July 4th Ohio River Trip
I took a 12 mile solo trip down the Ohio River , west of Gallipolis to some private property in Athalia Ohio. I managed a 3.5 mile per hour moving average with a light headwind.
The barges look innocent enough , but their wakes could become 2 foot rolling waves on certain shorelines.
I wasn't of afraid of this old barge that apparently sunk and is now used for erosion control.
Ohio River Sunrise at camp in Athalia the next morning.
Ohio River diving board , or a 16 foot duct taped ladder.
Big Darby trip report
6/20 Started the trip @ 9:30 or so on the upper Darby creek at a small putt-in courtesy of Trapper Johns Livery. This is a fairly scenic and remote creek , bordered by a wildlife area. The water was fairly high, and I only bumped into a couple of rocks. Normally in late summer this trip is a little more challenging with lower water levels comes shallow sandbars and rocky rapids. It's a real good time shooting through rapids without getting knocked around and having to step out onto slippery rocks. Another bonus of the high water level was the fast trip time. We managed a moving average of 3.7 miles per hour. A 6 mile trip took 2 hours with a small lunch break. The following pictures are courtesy of Terry, as I'm still recovering from an accidental Windows 7 upgrade format that wiped out my hard-drive.
Me grinning at the start of the trip.
Lunch time
I'll try and get more pics up as soon as I get image editing software loaded.
Overall this is a trip worth taking for experienced paddlers as well as novices when the water is high.
Blacklick Creek Trip report
We started out about 9am Saturday morning north Of Main Street in Reynoldsburg Ohio generally in good spirits and well caffeinated. We had dropped Terry's truck off @ Three Rivers park without even checking for a port in(a dumb move I'll talk about later). Getting back to Reynoldsburg and putting in at a friends house I was enthusiastically thinking of a quick 6 hour 15 mile paddle. The creek was low at this point and necessitated getting out and dragging the kayak a few feet , here and their.
Cruising under Main Street , Reynoldsburg Ohio. Everything was going pretty smoothly. I never realized the abundance of giant carp in this little creek , I must have seen a few hundred throughout the trip. Luckily neither of us brought our fishing gear. We ended up not having enough time , nor the will too catch and keep those nasty fish.
Cruising through I-70 , East-side Columbus we passed Blacklick Golf Course , and headed into TurnBerry Golf course in Pickerington. Terry bagged a few dozen golf balls , and found a green bouncy kids ball. We proceeded to play water polo , hitting it back and forth a few times. The first causality of the day happened when I swung wildly with full force , under the ball , smacked the water, and broke my carbon fiber Werner Camano paddle. I happened to love this paddle, and took my revenge on the green ball. Paddling through Turnberry, I found two full irons, and used them to support the paddle.
That's 4 casualties so far, for anyone who's keeping score. This MacGruber setup actually held up most of the 15 miles. Despite the losses, I was feeling pretty good, about 6 miles in. Then came the first bad omen this trip wasn't going to be as fun as I thought. Some lame housing development had diverted Blacklick Creek for some shitty little mud puddle. This affected the creek as it became narrower and shallower. The worst affect was logjams that couldn't wash out due to reduced flow. It's a son-of-bitch, getting over dozens of logs, with a kayak and gear. A big F-you to that housing developer and the no trespassing @ the diversion. A little farther down the road, right before 33 I believe, probably the same developer had installed 3 drainage pipes. I missed the bigger one and ported out over rock.
The 5th casualty happened around an innocuous bend around a partial logjam. My sit-on-top has terrible maneuverability, but very good initial stability. It looses all stability when rocking up to anything sideways. I ended up with a full dunk, loosing my camera. Edit 5/18 , camera started working again.
It was getting late, and the GPS was telling the dismal pace of 1.6 mile per hour would have us at destination @ 6pm. After putting a move on, which wasn't easy, porting over logs, bogs, and sandbars. I believe we got off the water @ 6:30. This brought to light the first mistake of not looking for the way off the creek. I think we overshot the optimal port in by a quarter of a mile. We ended up heading away from the parking , and doubling back, dragging the kayaks a half mile through the woods. About 8pm the kayaks were strapped up.
The final dead duck , was literally a plastic duck decoy , strapped to my buddies kayak , that fell off on I-270. Luckily it never skipped up and killed anything else.
I wouldn't recommend this trip. Initially I wanted to do this in flooded waters , but even the most experienced white-water enthusiast would find the logjams & drainage pipe portaging treacherous.
Marvin Sparks Classic 2010
A private fishing tournament held in a undisclosed location in Southeast Ohio. Tony won first place with 4 fish weighing in @ 17 lbs 1 oz. I had the second biggest fish @ 5 lbs 9 ozs , with Decker bringing in a 5 lbs 12 oz lunker ( Decker graciously bowed out after showing up late for weigh in).
Tony taking trophy from Rick.
Unofficial Big Fish.
Very nice haul of fish.
