Lake Superior Provincial Park Coastal Trail. 9/16 - 9/17/2011

After my LBL hike in April I posted a link to my video on the Midland Hiking Club mailing list which I had been following for a year or so hoping for some kudos. I got a reply from Roy Kranz, the head of the club, saying it looked like his kind of hike and asked if I would like to join him on a hike some time. Little did I know what that would lead to! I joined Roy and his friend Ben on a Monster Hike of the Lake Superior Provincial Park Coastal Trail in September of 2011. The trail is advertised as being a "difficult 5 to 8 day backpacking trip" and we were attempting to hike it all in one shot with no sleep. And here is the result!


Lake Superior Provincial Park: Hiking the entire Coastal Trail in one day! from Roy Kranz on Vimeo.

Fossil Springs, AZ Day Hike. September 1, 2011

In August we dropped our little girl off at BYU for her first year of college. Big event for us! We had decided to make a family vacation out of the trip and had stopped along some of the sites on the way out such as the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, and of course, the Corn Palace. Can’t forget that place. We also planned to visit my brother Jared and his family in Mesa, AZ. I had been beside myself the whole trip, passing up some of the greatest hiking areas in the country, and not being able to stop for lack of time, so Jared planned a day hike for us while we were visiting him.
He found a web-site that had some local hikes, one of them being the Fossil Springs hike we ended up taking. It sounded pretty good, a few miles in and out with a destination (falls and a swimming hole) that the boys would be interested in. So we started in and on the way down we meet a guy who is a search and rescue volunteer who starts filling us in on what we have gotten ourselves into. Apparently they have to pull quite a few people out of this area who are not prepared for the extent of the hike. Turns out it is a 10 mile round trip instead of 5 or 6 and it is pretty steep with the only source of water being at the springs. Luckily we had packed sufficient food and I had my water pump so we contined on but it did end up taking us much longer than we had anticipated. But it was an absolutely beautiful place and I was extremely proud of my boys for hanging in there the whole way!

Here is a link to some photos from the hike. Fossil Springs Hike

Land Between the Lakes North/South Trail in Two Days! 4/6-7/2011

Several years back my buddy Bill Ness and I attempted to hike the entire 58 miles North/South Trail in Land Between the Lakes (LBL) in two days. We had heard that others had done it but neither of us had much experience with that kind of hiking so we loaded up our typical 50 lbs. packs, heavyweight boots, etc. and took off. Well, about 15 miles in the first day Bill had blisters the size of silver dollars (new boots!) and we had already gotten off the main trail for an hour or so and most of the water sources were dried up so things weren’t looking too good. To his credit, Bill made it to the 30 mile mark that day, camped over night, then called for a ride home. I took off and was going to attempt to do the rest of the trail on my own. About 15 miles in I was severely dehydrated since I was having trouble finding good water sources close to the trail (I later found I had lost 7 lbs. in about 36 hours) so I finally called it quits.
Not having finished the trail had bothered me for quite a few years. So this past spring I decided that I was going to tackle it again. I had learned a lot about hiking and how to cut weight so I was able to cut my pack weight in about half and made several other improvements to my gear situation. Bill wasn’t going to be able to make it so it would be a solo trip but I wanted to go anyway. I had recently seen a video called the Green Tunnel which was a compressed, stop-motion video of the entire 2200 mile Appalacian Trail and decided I wanted to try something similar. So I attached a digital camera to my pack belt, hit the button about every 30 steps, and here is the result!