So, this entry was supposed to occur on Saturday May 10th in the evening. It is now Sunday May 11th at 3:12am in the morning. In only 12 hours from now, I will be on the road heading to the Schairer Cabin in the Shenandoah National Park. Then on Monday May 12th, I will start my 5 day hike. But before lights out, I would like to tell you about today.
It began with a Permethrin treatment of my clothes and gear. Permethrin is absolutely bad-ass. It is known as a contact insecticide. The treatment involves spraying one’s clothing and gear and waiting for it to dry. After that, any mosquito or tick that comes in contact with the treated surface is dead. D E A D. I mean, I thought fly swatters were nifty.
Socks and gaiters and pack tops, oh my!
Jacket, Shirt and Pants
Backpack
Lesson learned – the WordPress software seems to suck at dealing with portrait photos from my computer phone. It appears to insist on rotating them as if they were landscape photos. I shall experiment a bit more. But for now, time is crucial. So for this upcoming shakedown trip, I will only take landscape photos.
Next up was to assemble my custom trail mix. As the photo shows, I found some raw items at the local Food Lion. We have pineapple, mango, mixed nuts and some southwest style pretzel thingies. Here I’ve got a bowl and am ready to mix it all up!
Ready to mix
All mixed up, don’t know what to do…
Packaged
There we go – all packaged into 5 convenient snack-sized ziplock bags. Each bag is about 60z of trail mix. The large bag is the leftovers.
My Food
It doesn’t look like much, but there it is: my food. In front is an assortment of breakfast bars. There are 15 in total, I plan to have 3 each morning. Behind the breakfast bars; on the left side is the trail mix. On the right side are 5 baggies containing beek jerky. There is also a summer sausage and a pepperoni stick. Finally, in the back, are my dehydrated meals for dinners.
Food Bag
Cramming all that stuff into a stuff sack wasn’t easy. Above are the results. That little bag weights 9 pounds, 10 ounces. Whew!
Backpack
After getting food together, I assembled my first aid and hygiene kits. Forgot to take photos though. So there’s my backpack – fully loaded. Total weight 22 pounds 10 ounces.
I do still have a few outstanding items to pack which are shown below – but those are waiting until morning.
Pack and to-do
Next entry should be from the cabin!