Ummm Mushrooms.
Good Eats.
Total Weight
Darklord Day 2010!
I didn't get outdoors this weekend , but not all is lost. I ended up spending the weekend outside of Chicago attending Darklord day. This was my 4th Darklord event , somehow I obtained tickets , despite a crappy online ordering system. This is as much as a party as a beer release, to obtain an exemplary example of American Russian Imperial Stout. Molasses , dark sugars , bitter chocolate , coffee , syrupy deliciousness. Every so often , my friends or I , will crack one open for a birthday, New Years, Christmas ,or the circumcision of a Himalayan goat.
Past Years examples
This years haul , 13 2010 Darklords and 1 2009. Other goodies were obtained from Binny's in Orland park.
Check out more @ http://barebonesbrew.blogspot.com/
Caldera Cone for the MSR .85L Titan
Caldera Cones have peaked my interest for some time. With supposedly 5 minute 1/2 ounce alcohol burns achieving 2 cup boils, this is worth looking into. An issue with alcohol, is long distance trekking. A 1/2 ounce stove is nice , but after carrying 14 oz's of fuel of fuel for a 7 day hike , your better off carrying an IsoButane canister and burner for the same weight. I've personally used Minibull design stoves , white box stoves, and made a few. I tested this stove this weekend but didn't bring my camera. Test bed is my Weber Grill with well used pizza stone. 60 degree weather . 60 degree water. 9mph wind speed.
Total weight of kit is 4.2 ounces.
Kit comes with Fuel bottle , measuring cup, stove ( calibrated for cone) , plastic container(The plastic container also doubles as a cup), and the aluminum cone.
A 1/2 oz of Heet alcohol. The measuring cup comes in handy when measuring 1/2 oz's.
Boil time was reached 5:30 , total time burned was 6:30.
My cone sticks to the pot when I lift it , I hear this can be remedied by slightly working the aluminum , but it doesn't bother me. This will be my go-to stove , for more than an overnighter. Pick one up at antigravitygear.com.
Update 8/27/10
I picked up some 91% rubbing alcohol and tested with 8:30 full boil time and a total burn time of 14 minutes, with 1 oz. I'm guessing 3/4 oz would probably be the perfect amount. Rubbing alcohol also burns with a visible flame. This also creates a light layer of soot which washes off pretty easily. I may start carrying it instead of methanol because it double duties as an effective foot dryer/cleaner.
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.
Zaleski South Loop
Hiking the south loop with minimal gear. Nothing is really new to review , just putting old gear through the paces. The Tarp Tent Squall 2 did good job with 50 mph gusts. I plan on doing the whole north and south loop in 2 days sometime before the heat of summer. Total weight is 21.5 lbs , including food and water & 1 PBR.
Old charcoal furnace used in the production of iron during the civil war.
Swamp at the start of the south loop.
Backpack is taking a break in a cave.
Terry on top of a cliff.
Worlds best energy drink after an 8 mile hike.
Bug Out Bag
If you troll enough survivalist websites you probably see BOB (Bug out bag) used frequently. Most of the times it's accompanied by a high power rife and enough ammo for a Red Dawn type scenario. I personally can't see the need , or don't have the means to pick up and head for the hills , living in central Ohio. I'll probably die defending my home from the zombie apocalypse. The thought of needing an emergency kit , or perhaps a car kit does seem plausible enough. So I guess I'm entering the tin-foil hat coalition.
My Kit is very basic. Shelter, water , and possibly fire are really enough to get through the night. A bivvy sack is perfect for these emergency type situations. Light weight , waterproof , and heat reflective , the Adventure Medical Kits Thermo-lite2 is a nice piece of emergency gear. Weighing in @ 7 ounces and seemingly durable enough for a couple nights out. The only reservations with this shelter are bug protection , breath-ability , and overhead protection from hard rains. Bug protection , I'll deal with it , it's an emergency and hopefully fire , and/or cold temperature of night drive the bugs out. Breath-ability can be solved by opening the sides at the expense of warmth , and drying out in the morning by the fire. Overhead protection from rain can be solved by carefully choosing a site with protection or building one.
Water and fire in my emergency kit requires I find it & make it. 1 750 ml empty platypus. 1 Titanium mug. 10 Katadyn Micropur tabs. 9 Esbit tabs with stove should be enough. I'll also have a bic lighter and may add vasoline soaked cotton balls.
Rounding out the necessities would be a knife , for building a shelter or other tools. Cordage for building shelters and possible assents. Normally I carry at least 50 foot of para-cord even on planned back-packing trips , but have never used or needed it. Med-kits, bandages , antibiotics , and painkillers all come in handy. A tiny backpack for keeping this gear is a hammock bliss from http://www.gofastandlight.com/ weighing a mere 6.5 oz's.
Overall my kits weighs 2 1/2 lbs , without firepower. If a weapon is needed , It'd be my 45 with hollow point +p ammo. You can take off your tinfoil hat now.