I am off, outta here, adios, etc. For at least the weekend. I have prepared all my mail drops and my 2 secret caches.
This weekend I plan to hide my caches in the woods for later pick up. The pic is for cache #1. Approximatly 5 days of supplies plus 4 beers. I figure the beers serve two purposes, one is obvious and the other is a theft deterrent in case my game of hide and go seek goes south. I am bit worried that in the middle  of the woods and unsupervised juvenile might come across it.  I am little worried about getting to cache #2, which is down a county road in saguache County  (aka BFE). I have a back up location but I would need to lug a couple days food a little further than I prefer. On the positive side I get salida and BV craft brew and a trip to my favorite place VVHS. I hope my sign works, if they look at the bottom of the lid.

First and foremost, I chose my gear based on the type of hiking I prefer. I want to be light, but semi-comfortable. I am not going to break any records, I do not plan on hiking huge miles, I do not like my green tents here nor there.

Shelter seems like a logical place to start. I wanted a tent that was 2-3lbs, was single walled, used only 2-treking poles  for structure, dual side entrances and vestibules. I have another tent by this manufacturer it is well constructed but required another set of poles, which I either had to bring myself or I had to talk someone else into going with me. Based on my previous experience with the manufacturer, and considering the cost this was a good choice for me.

Nemo Equipment,Meta 2LE Treking Pole Tent, 40 oz w/stakes and compression sack (this tent will compress down to the size of a softball)

I have noticed two issues, the corners need an 11″ light weight spar. I plan to add a couple rubber eye grommets used for kites. The eye will loop throught th chord and the carbon fiber tube will pop in and out. Secondly there is no adjustment on the corner guy lines, easily fixable.

Thats about it, home sweet home for awhile.

See just ain’t doing the trick.

I believe that planning and preparation are key components in hiking the Colorado Trail. I also believe this plan or any other plan I may or may not have will be FUBAR on or about day 2. So why do it? Well, I had no idea if I needed to order 30 or 60 candy bars. I also need to start putting together three resupply boxes and two hidden caches. There are a couple places where the distance between resupply points and accessibility we iffy at best. The guide book describes more than one resupply town as a “tough hitch”. I am not sure what that means, but I don’t plan on compromising my moral, ethical or sexual standards just to get to town. So in the next few weeks I plan to go hang out in Salida for a few days, take a day trip North and a day trip South to strategically bury some buckets filled with goodies. Is it wrong to toss a 6-pack into these?? I say yes!

I based it upon a 15 mile day, but I do not have any clue. I know I can hike 15 miles a day(and really what else do I have to do??), but can I keep that up day after day after day? I also hope I can do better towards the end of this little trip. Do I have enough zero days scheduled in? I plan to remain plenty flexible, but still it would be nice to know.

Hopefully the plan in essence is good or at least a good starting point.

Since this is my first post I suppose this should include some kind of declaration. If you haven’t guessed I am grammatically challenged, but unapologetic. I hereby promise this blog shall include but may not be limited to bad spelling, the misuse use of verbs, nouns, and adjectives, the more than occasional abuse of curse words, and long pointless run on sentences. That doesn’t really explain my purpose, does it? Last year a goal found me, not an average goal like “I am going to wake up before noon” this was a doozy. Then like every other idiot I opened my mouth and made a proclamation. Now I am screwed – I am also too stubborn to admit it. I have drank the kool-aid and I am all consumed in this one thought. I am sure I have spoken with people in the last 6-9 months but unless we were talking on this or some closely related subject I don’t remember. Without further ado, I decided I wanted to thru hike the Pacific Crest Trail. I then kicked myself in the ass and came up with something a little more attainable, which could potentially be completed and wouldn’t require me getting fired.  What I am going to do is the Colorado Trail, 480 miles from Denver to Durango. I am starting this blog to chronicle the adventure. I hope to keep tabs on preparation items like planning, gear and food. I also plan to write updates and link to a (semi) current map while I am out and about.

While the early goal of this blog is to document the Colorado Trail adventure I think I will continue with it but it is too early to say what it will be like.

Since I do not have any experience with this sort of thing (the blog), please be kind it might take a while to sort it.