Story:
In the works for two years this trip was. I knew the moment I hiked out in 2010 that I had to return with my own Eastern friends. More I thought would come, but commitments and availability just got in the way. Turned out well as that left room to invite new people to the adventure, and that is just what I did.
April 1st dawned not as cold as originally expected; A plus!! That meant that everyone slept warmly and awoke fresh and ready for the start. We got going at first light but there was a lot to do still. Though food had all been purchased, and bulk ingredients divided into gallon ziplocks, none of this had been distributed yet, and people were making final decisions on what clothing they would actually need inside the Canyon. Judgements cannot be made based on the rim temps.
Another necessity that needed work was transferring the Scotch and Port to non-glass containers. Between my 500ml Nalgenes, Larry's two flexible 500ml pouches and the Aluminum 500ml gift bottle from Larry we got all the Scotch taken care of. For the Port I rinsed two empty 16oz Gatorade bottles and filled them. I finished that up while everyone broke camp and Walt got the fire going again for breakfast.
A bonus track for me on this trip was the opportunity to see an old friend from Penn State that I haven't seen since I got married. Susan Bellew (Chambers) took the site next to us with her ten year old daughter Tia. Susan and I did a lot of riding together and even backpacked most of Vermont together. She brought me a present of Hershey chocolate pieces for Alyson's and my consumption (I chose to share this treat with the others). Susan looked great and I hope it is not twenty seven years before I see her again.
Finally we got ourselves packed, food and drink distributed, questions answered (With Mike there are always questions to answer), water amounts figured, the cars packed, goodbyes to Susan and Tia made, and off we went to park the cars and catch the shuttles. Though there are specific parking lots for back country hikers, Walt likes to park in the Bright Angel Trail head cabin area. This seems to work out fine when you hike out the Bright Angel, but I didn't see really how it was an advantage to us this time as we were entering on The South Kaibab, and exiting on The Hermit. But park there we did, donned our packs, extended our poles and walked to the shuttle station.
A little word about weight. My brother-in-law Walt prides himself in packing light, and light he seems to get at around 30 pounds + or -. That is pack, bag, tent, clothing, and food amongst other essentials. That is really very light, and to be admired. I on the other hand seemed to have put about twenty pounds onto my internal body frame since two years ago, and I lug around what Walt likes to call "The Condo": a Kelty Tioga external frame pack that looks huge empty. Of course I load it up carrying in a tent I don't intend to use (five lbs.), sleeping bag (which actually is pretty light as it has lost nearly half the original goose down over the last 35 years (18th Birthday present from my Dad (Thanks Dad!))), large thin stainless steel 6l pot with a ss coffee cup, and ss Sierra Cup, clothing bag (stuffed with clothes that I don't all use), food, scotch, fuel, camera, etc, etc, etc. All done my pack comes in at close to fifty pounds + or -. Maybe more, as I stuffed anything leftover that I thought we should have like an unclaimed quick oats bag. Walt rolled his eyes when he lifted my pack.
To get to The South Kaibab Trailhead, we needed to take two shuttles: The Village Loop Shuttle, and the Kaibab Shuttle. Who should our Village Loop driver be other than Roy, the Hermits Rest shuttle driver that Walt had talked up two years prior. I made the introductions again, and it wasn't long before latent neural connections formed two years ago suddenly had cranial juices flowing to them again and Roy said, "Yeah, I remember you two. Part of a group of six that went in the Hermit Trail." and we had a lovely shuttle ride with Roy again. He made sure we got off at the right stop and told us where to wait for the next Kaibab shuttle. Our goodbyes said, we parted till the next time. Thanks Roy.
Our next driver wasn't as receptive to Walt's charms and we were glad to reach the trailhead. Crowded it was not, but breezy it was. Partly cloudy day with well formed cotton-ball clusters, and temperatures in the high 40's. Very nice in the sun, but a little cool in the shade. Anyway, final bathroom visits made and we migrated to the top of the trail and assembled for our parting group shot. Walt did us the honors of snapping everyone's camera, and with hand shakes and fist pumps we were off.
The South Kaibab is what they call a "Corridor Trail" meaning that it is built for heavy traffic. Heavy in regards to foot traffic volume, and heavy related to Mule Trains. There are three kinds of mule trains: Phantom Ranch/Park Service supply trains; People Mover trains; Maintenance trains. There is usually one descending people train and one ascending people train per day. Phantom Ranch is supplied every three days, with each returning train hauling trash. The park service has trains contracted to haul in and out supplies and trash from its operations as well. Finally, heavy materials needed for maintenance are brought in and out as well.
