First Hike of the Season

 I have been a bit slow off the starting block getting out hiking this year, but on Thursday I finally decided it was time.  I have an online class every Thursday and Friday morning, so by the time I got my daypack packed and set out, it was already early afternoon.   

I had planned to hike a portion of the Marie Creek Trail, an easy reverse-lollipop trail that is a short drive from where we live in Coeur d'Alene. No spectacular views or scenery, just a chance to get out and hike through some serene wooded mountains with a creek running alongside for much of the way.   Unfortunately, when I got there, there was a sign prominently posted declaring the trail closed for a prescribed burn.

USFS sign announcing the prescribed burn program and the trail closure.  It was unclear to me whether the sign meant the trail was closed *on* 30 April, or had been closed *starting* 30 April and was still closed.

Since I had no cell service, I could not call the Forest Service to check.  By the time I got to where I did have a signal, I decided to just go home and check from there.  Shame on me for not checking trail conditions in advance!  All part of the Spring shakedown.

When I got home, I called the Idaho Panhandle National Forest office, and was told that the trail was not closed.  It had been closed earlier, but they had just neglected to take down the sign.  I determined to go on Friday instead, and to get an earlier start.

On Friday morning after class, I packed up and headed back out to the trail.  It was very hot by the time we got to the trailhead, so I made sure that both Tillie and I were well-hydrated before we started.  She loves any ride in the car, but the myriad smells and different environment of the trailhead had her even more excited than usual.   I have only ever had her out on a couple of other hikes - usually it's just a walk in our neighborhood.  I decided to let her walk off-leash but keep a close eye out. There were three other cars in the parking lot, so I kept a leash in my pocket and didn't let her get too far ahead or behind.

The hike was pleasant and uneventful.  The first rest stop was at the point highest in elevation, a saddle at where there is a little primitive bench to sit on.  (This was the spot where I slept out overnight in February 2019, right after we moved here.) This time the day was very hot, so I was sure to keep Tillie (and myself) well-hydrated.  When we came down the other side and started along Marie Creek I encouraged her to get in the water to cool down.  

Tillie didn't need much encouragement to cool down in the creek.

I stopped for lunch a little more than two miles from the trailhead, in a nice shady spot on the edge of a meadow that has been improved as a hunting/horse camp with stone rings for tent sites, a fire ring, etc.  I ended up spending a couple of hours there just relaxing and enjoying being outdoors.  

Die Wache.  Turns out my old Sierra Club cup makes a perfect water bowl for her.

Lots of interesting smells in the air.  🙂

I ate my lunch of cheese, salami, and crackers, and then prepared to heat some water for tea.  I have taken along jasmine-flavored green tea on hiking and backpacking trips for as long as I can remember.  I am pretty sure I started doing this during the "Kung Fu" craze in the early 1970s.  I even have a leather 'Kwai Chang Cain'-style shoulder bag that I made at scout camp that I used to carry stuff in.  However I got started, it's a soothing warm drink and I am rarely in the woods without the means to make it.  On a day hike like this I usually heat the water using an Esbit stove and fuel tablets, but I decided on the spur of the moment to try out a couple new pieces of equipment that I had never used before.  

The first new piece of equipment is a small wood-burning stove from Toaks.  I thought it might be a viable lightweight alternative to carrying a stove and fuel, but wasn't sure how well it would work or whether I'd want to be tied down to gathering wood and starting a fire every time I want to cook.  So this was an initial experiment to try it out.

Toaks Titanium Stove

The stove came with no instructions, but it's not complicated and the website has photos. It consists of three nesting components, which I will call the base, the firebox, and the cup or pot stand.  I set it up, and spent a few minutes gathering a bunch of small twigs and sticks, breaking them into 3"- 4" lengths, and arranging them by size for easy access.  I had a pretty large pile of fallen sticks and branches ready to break up and feed into the stove, depending upon how fast it burned and how long it took to heat the water.  

I set it up and started the fire (more on the method of ignition below).  At first I tried to do this with the stove completely set up, but it quickly became apparent that it was too hard to reach down into the interior to get it started.  I ended up situating the base in a level, secure spot, and setting the firebox inside the pot stand over to the side.  When on the ground like this, it collapses to the height of the firebox. This made it much easier to get the fire started inside, after which I picked the pair up together by the pot stand and set it onto the base.  The firebox drops down inside the base, and there is then a fairly tall space for the fire to burn, a stable place to sit a pot, and an opening on the side to feed in the fuel.

