Springtime Dirt Time

I had a few days vacation, so I headed for the hills. For those who have been breathlessly following my exploits (ahem...) you might know that I have a thing I call "Camping At Home". It works like this...

I get up, have breakfast, dress in my little outdoor costume, and head for the hills. I hike, nap, or practice my skills, then along about sundown, I drive home, shower, grab a burger and a beer, check e-mail, get a good night's sleep, and do it again the next day.

This saves me the trouble of packing a tent, cooking gear, sleeping gear, food, etc... And cleaning it after only one or two nights in the field. In addition, the time of the year makes for a long, and cold evening, which I can spend more productively at home.

Anyway, it's a fair compromise considering my location.

This trip I did some hiking into new territory, and played around with some stuff...

Here, I have arrived at a Prominent Object, and am checking out the next canyon.

The next canyon....

I found a bunch of Mulefat that had all of the tips of the branches die back, for some reason. The leaves were dead and dry, and I collected a bunch for tinder later on... Easy pickin's!

One of the things I wanted to do was to play around with a new SilTarp. Here I use my hiking staff to make a George Tent. It only took the staff, some paracord, and some stakes to set it up. Rocks would have worked instead of the stakes, of course. There was a surprising amount of room underneath. The wind made it a booger to set up, tho... It weighs all of 22 oz.

I found an old Willow tree with a couple of dead branches, so decided to make some new fireboards. I did it the hard way, using my knife and the saw on my SAK. I had my pruning saw in the pack, but what the heck... The SAK saw was more effective in the limited room I had to work in, to cut off the branch.

Here I use my Simonich Aurora to split out some boards.

Now I clean up the board somewhat... I was real pleased with the results, I got two really nice, 1/4" boards to play with.

Salad, anyone?

I took a bunch of pics of the country, as usual... This time of the year, the Lupine was everywhere. I cannot remember ever seeing so much.

Here is some texture for ya....

Now for the scenery shots...

Hope you enjoy them,

Bill

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