This is just a grab bag of matters relating to my hiking but ones that I’m not sure will interest most people.
Hearing Aids
I got hearing aids about a year ago and they were a real improvement in my life. Prices had come down about six thousand dollars (don’t get me started on what caused prices to be so high) and I was glad to go to Costco and get excellent quality hearing aids.
The question was what to do while I hiked. The answer is that I hiked with them. I got the travel charger, which can recharge when hooked up to power and that carries “three days” of recharges (it reliably gave me at least four recharges).
I’m so pleased by that. It was nice to have my ears while hiking.
https://www.soundly.com/blog/airpods-as-hearing-aids — that is the next step — using airpods as hearing aids. Should work well, as lots of people hike with air pods. The technology gets better and the cost and weight keeps going down. The one thing airpods have going for them is that they allow ambient noise to override the blue tooth uses of the airpods so that the user hears the world around them rather than having it blocked out.
There are times it is nice to block out the outside world. But usually I’d prefer to be able to hear. As it is, when I hike I don’t listen to podcasts or other things because I want to be able to hear what is going on.
Chocolate allergy
I developed a chocolate allergy that got bad enough twenty years or so ago that I quit eating chocolate altogether.
Eventually I ceased to be allergic to chocolate and was able to eat it while hiking, and I started eating chocolate off trail too.
Well, the allergy started to come back. As a result, I’m completely cutting chocolate out of my diet except while hiking since there are times chocolate touched calories are the only calories available.
Zipper Repair
Every tent after the Copper Spur has needed zipper repairs. The Triplex. The X-Mid Pro 2. The Off-Set Trio. Zpacks used to offer zipper repair.
When I finally decided to pay for it I discovered that now they just sell replacement sliders https://zpacks.com/products/silver-3-double-pull-zipper-slider and provide videos on how to use them.
https://zpacks.com/pages/zipper-slider-replacement. The difference is the repair was $50.00. The sliders are fifty cents each. That is a huge savings.
If the replacement silders work out as well as I expect, I’ll order more. If I had been thinking, I’d have ordered more when I ordered the ones I just bought.
So that is what is going on with the zippers on the Zpacks Off-Set Trio and getting them fixed.
As far as I can tell, every thousand miles or so, zippers will need some help from a pair of pliers or other repairs and sometimes the reparis just don’t take. Planning on replacement sliders is a great approach, and very lightweight.
A gear room
We have a gear room (or actually a gear closet) now. Kind of neat. Next week I start sorting things more and revisting which item of gear are in my pack. I might as well make use of the opportunity while I have it.
As to gear, I don’t expect much of a change. I really expect to just organizing the “extra” gear and alternatives better and make sense of what I’ve accumulated. We can also consider gear to share with (give to) our kids.
This is my current list:
- Sunshirt/hoody — Jolly Gear. Hiking pants and belt. Alpha direct fleece.
- Underwear, one set, one spare pair of bottoms.
- Base Layer — Silk weight top and bottom. I lost my REI merino top that I’d had for 8-9 years, the silkweight bottoms seem as good as the capilene ones and weigh just a little less. I had two pair of them, but Win now has one.
- Nylofume bag for liner.
- Electronics and medical kit (medical kit is altitude sickness meds, some ibuprofen. some L-Serine, and some vitamin D).
- Two pair of REI Backpacking Socks (heavily padded).
- Water filter kit (two bladders, my Platypus and the Platy clone), filter and Hydropak bag.
- Orange, “don’t shoot me if you are hunting” ball cap. Used to keep the sun off my face, rain out of my eyes. Adds a little warmth.
- Sungloves and sunglasses. Spare reading glasses.
- Mosquito spray, bug net, gloves for cold weather.
- Hiking poles, Tent (Off-Set Trio) — the one that will have the zipper repaired.
- Nitecore Batteries and charger and cords and Nitcore headlamp for night hiking.
- Buffs, socks for sleeping in, Crocs or flip flops for camp.
- Toilet kit (toilet paper, hand sanitizer, trowel, carry bag).
- Two food bag s, one for food, the other food back for clothing/pillow use. Dyneema food bags make good dry sacks for keeping my base layer dry for sleeping in.
- Wind shirt, rain jacket, rain pants.
Local Permits for the PCT
While we won’t need permits for the thousand miles of the CDT we have left, to do the 150 mile Sierra section we will need permits.
Here are the two links for all you need to know for local permits.
https://www.pcta.org/discover-the-trail/permits/local-permits/
As of 2‐1‐21, Inyo NF permits beginning at Kennedy Meadows are Walk Up Permits. Regarding locations that show as “walk up”, i.e. Trail Pass, Cottonwood Pass, Kennedy Meadows, www.recreation.gov states: “Due to COVID‐19, until further notice there are no traditional walk‐up permits. The same allotment of traditional walk‐up permits (40%) will be posted on www.recreation.gov every Monday for the following Monday
etc. Read the complete material at https://www.triplecrownoutfitters.com/uploads/b/2556a720-51d7-11ea-8796-f5da57ab01a8/80de8db0-64b1-11eb-930d-7d34e300260e.pdf
through Sunday.”
The Black Rock Ranger Station is in the Kennedy Meadows area, 15 miles from Triple Crown Outfitters. It is a seasonal Ranger Station. When open, Black Rock issues permits to cover from Kennedy Meadows (mile 703.4) to Cottonwood Pass (mile 750.2).
This link is also useful for local permits and what you should know:
https://www.postholer.com/articles/PCT-Permits-Reality-Check
Note that if you are doing under 500 miles you have to use local permits, the long distance permit is not available to you.