So these corridor trails have to take a pounding, and there needs to be enough room for people and these trains to pass safely. The standard is people yield to the trains by standing to the inside of the trail and the animals pass on the outside. One statistic I heard was that of the people carrying mules, there hasn't been a single accident/fatality involving these mules in the 100 plus year operational lifetime of this service. Zero. The people mules are well trained and have to carry freight for five years before they can move up to people. These mules have to demonstrate that they will not react to Rattlesnakes other than to stop and wait for the snake to clear the path. Horses? over the side in second. They lost a young pack mule ten days ago. Fortunately it did not fall on anyone below, and eventually became carrion for the fledgling California Condor re-introduction program in operation at the Grand Canyon.
It should be noted that there never were California Condors in the Grand Canyon, but there is evidence that there was a thriving Condor population there ten thousand years ago when the ice started to retreat further north. Note that I am not saying there were glaciers at the Grand Canyon (There weren't), just that the climate was better and there were more animals, and there were Condors. Whether they shared a common ancestor with the California, I know not, but as there are no other Condors anywhere, the Canyon seemed like the right place to try and establish a new community.
The South Kaibab starts with a quick descent over a number of switchbacks and quickly enters the shade of a West-facing wall, which at the top is Yaki Point. After a little at-grade following (meaning foloowing the grade contours), it again descends over switchbacks to Cedar Ridge, and as you come out from the protection of the Yaki Point wall, the Canyon starts to open up below you. Some more at-grade follows along the ridge, losing elevation, until you come across O'Neill Butte, which we descend around on the East side. Here is where we start to get a feel for the power of the wind gusts that day.
Free of O'Neill, we again are walking the ridge dropping until we come to a lovely large open area with a great view, and a place to rest before descending the next set of switchbacks. We are down to 5200' already after starting from 7175. Here we take the opportunity to break out Walt's Terrible Towel for a photo op. For those who know nothing of The Terrible Towel please refer to here. Walt has a Mount Everest Base Camp trek that spans 20 plus days in April and May, and he asked the Terrible Towel Right's owners for a towel, which they provided gladly as long as he photographed it everywhere he went. So we pulled it out here, and snapped some shots. As it so happens, Drew Butler traveling with us is a Steeler' fan, and was giddy to pose with the towel. See photos. Was not long before "Oh my god! If my girlfriend was here she would scream! Please take my picture with The Terrible Towel." and so we found more Steelers fans, and unfortunately one Dallas fan. We ran into here again at the Phantom Ranch canteen later that night.
Towel pics taken, it was time to descend to our next stop where we would have lunch. That turned out to be at about 4600', sitting on a ledge facing East with a wide view of the Eastern Tonto, and a nice view of Zoraster Temple on the North side of the canyon. We packed in Bagel Sandwiches of Turkey/Roast Beef/Lox and cheese. Walt carried down a bag of Clementines and hauled all the peels out. Sweet and tart at the same time those Clems were. Yum.
It was time to say goodbye to Walt and Bernie (No I haven't said much about Bernie, but Bernie came along to keep Walt company and help out. Thanks Bernie!) so they could return to the rim and drive back to Phoenix. We continued down to the Tonto Plateau. The legs were a little stiff, and we started to see the group stretch out a little. As I was always taking pictures, I was bringing up the rear. There was a composting toilet at the intersection of The Tonto Trail, and The South Kaibab. Also there were hitches to tie the mules to, though none were there at the time. From the Tonto we could see the trail far below in a red dirt section. It wouldn't be long before we were there, and we took in the large bowl the fell off to the South at The Tipoff. Here, though the platform was wide, the drop off at the edge seemed like a couple of hundred feet. It made me dizzy to look over the edge. We were atop a white limestone cap that descended into red limestone that was very granular, and the trail was a nice steady descending slope that lost another 600' by the other side of the bowl, where for the first time we got views of The Black Bridge, and the Rafter's Beach down on the Colorado.
