Here’s a leftover from that Montana trip. I’ve gotten the SOS thing on the iPhone before but this is the first time I’ve seen the satellite icon.
It makes sense, since Montana is mostly backcountry, but it was weird to see.
I wasn’t in Montana long enough to adjust to the time zone, so I got up early on my last day to catch a hike before I flew home. I am not normally a hiker, but when the trails are right there, a person doesn’t have a choice. I even packed hiking boots.
The Drinking Horse Mountain Trail, built in 2001, is a 2.5-mile hike with 700 feet of elevation. The internet described it as “Easy to Moderate” and “Good for Children”. I figured I chill 90-minute loop would be the best way to wrap my time out west.
Getting places before sunrise is easy when you’re surrounded by mountains.
Even though the trail was a loop, I took a picture of the map just in case. I didn’t need it, but it gave me something to pretend to look at while I was catching my breath.
As I worked my way up the trail, there were plenty of benches to grab photos (and gasp for air. so much gasping). The sun slowly worked it’s way up the valley as I went along. You can see it getting brighter in these photos.
At the top, with the sun over head, you could see everything. It was awesome.
I was gassed. “At least the rest of it is downhill”, I said.
There were a couple of places where you could see a small path off of main trail, where maybe people were adding small spurs to get to photo ops. This one was obviously a path to that treacherous-looking rock formation on the left. The park added the barrier to give folks an extra minute to consider their common sense, I suppose. I didn’t need the extra time.
It is difficult to describe just how steep these switchbacks were. I hope this photo does it justice. There weren’t many on the way down, but it was like this the whole way up. “Easy to Moderate” my ass.
The descent was otherwise a delight. I can’t help but reiterate what a beautiful part of the country this is. Back at the bottom of the trail, having survived the experience, I took a minute to enjoy some of scenes.
I didn’t notice this sign on the way in. It all worked out, though.
And with the hiking done, I rolled out to the airport and home.
The Bozeman airport is really something. I’d go so far as to call it “pleasant”. They really lean into the dinosaur fossils here, but I didn’t have time to get to the big museum with the skeletons. Next time.
Day two in Montana got off to a promising start because a cold front had blown through overnight. The wind and light rain cleared all of the smoke and overcast blegh, so the Big Sky show was in full effect. The day’s schedule consisted solely of an excursion south into Yellowstone National Park. I wanted to see as many of the Park’s wild animals as I could, and it was slow going.
This chipmunk was as good as it got, at first. I don’t know if the smoke from earlier in the week had the animals in hiding, but we didn’t see much for the first hour or two. It didn’t really matter since the scenery was as advertised and a complete stunner at every turn.
I was tickled by the way fishermen would just pull off the road and walk down to the river to get after it. Like, no parking lots or anything. If you’ve got a license to fish (and you better have one because the park rangers don’t play with that shit), you’re free to go.
We stopped to take in some of the majesty at an overlook that featured this waterfall.
And if you are going to have wooden rails to keep people from falling, you’re going to get the good pocketknife graffiti.
We eventually saw just about every animal I’d hoped for.
Bison:
Magpies:
Elk:
What they call “tourons“:
We also saw some packrats, prairie dogs, ducks (we have those here, though, so not so impressive), a gopher, and a mountain goat, but I didn’t get photos of those.
I just couldn’t get over how crazy it was to have mountains everywhere. It’s a beautiful place.
They also get dozens of feet of snow in the winter, so there’s no chance in hell I’d live there.
I’m proud of my nephew for the perseverance it took to achieve Eagle Scout.
(And this kicks off a bunch of catch-up posts from February. It’s been a bear.)
This creek moves pretty good in the spring. I’ll show you in a few months.
Took a walk on Saturday morning in a nearby park. The pollen wasn’t miserable and lots of birds were about.
I mentioned that I’d gotten a GORUCK SK26. I’ve been using it daily for a month and I’m into it. I haven’t carried a backpack on the regular since high school (’89!) and it took a couple of days to find the sweet spot where the straps were snug enough to be comfortable without having to contort myself to get in or out of it.
The bag is almost absurdly overbuilt. The fabric is thick 100D Cordura which feels like it should wear forever. The straps are crazy thick and almost too stiff at first. From what I’ve read, they will break in over time and end up with almost a custom fit for the wearer. We’ll see. The extra thinkness in the straps also helps make heavy loads more comfortable (I can vouch for this).
