Plannin’ for the JMT

Well… this is cool. I used to backpack as a kid. Actually, I kinda grew up in the woods. It wasn’t that I backpacked. I just wore a pack to take the stuff I needed to be where I was.

I suppose this idea followed me around. My pack increased in size to a Honda CRX… then came a wife and kids and the pack became an apartment and then a house… and the woods bit kinda went away.

After the mountains and the backpack came the CRX and a ski town… then the CRX and surfing… then the aforementioned wife and kids.

I don’t want to sound like the wife and kids took these things away from me. We camp and stuff, but it is far less of a lifestyle than it used to be. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just the way it is.

Now a co-worker of my wife’s, who has also become a mutual friend, mentioned that he was walking the JMT. The what? The John Muir Trail. He is recreating a trip from his past and put word out that he’d like company if anyone would like to walk some of the trail with him.

Well, hell yeah! My wife knows I need something like this. I’ve been an at home parent for a long time and complain about never getting any time off. 7 days in the wilderness without any family responsibility (other than to stay alive) is exactly what I need.

Now I get to start planning what I’ll be packing. I never used to plan. I’d grab the pack and toss in the necessities and start walking… but I’m a lot older and softer now. I probably feel I need far more than I used to … and I’m far-less capable of carrying it. So… a little planning is in order.

One thing I’m thinking of is what I’m using right now. I’m typing with a portable keyboard and my Kindle fire… Not exactly light… but probably the same as a notebook… the kind with paper and a spiral… I have a solar lantern (tiny) that has a battery that can recharge the kindle… so I may take this rig along to write.

Anyway… thinking about that made me want to test it out… and thus, this blog entry was born…

So… after I don’t know how long, Pangea Native is back on the air.