thewildernessarchive

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Preparing

My wife and I have done a fair amount of camping and hiking throughout our life but at the beginning of this 2016 we set a goal to do some sort of overnight backpacking trip. It ended up that we set our sights on Yosemite National Park. Talk about go big or go home but that’s how we do it. We had been thinking about this type of trip for a while and we had collected the majority of the needed gear at this point. We wanted to do a few dry runs to get familiar with our gear and see if we needed anything more or less. Becoming familiar with your gear is very important. You don’t want to be 10 miles from the road to learn you don’t know how to use something. We always test new equipment at home and then in the field before using it.

Our first test was simply going car camping with only our backpacks. We ended up camping with some friends so this was a safe test in case we really messed something up. This was really a test of our shelter and sleep systems. This would be our first times using our sleeping pads, Therm-a-Rest Z Lite SOL, and our new tent, REI Half Dome 2. The tent was great. We were happy with the interior space. I will review the tent in more detail at another time. We had thunderstorms roll through that night and we stayed nice and dry. The only thing we learned was we needed to stake out the guide lines better. The sleeping pads on the other hand were “ok.” We slept well but woke with sore backs. We debated about picking up a different sleeping pad but decided to suck it up figuring we’d be tired enough in Yosemite we would sleep on anything. The sleeping bags we are using are the Coleman Grey Fox. My wife picked these up a few years ago at a Coleman outlet. Now these are not the lightest bags out there but they sure get the job done. We’ve used them in late Fall before with temps near or under 30 degrees without issues. Again they delivered a warms night sleep.

With our shelter and sleep system tested we were almost ready for Yosemite. We wanted to complete one more test before going into the backcountry and decided on Hunter Mt. in the Catskills.

#adventure

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Algonquin Mt. from Phelps Mt.

#adk #winter hiking #hiking #46ers

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#adk #winter hiking #hiking

[thewildernessarchive]

#adk #winter hiking #hiking

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#adk #winter hiking #hiking

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@danlawsonphotography

#adk #hiking #winter hiking #mountians

[thewildernessarchive]

Here We Go...

Hello everyone. My name is David and The Wilderness Archive is going to be a place where I share adventures, gear reviews and opinions I have on the great outdoors. I aim to inform people on how to safely enjoy the outdoors and review the gear you need. As much as I would love to own all the top of the line gear, it isn’t necessary and I hope to show that.

I am going to start this blog off with the first adventure my wife and I took backpacking. Once that story has been told I will begin to do some gear reviews and write up on anything else.

#yosemite #mystery ranch #backpacking