Sagebrush personal hiking blog
16 NMVFO volunteers worked on a one-day project with a wetlands contractor, Steve, to build rock and sod structures for a water restoration project in the headwaters of the East Fork of the Jemez River in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
As we worked, our leader instructed us on how the dams and swells we were building will make water channels wind back-and-forth more, and avoid deep channels forming too early, allowing wide shallow water flow in the headwater area.
Finally I return to my adopted section of the Continental Divide Trail for a 2-day backpack, starting at the northern terminus near Surprise Tank. The surprise is that Google Maps knows where this is. Clearing rabbitbush and some grass from the tread makes the trail more visible on this lower section. Later I clean some drains and saw or drag several trees which have fallen across the trail.
Camp is about 5 miles in. The cattle trough past dry Erman Well is now turned off, so I was low on water and did not hike the entire 11 mile segment, but turned around at dry Rincon Well.
Continue reading “Segment 86 October 2022”I was recently forced to upgrade my cell phone after a hardware failure, and started worrying about the market trend of phones growing larger and heavier each year. My phone counts as part of my backpacking base weight (as defined as pack weight minus food and water), since it normally resides in a holder on my pack strap. How long until cell phone weights start seriously impacting base weight, which I try to keep under 10lbs for ultralight hiking?
Tl;dr Summary: Not to worry. My trail smartphones have not gotten unreasonably heavier in 10 years.
This year I celebrate my 10th consecutive year of doing a long backpacking trips each summer. A bulging lithium-polymer battery forced an unplanned cell phone upgrade.
For ultralight gear, I prefer small lightweight phones, but cell phone manufacturers seem to be introducing ever-larger screens and higher-capacity, heavier batteries. It is sometimes difficult to find low-weight new models that can handle the latest, more secure operating system versions. With 10 years of data about my cell phone choices (from past posts about gear lists, as well as a few unpublished gear spreadsheets) let us look at trends and make predictions.
Continue reading “Trail Phone Trends”