Another trip to Zaleski
Did a quick overnight @ Zaleskis south loop. Walked in 2 miles in the dark through a thunderstorm and made camp. I'm in process of reviewing and testing out a new Garmin 60cx GPS. It has a cool feature of calculating distance and time. My trip was 11.3 miles , moving time 4 hours and 30 minutes. Moving average 2.4 miles an hour. Stopped 1 hour 26 minutes overall average 1.9 miles an hour. This did not include camp time or lunch. I did stop a few times and go off trail looking for produce.
Picked up some ramps and 2 measly dried out morels.
RECIPE ?! Rays down and dirty ramp soup.
Ingredients.
Ramps cleaned , roots removed.
Morels , preferably more than 2 shriveled up , soaked in brine.
3 cups of Beef broth
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Cut up ramps as desired, I like to keep the bulbs intact , dicing the stems and some of the leaves. Julian morels.
Heat vegetable oil in cast iron skillet. Saute leaves , stems and morels. I leave bulbs out to get a firm , almost raw bite.
Deglaze with beef broth and add bulbs. Serve and enjoy. Total cook and prep time 10 minutes.
A few things that would have made this better. A slice of bacon and rendered grease to saute. A few cloves of garlic. Homemade broth ( I used Tones beef base and half a cup of cheap beer).
Testing Esbit on a Wetfire Stove
Looking through REI I found this cool little stove that weighs a half an ounce. After reading a few blogs and reviews I determined the fuel that's supplied with it is junk. Stories of short burn times , tons of soot , and it's inability to attain boils will keep me from even trying it. Having used Esbit before , and knowing it burns 12-15 minutes I figured I'd give it another shot. The biggest gripe with Esbit is the soot it leaves at the bottom of pans. I tried to remedy this with tin foil rapped around my pan. Esbit burned through and failed to boil 3 cups of 50 F water @ 48 F air temps. Unsure if it was the tin foil or possibly 3 cups , I tried 2 cups and no tinfoil. Boil was a achieved @ 13 1/2 minutes.
Incredibly light and made of Titanium. It's three legs fold down very compact.
Burning an Esbit and surrounded by a windshield.
Stable enough with a MSR Titan Kettle. [ an Interesting fact about the MSR, is the three rows of spot welds mark the 1 cup measurement]
The dreaded Esbit soot will probably keep alcohol stoves in my pack. It scrubs off easy enough , but in the woods , with limited water can be a pain.
New Knives
Picked up 3 knives from http://www.gofastandlight.com/ I'm comparing weights to see If I can part with my trusty Buck 102.
Old Buck knife- 4.6 oz Feels the best in my hands. Guessing about $35. Stainless Steel.
Mora classic- 2.7 oz . Feels a little cheap , and it is @ $12. Carbon Steel.
Mora Red- 3 oz. Cheap plastic handle feels better than the Classic with finger guard. $7 Carbon Steel.
Mora blue 3 oz. Same as Red above. $8 stainless.
I'll probably use the classic for weight savings
Zaleski Backpack Trail
The first hike of march allowed me to test out a lot of gear.
Tent with Neo Air under inflated inside.
Tarptent Squall 2 is impressively light and packs down small. It sets up pretty easily with either 1 or 2 hiking poles and 4 stakes. It affords enough room for one and gear , or possibly two tightly. This will probably be my main packing tent for a few years. Tarp tent products
Sleeping Pad shown with 24 OZ Bud Ice and Tarptent
Therm-a-rest NeoAir is a new ultralight product that's ridiculously light and packable. I have a few reservations about it's durability so treating it delicately may prolong it's usage. I slept very comfortably on snow with a 1/8th Gossamer Gear Thin light foam pad beneath it. 15.5 OZ with stuff sack an patch kit
Camera Mount.
The Stickpic is a simple camera mount that allows you to take pictures from the end of a hiking pole. I'm not sure how much I'll use it , but it's kinda nice to take pictures of yourself from a distance. http://thestickpic.com/