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This weekend I headed to the area around the North Fork of the Skykomish.

I refer to this area as a confluence of Wilderness. The Wild Sky Wilderness, Henry M. Jackson Wilderness, and Glacier Peak Wilderness all meet here. This trip was spent on and around Cady Ridge, field testing the Hill People Gear Ute.

Toward Benchmark

  • West Cady Ridge
  • Mountain Valleys

Currently reading The Way of the Knife by Mark Mazzetti.

In the book Mazzetti tracks the CIA’s re-entry after 9/11 into the business of killing people, and the resulting decline in their ability to perform intelligence work. It is a good companion to Eric Schmitt’s Counterstrike.

I had never ridden a century before last week.

On the eleventh day of my Northwest tour I rode 101.3 miles. On the final day I rode 105.4 miles – with my touring load, through a thunder storm, over a mountain pass, in temperatures reaching the mid-90°s Fahrenheit. It never gets easier, you just go faster.

Final Day Statistics

Currently reading Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

The combination in Kim of self-discovery across India and espionage of the Great Game in reads like the mixing of Siddhartha with a John le Carré novel.

Currently reading Travels with Rosinante by Bernard Magnouloux.

Magnouloux spent 5 years cycling around the world. He crossed paths with Richard and Nicholas Crane in Lhasa, and this book has some echoes of their Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Thanks to Joe Cruz for the recommendation.

I put rule #7 into practice yesterday.

Six hours, 85 miles, two very sharp lines.

To Index

The Modern Woodsman as a cross-disciplinary wilderness traveler.

At Wood Trekker Ross introduces his concept of the modern woodsman.

… [T]he modern woodsman is a person who is able to undertake long term trips, deep into the wilderness, only with supplies one could carry and what could be gathered from the surrounding environment… He uses technology, skills and equipment based on efficiency and practicality. He applies modern hunting techniques, modern understanding of nutrition, and modern climbing, mountaineering, and packrafting techniques. His equipment includes tools that are best suited for the task without consideration for nostalgia and sentimentality.

It's impressive the distances that can be covered on a bicycle.

Jan Heine took a couple days for an impromptu ride from Seattle to Orcas Island and back via Whidbey and the peninsula.