I quickly learned that because the opening is not all that big, you really need the sticks to be well-trimmed down so they don't hang up on each other in the limited space.  I also learned that pencil-sized sticks are about the maximum diameter that will burn efficiently.  You need a lot of very small sticks (match-lightable and slightly larger) to get the fire going, and then need to carefully pace the feeding of additional fuel so the fire neither burns too low nor gets overstuffed and clogged.  A couple of times I wound up with 2-3 larger sticks that hadn't really caught fire yet, but were blocking me from feeding in smaller (and thus faster-burning) sticks that could keep the fire going.  

Once the fire was going, it blazed up very well. The company says their design promotes double combustion for greater fuel efficiency.  It's easy to feed from the top, but with a pot on it you have to feed it through the opening in the side.  Next time I will split larger sticks into sections for easier burning.

Brewing tea.  I think it's time to stop using teabags and go back to loose tea leaves and a tea ball like I used for many years.   As an aside, I love this Toaks 750 ml pot/cup.  It's just like my old one except it has a bailing handle, an addition of which I heartily approve.

I didn't time it, but it got my water heated within a few minutes.  I didn't bring it to an actual boil, but it was much too hot to drink for quite awhile so I think it was pretty close.

For my ignition method, I decided to try another new product I had just received last week.  I had originally seen an ad for the Viking Whetstone, which is an Arkansas sharpening stone on a leather thong for wear around the neck, in the manner of Vikings.  I thought this was a neat idea, as almost every time I think about sharpening my knife, I am nowhere near any of the many sharpening stones and steels that I have.  This one would always be around my neck, so why not?  Much more functional than Thor's Hammer, lol.   The fire-starting tools seemed like a worthwhile addition, so I got the Viking Spark variation and have been wearing it for a week or so.  

Viking Spark

Viking Spark (front).  I like the look, although I wear it under my shirt. The whetstone has a flat side, a curved edge, a beveled edge, and a groove for fish hooks.  I've used it - it works very well.

Viking Spark (back).  The teardrop-shaped piece is the ceramic scraper, and the black cylinder is the ferro rod.  The rod slides to the end of the leather thong, and the scraper swivels out sideways.  You can see the scratches where I used it to create sparks.  I'll only use the back side, to keep the front looking good.

Almost as an afterthought, I decided to try to start the fire in the Toaks stove using this instead of matches or a lighter.  The hardest part about using flint and steel is how to get the spark to catch.  In the "old days" when people carried tinder boxes to start fires, they would keep some charred cloth to catch the spark, as well as some tow or other tinder to blow up into a flame after the spark had caught.  I didn't have anything like that, so I found some dry moss to use as tinder and tried to ignite that.

The moss I used as tinder.  It was very dry, but not quite fine enough to catch and hold a spark.  Perhaps next time I will crumble it up, or find something else to use. It's possible that if I mix it with some dry leaves, a leaf might catch the spark.  It will be fun to experiment.  Better now than in an emergency.

I found the ferro rod and the striker pretty easy to use, and with a little practice was able to get a very good spark from it.  But after about eight or ten really good tries, I still had not gotten a spark to catch in the moss.  Then I remembered that I always carry a bottle of rubbing alcohol along with my foot powder to keep my feet clean and dry.  I doused the moss with a little rubbing alcohol, and it burst into flame on the first spark!  I quickly transferred the burning moss into the stove and put some small sticks over it, and I was in business.

In a true emergency I probably wouldn't have access to anything quite so combustible as alcohol, and would have to work a lot harder to prepare appropriate tinder and get a spark to catch.  But it's good to know that the capability is there if I ever need it.  Additionally, the Wazoo video on sharpening recommends using the ceramic striker as a "first pass" in knife sharpening, as a way to debur the edges and remove any residue on the blade that might clog the pores in the stone.  It's a neat product, and one that I will keep with me from now on.

Once the fire was going and the water was heating up for tea, I settled back to enjoy a couple of my old favorite postprandial treats:

The first good-quality pipe I ever bought - a GBD "Universe".  Just the right size for an enjoyable smoke. It's important to finish the bowl all the way to the bottom to get an even char on the inside, so a smaller pipe is better for me.  I learned that, among other things, at my after-school job at "The Tinder Box".  Yes, I was a 16-year old high school kid learning to smoke a pipe while working at a tobacco store in an indoor shopping mall.  My, how times have changed!  

I suppose I should use something lighter than the glass bottle, but it just seems so *right*.  Not a problem on a day hike, in any case.

After a couple of very relaxing, happy hours, it was time to go back to the trailhead.  At a total of about 4.5 miles with an 850-foot elevation gain/loss each way, it was not an epic hike by any stretch.  But it was just what I needed to shake off the cobwebs and relax.  Many more to come in the weeks ahead, as I train up for summer backpacking!

Mood: Relaxed

Music: Wenn Ich auf hohen Bergen Steh (Anni und Rosemarie)