We still needed to lose 1000' of elevation, and it was done very quickly over the course of lots of switchbacks. It was along this section that out-of-sight to everyone, Greg's left foot failed to clear his right foot, and forward he fell into the trail. With his hand extended, he fortunately did not break anything, but he scraped and cut himself up pretty good and required a fair amount of band-aides to cover all of his wounds. He cleaned up nicely in camp and seemed well the rest of the trip.
Every corner turned brought The Black Bridge closer, and a group of colorful rafts at the beach into focus. Once at the bottom, access to the bridge is through a long unlit tunnel where upon you exit directly onto the bridge proper. Happy we were to be down. All that was left was to finish the final 1/2 mile to Bright Angle Campground, and select a site. This we did, passing off-shoots to the beach, and some archeological sites just off the trail. The Silver Bridge is visible to the West, and we came into the camp site area. The group sites were all on the West side of Bright Angel Creek, so we crossed and found our first surprise. Flush Toilets. Apparently the traffic through this part of the inner canyon is the heaviest, and so there is a small treatment plant, and flush toilets. Very nice.
It's fair to say that at this point of the trip we have descended into the base rock for the canyon. Down here the base rock lies at almost 90 degrees, and is mostly various forms of granite. The trail on the west side skirts a cut in the wall (No stopping because of falling rock) and emerges into a flood plain set of group camp sites. By some miracle, the one site that has a roof over three stone floors is unoccupied, and into it we go. First things off are of course the packs. Second things are the boots, quickly replaced by light sandals or for those that read my prep notes: Crocs! Oh so light and comfy they are, and perfect for camp. Socks off, you can walk right into the creek with them. That cold water on tired feet is a feeling that is difficult to describe.
With the solid floors, and large area, the only member wanting to erect his tent was Mike. He just likes to have four walls around him. Me? Give me the open ground and I am a happy camper. It wasn't long before the ranger came by to check in and we quickly found that I forgot to do one thing, which of course implied something more than what was in fact reality. See, I did read the whole permit, and I did disseminate that information to my group via my FB group page, and I talked to it on the descent. But, because I failed to follow instructions and actually sign the permit, the ranger assumed that I didn't read it at all, so this of course gave him the opportunity to tell us how important a clean camp was. No problem. We had time to listen to Ranger Bob.
See, these sites get a lot of volume. People who use them bring a lot of food. There are a lot of critters that find it easier to pilfer some quick goodies from foolish hikers, than to look to nature for sustenance, so a clean camp is necessary. That means immediately removing all food from packs and placing in the provided steel containers in every site. We had 8 of these at our site. Next, open all pockets in your pack. If a pocket is open they will crawl in to inspect. If it is closed, then will chew their way in. All plastic bags, whether they have food in them or not go into the canisters. Bags have a food association, and critters will steal empty unused bags. None in the tents.
With this done we could almost relax. We still needed to extract our sleeping pads, and the chair frames that turn those sleep pads into comfy back supported padded seats. Once that was completed, it was time that we broke out the first 500ml Nalgene bottle of Scotch and take some "pulls". Ahh what a delicious treat!
Dinners. How we did dinners was I bought 8 varieties, 5 each of Alpine Aire dehydrated meals. Add two cups boiling water, wait 12-15 minutes, enjoy. There is some stirring that has to be done otherwise you done get water where water needs to get to. The convenience of just heating water cannot be overstated. We eat out of the package, so nothing to clean except your spork, and that you can lick clean. Once you are done, press out the air, wrap it up, seal it and stick it in a garbage bag to be hauled out. Simple!. Nothing too exciting about boiling water, just get it out of the wind so the burner can do its job.
Our last treat of the night awaited us at The Phantom Ranch Canteen. It re-opens at 8PM for 2 hours, and they have cold beer. Only two varieties: Bud, and Tecate, but beer it is, and cold it is, and desired it was. We were there at 7:50 and were amongst the first in. Larry picked up the first 8 and we carried them back to our table. We had the Dallas fan at the table behind us, and the Thesehorns next to us. We would see these Thesehorns again on the morrow fly fishing in Bright Angel Creek. All told we went through about 5-6 beers that night and wandered back in the moonlight to our camp where we relaxed a wee bit more and then laid out our bags, crawled in, and called our first done.
For more pictures see my facebook page for Day 1.
In the works for two years this trip was. I knew the moment I hiked out in 2010 that I had to return with my own Eastern friends. More I thought would come, but commitments and availability just got in the way. Turned out well as that left room to invite new people to the adventure, and that is just what I did.
