Monthly Archives: December 2019

Trip Reports

TR-Guadalupe Peak February 2000

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This is mostly a stub, holding a spot for a more complete trip report later. I don’t have all the photos from that trip digitized yet but am in the process of doing so.

After two previous hikes up to the summit of Texas’ highest point, I realized that the spectacular vista from the top of Texas was not that spectacular under the midday sun. So I resolved to make a summit trip that was a backpack, including a night at the backcountry site “near” (a mile away from) the summmit and spend the dawn hour photographing the views.

Hiking, Places, To-Do

To-Do hikes

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Marcus/Bush Mtn Trail

I really want to finish up all the hiking trails in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I’ve never been up the Permian Geology trail to the Wilderness Ridge BC site. I’ve never been up/down the Marcus trail, nor the northwest corner of the Bush Mountain trail.

  • Map of GUMO north
    Map of GUMO north

I want to do the loop of Marcus trail/Blue Ridge/Bush mountain to finish up that corner of the park. It’s the least used bit of trail in the park I believe. I actually did do the Blue Ridge section back in the 1980s; even have a backcountry permit for Blue Ridge backcountry site but I didn’t use it. I just hiked out from I think Mescalero to Blue Ridge to Bush Mountain and back to Pine Top.

I will start in Dog Canyon, thence to Marcus, and the only question is whether to do the loop clockwise or counter-clockwise.

  • 3.5 mi. –Dog Canyon CG to Marcus Trail jct
  • 0.2 mi. –Marcus Jct to Marcus BC site
  • 3.7 mi. –Marcus BC to Blue Ridge Jct
  • 0.5 mi. –Blue Ridge Jct to Blue Ridge BC site
  • 1.2 mi. –Blue Ridge BC to Marcus Jct
  • 3.8 mi. –Marcus Jct to Marcus Jct
  • 3.5 mi. –Marcus Jct to Dog Canyon CG
  • 16.4 miles total loop
Gear

New Gear: Tent MSR Hubba Hubba NX (2019)

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Hubba Hubba NX (2019)

$299 from Enwild (formerly Backcountry Edge)

This was a really good price on a pretty much state of the art tent. It’s not super light, but I thought I’d give it a try. If I want to go really light and am confident in the weather, I’ll just use my bivy. The Hubba Hubba will be for times when I really want to bring a tent.

I seam sealed the fly myself. I set it up a few times to familiarize myself with it. It was a little confusing because the instructions included refer to the previous version of the tent which had a bit different looking tent pole spoke and also color coded webbed straps; this one has NO color coding, which is fine, except I kept comparing the instructions to how my tent looked and finally asked MSR support about it; whoever handles the MSR social media support link had no idea what I was talking about and kept telling me “No, you don’t need color coding!” (The instructions shouldn’t say so then, if you ask me.)

Gear

New Gear: Cookset

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I recently bought a couple of new cooksets; one more for camping, one for backpacking.

MSR Trail Mini Duo

MSR mini duo

From backcountry.com $49.95.

I was looking for something strictly for backpacking that would meet my specific requirements/preferences. Light and functional and easily packable. My current ones are 15-20 years old, one is stainless one is titanium, but neither are quite what I want. (I use the titanium non-stick for my car-camping nowadays.) I almost never bring a white gas stove any more. And I haven’t cooked anything (in the backcountry) that required more than simply boiling water in over twenty years.

So I saw a decent review on outdoorgearlab for this MSR Trail Mini Duo, and snapped one up. It’s designed to hold everything internally, including pressured gas canister and stove. One user complained that the synthetic upper ring melted. I’ll update this after trying it out in the field.

Bugaboo Base Camper (Large) from GSI

GSI Bugaboo Basecamper
GSI Bugaboo Basecamper

https://gsioutdoors.com/bugaboo-base-camper-large-four-person-camp-cookset.html

I got this more for car-camping. And a easy to pack frying pan with a lid that fits; all I have otherwise is a heavy frying pan and a very heavy glass lid, both awkward to tote around, even for car camping cooking.

Although I haven’t used it yet I can already report that I broke the little folding handle on the top of the largest lid the first time I took it out of the box, so yeah it’s pretty flimsy.

UPDATE: The local REI replaced the cookset with the broken orange plastic handle. But beware; the “new” set they gave me didn’t have the included potholder. Good thing I double-checked before leaving the store.