Updating My Gear and Transitioning from Traditional Thought.

I recently bought a new backpack. I didn't 'intend' to buy a new one but I had been browsing backpacks on Campmor.com ( which is exactly opposite what someone who is not 'intending' to buy a new backpack should be doing ) and they had a great deal on a 60 liter pack. I made another mistake by posting on my Facebook wall about this great deal I had found. One of my friends saw my post and we ended up colluding to buy two packs at the same time to save on shipping costs. So much for intentions.

So I now have a new 60L internal frame pack. It is a Jansport Big Bear 63. ( If you notice, Jansport has the Big Bear 83 pictured on this webpage instead of the 63. It is fairly similar in design. ) I will admit, even though this was on sale for an excellent price, I was hesitant about this purchase.

I consider myself an experienced backpacker.  ( Note: Experienced. Nothing close to expert though. )  I have carried a pack on countless hikes through the woods of Western PA and Southern Ohio. I have hiked part of the Northville-Placid Trail, the part through the Adirondack High Peaks, and I've done a section of the River-to-River Trail in southern Illinois. I first started backpacking as a Boy Scout and my first backpack was a Jansport which I still have. This is possibly why, to me, Jansport is an "entry brand" and I believe this is why I had some trepidation about this new backpack.

Please continue reading after the jump!

New Blog Page: Creating Custom GPS Maps

There's a new page on the blog!

Creating Custom GPS Maps

This page is going to be my repository for all GPS related posts that I do. As you can see I already have the links for the GPS mapping series there. In the near future I will be creating a quick reference PDF file for download.

That is about it for right now. Have a good day and remember if you see anything that needs clarification or just to give your 2 cents, please comment!

~Occasional Hyker

"Fun with Gear" or "Playing with your Junk"

Ok, the title is a bit 'tongue in cheek', to be sure, but I find tinkering with my backpacking gear very enjoyable. There is something about taking your gear out of storage, making sure everything is clean and in working order, then putting it all together into a better configuration than was before which I find extremely satisfying.

This past weekend I did a bit of pack maintenance. I removed the pack from the frame (yes, I'm still using an ancient external frame pack) and I used some silicone water repellant spray on the nylon bag. After the bag dried, I put it back on the frame, then went through my gear and refined it, cutting out whatever weight I could. (When you have a pack that weighs in at 10# empty, it helps to have a light gear list.)

Please continue reading after the jump

Plans for this spring: Cranberry Wilderness

Well, it is that time of year again, the air is warmer, the birds are returning and people like myself start making plans to head off into the woods again. This spring has found me dreaming of a "bucket list" hike.

Over ten years ago I read an article in Backpacker Magazine about the Cranberry Wilderness in the southern part of the Monongahela National Forest (MNF) ( You can find a more recent write up at Backpacker.com )  Please continue reading after the jump for more!

Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 5

This is Part 5 of a multi-part series on creating custom topographic maps for your hand held mapping GPS unit. For previous posts click one of the following:
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 1
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 2
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 3
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 4

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Creating Custom Topographic Maps
for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 5

Making your map work with Garmin MapSource

Well. I think we have come quite a long way. Let me just do a quick recap of what has happened so far:

1. Obtained the necessary FREE software.
2. Located and downloaded the map data that we needed.
3. Processed the map data. (For topography only)
4. Created the map.

In this post we will complete the following:

1. Convert the map into a Garmin Compatible format.
2. Load our converted map file into MapSource
3. Use MapSource to upload our map to our GPS Unit

Continue reading after the jump to complete your custom map for your hand held GPS unit!

Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 4

This is Part 4 of a multi-part series on creating custom topographic maps for your hand held mapping GPS unit. For previous posts click one of the following:
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 1
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 2
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 3

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Creating Custom Topographic Maps
for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 4

Working with GPSMapEdit

In the previous posts we downloaded terrain and water data from the USGS servers (Post #2) and manipulated our terrain data to give us shapefiles containing contour lines at 20', 100' & 200' intervals (Post #3). Now we are going to take those files and assemble them into a .mp map file. (Just a word of warning, this is going to be a rather involved post.) Our goal is to take our downloaded data and assemble it to create something that looks like this:

Now THAT looks like a map!

Continue reading after the jump to start assembling your own map!

Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 3

This is Part 3 of a multi-part series on creating custom topographic maps for your hand held mapping GPS unit. For previous posts click one of the following:
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 1
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 2

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Creating Custom Topographic Maps

for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 3

Manipulating Topographic Data

In the last post, Post #2, we downloaded topographical data from the USGS Seamless server. The data we downloaded is in the GeoTIFF format, and while it looks pretty cool, we need to convert that from a shaded picture to contour lines.

Pretty groovy, but you can't go orienteering with it.

To change that mess up there into contour lines we are going to use the FWTools software that we installed way back in Post #1, so please keep reading after the jump.

Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 2

This is Part 2 of a multi-part series on creating custom topographic maps for your hand held mapping GPS unit. For previous posts click one of the following:
Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 1

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Creating Custom Topographic Maps

for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 2

Finding and Downloading Data

In Part 1 we discussed the steps required to produce a topographic map for a mapping GPS unit and the tools we will use. In this post I will walk you though the process of downloading data from the internet.

For this tutorial I am going to create topographic maps with hydrography data. These maps will overlay the existing maps in your GPS unit, this way, if you have Garmin Street Navigator maps, you will still be able to see the Garmin Data beneath your custom map. I will eventually post an advanced How-To that includes the shape files for park boundaries, but this requires quite a bit more work and is not necessary for creating a basic topographic map.

Step two in our process is downloading data. We will start with the topographic data from the USGS after the jump.

Creating Custom Topographic Maps for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 1

Creating Custom Topographic Maps

for your Hand Held GPS Unit - Part 1

A Brief Introduction

So you just bought yourself that hand held GPS unit that you've been wanting. It looked so good in the store and it came in a very nice box with impressive and professional looking graphics on the outside. You, of course, pay little mind to the box as you open it up and extract your new toy. A mapping GPS unit! Now you have the power to always know just exactly where you are at all times and it fits into the palm of your hand!! Hurriedly you turn the unit on only to discover... the damn thing doesn't have hardly any detail on the base map. Now what?

Shiny and at the moment, useless.

Well Garmin is hoping that you will purchase map packs from them. I guess it is good for Garmin, I mean, when you buy the map packs from them you end up spending half again what the unit cost just to make it... well, usable. But what if I told you that you could create accurate, custom maps for your Garmin GPS unit and all it will cost you is some of your free time? Sounds great doesn't it? Well continue reading after the jump to learn how to create your very own completely customized maps for your GPS unit.

Raccoon Creek State Park, PA Backpacking - Appendix A

In my two previous posts about my overnight hike at Raccoon Creek State Park (Part One Here & Part Two Here) I mentioned that once we had arrived at the backpacking shelters our evening was fairly uneventful. Well, that was untrue, but the events of that evening had not much to do with my review of RCSP so I felt it only proper to leave them unmentioned until later. Now I'll iterate my misadventures of that evening.

I want to come back in the summer. This looks like a beautiful park!

After we had finally sorted out sleeping arrangements and gotten ourselves unpacked we set about to collect firewood. Not far from the firepit was a very conveniently downed tree. I grabbed my backpacking axe (it is a Gerber Camp Axe which I had bought from Smokey Mountain Knife Works while on my Honeymoon) and set to work chopping some limbs for our fire.

Two things to note: One, I keep that ax sharp. Extremely sharp. It is a light weight axe and as such it needs a sharp edge so that it bites into the wood. Two, it is a light axe; it will bounce off once in a while no matter how sharp you make it.

As I was chopping, the head bounced. It skipped off the log and I felt it hit my pinky finger on my left hand, then bump my left thigh. I looked, finger didn't hurt, pants were not cut, everything is good. I went back to chopping.

Blogging - More involved than I thought

Well, I did have the best intentions of being a regular blogger. I'm not giving up. I still enjoy coming up with stories and topics to write about and I have several partially written blog posts waiting to be finished. I didn't realize how much effort is required to put something like this together though. Free time is a precious commodity for me right now; school started back up last week and I am astounded at the amount of reading that is required for this semester. I'm already 2 weeks behind in my lecture note taking for both classes, though I do have most of my reading done for this week.

Then there's always the calls for PC help I get around this time of year. I really don't know why, but from September to January it seems like everyone I know calls for assistance with their computers. I walked in the door yesterday to a message on my answering machine from a fellow that I had entirely forgotten about. After not hearing from him for over three years he calls out of the blue for computer assistance. I arranged to help him out this coming Sunday, but I'm not sure my school work load will permit that. I'll have to see.

