. Then I added a hip belt, which then gave way to an internal frame pack.

The aluminum mess kit gave way to a stainless steel kit. Stainless steel turned into hard anodized aluminum. Hard anodized aluminum became titanium.

Open fire cooking turned into a Peak 1 400A stove with a factory windscreen.  Peak 1 gave way to a WhisperLite International.  The WhisperLite into a canister stove. Canister stove became an inverted canister stove. The inverted canister stove morphed into a stove system.

Drinking water straight from the source gave way to a ceramic filter cartridge.  The ceramic filter changed into hollow fiber.

Rectangular sleeping bag became a synthetic mummy bag.  Synthetic bag gave way to a water resistant down bag.

I have kept each item, and each item is still completely functional.  I still use my 20 year old WhisperLite (with original pump) for winter camping. I have, however, given up lugging the Peak 1 stove around.  I have also given up lugging most of the older equipment. You couldn't pay me enough to carry the steel framed home-made pack again :)

My point here. You do not need the latest greatest equipment to have an enjoyable time in the back country. Get the gear that works for you and your budget, and go have some fun!

What is the best ...?

When friends, acquaintances, and coworkers discover how much I enjoy backpacking I am often asked my opinion on specific gear. The question usually comes as "what is the best water filter, stove, backpack, etc.". I sometimes feel that the question is unfair, and very similar to asking someone, "what is the best car?".  As you can imagine, if there was only one best car, everybody would be driving the same vehicle.

Over the course of many discussions I have come to the conclusion that my best response is to ask another question of my own. "What is your budget?". Then I can narrow into some items in their budget and maybe add a little knowledge of the pro's and con's of the items.

There is not a perfect stove, nor a perfect water filter. You must make decisions based on your use patterns and budget.  Remember, a higher price does not necessarily indicate a better item.


My current bests (subject to change)

Best upright canister stove: Optimus Crux
Best inverted canister stove: Optimus Vega
Best stove system: MSR Reactor
Best liquid fuel stove (boil only): MSR WhisperLite
Best commercial alcohol stove: Evernew DX2 set with 900 ml pot
Best alcohol stove set (ignoring weight): Trangia 25 ULHA
Best personal water filter: Sawyer Squeeze
Best gravity water filter: Platypus Gravity Works 4L
Best pump filter: MSR Miniworks EX (Guardian would probably hold this place, if the price point was not beyond reason)
Best universal stove (canister or liquid): Optimus Polaris
Best tent: Hilleberg

Esbit solid fuel stoves

I was recently asked to give a stove presentation to a group of scouts.  One stove that was missing from my collection was a Esbit solid fuel stove.  I felt the presentation would not be complete without mentioning a solid fuel stove. So I purchased an Esbit stove for the presentation.  Now solid fuel stoves are fairly cheap, especially when compared to LPG stove systems and liquid fuel stoves.  You can basically use a solid fuel tablet on a "Kerr" lid, all you need is a pot stand.

The only solid fuel tables (14g) available at my local outdoor stores were packaged with a Esbit box stove for a price tag of just under six dollars.  The box stove came with six tablets. The box stove is a small steel box that opens to a pot stand, and solid fuel platform with venting to allow good air circulation. The stove can also store up to four 14g individually packaged tablets. Another store sold only the 4g tablets in a package of 24 without a stove.

The packaging for the box stove, and some internet research states that the 14g tablets will burn for about 12 minutes and boil water in 8 minutes. The packaging for the 4g tablets claimed 9 minutes burn. Past experience has shown that packaging and real measured performance rarely come close to matching. My tests with the 4g tablets show that a burn time, for a complete tablet, is about 5 minutes. Boiling water, using three 4g tablets, took over 12 minutes and never achieved a roiling boil for two cups of water. I have not tried the 14g tablets yet.  The packaging for the tablets also stated that burning left no residue.  A false statement.  Both the stove and the pot were left with a brown tar like residue. I was able to remove this residue from the pot using denatured alcohol and some elbow grease.

A couple of observations about the stove. First, the tablets stink. They smell like fish, at least that is how everybody describes the smell. Now I do a lot of backpacking in bear country, not sure I want my fuel smelling like fish and attracting bear. I left the tablets, still in there packaging, in a closed container for a couple of days. When I opened the container, the smell was over-powering. Close inspection of the blister packaging of the 14g tablets reveals a row of small factory made punctures. I assume they are there to equalize the air pressure so that the blister packs do not balloon as you go up in altitude. But they sure let the stink out!

Second, the little 3" x 4" x 1" box stove weighs 88g, same weight as the Optimus Crux. Esbit does make a lighter titanium stove that weighs 12g. You can make your own stove, unless you are a Boy Scout (see BSA Scout guidelines about home made or altered stoves).  Be careful using aluminum foil. The fuel burns hot enough to melt aluminum foil. I know it happened during one of my tests.

During my first test with the solid fuel I noticed a subtle issue. The fuel takes a little effort to ignite, but once burning, it burns well. The issue I noticed is that, the longer the fuel burns, the weaker the flame. This only makes sense. As the fuel is consumed the tablet shrinks in surface area. Less surface area, less flame. I smack myself for not realizing this before I even started.

While I will continue to present the stove during my presentation as an option, I will never actually take the stove into the backcountry. The little testing that I have done was enough to convince me, that solid fuel is not for me.