Changes to plan, 1st edition.

Looks like we've settled on which route we're taking this summer! Still subject to change, of course, but we even nailed down dates for when we'll be in what areas. We wanted to get a plan nailed down because I need to send out a massive here's-our-schedule-join-us-for-part-of-it email to friends and family, so last weekend we hunkered down on the couch with some coffee and made our Official Hobotrip Plan (assuming, of course, everything still goes to plan).


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We've decided to do a pretty simple out and back, focusing on a few spots that we really want to visit and making sure we have a week or more in each. Plus we'll be staggering locations, so it's not like we have to drive from California all the way back to Minnesota with nothing cool to do in between.

So yay for that! Planning lull OVER. We'll write about each spot in separate posts, but here's what we're hitting:

• YELLOWSTONE. Of course. For like, 2.5 weeks, because Zach loves it so.
  
• Glacier National Park. Seems like a total can't miss, and we'll try to hit up some day hikes and random stuff along our route through Montana.
  
• North Cascades National Park.
  
• Olympic National Park.
  
• A couple of TBD state parks along the Oregon coast.
  
• The redwoods, likely the northern state parks around Crescent City, California.
  
• BWCA, obviously, because I've been obsessed with a long (3 weeks+) canoe trip for so long.
  

And we'll be hitting some fine cities for 2-4 days or so, taking breaks from the tent life:

• Seattle! Because of our many pals there. We'll probably swing through once on the way out, once on the way back.
  
• Portland, because it breaks up the drive and sounds like they have great food there.
  
• Missoula, because for some reason I feel totally pulled to hang out there?
  

We're skipping out on a lot on this trip, and that's just the way it goes. It seems heartbreaking to be in California but not swing down to Yosemite, for example, but we had to make some hard decisions regarding the time/money spent driving vs. the time spent camping. All in all, I think it's a great route and I'm really excited about it. And we're both really flexible people who will be all too happy to follow whatever whims we might have once we're on the road.

A little planning lull...

Right now we're in a rut. Our anticipated departure is just over 4 months away and our savings goals are totally on track, but we've both just been really lazy about making plans. This won't surprise anyone who knows us personally. :)

Focus is not really a quality we possess. We've had one main route in mind since the beginning, but we keep tinkering with it. Zach mentioned last night that he thinks we should add Banff National Park (yay Canada!) to the mix, increasing the miles and decreasing the time spent elsewhere. If we're bumping up the distance, I'd rather go to Redwoods. But if we go to Redwoods, why not toss in Yosemite since we're already out in the region and it's obviously a MUST-do? You see our problem. We can never decide if we should spend more time in fewer places, or go see everything we can comfortably fit into three months. It's a tough call.

But on the bright side, we've been doing a great job with our budget and savings. And we DID manage to buy a new (to us) car - a 99 Subaru Outback in totally pristine condition with low miles. It was a great choice and we're really happy with it. Those are two big things to scratch off the list, and now that I'm breathing easier about our financial and vehicle situations, maybe we'll get serious about making a real plan.

Hobo wheels

We won't actually be riding the rails during our adventure, and hopefully we won't be riding in Zach's 2002 Chevy Malibu, either. He got the car shortly after we started dating and we've taken it all over - it even hauled us out to Utah for our first real backpacking/road trip together. I don't have any pictures of it except for this one from our journey to Utah, which also nicely displays Zach's natural bad-ass side (the looong hair is sadly gone, but the white pine tattoo, aviators and bandana remain):



This Malibu is essentially our household car because I don't have one. I bike, bus, and drive his car alone pretty rarely. It terrifies me. 1) I'm a terrible driver since I've been carless since high school, 2) it sucks on the snow, and 3) it has a very unsettling rattle to it. My dad, an automotive genius, said every time he starts it he's pretty sure things are going to come flying out of the engine. Aside from that, it's a terrible fit for our lifestyle. We've taken it on plenty of trips, but frequently we have to borrow my mother-in-law's Jeep when we need to haul a canoe or drive through mountains in winter.

We've been talking about trading it out for something a little more useful. This weekend, when we were up north at a friend's cabin, the severe subzero temps really gave the Malibu a rough time. It took almost 2 hours of man-time to get it running, so we made an executive decision that we should start seriously shopping.

We'll be buying used because it's just what we and our parents always do. Buy used, drive into the ground, repeat. And, like many granola types before us, we're looking mostly at Subaru models. We can throw a canoe on, trudge through snowy mountains, and get decent gas mileage (for our budget). Then we'll slap a Pert Near Sandstone sticker on it and solidify our position as urban hippies.

Ode to a pack

When you start backpacking, the first thing you're going to need is, of course, a backpack. It's the single most necessary piece of gear, and it's handy to have unless you want to be lugging your gear around in luggage.

My first trip was to Utah's Canyonlands, which is SERIOUS BACKPACKING COUNTRY. I was dirt poor and searching for an affordable option, which is difficult because yuppies also backpack, driving the prices far outside of my meager budget. After scouring the interwebs, I found my $45 internal frame red-and-black baby on Ebay.

She was a behemoth. She could fill a whopping 7200 cubic inches from top to bottom, and packs that large are extinct nowadays. It was like some ridiculous freak of evolution, a brontosaurus of a pack. In comparison, my current pack clocks in at a measly 5500.

