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[Chris-STL]

update from the woods!

so after 7 miles yeste day and 11 today on some of the most rocky trail i've ever encountered, i'm pretty much busted. feet are killing me, and my knees are saying enough!

still i'm sitting here in a nice strong cool breeze, a sky full of stars, and a crackling fire. oh, and my phone even has an internet connection!

[RacerBill]

Originally Posted by Chris-STL

still i'm sitting here in a nice strong cool breeze, a sky full of stars, and a crackling fire. oh, and my phone even has an internet connection!

The wonders of technology! Even in the middle of nowhere your forum buddies are right there with you.

Sounds like a great time out there!

[K-Court]

Originally Posted by Chris-STL

My wife stayed in nanaimo. She thinks that trail goes close by, but was never on it. She loved that place though, so I can only imagine how cool it would be to get off the beaten path.

Nanaimo is on the east coast of Vancouver Island, whereas the West Coast Trail is on the more rugged (and less populated) west coast facing the Pacific Ocean. The week-long hike is sort of the "300 challenge" of hiking in these parts, I would say. Here's a description and a link for more info. Like I said, it sounds like it would be right up your alley. I haven't done it myself though I know friends that have. Not for the faint of heart. It is on my list of "must do's" before I die.

"The third unit of the Pacific Rim National Park, the West Coast Trail, includes the section of coast southeast of Barkley Sound between the villages of Bamfield and Port Renfrew. This 25,640 hectare strip contains the 75 kilometre (46 mile) historic West Coast Trail constructed for the rescue of shipwrecked mariners.
This trail largely retraces an old telegraph route first established in 1890 and follows a rugged shoreline where approximately 66 ships have met their demise along this stretch of the "Graveyard of the Pacific". The topography ranges from sandy beaches to rocky headlands and wide sandstone ledges. Caves, arches, tidal pools and waterfalls add variety to the shoreline.

The land of the West Coast Trail unit is temperate coastal rainforest dominated by old growth spruce, hemlock and cedar. Some of the tallest and largest trees in Canada are known to be on or in the vicinity of the West Coast Trail. "

http://www.westcoasttrailbc.com/index.html

[lance02]

Sounds like a fun trip Chris.

[Chris-STL]

I'm back! Other than the bottoms of my feet being a bit sore, and an aching hip, I'm no worse for wear. the trip was pretty uneventful actually. I'll work up a full trip report sometime in the next few days.

K-Court: That sounds awesome! I'd love to do that trail. I am guessing there are shuttles that will take you up and drop you off? How remote is it? Is it all backwoods? Or does it go through some towns too?

[K-Court]

Chris, yes, there are shuttles to and from the towns at either end of the trail. You take a passenger ferry from the north trail head to the nearby town. It's quite remote - there's no towns at all on the trail itself. The trail in fact was first established to provide access to people who were shipwrecked along the west coast. Anyway, you pack in and pack out everything (and I mean EVERYTHING), and once you're on the trail, you have to finish. The real challenge can be the weather. Being on the Pacific west coast, you're open to storms and the rainfall can be horrific. Even in the summer, you could find yourself in rain the entire way - which would be pretty miserable. But if you like untouched wilderness, you're not going to see much better.

[Chris-STL]

Sounds great! I don't mind packing everything as long as there is water available to filter along the way (which doesn't seem to be a problem) everything else is pretty easy.

[Chris-STL]

Weight this morning was 205.2, but BF was 19%. I'm sure this was affected by the drastic changes during my trek over the weekend. I usually stuff my face with pasta every night on the trail then pass out. The calories burnt have to be astronomical though. I'm interested to see if it normalizes out next week or if it will carry over some.

Tonights workout starts crossfit.

10Min of IO (my body cracked and poped like crazy. that pack must have done a number on it.)

Five rounds for max reps of:
Body weight bench press (205)
Pull-ups

10/10
1min rest
6/6
2min rest
5/6
2min rest
3/5
2min
4/5 (not sure how the hell my reps went up...)

Time 14:15

That was pretty interesting. Hurt alot worse than I expected. Skipping any hiit tonight to give my feet one more day to heal up.

[Chris-STL]

Had a good lunch workout today. Legs still are missing some stamina (either from the hike or from the dificulty I have been having getting back on track nutritionaly.)

ATG Squat
8x175
6x205
4x225
1x245 (failed second rep)

Front Squat
8x125
8x125
8x125

DB Lunge
8x45
8x45
8x45

[gregl515]

Excellent workouts! I was intrigued to see you were able to do more pullups than bench presses on the 10 x 10.

[Chris-STL]

Thanks!

Those were pullups too, which are much worse than my Chins. Dunno, i've always liked doing them I guess.

[Chris-STL]

Crossfit again tonight. My son was timing and tracking me and he shorted me 1 set of pushups and 1 set of situps. I don't really mind though, I was about crying by the end.

Complete 32 intervals of 20 seconds of work followed by ten seconds of rest where the first 8 intervals are pull-ups, the second 8 are push-ups, the third 8 intervals are sit-ups, and finally, the last 8 intervals are squats. There is no rest between exercises.

