0 - Owyhee Plains

For a shakedown hike, I headed to the Southern Idaho, Owyhee Plains. The Idaho Centennial Trail starts at the border of Idaho and Nevada and heads north. Mallory and I drove down Saturday setting out water drops along the way for my to stop at later. We camped the night just past Murphy Hot Springs, on the Bruneau River. Murphy hot springs was a bit of a let down. At one time it was a developed spring with a pool, but it has fallen into disrepair and the community looks like isolationists avoiding the govment'. Sunday we hiked the two miles down to the border and the trail monument. Then back at the car, I grabbed my backpack and started hiking down the trail. I started off great. The road I was hiking on was pretty easy and it was sunny. As the day went on the wind picked up and the clouds drew close. I was concerned that the 30% chance of rain forecasted for Monday, might be coming in a little early. I ended up hiking much further then I intended and ended up covering 29 miles the first day. I had made it to the shelter of a ravine and my first water drop. I woke the next morning to snow starting to come down and was glad I was somewhat protected with water. As the snow came down, I decided to stay there for the day resting my tired body from the long day before. The skies cleared up in the afternoon. Overnight it was clear and still. I woke up and my water was partially frozen. I packed up camp and headed out on the road. The roads were much rougher with cow prints in the dirt and my legs had not fully recovered. After the first 8 miles took me 5 hours, I decided that I shouldn't keep going. It was going to be to hard to get to my next water source and heading onward would just lead to injury. I hit the button on my SPOT to have Mallory come meet me on the road and pick me up.
View Larger Map For future people attempting the Idaho Centennial Trail, I'd recommend finding a river service to float the Bruneau River instead, I think it would be much more scenic and interesting. On the plus side, aside from my legs and feet, all of my gear worked great. Once my body is healed I'll be ready to go.

Itinerary

I posted the map of my route a few weeks ago here. If anyone wants to meet up to say hi, put me up for a night or come hiking for a day or two, feel free to get in touch. I do plan on making long days, but nothing that seems too unreasonable.

Obviously this isn't set in stone and things will change because of conditions and timing, but this is the best guess I can make at this point in time.

.	Seg	Date	Start town	End Town	Miles	Tot.	Days	Date	Day	Mi/Day	0's
.	0	3/25/2012	Murphy Hot Spring	Hwy 20	125		6	3/30/2012	Fri	20.8333333333333
.
.	1	4/15/2012	Crazy Cook	Lordsburg, NM	81	81	4	4/18/2012	Wed	20.25
.	2	4/19/2012	Lordsburg	Silver City, NM	55	136	3	4/21/2012	Sat	18.3333333333333	1
.	3	4/23/2012	Silver City	Doc Cambells, NM	58	194	3	4/25/2012	Wed	19.3333333333333
.	4	4/26/2012	Doc Cambells	Pie Town, NM	140	334	7	5/2/2012	Wed	20
.	5	5/3/2012	Pie Town	Grants, NM	90	424	4	5/6/2012	Sun	22.5
.	6	5/7/2012	Grants	Cuba, NM	103	527	5	5/11/2012	Fri	20.6
.	7	5/12/2012	Cuba	Los Alamos, NM	48	575	3	5/14/2012	Mon	16	1
.	8	5/16/2012	Santa Fe	Taos, NM	110	685	5	5/20/2012	Sun	22	2
.	10	5/23/2012	Hwy 64	Cumbress, NM	57	742	3	5/25/2012	Fri	19
.	11	5/26/2012	Cumbress	Creed, CO	109	851	6	5/31/2012	Thur	18.1666666666667	1
.	12	6/2/2012	Creed	Monarch Pass, CO	105	956	6	6/7/2012	Thur	17.5
.	13	6/8/2012	Monarch Pass	Leadville, CO	89	1045	5	6/12/2012	Tue	17.8
.	14	6/13/2012	Leadville	Estes Park, CO	160	1205	7	6/19/2012	Tue	22.8571428571429	2
.	15	6/22/2012	Helena, MT	Benchmark, MT	107	1312	5	6/26/2012	Tue	21.4
.	16	6/27/2012	Benchmark	East Glacier, MT	112	1424	5	7/1/2012	Sun	22.4	1
.	17	7/3/2012	East Glacier	Waterton, AB, CA	96	1520	5	7/7/2012	Sat	19.2
.	18	7/8/2012	Waterton	Blairmore, AB, CA	82	1602	4	7/11/2012	Wed	20.5
.	19	7/12/2012	Coleman	Kananaskis, AB, CA	111	1713	5	7/16/2012	Mon	22.2
.	20	7/17/2012	Kananaskis	Field, BC, CA	119	1832	6	7/22/2012	Sun	19.8333333333333
.	21	7/23/2012	Field	Crossing, AB, CA	59	1891	3	7/25/2012	Wed	19.6666666666667
.	22	7/26/2012	Crossing	Jasper, AB, CA	112	2003	5	7/30/2012	Mon	22.4	2
.	23	8/2/2012	Sandpoint, ID	Clark Fork, ID	114	2117	5	8/6/2012	Mon	22.8
.	24	8/7/2012	Clark Fork	Mullan, ID	73	2190	4	8/10/2012	Fri	18.25
.	25	8/11/2012	Mullan	Lochsa, ID	125	2315	5	8/15/2012	Wed	25
.	26	8/16/2012	Lochsa	MacKay Bar, ID	161	2476	7	8/22/2012	Wed	23
.	27	8/23/2012	MacKay Bar	Stanley, ID	150	2626	6	8/28/2012	Tue	25
.	28	8/29/2012	Stanley	Mtn Home, ID	105	2731	5	9/2/2012	Sun	21	2
.	29	9/5/2012	West Yellowstone, ID	Old Faithful, WY	199	2930	8	9/12/2012	Wed	24.875
.	30	9/13/2012	Old Faithful	Dubois (rd), WY	123	3053	5	9/17/2012	Mon	24.6
.	31	9/18/2012	Dubois	Lander, WY	150	3203	6	9/23/2012	Sun	25	1
.	32	9/25/2012	Lander	Rawlins, WY	122	3325	5	9/29/2012	Sat	24.4
.	33	9/30/2012	Rawlins	Steamboat, CO	144	3469	6	10/5/2012	Fri	24
.	34	10/6/2012	Steamboat	Estes Park, CO	74	3543	4	10/9/2012	Tue	18.5
.
.					3668		171			21.4502923976608	13

