This summer a gang of Troop 100 scouts and their parents, and some family members, repeated our loop hike from Petit lake, to Farley Lake, to Toxaway Lake, over Snowyside Pass, and down to Alice Lake, and back to Petit Lake. The previous two hikes of this route were thinly attended, but this year, participants added [...]
Outdoor Gear, Patents, and Outdoor Trips by Bob Shaver, Patent Attorney
Category Archives: Backpacking Trips
Food plan for 8 day backpack
Here is a list of the evening meals we took on a recent 8 day backpack in the Sawtooths. These meals are for 2 adults, and they were very tasty. These taste better than freeze dried meals, are cheaper, and are less bulky. Pasta with Pesto Sauce and Salmon Bits, from Prosecutor’s Cookbook At Home: [...]
Spring Break Scout Hike: Grand Gulch in So. Utah
Troop/Crew 100 started the 2009 hiking season with a great 5 day backpack in southern Utah, in Grand Gulch. We had 4 groups of participants, who started at 2 different trailheads, and camped at different campsites over a 5 day period. Two groups started at Kane Gulch, and two started at Collins Springs. The shortest [...]
The Ptarmigan Traverse
In 1973 my college buddy Marc Dilley and I went on a famous mountaineering trip in the North Cascades of Washington, near the Canadian border. It is called the Ptarmigan Traverse. It starts at Cascade Pass, which is reached by one of the most spectacular hikes imaginable, spectacular because you are surrounded by incredible peaks [...]
A Friendly Pika
It is pretty rare to see a It is pretty rare to see a pika, and being a few feet away from one is even more rare. It has only happened once to me, in 40 years of of hiking. This little guy approached four of our group, including a dog, went around us off [...]
Lewisii tweedyi
Lewisii tweedyi These are examples of Lewisii tweedyi, with text from an article at www.wenatcheeoutdoors.com by my friend Marc Dilley. Wenatchee Outdoors has a list of other articles here. A gentle belle–resplendent in a muted setting of sharp needles, gritty soil and cold stone–Tweedy’s Lewisia clings to life in the least likely of environments. Valued [...]
The John Muir Trail, 1971
In recent times, hikers on the JMT have seriously lighter loads than we used in the 1970s, and covered many more miles than we did. In 1971 my younger brother Mike and I planned a 28 day trip on the JMT, with 12 people. Some people might be interested in our trip as a view [...]
John Muir Trail, 1971, 2nd half
We left the parking lot in the afternoon, reaching Saddlerock lake after a leisurely hike up. Beth was really hard put to make it, no matter how slow she and I went. We got to camp an hour behind the first groups and set about making fires as the sun went down. Beth, Nancy, Chuck [...]
Loon Lake Idaho, and the wrecked Douglas B-23 Dragon Bomber
In the late 1930s the Douglas Aircraft Company found a superior design for a sturdy long range aircraft in the civilian DC-2 and DC-3. These were the finest passenger planes yet created, and also served as the basic form of military transport as the C-46 and C-47. The Army also wanted a better bomber than [...]
Jim’s first year in Scouts, summer of 2007
Our Scout activities in 2007 basically amounted to an experiment in whether young scouts of age 11 could carry off a schedule of adventurous activities, such as snow camping and backpacking. These pictures shows the backpacks and hikes that Jim and I were on. The scout troop we joined also had some other trips, which [...]