Backpacking Journals - Preserve Your Backpacking Experiences

Backpacking Journals - Preserve Your Backpacking Experiences
Word Count:
393
Summary:
Backpacking is a great way to escape the rat race and be one with nature. Alas, your backpacking experiences can fade with time. The best way to prevent this is to keep a backpacking journal for your adventures.

Keywords:
backpacking, backpacker, backpack, journal, backpacking trip, backpacking equipment

Article Body:
Backpacking is a great way to escape the rat race and be one with nature. Alas, your backpacking experiences can fade with time. The best way to prevent this is to keep a backpacking journal for your adventures.
Backpacking Journals
Take a minute to give some consideration to your most recent backpacking experience. What sticks out in your mind? Now think about the first time you ever went backpacking. Undoubtedly, you remember few things about the geography, people you went with, particular backpacking routes and spectacular views. The experiences you’ve forgotten are lost to time. If you had kept a backpacking journal, this won’t be the case.
There are famous instances of people keeping journals throughout time. Of course, Anne Frank’s Diary is the best example. In her diary, Anne kept a running commentary of the two years her family spent hiding from the Nazis. While your backpacking experiences better be more lighthearted, keeping a journal will let you remember them as the years pass.
A good backpacking journal combines a number of characteristics. First, it should be compact so you don’t have to take up unnecessary space for other things. Second, it should have a case to protect it from rain, spills and so on. Third, the journal should contain blank areas to write your notes. Fourth, the journal should contain cue spaces to remind you to keep notes on specific things. Cues should include:
1. Who you went backpacking with,
2. Where you backpacked and if you enjoyed it,
3. Who you met and contact information for them,
4. The geographic and weather conditions,
5. Routes you tried and how far you made it, and
6. Any unique things that occurred while backpacking.
At the end of the trip, you should be able to get the following from your journal:
1. Contact information for other backpackers and people you met,
2. Enough detail to provide you or a friend with a guide if you backpack the location a second time.
3. Memories to reflect upon years later, and
4. Something to pass on to your friends, children and grandchildren.
To get the most out of your backpacking journal, you should write in it during backpacking breaks or immediately after. Every trip is special, even if you just go out for a weekend.
Backpacking is a great way to commune with nature. Make sure to preserve the experience.

Backpacking In The Sleeping Bear Dunes

Backpacking In The Sleeping Bear Dunes
Word Count:
535
Summary:
Sand and snow and coyotes. The one thing you won't find in the Michigan  woods in March, is people.

Keywords:
backpacking,backpacking in Michigan,hiking,ultralight backpacking gear

Article Body:
I was backpacking in the Sleeping Bear Dunes. It was March, so when I made it through the woods and over the dunes, I'd have miles of beach to myself. It was an over-nighter, a chance to test new ultralight backpacking equipment. I hiked the wooded hills quickly, enjoying the cold air.
Halfway through the forest, I stopped to cook noodles. The cheap 3-ounce pot was from a dollar store, and it worked fine. I was happy, because from the catalog descriptions, the expensive titanium pots are all heavier, probably because they're too thick and with too many gadgets.
I had to use a small twig-fire when my homemade alcohol stove didn't provide enough heat. I later learned that isopropyl alcohol doesn't burn as hot as the alcohol used for a gas additive, but the twigs worked in any case.
Backpacking On The Beach
After eating, I hiked to Lake Michigan, and sat up on a large sand dune. I watched the waves push ice up onto the empty beach. Coyotes began to howl in the distance, and the clouds rolled in. I was on the beach looking for petoskey stones when the snow began. Backpacking in March has its risks.
I was in running shoes, and it would be below freezing that night. In northern Michigan, March is definitely part of winter. My feet stayed warm while I hiked, but I hadn't planned on them getting wet. At least I had a pair of warm, dry socks for sleeping.
Ultralight Backpacking Equipment
It was the first time I used my GoLite Breeze backpack, which weighed only 13 ounces. I was hiking with about nine pounds on my back, and that only because I threw in some canned food. I was going light, but I knew the forests here and felt comfortable with my abilities.
My down sleeping bag was a 17-ounce Western Mountaineering HighLite. It was the first time I would use it below freezing (It hit 25 degrees fahrenheit that night). Fortunately, it wasn't too windy.
At the edge of the forest, behind the dunes, I set up my small tarp. I piled pine needles and dead bracken ferns under it, finishing just as it became dark. This made a warm mattress, and I slept well, listening to the coyotes, and to the waves pushing ice around in the lake.
In the morning I was happy to see only a dusting of snow. My one-pound sleeping bag had been warmer than my three-pounder - and I thought that was light. I poured alcohol in the cut-off bottom of a pepsi can (my 1/2-ounce backpacking stove) and made tea. After some crackers I was soon hiking in my mostly-dry shoes, along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Backpacking Lessons Learned
I ended my trip that afternoon, with a hike to the village of Empire, seven miles away. I was mostly satisfied. Only two problems: My tarp was too small, and the alcohol I brought was the wrong type.
After backpacking in Michigan for years, I know it well. I know where to find dead grass and bracken ferns, for example, to make a warm mattress in a few minutes. Knowledge, obviously, can be as valuable as expensive backpacking gear.