It's 10pm on Christmas night in Flagstaff. We are stuffed silly on my special christmas, 3 meat, 5 bean chilli and cornbread with corn, jalapeno, and cheese. It was a beautiful Christmas day spent with friends. Our last day in civilization for quite a while.
Molly and I did a nice Christmas day hike out woody mountain road till we found a pond frozen plenty thick to support us as we played ice rink. The wind was chilly but the sun warmed us and the view of humphries peak above the tall ponderosa pines made you forget the chill. We are suprised at how in shape we are after a year and a half at sea level (Flagstaff is 6996ft). We still will be huffin and puffin the first week though.
We leave tomarrow morning for the Big Hike. I'll probably lay awake all night from excitement and the chilli. I did my final of 5 repacks. My pack came in at 75 pounds. Molly's pack came in at 65 pounds. Thats pretty good since it has to sustain us for 12 days to the first resupply. Our phantom ranch resupply package will be mailed on our way out of town tomorrow.
The highs this week at the Utah Border are around 30 F with lows around 12. But its going to warm up by Sunday to 36. Our Friends Rob and Tiffany will be driving us from Flagstaff to the Trailhead and spending the first night with us, then seeing us off as we head down the trail the next day.
The pack feels good. It's been quite a few months since we have done any backpacking. I suscribe to the collin fletcher method of training for backpacking. pretty much the first three days are going to get you into shape and after that it only gets easier. Collin Flethcher did one of the earlier hikes back in the 60's nonstop from one end of grand canyon to the other. The pack looks more menacing than it is with sleeping pads and snowshoes strapped to the outside. Everything has it's place though and it all fits snuggly and neatly. as we hike and eat our food the packs will gain some room and loose some weight, untill the next resupply. The amazing amount of snow here will insure good supplies of water, at least for a while till the snow melts. This means less water to carry at a time wich means less weight at 8 pound per gallon. Some days we will cary up to two gallons each.
I'm not usually one for electronic gadgets, in fact I hate them. But I decided instead of buying and carrying heavy expensive batteries, to try something different. The only thing in our packs that require electricity is our headlamps which each take 3 AAA batteries. So I found a 1/2 ounce AAA Battery solar charger about the size of a pack of cigarettes. I can clip it on my pack as I hike and keep the extra rechargable batteries charged. I guess our camera also requires electricity, but we have three very small battery packs that will last the whole trip for us.
Tomorrow we will be at the trail head. Four days till our first check in at Jacob Lake. Then 8 days to the Grand Canyon and down to Phantom Ranch. My brother Jesse will be meeting us at Phantom for a week of hiking through the canyon with us.
Well it is getting late and I am about to barf from all the christmas food and cookies and pie and yummies we have eaten. We will update the trail journal when we can, but not very often. So do check back for more fun stories. You will also be able to track our progress on the map page when we update.
Happy Holidays and Happy Trails to all, Bob and Molly
"Who in the world would want to be a white collar sissy, when you can have such beauty and granduer such as this?" - Bert Loper 1922
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