Saturday, June 11, 2011

Cranberry Wilderness - Prelude to a Trip Report

Just a quick note here, I've just about gotten my GPX files from my trip to the Cranberry Wilderness squared away. There was quite a bit of cleaning up that I had to do with the data and I only have the tracks broken down by day. My next feat will be cutting the tracks up into trail sections.

Anyway I just thought I would share a couple of pictures from GPSVisualizer with you. Here's the overview of the hike we took:

The Cranberry Wilderness
Here's the elevation profile for the entire hike:

The different colors indicate the day of the hike.
Here's the full GPX data for our hike:

Cranberry.gpx

I hope this wets your appetite! Look for a full trail report soon!

~Lateralus

Friday, June 10, 2011

Low Cost Kayak Roof Rack Solution for Naked Roof Cars



I recently decided that I wanted to be able to carry two kayaks on my car, so that I could easily take a friend or my fiance paddling with me. I considered a lightweight trailer, but ruled them out due to cost and storage hassles. That left a roof rack.

If you drive a car with integrated rack rails, that's pretty easy - you can get fairly inexpensive crossbars that attach to your integrated rack. You can then add J-shaped cradles that let your boats rest on edge.

If, however, you drive a car with a "naked roof" - no rack rails, no rain gutters, just a smooth top - you have an issue. You must find a way to add crossbars where there is no existing structure. Yakima and Thule both make systems that fit a wide variety of cars, but they are expensive. I drive a 2002 Ford Taurus and I didn't wish to spend the $700+ that a crossbar/riser /J-cradle system would cost from one of the big names.

I poked around on Amazon, and quickly found that there are knockoffs available - "Universal fit" rack kits, priced as low as $30. Additionally, there are generic J-cradles that go for about $67 per set. This brought up a couple questions - would the rack fit my car, and would the J-cradles fit the rack? Would my handcrafted strip-built kayak come off my car, explode into 10,000 splinters, and kill innocent bystanders? These are things of nightmares.

The universal rack is rated to 150 lbs. It isn't the most impressively built piece of equipment I've ever owned, but it does the job - the crossbars are steel, on plastic risers.




I did some reading and found that the universal rack didn't fit the Taurus as designed. It comes with metal clips that are supposed to hook into the door frame. I eventually decided to run cargo straps through the passenger compartment, rather than relying on the hooks. It's very strong, and very cheap - but it comes with two drawbacks.

First, the straps compress the door gasket, which could eventually damage it. I decided I didn't care, because, frankly, it's a 2002 Taurus. My previous method of carrying my kayak involved using a foam block kit and ran the straps through the compartment as well, so that was a wash for me. Your mileage may vary.

Second, it takes a couple minutes to take on and off the car. I decided that both were worth it, since I might only use the system a few times a month.

With that modification, the universal rack was very firmly attached to the top of the car. I ordered a single J-cradle to make sure that it fit the universal rack - it did, quite well. I was very pleasantly surprised at the build quality on the J-cradles at that price point - the are well designed and feel like quality.

My boats both fit the J-cradles fine - a 17 ft Siskiwit Bay and a 15 ft plastic Epitour. I secure the boats to the cradle with the nylon straps supplied with the cradle, and a bow line tied off to the underside of the car. I've since purchased the second J-cradle and await a little free time to install it.




This rack is clearly an exercise in trade-offs. You trade the straps coming through the passenger compartment and possible gasket wear against a nearly $600 difference in price. For occasional use over modest distances, it works well. As an added bonus, the J-cradles will be reusable when I buy a new vehicle with integrated rails. For a total price of $160 I am quite pleased with the results and hope that someone else will find this useful.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Occasional Hyker is expanding!

Hi everyone!

Just a quick post here to let you know that I made it through my Cranberry Wilderness trek two weeks ago. I have yet to write the trail review, that's coming soon, but I need to clean up my GPS data and organize my pictures first. School is about to end for this quarter and I've been extremely busy because of that.

The North Fork of the Cranberry River - Cranberry Wilderness

I also have some exciting news! My good friend J whom I've talked about on here before has decided to join the blog to document some of his outdoor gear projects. His outdoor hobbies run the gamut from paddling to backpacking. Currently he is learning to make his own light to ultralight gear.

Once we get everything sorted on the site he will be posting so stay tuned for that.

Have a good one and we'll be talking soon!

~Lateralus