Speaking of PCs, my home computer is about eight or nine years old and I'm afraid it is starting to die. It is getting slower, the fans are making more racket and the power button is malfunctioning. I've always been suspicious of the motherboard. It is not properly shielded and I've always gotten odd electronic noise though the audio ports with it. It is worse with the on-board audio, but still present with the sound card that I am currently using. I have been snooping around the net looking for deals and I found a nice system at Newegg.com. All I have to do is figure out which of my orifices is containing an extra $1000.

Oh, another reason for less posting is I have had very few trips this year to post about. I was supposed to go backpacking this past weekend, but the Fates again conspired against me and my trip fell through. So I ended up setting the tent up in the backyard and sleeping outside with the kids. They had a blast, and admittedly I did too. Sometimes you need to find pleasure in the small things.

I do have a couple of trips brewing for the 2011 season. Hopefully I can pull some of them off. I'm trying my damnedest to hike either the Cranberry Wilderness or Dolly Sods in the Monongahela National Forest this spring. I've always wanted to hike the Cran and from what I hear Dolly Sods is spectacular. If I am to do this though I MUST get my sorry butt in gear and get fit this winter. I spend entirely too much time sitting on my ass. Time time time. That's the only thing I need more of in life.

So, this has been a bit of a ramble, but sometimes that is cathartic for the author. I'll have some more posts soon, until then take care.


Occasional Hyker

Bureaurcracy - A Creeping Menace

One of the pleasures I get from backpacking, or just being in the out-of-doors in general, is the feeling of freedom. To me being away from technology, the interconnectedness of the new world, and the press of society at large allows a burden to be lifted from my shoulders. Out in the wild areas you are beholden to no one. Your schedule is set by the sun and your stomach alone.

In this day and age, the ability to cast aside the yolk of society, even if temporarily, is a huge relief. It just seems that in day-to-day life the bureaucracy all around us is getting worse. I'm not making a comment on Democratic or Republican control of the government either. Bureaucracy is an ever growing phenomenon in our society that involves not only government, but corporations big and small. From going to see your doctor, to getting plates for your car, to trying to get adequate phone service, to making sure you are in compliance with regulations in our parks systems.

Just a quick update

It has been a very busy week for me. Sorry I have not had time to make more updates. I would like to let you know that I will have a friend guest blog once in a while, so if you see an update that is not mine, don't panic!!

Just to preview upcoming posts, I will finish my story about Raccoon Creek SP. I'm also planning on describing my hikes along the Northville-Placid Trail and my arduous trek along the River-to-River Trail in Southern Illinois. Both of these trips happened several years ago, so I have more research to do in order to describe them as accurately as possible. My memory, apparently, needs massaged.

I'm also planning a couple of posts about some canoe trips I have taken and a recent paddling trip I did. Look for some posts about gear. I am going to break down my gear and chronicle what I have and how I use it.

That is all I have for now. Have a good Friday everyone and an excellent weekend!

Breaking the Fourth Wall

The Internet is truly an amazing creation on many many different levels. The biggest one being that it works at all. It is a hodgepodge of switches and routers, a world wide tangle of trunk lines with redundancies and multiple failure points. A network containing a network containing a network with each network having different ownership and different architects. Honestly, the fact that a data packet can be sent from a PC in South Asia and find its way to a server in the US just amazes me. As my friend J so succinctly puts it:

"I can't believe this sh*t actually works!"

Ok, back to my title. Breaking the fourth wall is defined by Wikipedia as:

The presence of the fourth wall is an established convention of modern realistic theatre, which has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic or comedic effect when this boundary is "broken", for example by an actor onstage speaking to the audience directly.

Link

So in keeping with my title, I present to you, a screen-shot of my blog tracking stats.

It seems that the majority of you out there are Firefox users like myself. There are a couple Unix users and one iPhone browser so far.

I want to thank you, my reader for being here and reading my blog. I started Occasional Hyker just a few weeks ago and, as you can see, I have already had hits from as far away as Germany and South Africa.

Thank you again!
Have a great evening everyone!

Occasional Hyker

Backpacking Gear - An Introduction

Like all popular hobbies, backpacking has a whole industry grown up around it. Gone are the days of handmade wooden frame packs and old army surplus rucksacks (though the latter are seeing a revival). Today the avid backpacker has much more variety to choose from. Internal or external frame (if you can find one)? Boots or trail shoes? Trail sandals?!? Titanium or aluminum? Backpacking Espresso maker?!?!