April 1st dawned not as cold as originally expected; A plus!! That meant that everyone slept warmly and awoke fresh and ready for the start. We got going at first light but there was a lot to do still. Though food had all been purchased, and bulk ingredients divided into gallon ziplocks, none of this had been distributed yet, and people were making final decisions on what clothing they would actually need inside the Canyon. Judgements cannot be made based on the rim temps.
Another necessity that needed work was transferring the Scotch and Port to non-glass containers. Between my 500ml Nalgenes, Larry's two flexible 500ml pouches and the Aluminum 500ml gift bottle from Larry we got all the Scotch taken care of. For the Port I rinsed two empty 16oz Gatorade bottles and filled them. I finished that up while everyone broke camp and Walt got the fire going again for breakfast.
A bonus track for me on this trip was the opportunity to see an old friend from Penn State that I haven't seen since I got married. Susan Bellew (Chambers) took the site next to us with her ten year old daughter Tia. Susan and I did a lot of riding together and even backpacked most of Vermont together. She brought me a present of Hershey chocolate pieces for Alyson's and my consumption (I chose to share this treat with the others). Susan looked great and I hope it is not twenty seven years before I see her again.
Finally we got ourselves packed, food and drink distributed, questions answered (With Mike there are always questions to answer), water amounts figured, the cars packed, goodbyes to Susan and Tia made, and off we went to park the cars and catch the shuttles. Though there are specific parking lots for back country hikers, Walt likes to park in the Bright Angel Trail head cabin area. This seems to work out fine when you hike out the Bright Angel, but I didn't see really how it was an advantage to us this time as we were entering on The South Kaibab, and exiting on The Hermit. But park there we did, donned our packs, extended our poles and walked to the shuttle station.
A little word about weight. My brother-in-law Walt prides himself in packing light, and light he seems to get at around 30 pounds + or -. That is pack, bag, tent, clothing, and food amongst other essentials. That is really very light, and to be admired. I on the other hand seemed to have put about twenty pounds onto my internal body frame since two years ago, and I lug around what Walt likes to call "The Condo": a Kelty Tioga external frame pack that looks huge empty. Of course I load it up carrying in a tent I don't intend to use (five lbs.), sleeping bag (which actually is pretty light as it has lost nearly half the original goose down over the last 35 years (18th Birthday present from my Dad (Thanks Dad!))), large thin stainless steel 6l pot with a ss coffee cup, and ss Sierra Cup, clothing bag (stuffed with clothes that I don't all use), food, scotch, fuel, camera, etc, etc, etc. All done my pack comes in at close to fifty pounds + or -. Maybe more, as I stuffed anything leftover that I thought we should have like an unclaimed quick oats bag. Walt rolled his eyes when he lifted my pack.
To get to The South Kaibab Trailhead, we needed to take two shuttles: The Village Loop Shuttle, and the Kaibab Shuttle. Who should our Village Loop driver be other than Roy, the Hermits Rest shuttle driver that Walt had talked up two years prior. I made the introductions again, and it wasn't long before latent neural connections formed two years ago suddenly had cranial juices flowing to them again and Roy said, "Yeah, I remember you two. Part of a group of six that went in the Hermit Trail." and we had a lovely shuttle ride with Roy again. He made sure we got off at the right stop and told us where to wait for the next Kaibab shuttle. Our goodbyes said, we parted till the next time. Thanks Roy.
Our next driver wasn't as receptive to Walt's charms and we were glad to reach the trailhead. Crowded it was not, but breezy it was. Partly cloudy day with well formed cotton-ball clusters, and temperatures in the high 40's. Very nice in the sun, but a little cool in the shade. Anyway, final bathroom visits made and we migrated to the top of the trail and assembled for our parting group shot. Walt did us the honors of snapping everyone's camera, and with hand shakes and fist pumps we were off.
The South Kaibab is what they call a "Corridor Trail" meaning that it is built for heavy traffic. Heavy in regards to foot traffic volume, and heavy related to Mule Trains. There are three kinds of mule trains: Phantom Ranch/Park Service supply trains; People Mover trains; Maintenance trains. There is usually one descending people train and one ascending people train per day. Phantom Ranch is supplied every three days, with each returning train hauling trash. The park service has trains contracted to haul in and out supplies and trash from its operations as well. Finally, heavy materials needed for maintenance are brought in and out as well.
