Dayhiking

In early 2007 a couple of us joined our friend Hoosierdaddy who teaches winter courses for The Mountaineers, for one of it's branches here in the NW.  We all had a day off, so he offered to help us brush up on self arrest skills and using an ice ax properly.

Last year Kirk surprised me with a Garmin Foretrex 201 GPS unit for my Christmas present. Well, maybe it wasn't really a surprise, I had been wanting one for a long time. I have been using it now for nearly a year and have had a long time to test it and get a feeling of it's best parts and it's limitations.

If you like snow in relation to hiking or you have thought about getting into it, you know that snow travel is never anything to trust or assume that it is safe. It brings dangers one needs to have skills in. It is worth learning though. With the skills learned you can go much farther and have a safer trip.

Fall in the Pacific North West seems to bring out SAR operations a couple times every year. In the past couple years there have been a couple cases where the individuals were very, very lucky in being found in time and rescued. They involved people who had little gear on them and who faced cold, wet and inhospitable conditions.

There is wet and then there is WET.

There isn't much worse in winter than getting your boots soaked through, your socks clammy cold and no feeling in your toes. So what can you do to prevent it?

When fall starts make it a point to sit down and clean your boots up. Get out a brush for boots, work all the dust and dried up mud out of the leather. Use a cleaner designed for the type of boots you have (be it leather or suede). Then use a Nix Wax treatement to restore the waterproof seal.

What is just as much fun as dayhiking? What gives you a total body workout? What gets you out in the dead of winter?

Snowshoeing!

With a couple extra pieces of gear and a knowledge of where you are going you can be out year round, and do it safely.

Safety?

While snowshoeing is a fun adventure, you have to be careful with snow. Avalanches and tree wells are real issues. Before you start snowshoeing, read up on both of them. Basic rules to follow?

I bought a ladies Celia daypack by LLBean in Spring 2006. I had been looking for something to replace my Marmot Diva daypack. It was at that point I was going back to water bottles and leaving my hydration bladders behind. I needed a pack that fit well, could haul gear round, fit snowshoes on the back, and had pockets for bottles. And yes, I did get it in Powder Blue: