Crapulous weekend - part 1

I took Friday off to go backing, so my weekend started early and it was indeed craptastic. I'll save the whining for another post and keep this one focused on the "good".

Christine was in San Jose for the weekend, and I went backpacking with Kuzca. It was the first time I've done a solo trip. Kuzca is good company, but not as good as Christine.

I hiked up to Three Island Lake in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness near Steamboat Springs. The drive up to the trail head follows the Elk River, which was quite beautiful. It was flowing pretty well, but apparently it's even three feet higher in late May.

The hike up to Three Island Lake is about 3.5 miles long and it's easy to moderate in difficulty. One thing the I liked about being solo was hiking at whatever speed I wanted, and today that speed was fast. I had sort of a late start, so I decided I'd get a good workout in by hiking hard. We never stopped for more than a few seconds. As we neared the lake, Kuzca started slowing down so I took that as a hint to dial it back a bit.

The lake sits in a flat area which was a little soggy and perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes. They were vicious. If I stood anywhere for a few minutes, I would soon be swarmed. With all the snow pack and late thaw this year, I think the timing was just right for bugs. I can tolerate it by putting on bug spray, but I felt really bad for Kuzca. If I left her alone for just a minute, she would have bugs all over her nose and it would like like a crime scene when I brushed them away.

I was hoping to get away from the bugs by backtracking and camping up high. No such luck. They found me. We just had to keep moving around to keep the mosquitoes off. Later in the evening I built a small fire and it was pretty effective at keeping the bugs off. Kuzca didn't want to hang near the fire, so I just let her get in the tent and hang out.

I was up early Saturday morning and packed up before a quick breakfast of bagels and chai tea. We were back at the car and rolling by 9AM. More on the "fun" return trip in my next post.

Since I was traveling solo (+dog), I wanted to try some lightweight and easy meals. Dinner was a simple angel hair pasta dish with some oil, cheese, and red pepper flakes. Easy, simple, and tasty enough for me. For breakfast I tried Kraft Bagel-Fuls which are frozen bagel "tubes" stuffed with cream cheese. These worked out well because I put them in my bag frozen and let them thaw out on the hike.

This was also the first chance I got to try out my new sleeping pad. I got a short Therm-a-rest ProLite 4. It's light and packs down small. I wasn't sure how well I'd like the short pad, but it worked out okay. The only problem I had with it was with the material of the pad. It was very slick, so I found myself sliding around the tent (which wasn't quite level). Kuzca has a similar pad and had the same issue. It was funny to watch he stand up to get more comfortable and have the pad slide around under her.







More photos up on Flickr