So these corridor trails have to take a pounding, and there needs to be enough room for people and these trains to pass safely. The standard is people yield to the trains by standing to the inside of the trail and the animals pass on the outside. One statistic I heard was that of the people carrying mules, there hasn't been a single accident/fatality involving these mules in the 100 plus year operational lifetime of this service. Zero. The people mules are well trained and have to carry freight for five years before they can move up to people. These mules have to demonstrate that they will not react to Rattlesnakes other than to stop and wait for the snake to clear the path. Horses? over the side in second. They lost a young pack mule ten days ago. Fortunately it did not fall on anyone below, and eventually became carrion for the fledgling California Condor re-introduction program in operation at the Grand Canyon.
It should be noted that there never were California Condors in the Grand Canyon, but there is evidence that there was a thriving Condor population there ten thousand years ago when the ice started to retreat further north. Note that I am not saying there were glaciers at the Grand Canyon (There weren't), just that the climate was better and there were more animals, and there were Condors. Whether they shared a common ancestor with the California, I know not, but as there are no other Condors anywhere, the Canyon seemed like the right place to try and establish a new community.
The South Kaibab starts with a quick descent over a number of switchbacks and quickly enters the shade of a West-facing wall, which at the top is Yaki Point. After a little at-grade following (meaning foloowing the grade contours), it again descends over switchbacks to Cedar Ridge, and as you come out from the protection of the Yaki Point wall, the Canyon starts to open up below you. Some more at-grade follows along the ridge, losing elevation, until you come across O'Neill Butte, which we descend around on the East side. Here is where we start to get a feel for the power of the wind gusts that day.
Free of O'Neill, we again are walking the ridge dropping until we come to a lovely large open area with a great view, and a place to rest before descending the next set of switchbacks. We are down to 5200' already after starting from 7175. Here we take the opportunity to break out Walt's Terrible Towel for a photo op. For those who know nothing of The Terrible Towel please refer to here. Walt has a Mount Everest Base Camp trek that spans 20 plus days in April and May, and he asked the Terrible Towel Right's owners for a towel, which they provided gladly as long as he photographed it everywhere he went. So we pulled it out here, and snapped some shots. As it so happens, Drew Butler traveling with us is a Steeler' fan, and was giddy to pose with the towel. See photos. Was not long before "Oh my god! If my girlfriend was here she would scream! Please take my picture with The Terrible Towel." and so we found more Steelers fans, and unfortunately one Dallas fan. We ran into here again at the Phantom Ranch canteen later that night.
Towel pics taken, it was time to descend to our next stop where we would have lunch. That turned out to be at about 4600', sitting on a ledge facing East with a wide view of the Eastern Tonto, and a nice view of Zoraster Temple on the North side of the canyon. We packed in Bagel Sandwiches of Turkey/Roast Beef/Lox and cheese. Walt carried down a bag of Clementines and hauled all the peels out. Sweet and tart at the same time those Clems were. Yum.
It was time to say goodbye to Walt and Bernie (No I haven't said much about Bernie, but Bernie came along to keep Walt company and help out. Thanks Bernie!) so they could return to the rim and drive back to Phoenix. We continued down to the Tonto Plateau. The legs were a little stiff, and we started to see the group stretch out a little. As I was always taking pictures, I was bringing up the rear. There was a composting toilet at the intersection of The Tonto Trail, and The South Kaibab. Also there were hitches to tie the mules to, though none were there at the time. From the Tonto we could see the trail far below in a red dirt section. It wouldn't be long before we were there, and we took in the large bowl the fell off to the South at The Tipoff. Here, though the platform was wide, the drop off at the edge seemed like a couple of hundred feet. It made me dizzy to look over the edge. We were atop a white limestone cap that descended into red limestone that was very granular, and the trail was a nice steady descending slope that lost another 600' by the other side of the bowl, where for the first time we got views of The Black Bridge, and the Rafter's Beach down on the Colorado.
We still needed to lose 1000' of elevation, and it was done very quickly over the course of lots of switchbacks. It was along this section that out-of-sight to everyone, Greg's left foot failed to clear his right foot, and forward he fell into the trail. With his hand extended, he fortunately did not break anything, but he scraped and cut himself up pretty good and required a fair amount of band-aides to cover all of his wounds. He cleaned up nicely in camp and seemed well the rest of the trip.