Menu

I get a lot questions about what I eat while on the trail, and this time I put together a menu. I broke it down by calories and nutrition facts to make sure I was well covered. I will change this as I go so it's not monotonous, but the main nutrition will remain the same.

.	Breakfast	Portion	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein
.	Cliff Bar - Crunchy Peanut Butter (68g)	2	480	82	12	22
.	Snickers - King Size	1	440	58	20	8
.			920	140	32	30
.	Lunch
.	Cliff Bar - Mojo- Peanut/Pretzel	1	190	20	9	9
.	M&Ms - Peanut, King Size, 1 bag	1	470	56	24	9
.	Peanut Butter - Creamy 6 Tbsp. 100g	0.2	570	21	48	24
.	Flour Tortillas 2 tortilla(28g)	0.166	280	30	4	4
.			1510	127	85	46
.	Dinner
.	Pasta Side Dish	1	640	88	5	18
.	Bob's Red Mill TVP, 1/4 cup dry (24 g)	0.1	80	7	0	12
.			720	95	5	30
.	Snacks
.	Beef Jerkey Original, 1 oz	0.33	70	7	1	11
.	Dried Fruit 30 g	0.2	68	18	0	1
.	Chocolate Bar	0.2	42	5	3	0
.			180	30	4	12
.
.	Totals		3330	392	126	118

Gear

Every long distance hiker becomes some sort of weight freak. Specifically the weight carried on your back. So I bought a scale and broke down all aspects of what I'm carrying. My base weight is about 16.5 pounds which is great, but will vary depending on what add-ons I have. Then there's the food, water, and fuel that will be 15 - 25 pounds.

.	weights:	lb	oz	total oz			lb	oz	total oz
.
.	Backpack - Granite Gear Latitude	2	13.6	45.6		snow option	2	13	45.4
.	tent - Tarp Tent Moment	2	1.6	33.6		ice ax		10.2	10.2
.	pad - Thermarest Prolite Reg		15.6	15.6		ice spikes		15	15
.	Sleeping Bag - Feathered Friends Hummingbird w/ waterproof compression sack	2	4.8	36.8		heavy gloves		6.6	6.6
.						tall gaitors		9	9
.	Cook Kit (pot, stove, wind screen, spoon)		14.2	14.2		water proof socks		4.6	4.6
.
.	gps garmin vista hcx		5.6	5.6		desert option
.	SPOT		4.2	4.2		water pump	1	1	17
.	camera Cannon S90		9	9		light sleeping bag	1	6	22
.	head lamp Petzel Tika		2.8	2.8
.	water bladders MSR Dromadery		9	9
.	food bag Sea Summit dry bag		3.2	3.2		bears
.						bear can	2	12	44
.	clothes:
.	light gloves Lavawool		1.6	1.6		ankle brace		5.6
.	rain pants Marmot Precip		14	14
.	rain jacket Marmot Precip		13	13		jackets
.	silk weight top Patagonia		5.2	5.2		Marmot windshirt		14
.	silk weight bottom Patagonia		5.6	5.6		patagonia fleece R3		12.8
.	light hat Mtn Hardware fleece		0.6	0.6		primaloft vest		12.8
.	down jacket Merrill		13.6	13.6
.	total clothes and bag:	3	10	58
.
.	Odds and ends
.	pack towel		1	1
.	compass		1	1
.	polar pur		5	5
.	shovel		2	2
.	knife		1.4	1.4
.	p-cord		3	3
.	first aid kit		3	3
.	pack cover		3	3
.	handkerchief		1	1
.	cards		3	3
.	Total and bag:	1	9.2	25.2
.
.				262.8	total
.	base	16	8	264	weighed	water	8
.						food @ 2.5 lb/day	12
.	wearing			58.4	3.65
.	N. Face shirt		9	9
.	cap t-shirt		4.8	4.8
.	Keen boulder socks		1.4	1.4
.	montrail masochist	1	9.4	25.4
.	Kuhl renegade pants		13.4	13.4
.	short gaitors		4.4	4.4
.
.
.
.	maps		8	8

More snow

Winter finally hit the Sierra's so I tried to make the most of it.




After so many days of skiing, the weather warmed up so I went snowshoeing. It's great to be out in the snow without all the people and machines of ski resorts. Just listening to the wind in the trees and the sound of your own breathing. It was a good day and I tried to take on Stanford Rock. I didn't find a sign for the top, but I had a long day and great views of the lake.






The weather turned nasty for a couple days, so I worked on things around town. By the time Mallory came out we had another three feet of snow and took two more days skiing. The first day we went to Homewood which has great views of the lake. There was almost to much powder for me to ski in but by the end of the day I was handling it. The next day we went to Northstar where it had snowed a foot and a half overnight and another six inches throughout the day. We were exhausted by the end of the day.





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