There are so many options out there with respect to gear and so much marketing involved muddling the waters that it is near impossible, in my opinion, to find the "right" gear to have. I have read articles, endless forum threads, countless blogs and the one overriding conclusion that I have come to with regard to finding the "right" gear to have is: There is no "right" gear to have, there is only the "right" gear for you.

Had a long weekend - Here's some links.

I had a long weekend, which I will write about soon. In the meantime, here's some links to other sites I enjoy.

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The Nutnfancy Project:
http://www.youtube.com/user/nutnfancy

This guy has great gear reviews. Very prolific. He's more of a para-military style backpacker so if you do not want to know about firearms, please don't visit. I like his stuff though.

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Northeast Ohio Backpacking Club:
http://www.neohbackpackingclub.com/gpsLib.aspx

This is the NEO BP club's repository of GPX tracks. Great resource for trails in Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and parts of West Virginia. There are also some other trails stuck in there.

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Mohican Memorial State Forest
http://www.backpackohio.com/mohican.html

Did you know that Mohican State Park had a backpacking trail? Neither did I until I found this site. I've been to the lodge several times, but I have yet to try out this area for backpacking. Trust me, it is on the "To-Do" list.

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Backpack the Cuyahoga Valley National Park
http://www.nps.gov/cuva/cuyahoga-valley-ed-venture-group.htm
http://www.cvnpa.org/ExtraordinarySpaces/OtherServices.aspx <-- See bottom of page!

The Park service just recently added backpacking to the list of activities that you can participate in within the boundaries of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I love hiking in the CVNR so I am looking into backpacking there as well. Check out this link!

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Midatlantichikes.com
http://www.midatlantichikes.com/

This is a great resource for trail reviews and GPX files for trails in the Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia area.

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That's it for now. I will be posting again soon.

Raccoon Creek State Park, PA Backpacking - Part Two

In part one, I had left off with our tired party just arriving at the Pioneer Camp area. Pioneer is located off of the Appaloosa Trail, which is what the Forest Trail is called once it crosses the bridge on Nichol Road. The spur trail for Pioneer leads you into an open area surrounded by different group campsites.

We dropped our packs and took a look around. Pit latrine, check. Water pump, check. Shelters... shelters... shelters... shelters... Since we didn't have a Simone handy, there was no one to explain to us where the shelters were. No obvious signs pointed to where they may be located. We looked, walked the perimeter of the camp area, we even wandered down a nearby path. Nothing.

Raccoon Creek State Park, PA Backpacking - Part One

In late fall 2009 I had a chance to go backpacking with my sister-in-law, her soon to be husband and my friend W, the former marine. I had been searching around the Internet for some backpacking areas that were closer to me than the Allegheny National Forest and I discovered Raccoon Creek State Park near Hookstown, Pennsylvania.

Raccoon Creek is located about 24 miles west of downtown Pittsburgh, just south of the Ohio River and very near the border of West Virginia. It is a 7500+ acre park that contains Raccoon Lake. The park features both standard drive-in camping facilities and a 19 mile backpacking trail. The backpacking trail has two designated camping areas along it, Sioux and Pioneer, and both feature pit latrines, potable water and three sided "lean-to" sleeping shelters.

550 Cord (aka Paracord) Bracelets

If you have been nosing around outdoor lifestyle websites recently you may have seen someone wearing a braided bracelet or wristband. So, what the heck is that all about? The recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have seen many of our military personnel deployed overseas in both hostile and challenging territory. Some of our soldiers have taken to wearing bracelets made of 550 cord, also commonly known as paracord. As any survivalist out there will tell you a good knife and a length of cord can go a long way in keeping you alive if you find yourself in a survival situation.

The Zaleski Backpacking Trail - Beautiful Misery

Thanks to Facebook (a website that I loath, but still get too much benefit from to ditch completely) I was able to reconnect with a college acquaintance whom is an enthusiastic outdoorsman. Through some Facebook messages and some IM conversations I was able to get myself invited to go along on a backpacking trip he was planning. This was to take place in April of 2009.

I was extremely excited. This would be my first backpacking trip in several years. I immediately started digging through all of my equipment. I got my pack out and sleeping bag. I discovered what equipment I had and what I had lost in our last two moves. I also purchased some new gear; an MSR Blacklite Gourmet Cookset and the MSR Alpine Kitchen Set.