Club Events 2007 : 2007-05-25 : COC - Multi-Day Backpacker Training

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Marty, Ed and I set out as planned on Friday. We claimed a site at Paddy Flats campground and then hiked, fully loaded, the Riverview and Elbow Valley trails. Ed and Marty did a bunch of trail maintenance - clearing several trees off the path with Marty's fancy new saw. Connie caught up with us in the evening and Marty and Connie went on a futile search for ice caves. Better luck next time! I earned a few Princess Demerits for freezing my heinie off on Friday night - I don't know what was up with that, but I had my -7 bag (planned on having my -20 bag, but oh well... should have been ok), long underwear, socks, slippers, t-shirt, fleece 1, fleece 2 and my PARKA on and still froze. I had a really weird dream, too, early in the morning, which made it all worthwhile... I dreamed that I was driving down Shaganappi Trail really fast when I got a bad headache. I closed one eye and then started thinking it was dangerous to drive so fast with no depth perception - I should open the other eye. I couldn't open my other eye, though, so I thought maybe if I close both eyes and then open them both at once that would work. So, I closed my other eye and then I couldn't open either of them. I started to panic about driving down the road with my eyes closed, but no matter what I did I couldn't open them. Then I thought... "wait a minute... I'm not driving down Shaganappi Trail at all... it's the Saturday morning of my backpacker training and I'm laying asleep in the tent and if I could just open my eyes and confirm that everything would be ok." Alas, I still couldn't open my eyes, but I did manage to reach out my left hand and touched the side of the tent at which point my dream ended. I have had lucid dreams before, but never one that I was able to control at all - this was pretty cool to reach out and touch the side of my tent to confirm that I was dreaming.

Anyway, enough about me. On Saturday, the four of us set out to do Nihahi Ridge. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful hike. Ed and Marty did a bit more trail maintenance. Juanita caught up with us during our lunch stop and stayed with us for the rest of the day. We had a lovely camp-out dinner, celebrated Connie's upcoming birthday, and I did NOT freeze my heinie off that night (thank goodness - I don't need any more Princess Demerits!!).

On Sunday, we left Connie and Juanita at the camp site while we went up to Moose Mountain. The trail was REALLY snowy and sloggy and it was quite chilly out, especially when the wind kicked up. I had begged permission to leave part of my weight (mmmm... maybe about 5 pounds) out of my pack for the day's hike, and then after we'd hiked (actually, slogged) for four kilometers, I begged permission to abort the hike and turn back. That was pretty much our intention, anyway, when we saw the condition of the trail in the morning, but it was me who finally cried "uncle" after four kms. We still had a great time - the slogging was pretty good West Coast Trail training, especially for Ed who's going to have to get used to having wet feet!!

A very very successful training weekend. Clearly we've done our homework because we weren't missing anything important, had just the right amount of food, enough fuel, and basically everything went perfectly. We're so smrt.

-- Rhonda


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