I took it to all of my favorite backpacking places, and had so many great times with it. Whether it was a week-long excursion in Yellowstone or a weekend in Afton, my trusty pack came right along.

Sadly, its Achilles heel was the fact that it was not an expensive pack, and probably made by child slaves in a country without a lot of pesky labor laws or quality standards. As a result, the pack's durability reflected the fact that it cost about as much as a cheap night out on the town.

When in Yellowstone, about 12 hours before we encountered bears, I was attempting a sweet river jump:



and my pack could not manage the ridiculous weight I had loaded it with, and snapped:


Notice the jerry-rigged strap on the left. That happens to be right where my shoulder is, which making wearing an overweight pack even more uncomfortable.

This was only the start of the decline, as the pack slowly started falling apart. The other strap broke, then a few of the zippers went, and it developed an odor that I would describe as "bear-attracting." So finally, this spring we put the ol' girl out to pasture (i.e. the dumpster behind our apartment) Even though my new pack is cool (it's made of recycled plastic bottles! it's from a brand I've actually heard of!) I'm not sure anything could replace the first.

Destinations Part 1: How do I read a tide chart?

We're in a research phase right now and I love it. It's kind of a world-is-our-oyster thing. We have a general plan, but it's always pliable, and we have three whole months to go anywhere! So I've been researching my little heart out.

A pretty big chunk of our time will be spent in the Pacific Northwest, a part of the country that neither of us has ever visited. I came across a hike that Backpacker dubbed the Best Coastal Hike in their 2009 National Parks Hall of Fame.

It sounds pretty awesome:

Replay that image many times for 17.7 miles–add mad scrambles up rope ladders over steep headlands, tidepools filled with a menagerie of colorful sea creatures, and sunsets viewed from a driftwood perch–and that pretty much covers the three-day hike from Third Beach to Oil City.

This stretch of coastline is part of Olympic National Park, a destination that already had me hooked due to its temperate rain forest. The only problem with this hike?

They recommend you get a tide chart so you don't wake up underwater. We're a little lazy as far as hikers go, but the NPS's strong assertion that we dare not backpack anywhere without carrying a tide chart and a topographic map is pretty convincing. I looked at a few tide charts and they're pretty boggling. This a hike we'd have to bust out a map, a chart, and a GPS device to be able to safely maneuver - all things we've never had to worry about. We're landlocked people. Canoe country people. The ocean is a big huge mystery that I've only seen twice in my 24 years.

But I want to see this stretch of primitive coastline just enough to try and figure it out. So if anybody wants to pass on your extensive knowledge of the tides... let me know. Or just paint a big red line down the beach for us.

Bears!

During this trip, Julie and I will be venturing out into the backcountry in places like Glacier and Yellowstone. While we've done a lot of camping in the midwest, we've never camped anywhere that has the threat of grizzlies.



Julie is terrified. This, in turn, terrifies me. Not because of the bears, but because I'm afraid I won't get a single decent night's sleep for the 3 months that we're hobo-tripping.

Her fears aren't totally without merit. Before backpacking in Yellowstone, they make you watch a video based almost entirely on bear safety, and defending yourself in the event of a bear attack. It also doesn't help her fears that in the two times I've backpacked in Yellowstone, I managed to find myself 50 feet from a grizzly while changing pants in our camp.

Lucky for me, the bear wasn't interested in me and trundled off down the trail, after a few seconds of contemplating my edibility. It turns out that even though the bear didn't eat me, Julie is not at all soothed by that fact. Even when camping in non-bear country, Julie is extra vigilant, and spends most of the night waking me up to investigate all suspicious noises, real or imagined. Once, a turkey wandered through camp and Julie thought we were under attack by all manner of wild beasts.

Fortunately for us, in the last 10 years there have been a total of 29 deaths due to bears in North America, according to my finest internet research. If you don't count Canada, there have only been 15. That averages out to less than 2 deaths per year, and it also includes people who keep bears as pets and were then devoured. In contrast, 90 people are killed every year due to lightning. I'm not too concerned about any event that's 30 times more rare than lightning strikes, so once Julie wakes me up in the middle of the night to make me check for bears, I'll just tell her, "Go back to sleep, it's the lightning you have to worry about." Somehow, I don't think that will comfort her.

Yes, I'm going to blog about snow.

We're finally blessed with a layer of snow on the ground! Even though I hate winter for the inconvenient mess it makes out of my carless life, this snow is perfectly timed. Just as I was ready to start thinking about eventually getting serious about training for 3 months of backpacking... here it is! I've been saved from running, the sidewalks are icy and snowpacked now (and I refuse to run indoors). So now we'll be able to fit in plenty of cross country skiing!

This year I think we'll get the city of Minneapolis cross country ski season pass, since the Columbia Golf Course is a nice loop near our apartment. Apparently you can ski the lakes too, though I've never done it.

A season pass through the Minnesota DNR to go cross country skiing in the state parks is only $15, and with our wealth of parks, it's totally worth it. We had the best time skiing in Banning State Park last year and will definitely try to get up there more often.

So hooray for snow, and cross country ski season. I feel like it'll be pretty good physical preparation for the trip, at least spring comes and I can't avoid running anymore.