Two:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Chest_Island,_British_Virgin_Islands

One:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Chest_Island,_British_Virgin_Islands

Yesterday was a pretty good day.  I needed it.  It had been a pretty rough week to be completely open and honest.  My stress levels over the week, where off the charts.  There have been a few times in my life I’ve been that stressed, and they have almost without exception, pushed me off into some deeper depression.  Sometimes, leading to life altering choices… Some good, Some Bad.

This time was different.  I had a really bad day Thursday, and handled it as I normally do.  ( in context of this blog, that included a pint of vanilla ice cream… )  I went to bed pretty early, and woke up in a strangely happier mood.  Things got dramatically better the next day.  There is a bit of history behind this statement, that I’ve talked about in other blogs, but simply put, I had to force myself to “Focus on and Enjoy the Now, and Worry less about the later.”  It helped a lot.

Yesterday, I got out on the trail.  The stars aligned in a few ways, and the hike was almost a perfect day hike.  It was cold, (30-45 degrees) clear, and sunny.  Great hiking company.  The Trail was challenging.  I mean, this was arguably one of the best hikes I’ve done for a lot of reasons.

The Trail itself was a 7 mile loop.  Effective half the Appalachian Trail, and half the Benton McKaye Trail.  It was a pretty challenging hike physically, at least for me and my fat ass.  there was a 1,200ft elevation change.  Meaning we went down 1,200ft and then back up.  (Technically speaking we had a loss of about 1200ft, and a gain of 1200ft since this was a loop.)  To give you some comparison, that is about an 80 Story building.. or a little less than the height of the Trump Hotel in Chicago.  This gain was in about 3 miles, which seems unimaginably long, when your gaining that amount of evelcation.

Also, and embarrassingly enough, another exciting part of this hike for me is I got to try out my new Garmin ForeTrex 401.  This was my first Garmin Product, and the first real GPS tracking I’ve done on my hikes.  Up until that point, I’ve generally used the AGPS on my phone to track my hikes through “imapmyrun.com” app.  Don’t get me wrong, this worked well, but the battery life was tough, and without a phone signal the AGPS kinda sucks.  I have experimented with some other “Trail Computers”, which are kind of pseudoGPS, like the i-gotU GT-800 and the Locosys Genie BGT-31.  Both of which have thier strengths.  The major one being battery life, and USB Rechargeable (and thusly solar) batteries.  But they also have some quirks.  The GT800 has absolutely ZERO MacOSX support.  Which really sucks, as it has fantastic battery life, and a very small form factor.  And the BGT-31 froze up literally the first time I used it.  I had to manually unscrew the back (with tiny screwdrivers, like you would use on eye glasses.) and disconnect the battery to reset the device.  No reset button, or even an easily accessible back panel to handle this.

So far the battery life on the Foretrex isn’t awful.  With 2 brand new AAA Alkaline batteries it only lost one bar off the indicator after 5 hours.  I am supposed to be able to put Li-on batteries in the thing and it’ll charge them off USB.  But I haven’t got around to getting those batteries yet.  Next time I’m out I’ll look for them.

Anyway I REALY like this foretrex.  Go Garmin, the hometown (Kansas City) Heros.

Here’s the map of the hike, off Garmin’s web-based interface.  Which is also pretty impressive.

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So, I went apple picking in N. Georgia with a friend of mine a few weeks ago. I found a half peck of winesap apples, and since I’ve never really had those, and saw a recipe that called for the directly (Irish Whiskey Apple Crisp), I figured I would grab some.  I did find in that bag, the largest apple I’ve ever seen.  I don’t even know how to compare it.  It was larger than a softball.  Massive.  I wasn’t really impressed with the taste, and upon further poking around found they are used mostly for Cider and and Juice.  I could see that.   Anyway, I made Emeril’s recipe and it didn’t really taste very good.  This isn’t a surprise, it wasn’t very sweet and just in general pretty bland.  The Whipped Cream topping was WAY to strong, and overpowered everything.

So, I digress.  After all of this work, I was left with a bunch of left over apples that didn’t taste that good raw.  So what’s a fat kid to do?