Chins
9 5 3 2 2 3 2 2
Pushups
14 10 6 6 6 6 7
Situps
10 7 5 8 5 6 6
Squats
10 11 8 8 10 9 12 13

[Chris-STL]

Trip Report
Ozark Trail
Highway N to Highway DD

When I was in the beginning stages of a 2 night backpacking trip I said to my self…”Self, to hell with the heat, lets hike when it’s nice and cool out! The 3rd weekend in Oct should do it. Lots of color in the trees, beds of soft leaves to sleep on, brisk days for hiking…perfect!” Oh if only it was that perfect.



Starting out on Saturday Morning we caught the shuttle from the DD parking lot to the temporary Hwy A drop off. It was a nice cool morning, but the forecast was calling for highs in the 80’s. Yuk… I had also intentionally weighted down my pack some, starting weight was 39.2 lbs before water. Mojo (my dog!) started out with about 6 lbs. I figured if mine got too heavy, I’d just swap packs with him…



At about 9am on Saturday we finally hit the trail. The climb up Goggins Mountain was a hell of a wake up call for legs that hadn’t packed since May. It always amazes me how quickly you start to feel it out there, and then, just as quickly, you fall into the rhythm of just putting one foot in front of the other.



After a few miles, we were rewarded by our first glade. It was a about lunch time (and I was ready for a break!) so we located a nice rock to eat (nap!) on. We also took some time to marvel in the views of this glade, as well as explore it some. It was somewhere about here that I noticed most of the trees were still green. Leaves were turning and falling, but not at the rate that they should be. As I thought about this for awhile, the reason stuck me, “Damn, we are standing in the sun and its 80 degrees out here!” I don’t think I stopped sweating the rest of the trip…



After a 7 mile hike over Goggins Mountain, we found a very nice spot down by Padfield branch. It was in between the branch and a small spring branch. Preloaded with wood and a fire ring! Yays! It was pretty early (3:00) when we made it to camp, but I was already rippin tired. Maybe the lack of sleep that week finally caught up to me. I rolled out the Thermarest and caught a nice nap right there. After the nap, we had some time to filter water, take a nice bath, cook dinner, and pretty much go back to sleep. Pretty sure it was 7:30 or 8 when I crawled in the tent.



The next morning, I woke up in a pool of sweat (told you I never stopped). It only got down to 60 both nights, just not cold enough for a sound night sleep out in the woods. We broke camp late (10:00) and proceeded to hike over Bell Mountain. More glades, more sun, more heat, at least the wind was blowing! We managed to make it to Ottery Creek about 1:00 for a break and some lunch. I think I ate too much… Or filtered too much water… because the climb up the hill from Ottery was hell. I swear I was dragging 3 sleds and a drunken elephant (I don’t know where he came from) up that god forsaken hill.



Now we had planned on making it to Peter cave hollow then trying to find a spot to camp. There wasn’t much there (it was pretty grown up) and since it was only like 2:30, we pushed on for the next spot. This was apparently a funny joke on us. 4 miles later we found a pseudo abandoned road just before panther branch and just dropped our stuff right there. Looks like a camp site to me! We did meet some nice mountain bikers along the way though, as well as some very nice equestrians (the horses didn’t really like us, which was odd, because the mountain bikes were calm as could be…). They gave us a couple bottles of water (we made Mojo carry them) though, which really came in handy since we didn’t camp on the water. I did hike down to panther branch and fill up Sunday night, but it was nice to have some extra water volume available.



Ya know, there is just something about a long days hike, followed by a damn good meal. I had even brought a dessert I found in a backpackers cookbook .We pretty much just ate ourselves silly and passed out. It was too hot that night as well, but I think I was just too tired and too full to care.



The hike out the next day was indeed short. We broke camp early, and then hiked down to Panther branch to eat some breakfast and filter a tad of water. We then began the hike back to our car. We were done by 11:00am, plenty of time to make it to Potosi for some burgers!



Overall it was a good trip. The area was amazing in its rugged beauty, but really gave us a challenge with all the loose rock, as well as the heat. The new shuttle service and trip planner made it almost too easy to plan the trip. All we had to do was drive down there by 7:45 in the morning. No shuttling cars, no manually figuring out distances between points, great stuff.

Till next time!
Chris

[Chris-STL]

K now that I have the report finished, I did workout at lunch too.

Chest was hurting a bit from the crossfit stuff, so my bench kinda sucked.

Bench
8x205
4x225
2x235

1 Arm DB Bench
8x55
8x55
8x55

DB Military Press
8x40
7x40
6x40

[stingo]

Great report and pics Chris. Sorry the weather wasn't optimal for hiking/camping, but I suppose it's better than rain.

[L'ilJ]

Great pics. The trip looked awesome. We've had unseasonably warm weather this Fall too. A couple weeks ago I took my son to the "Fall Festival" at his school and it was in the 90s. It's finally settling into cooler weather this week and the trees are finally turning. Crazy.

Oh, nice dog!

[Chris-STL]

Thanks guys! It was a pretty fun time. The weather here is turning cooler too. This weekend would be a perfect weekend to backpack. Missed it by 1 week! =-)

Mojo seems to find his way into like 75% of my pictures.

Oh yeah. Crossfit workout tonight.

Three rounds for time of:
Run 800 meters
50 Back Extensions
50 Sit-ups

Time : 32:46

My legs are screaming at me right now. Gonna need a rest day soon!