The open plan of the bag lets you have access to all 26L in whatever configuration you believe best. I have a couple of standard EDC-dork things hooked to the internal PALS webbing: a couple of velcro straps, some small lights, and some carabiners. I’m a paracord bracelet away from being a doomsday prepper. The “SK” in the name of the bag refers to the “slick” look of not having any of the PALS webbing on the outside of the bag. Since my daily use was going to be carrying to the office I didn’t think the full-on techincal look was a good fit. A backpack is hardly professional office wear but I’m not as far over the line of propriety as I would be with buckles and straps and bungee all over the outside of the bag.
It’s tricky to see in that photo, but there is an elastic pocket there below the PALS webbing. It’ll hold a standard file folder easily. The folded down portion of the bag there has a closed zippered pouch and separate zippered mesh compartment. I haven’t used those much yet but they will end up being useful at some point. Probably. There is also a zippered slash pocket on the front of the bag for quick access if you need something at hand right away.
The SK26 wasn’t 100% office-ready for me. I need a way to carry my coffee mug, pens, notebook, and some more EDC junk (pocket knife, leatherman). I purchased a Tom Bihn Vertical Freudian Slip to fill these gaps. It fits almost as though it was designed for the SK26. This combination results in exactly what I want to carry to the office every day. The other side of the Slip has 4 pockets for carrying papers and folders. I fit a large Moleskine squared notebook in there with no trouble. Like every other piece of Tom Bihn I own, the quality of the manufacture is top-shelf.
I was able to justify (to myself and the Household Appropriations Committee) the cost of the bag by it’s versatility as more than just a glorified briefcase. I had occasion to need to haul a dozen LPs I was selling this weekend. I removed the Freudian Slip and the SK2 swallowed them with plenty of room to spare. That photo above is 25 LPs in the bag. I could have probably snugged another 2-3 in there but 25 is a good max. capacity number for rating purposes. FYI, 25LPs make for a heavy load but those straps I was talking about made it almost comfortable to carry.
I didn’t even mention the laptop compartment that lives under the straps of the bag outside of the main compartment but that’s because I don’t carry a laptop every day. I have no idea how effective it is.
After a month of daily use I’m firmly in favor of the SK26 as an every day office carry bag. I have some travel coming up this summer so I will have more points of reference as to the bags versatility. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Ever since I got an office job (11/93!) I’ve been trying to find something better to carry my stuff in. I borrowed Ethan‘s 80’s-era Israeli Paratrooper Bag for a while. When he needed that back I moved on to a straight-up briefcase (with the little tumbler locks and everything) but it kept squashing my bagged lunch and it was stupid-heavy so it didn’t last long.
I used a Tom Bihn Large Cafe bag as my daily carry from 2004. It gave me a spot to carry pens/coffee cup/Treo Centro and it was the first “nice” bag I’d owned. Eventually I found that the pad on the Cafe Bag strap was crappy and moved too much. It looks like they’ve changed it since I had mine which is a good thing. I also needed more space for stuff as I would occasionally take files home and I added a notebook to my daily load.
I switched from that to a Tom Bihn Imago in 2007 for more space and a better strap but I gave up the dedicated pen and phone slots. I miss the pen slots more than I thought I would. The Nexus 7 does fit perfectly in the slash pocket under the main flap which means I carry it more often. The Imago is great for daily use but it’s not really great for travel because it doesn’t hold shape well if you carry non-flat things like clothes and it’s kind of small on the inside. I also feel like the asymmetric load distribution of messenger-style bags in general gives me neck or back pain if I’m carrying it for a couple of hours (ComiCon, dayhikes, airport terminals).
I’ve been shopping backpacks for a couple of years for improved ergonomics and to replace my Empire Builder as the bag that I use as an overnight or carry-on bag when I travel. The backpack options from Tom Bihn were either smaller than I wanted for travel or had too much of a mountaineering/overland-trek look for daily use to the office. The zippers and external bungies are probably awesome for more serious hikers and campers but they’re not what I want.
My backpack searching kept bringing me back to bags from GORUCK, specifically the GR1. It’s expensive but so damn sturdy that I feel like I’ll get my money out of it as something I’ll use every day. The GR1 is higher-volume bag than the Imago or the Tom Bihn backpacks I was looking at and a better fit for a man of my, um, proportions. A normal-sized Jansport would look like I’d swiped a bag from a middle-schooler.
After an embarrassing amount of deliberation and review-reading I settled on the GORUCK SK26. It has a clean look that I think lets me get away with carrying a backpack to the office but is overbuilt enough to handle any of the extracurricular work I might sign it up for. I gave the bag a thorough once-over and everything looked like it should. I’d read that some late-model GR1s were being shipped with loose threads or crooked MOLLE webbing or stitches. The SK26 I have is tight on all counts. I will pass along some initial thought shortly.