Off to Grizzly-Land
The suns out and it's nice and hot and I'm sipping on my Watermelon-Vodka-Soda-Drink out of a pretty glass with a fancy straw while writing this. Life's good. Summer in Zurich is the best and it is hard to imagine, that soon I´ll be on my way to Calgary to dive into my next adventure. In about 3 weeks I'll finally get to see my hiking buddy and my true trail love Katie, aka "Tape Boss" again. The girl who put up with me for 5 months on the Pacific Crest Trail has agreed on wanting to deal with me for another 2 months on the Great Divide Trail. I wouldn't want anyone else along my side out there in the woods (well maybe a hot ranger), so I couldn't be happier about the fact that she agreed to share this adventure with me. Check out and follow her blog: https://www.riversandgrizzlies.com/
My partner in crime. Katie aka Tape Boss.
I'm not quite sure on how to feel about the GDT yet. There aren't many infos and books about it, while there were hundreds about the PCT. A hand full of blogs give you an idea on what to expect, but it's not a lot, which makes me feel uneasy. The good thing is: There are certain things that I don't have to worry about anymore after thru-hiking the PCT. I know my body and its limits, I know my gear inside out, I know what kind of food I need on trail and how much water I need to carry to make it to the next water source.
As far as gear goes I have given my pack a solid shakedown. I got a new tent and a smaller pack and a rain jacket that I have trust issues with. It's so thin!!!!! But testing it wouldn't be my style, would it? So I will handle this problem like I handle all of my problems: I`ll solve it when the time comes. Wish me luck though. Or wish Tape luck, since she'll be hearing me whining and cursing all day if the jacket will turn out to not be waterproof after all.
While cutting weight in some places, we'll be forced to add weight in others. For example when it comes to navigation. The GDT is a remote trail and signage quality ranges from "Go This Way" to "You are on your own and only god can help you now" so we'll be forced to wrap our little heads around compasses, numbers, maps and GPS devices and all that stuff. It's the part that scares me the most, since I really don't know the first thing about navigation, and numbers generally make me want to leave the room.
Yesterday I checked the list of hikers that signed up to hike north on the GDT this year. I was expecting around 500 people or so, but as it turns out, there are 37 lunatics – including Tape and I – who are crazy enough to walk through Grizzly-Land for 2 months. It will be a quiet one, that's for sure. Will have to download tons of podcasts. Any recommendations? To add more weight to our packs we decided to film our adventure, so we´ll be carrying a GoPro, and we´ll each carry a normal camera and our phones as back up to capture our adventure from every angle. I tried to make an ultra light mic-holder thingie for the GoPro but it fell apart after two days so a second attempt is needed to get that sorted out.
To wrap this up: In about 4 weeks I'll be back in the dirt. Sweaty, smelly AF, thirsty, exhausted and probably hungry while dreaming of burgers and fancy Watermelon-Vodka-Soda-Drinks. In 4 weeks I'll be back out there in the wild and honestly... I can't wait for it.
Attempt to build an ultra light DIY mic system for our GoPro.
It actually looked pretty legit before the whole construction fell apart.