That’s right, give Chef Lagasse the culinary finger and try it on my own!  And here’s what I came up with (all Measurements are rounded..):

Apple Crisp with White Chocolate Cream

• Apples:
• 3 or 4 Apples, Peeled, Cored and Sliced (Enough to half fill bottom of baking dish)
• 1/8th cup butter
• 1tsp Ground Ginger
• 1tsp Ground Cardamom
• 1.5tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1/2cup Dark Brown Sugar
• Good Bourbon to Taste (At least 2oz)
• Crisp:
• 1cup Butter
• 1cup AP flour
• 1cup Rolled Oats
• 1cup Dark Brown Sugar
• White Chocolate Cream:
• 2cups Heavy Cream
• 1/4cup Dark Brown Sugar
• 1oz White Chocolate Liqour (I use O’Reilly’s)

I went on an overnight hike in the Cohutta Wilderness Area, it was really just a short trip.  Ultimately to test some new equipment, and to get back into the swing of things.  We chose Jack’s River Trail.  One description from the internet reads:

“16.7 miles. This moderately difficult, orange-blazed trail is the roadbed of an old railroad. It is the longest and wettest trail in the Cohutta Wilderness, crossing the river 42 times. It is often crowded at the falls. The least-used portion of the trail is from Alaculsy to Jacks River Falls. In the middle of Horseshoe Bend are several beautiful spots to camp.”

I was surprised how much the river crossings slowed our speed.  I will be the first to admit, my experience fording rivers is limited.  However in 2 miles I believe we crossed around 6 times.  It was not especially warm.  I’ll leave you with the following allusion “Iced Tea Bag”.  Not so good.

I did fall in the first river crossing, and skinned my knee a little, but nothing serious.  I liked the trail enough, that once it’s open again for over nights (It is open for day hiking only between November and March.  I suspect due to Snow, and rapid river conditions. ) I’ll be happy to take some longer hikes through there.

Part of the delay in my post was a discovery on my part.  I carry a GPS Computer/Tracker to make it easier to blog my hikes, and to track actual distances.  I don’t measure distance so much when I hike, as much as I hike for a general time frame.  2 Hours in, 2 Hours out, that sort of thing.

I use a Mobile Action GT-800.  Which has a lot of handy little functions.  Aside from the lack of “Non-Windows” Support, it’s a great little device.

I found out the hard way that the computer I carry is only compatible with Windows OS.  I haven’t really used windows going on over 10 years now, (I used Linux/Unix and Then Mac OSX, which is also Unix..) so I was a little grumpy about this.  Anyway, I realized this is why I keep a virtual copy of windows around, just in case.  I was able to finially download and import the trip.  You’ll have to double the distance, it only really got the hike in, but we left basically the same way.

Anyway, it was a fun trip.  Let me dig up some photos for you!

I haven’t blogged much about my hiking lately.  It’s been somewhat spuradic.  Though, I did get a nice overnight a few weeks ago.  I’ll have to write more about that, but I have to pull the GPS stuff off my tracker, and I… I… okay, I’m lazy.  I wish I had a better excuse but I don’t really. I’ll get to it!

I also registered the domain “TrailClosed.com”, I may just move hiking/backpacking/outdoor crap to that place in general.  We’ll see.  I’m working on cleaning up and organizing my online-presence… Speaking of which, I did a google search the other day to see what my X was up to, and found a link to a recording of she and I on the radio together.  Somethings on the internet should have an expiration date.  The only plus side is, I’m sure NOBODY really care enough to hunt that clip down, so… Privacy through lack of relevance wins again!  But I Digress.

I did want to post about my last hike, mostly because it’s fresh in my mind.   I was supposed to hike with my neighbor, but something came up and she wasn’t able to make it so I ended up doing this one alone.  So I headed to Sope Creek.

Sope Creek is named for a Cherokee holdout from the Trail of Tears.  “Sope Creek is a picturesque stream that flows into the river. The stone ruins along the creek banks are remnants of a paper manufacturing company that produced a large portion of the South’s paper from 1855 to 1902.” at least according to the National Park Service.

Oddly enough, I believe I’ve hiked the trails there 3-4 times and have yet to actually make it over to the Paper Mill Ruins.  Maybe next time.   One of the best parts about Sope Creek is that I can get 10+ miles of trails without lapping over and over the same trails.  Though, a typical “Out and back” is around 8-9 miles.  This works out well, there is just enough climb to get my heart pumping.  I made pretty good time this round. 6.5 miles in about 3 hours.  I do find I hike faster when it’s just me.

It is a pretty popular mountain biking area, which can be a little annoying.  Oddly I rarely see hikers, I see mostly bikers and runners. Oh Well to each their own right?

Here’s the Route:

and a few pictures: