5 Comments
Apr 30, 2021Liked by Jonathan P. Thompson

Great fun to share the trip with you, Jonathan. By the way, that bird perching on the road at night was surely a poorwill. They do that!

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Oct 6, 2021Liked by Jonathan P. Thompson

Oh... Type II fun!

Belated "pro-tips" if you want them for next year. :-) Or maybe share them with the teenagers so they can try 'hem in the future.

Trash compactor bags make pretty good pack liners to keep out rain and snow. A box of four costs about $8. Each bag weighs about an ounce/28 grams. I've found a bag can last for roughly a thousand miles of walking (~2 months of back-to-back nights backpacking). Use 'hem in the rainy PNW and all over. The rainiest times I've been out walking have been in deserts - go figure.

That looked like a pretty decent pothole to me! Bonus, the algae was green so you know the water isn't killing all biota. To keep my filter from clogging, I bring a couple of standard coffee filters or a 5-6 inch diameter disc cut out from a swimming pool filter (weighs less than an ounce) to funnel fluid into the vessel used to collect water. The pre-filter reduces the muck and keeps the actual filter from clogging. If using a Sawyer filter, the syringe is worth packing in too, to be able to backwash the filter. Having collected water from many a cow pond and beaver pool on week-long trips, I've learned not to mess around with the light-weight tools to have potable water.

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Apr 29, 2021Liked by Jonathan P. Thompson

Hahaha! Great story. I’m glad you survived! I share all those sentiments. Suffering can be visionary...and our kids got the same treatment.

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I hope to treat my young daughter to the same sort of baptism by wilderness!

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