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Quote from OzJacko: “Orion is much nicer. ” We have the Irishman up here too. He straddles the Equator, so he can be seen from just about the whole Earth. Irishman? Of course, with a name like O'Ryan what else would he be?

Quote from Rasty: “Quote from twistwrist: “Really? Most hikers I've met use them. I haven't been (and hoped not to), but don't they help to keep your tent drier and less likely to get punctured? Cool. I'd love to not carry one. Give me some reasons! ” Tent floors are tough. I've got one tiny hole in three years in the floor. A 2" piece of duct tape fixed it. It was my fault for setting up in fresh cleared scrub that was cleared with a bush-hog mower. ” Henry Shires says that he'll sell you a foo…

Quote from Rasty: “Footprints are a waste of money ” Depends. Most places, I agree with you. But I use a footprint (a piece of Tyvek, actually, so it's cheap) whan pitching on sandstone. The stuff is abrasive as all getout. I've heard that a footprint can also be useful in cactus country, but I haven't visited cactus country in years.

For a day trip - there are several nice 6-or-so mile loops in my local nature preserves. 8092852963_2ee2dcb862_z.jpg Plotterkill in the mist by ke9tv, on Flickr For an overnight or weekend - there's so much great hiking around here that I seldom repeat. But I'd be up for repeating the Burroughs Range loop, probably including the side trip to Giant Ledge and Panther Mountain, or the Blackhead Range/Escarpment loop, or even a jaunt involving some combination of Overlook Mountain, Echo Lake and Ind…

Quote from odd man out: “This is a tip I learned from my father. When you go to bed at night, lie on top of your sleeping bag instead of crawling inside. Lie there and rest until you start to feel chilled. If it's cold this might just be a few minutes but if it's warm, it might be quite a while. When it starts to get uncomfortable, then crawl in the bag. If your metabolism is ramped up from hiking/camp chores/etc when you get in your bag, you sweat, you get clammy, and in the long run, you are c…

I don't know what it is with hemlocks. I remember a great night's sleep stealth camping in a hemlock grove a year and a half ago. It rained in the night and I didn't even notice except that my tent was all saggy in the morning. I woke up at about 0430, went out to water a tree, decided to start packing up by headlamp, crawled back in the tent to start the process, started to change from sleeping baselayer to hiking baselayer with my bag over me for warmth, and woke up again four hours later. Exc…

Quote from SarcasmTheElf: “I thought better of posting my last comment, instead, here' a picture of a penguin wearing a sweater. funny-cute-penguins-wearing-sweaters.jpg ” 440oolong.jpg

Happy birthday, HB!

33 °F and freezing rain here last night. That's the price of living where I can go hiking in the North Country any weekend I have free.

Sometimes, I'm a climb climb climb da thing. Sometimes, there ain't more thing to climb. youtube.com/watch?v=UkSN-kqAmxw

Quote from CoachLou: “Here and now, I would like to fess up to Kevin. On my walk yesterday......... ..........I looked at my eye-gadget map with the little blue dot that tells you where you are! I was testing it, and me......I had long site lines and a straight easy course and I would look at my map and the landscape...give a guess, and then look at the blue dot. ” Come over to the dark side. We have cookies!

A lot of the mixes come in low-density polyethylene bags, or wax paper, neither of which will stand up to FBC. I steam-bake rather than dry-bake, and take along foil muffin cups. Works like a champ. I'm terrible at video, but I have a photo series on the process at Flickr.

I still follow TOS, and (because it's local to me) catskillmountaineer.com . Once in a while I even get on Facebook, but not very often. Oh, and I occasionally keep a blog myself: dftscript.blogspot.com/ . If I pick up again with my Northville-Placid hike that got interrupted, I'll return to my journal at trailjournals.com/AnotherKevin . (We'll see how that goes. They have a new vacation policy at work, and I don't know if I can make section hiking work with it.)

I find that the coffee will stay hot quite a long time in a Nalgene bottle with a Reflectix cozy. Long enough to steam a muffin is no problem. But I've seen Rob's videos, a lot of which also feature Russ. They live it up on the trail.

Have a great trip! See you in a couple of months. We'll make sure the climbing wall stays horizontal and the instant mashed potato vending machine stays stocked.

Quote from Foresight: “According to my veterinarian friend, if wiener dogs don't top that list then that list is incorrect. ” I quite agree with the little yappy ones. And a standard dachshund requires training - they can be big dogs (with short legs), and they're bred to be pretty fierce - they have to be, to confront a badger or sable underground. They're also incredibly stubborn, largely because they're smarter than their owners and know it. I have personal experience with this. I had two dac…

A possibly apocryphal story has it that Donald Glaser (Nobel Laureate physicist) got the idea for the bubble chamber by watching the trails of bubbles left by salt in beer. (In a 2006 talk, he said that while he used beer for the working fluid in an early prototype, beer was not the inspiration.) The bubble chamber was instrumental in the discovery of particle resonance states, the omega-minus particle (confirming Gell-Mann's SU(3) theory), weak neutral currents, the charmed quark, and the W and…

I drink coffee only on days ending in 'y'. One reason that I use a paper filter is that I can just fold it over and put grounds and all in my garbage bag. Letting it dry and throwing it in the fire (or even using the grounds to catch a spark) really works only in the driest of weather. Otherwise, I'm never out long enough for them to dry properly. (But it does work, if they do.)

Quote from max.patch: “tom brady proves to grinder that he is a true man's man.” Dang, I know that's Costa Rca, but it looks like Fawn's Leap (Tannersville, NY) in mirror image! Check about 55 seconds in. The earlier footage is from a different waterfall (Rat Hole). youtube.com/watch?v=zZcjdRTQ968 (I've been there. If I had jumped, I wouldn't admit it.)

Rice and veggies with the trout laid on top to steam also works well. The juices from the trout soak into the other stuff. For this you need a stove that can simmer.