Ounces make pounds and pounds make sore muscles...

Does the end justify the means? In this case, I do believe so. After a year of planning, day dreaming, practice hiking, dehydrating (food), making up recipes and researching the Trail, I still wonder if I have every base covered. You can prepare for anything if you carry enough equipment or have a team of Sherpas to haul your stuff up the mountain. With the Sherpa hiring  pool being a bit shallow here in Phoenix and since I am not as young as I used to be, the idea of toting a 100 pound pack around the backcountry is about appealing as hugging a cactus. Being weight conscious, I weighed everything- twice, compared this plastic spoon with that plastic spoon, I weighed clothing items and stuff sacks and even compared the weight to comfort ratio of single ply versus two ply toilet paper. I spread all my equipment out on the bed and made a keep versus might keep pile. If I am below weight, I will add one item at a time from the might keep pile until. This will be debated in my head until I get on the airplane.

  

Being a foody,  I need more to eat than Vienna sausages and Pop Tarts on the trail. Since the zombie apocalypse has yet to occur, my good friend Jenn gave me a whole box of freeze dried food that she had been saving. The rest of the food was based on weight to calorie to taste spectrum. Many recipes revolved around my ability to dehydrate food using my Ronco dehydrator that I bought at my neighbors garage sale. Corn, mushroom and strawberries dry out and rehydrate wonderfully. Chicken and blueberries not so much. But that is my cross to bare. Some of my backcountry dishes will include cheddar broccoli soup, Pho, shepherd's pie, Thai coconut soup, pasta salad and semi sorta made in the backcountry cheese cake. The rest is commercially packaged food like oatmeal, grits, pastries, spray cheese (can I get and amen!), summer sausage and crackers. I am still tweaking the amount of scoops per cup of coffee to make sure I get that primo cup in the morning. I know Lisa will be happy to have her dining room table back. Now I just need to pack the boxes and mail the food up the trail.

Most of the equipment I already had but I did buy a new backpack. The jury is still out on that one but I will not know for sure until a week on the trail. First impressions are very good. I have gone thru two pairs of shoes and hope that the ones I have now will maintain their comfort level. My clothes are bug proofed and my tent is water resistant. The rain is a point of contention but I am pretty sure I have that covered.  I would be amiss if I did not wax philosophic about the long term use of underwear. Everything I have read suggest two pair of wicking quick dry odor resistant non-cotton chones is the way to go. Nylon versus polyester? This brand versus that brand? So I decided to do some research much to the despair of family and friends. Based on research, my findings show you can wear the same pair of wicking fast drying odor resistant non-cotton underwear for four days. Actually three. On the fourth day, your wife will rip those things off your body and throw them in the back yard. I admittedly had fun as I got purposefully close to people to watch the look on the faces on day two and three. If you were victim to this, my sincerest apologies but science is science.

I spent last night packing my pack or at least the first draft. With food and no water, my pack checked in at 35 pounds. I still need to fine tune and re-pack but if I can keep my pack under 50 pounds on the trail, life will be grand. The best I can tell, I have everything I need to make a successful go on this adventure. Admittedly, I would like to have a few more practice/shakedown hikes under my belt but too much life kept getting in the way of living. I did, however, start a regular walking/hiking regimen with my neighbor George. Until it got too hot, then we just started faking it. We have had several people join us including the Beauregard the wonder Turkey.

As I finish the  prep phase, I am grateful for all those that I was able to lean on and learn from . I set out on my adventure in just a few days. I still have a few bugs to work out with the technology but I am learning  not to be afraid of it and equally important, to be patient and work thru the problem before asking for help. In the next few days, I reckon I will make several more changes in order to get the best and final tweak before I find myself at the Waterton Canyon trailhead. Oh, the two ply won by the way. Some ounces are worth their weight in gold. Just sayin'...