Every corner turned brought The Black Bridge closer, and a group of colorful rafts at the beach into focus. Once at the bottom, access to the bridge is through a long unlit tunnel where upon you exit directly onto the bridge proper. Happy we were to be down. All that was left was to finish the final 1/2 mile to Bright Angle Campground, and select a site. This we did, passing off-shoots to the beach, and some archeological sites just off the trail. The Silver Bridge is visible to the West, and we came into the camp site area. The group sites were all on the West side of Bright Angel Creek, so we crossed and found our first surprise. Flush Toilets. Apparently the traffic through this part of the inner canyon is the heaviest, and so there is a small treatment plant, and flush toilets. Very nice.
It's fair to say that at this point of the trip we have descended into the base rock for the canyon. Down here the base rock lies at almost 90 degrees, and is mostly various forms of granite. The trail on the west side skirts a cut in the wall (No stopping because of falling rock) and emerges into a flood plain set of group camp sites. By some miracle, the one site that has a roof over three stone floors is unoccupied, and into it we go. First things off are of course the packs. Second things are the boots, quickly replaced by light sandals or for those that read my prep notes: Crocs! Oh so light and comfy they are, and perfect for camp. Socks off, you can walk right into the creek with them. That cold water on tired feet is a feeling that is difficult to describe.
With the solid floors, and large area, the only member wanting to erect his tent was Mike. He just likes to have four walls around him. Me? Give me the open ground and I am a happy camper. It wasn't long before the ranger came by to check in and we quickly found that I forgot to do one thing, which of course implied something more than what was in fact reality. See, I did read the whole permit, and I did disseminate that information to my group via my FB group page, and I talked to it on the descent. But, because I failed to follow instructions and actually sign the permit, the ranger assumed that I didn't read it at all, so this of course gave him the opportunity to tell us how important a clean camp was. No problem. We had time to listen to Ranger Bob.
See, these sites get a lot of volume. People who use them bring a lot of food. There are a lot of critters that find it easier to pilfer some quick goodies from foolish hikers, than to look to nature for sustenance, so a clean camp is necessary. That means immediately removing all food from packs and placing in the provided steel containers in every site. We had 8 of these at our site. Next, open all pockets in your pack. If a pocket is open they will crawl in to inspect. If it is closed, then will chew their way in. All plastic bags, whether they have food in them or not go into the canisters. Bags have a food association, and critters will steal empty unused bags. None in the tents.
With this done we could almost relax. We still needed to extract our sleeping pads, and the chair frames that turn those sleep pads into comfy back supported padded seats. Once that was completed, it was time that we broke out the first 500ml Nalgene bottle of Scotch and take some "pulls". Ahh what a delicious treat!
Dinners. How we did dinners was I bought 8 varieties, 5 each of Alpine Aire dehydrated meals. Add two cups boiling water, wait 12-15 minutes, enjoy. There is some stirring that has to be done otherwise you done get water where water needs to get to. The convenience of just heating water cannot be overstated. We eat out of the package, so nothing to clean except your spork, and that you can lick clean. Once you are done, press out the air, wrap it up, seal it and stick it in a garbage bag to be hauled out. Simple!. Nothing too exciting about boiling water, just get it out of the wind so the burner can do its job.
Our last treat of the night awaited us at The Phantom Ranch Canteen. It re-opens at 8PM for 2 hours, and they have cold beer. Only two varieties: Bud, and Tecate, but beer it is, and cold it is, and desired it was. We were there at 7:50 and were amongst the first in. Larry picked up the first 8 and we carried them back to our table. We had the Dallas fan at the table behind us, and the Thesehorns next to us. We would see these Thesehorns again on the morrow fly fishing in Bright Angel Creek. All told we went through about 5-6 beers that night and wandered back in the moonlight to our camp where we relaxed a wee bit more and then laid out our bags, crawled in, and called our first done.
For more pictures see my facebook page for Day 1.
Tips:
Hard to say. The hike in for me is always the hardest. Just get some hiking miles in before you show up and you will do fine.
For stoves, One word: Jet Boil
Food: Just add water
Hard to say. The hike in for me is always the hardest. Just get some hiking miles in before you show up and you will do fine.
For stoves, One word: Jet Boil
Food: Just add water
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