Backcountry Gear Check

Ready to go.

As the first winter Nor'Easter of this season bears down on us it's time to make sure you have all the equipment needed for your backcountry adventures.

Bolton Backcountry Fundraiser This Wednesday (11/07/2012)

If you're a fan of the Bolton Backcountry, like we are, here's your opportunity to make sure those lands remain accessible to the public.

Gear Review: EMS Power Dry 1/4 Zip

The EMS Power Dry 1/4 Zip

My friends over at Eastern Mountain Sports sent me one of their Power Dry 1/4 Zip shirts a couple months ago and asked me to let them know what I thought about it.

This had the potential of posing an ethical dilemma.  What if I hated the damned thing?  What if it was a piece of crap that immediately settled on the bottom of my drawer?  What if it put a pox on humanity and brought about the apocalypse?  What would I do?  Say nothing?  Write a scathing review?
Luckily, my potential moral pickle was avoided when I discovered I actually liked it.

CircumBurke 2012

The course map. Of course.

Twenty four miles.  Three thousand feet of climbing.  Bridgeless stream crossings. A soul-crushing twelve-hundred foot, three and a half mile 7% grade climb straight out of the starting gate.  Speeds approaching 30 mph down a glorified streambed covered with leaves.  Twisty singletrack up the side of a mountain that makes FOMBA look like an airport runway.  And let’s not forget the half-dozen or so mud pits big enough to make your redneck friends build a bonfire, buy a case of beer and make a mess of their favorite truck.

These are the foes that line up to do battle with your psyche when you step up to the start of the CircumBurke ride. 

Biking Bondcliff

My White Whale

Waterlogged and exhausted from close to 25 miles and 8,000 feet of hiking in the rain with a 30 pound pack it was all I could do to put one blistered foot in front of the other.  Lower back spasms brought me to my knees more than once, but each time I managed to climb back upright on my cramped legs and push on in the rain.

It was the second day of Gered’s bachelor party weekend.  Our motley crew of hikers had set out the previous day from the Lincoln Woods visitors’ center intent on completing the famed loop around the Pemigewasset Wilderness. We were supposed to climb up onto the Franconia ridge, march past Garfield and eventually descend down off of Bondcliff. 

We had failed miserably.  And now the Wilderness Trail was having its way with us.

Whipple Hill in Photos

Not far from the entrance to Whipple Hill in Lexington, MA
it becomes clear that you've left suburbia.