NEW GEAR

What hiker doesn't love new gear? My friend had a new sleeping bag last weekend that he couldn't stop crowing about. An REI SubKilo 20 degree down bag. Less than two pounds and packs as small as a football! I had to have one - especially when I found out the women's version comes in PURPLE and is rated 15 degrees!! Ordered on line Sunday night, just in the nick of time to get the sale price, delivered to my doorstep today. I think this is winner for future long distance trips, and is certainly going to Iceland. My backpack could use a little extra space.

Little Moose

Another weekend spent in the woods. Another weekend sleeping in a tent, mmmm.....another weekend spent walking and using my body to propel me. We hiked into a Maine Public Lands area called Little Moose. There were several remote ponds with backcountry sites - we picked the primo one of course, since we were literally the only people on this acreage; I doubt it sees much overnight traffic.

Yesterday we walked to the Big Moose Mt. trailhead and climbed that. Substitute Squaw for Moose everywhere here and then maybe you'll recognize where this is in Maine. The PC police made the state change the names a few years ago.

At night we heard loons and owls calling and a beaver slapped his tail just feet from our heads in the little cove we were camped beside. Strangely though there were at times more moose prints than human on the trails, we did not spot Alces alces. The Greenwood trail into the ponds has not been cleared this season and made me appreciate all the more the important work we accomplished on the AT last weekend.

Trail Maintaining

Spent last weekend on the AT here in Maine, deep in the woods off logging roads, camped in a gravel pit with friends. Somebody got a new chainsaw and that was the focus of the weekend pretty much. We had high winds this winter and spring and the trail was a mess of blowdowns. Cleared 149 on a 1.5 mile section alone! It's always a good feeling, and immediate gratification to walk a section you just helped clear, which was almost impassable a few hours before.

Reservations

After much back and forth with some very patient Icelanders (is that what natives of Iceland are called?), I have secured (and paid for) 6 nights at huts along this route. The last night was the most precious-at a hut that I can't begin to spell, pronounce or reproduce using the Western alphabet - and took the longest to get a response from. But finally Bjarney signed me up for the night of June 21st, which also happens to be Summer Solstice this year! I can't think of a better place to spend the Long Sun than at this high mountain hut on an Icelandic glacier. I have to pick up the key after I land in Reykjavik (ha! I can finally type that w/o 5 backspaces and a look up) from their office and give a hefty deposit. Let's hope in the 10 days after reaching Skogar and traveling around the island I still have that precious key in my pocket!

My hostel card arrived the other day; I haven't been a member of HI for years. And I realized the only addition to my backpacking gear needed was a body sized pack towel, not the mouse chewed one I took on the AT 4 years ago that could only dry one forearm at a time.

I fear the bus schedule will not allow me to hit every park and hike on the eastern coast that I would like to, here's where the travel Gumby in me must prevail. Flexible...be very very flexible.