Bad News, but not stopping

I went into surgery to get the screws and plate taken out of my elbow so I'm trapped recovering and classes start next month. I plan on getting back on the trail soon, just not soon enough. The expeditions throughout this whole blog are self funded and self produced, others that take on such documentation tasks are often sponsored and given gear along with some production budget for quality. I'll try to mix together some video into something of amateur production quality next time I can get back out there.

But all is not lost during down time, this is a period of more learning and more training, you can never be over prepared, simple as that (but you can be overpacked). Personally I've just been looking into other companies who support outdooring activities, particularly the ones that don't just manufacture or sell products used on trail, but those that live the products, and the brands have become a part of the lifestyle that comes with backpacking and trekking, while many who do already retail or produce those goods are there for that such reason. REI is a good one, they do manufacture some hiking/climbing goods and apparel, they retail other brands also. REI also endorses expeditions that encourage the purchasing of the products the sell, an effective marketing scheme (similar to Cabela's or L.L. Bean for you hunting folk). They also work with 'outdoor sports marketing,' go figure! Most of which are endorsed and sponsored hikes or documentary expeditions, used to market and test/review their products even more; regardless of all the capitalism they express, it does well for them, not me. There are plenty more, Backpacker is primarily a magazine about backpacking, nature, etc but they have loads of information about products they review, survival techniques, and nature safety on their website. Another more similar to myself would be Wahoo Hiker, he's more of a writer(and I lack such talent), but outdoor enthusiast nonetheless, but no longer updates that blog; there are too many to name them all. These companies market products they like, and do what they love in about as good of a manner a possible to still be profitable. I'd just rather it be about the experience and use the local parks and recreation department, than care much for the marketing and business of the products; but that's what makes the companies compete to make better stuff then the next guy. And this is merely a hobby of mine, I prefer something more substantial to make my living, hence my programming major.

I guess people like me is their target market, but I would never go as far as paying REI to set up their group hikes; an Appalachian hut to hut hike for $700 (they have more on all continents that go higher than $3k). I'd be the one that would get two friends and sneak around the front postings and camp shop to sleep our own way with our own shelter. We're merely walking! But of course I don't condone of any illegal activities.

Learning is a fun, progressive experience; you gain knowledge, then you test it, then you gain more knowledge, and knowledge is power! Packing the contents of your gear correctly is dire, you should how learn before going backpacking or hiking with a heavy load. First and foremost your pack should fit correctly to your size and carry the majority of the load on your waist not your shoulders. Keep everything in your pack strapped down well for balance, any heavy jostling items hanging on the outside or loose inside will shift and can easily throw you off your feet on uneven terrain.

Most hike packs have a big stow pocket at the bottom for sleeping bags or other light, compressable items. The heaviest items like water and tent poles should be closest to your spine in the center, as to attempt to be one with your torso. If your pack goes lopsided when you put it on there is probably too much weight on one side, and heavy items need to be centered correctly. These heavier items can be held in place with lighter softer items like clothing around the sides. Osprey packs has a good illustration of weight distribution. I only post a link to their site because it is their illustration and all credit goes to them, I want to avoid posting things that belong to others on my blog, I'd rather just refer readers to them and keep it original here. Keep things that need to be accessed often on the top or in easy to reach pockets with items only used in the evening at the hardest to reach places towards the bottom.

Pack's contents

This is what I have so far, which would last me comfortably for a few days or more. For lighter hikes you lighten the pack. About 25 pounds when full, varies with the seasons and how much I feel like carrying.

Most unpacked

OKC Survival knife, stones, and Letherman multitool

Books, Health, and Hygiene

Passion packed, go. I need to reduce the amount hanging outside, the sandals and mess tin will go inside when I make a bungie brace for a bedroll or tent to securely strap to the bottom after I get a good raincover. The more secured your pack is and the less jossling of supplies means better balance and less stress on your back.

The North Face Terra 35 Pack
Eureka Solitare Tent
Coleman mess tin, mug, and utensils
Ontario Knife Company Air Force Survival Knife w/ leather sheath
Leatherman multitool pocketknife
Grindstone and Arkansas whetstone
Princeton Tec BYTE headlamp
New Balance 479 shoes
Oniell Sandals
Water Proof Matches
1/4" nylon camp cord
Medical Kit
Magnet
Thread and needle
Homemade Water Filter
Garbage and ziplock bags
Tripod seat
Steel leader wire
Rubber Bands
Carabiner Clips
Gloves
Blanket
Towel
Sunhat
Clothes and socks
Hand sanitizer
Bugspray
Sunblock
Oral hygiene kit
Bubblewrap sleeping pad
My books
Zune
Sony Handycam SR-45
Moto droid
And of course, water bottles

Things I'd like/plan to add:
Thermarest self inflating sleeping pad
Solar usb charger (solio classic or kiwi u powered, not sure yet)
Consumer grade water filter (katadyn vario, or some msr)
UV purifier (SteriPEN adventurer)
Hydration pack
Fiberous Camp towel
Rainproof pack cover
Rinseless shampoo
Wax thread and seam sealer

Conner Preserve: Searing Eyes Peer Through Shaded Pillows

On Thursday July 7th around noon I started the task of Conner preserve, all of it. What I figured would take me two days, only took about 8 hours of actual hike, 12 hours on trail total, the weather made sure of that. It was fucking exhilarating...just like ice fishing.

The constant threat of downpour loomed overhead, pervading its dread along the paths. The sun peered through the clouds and it's radiant light singed my skin after so many hours, I hoped the clouds would once again overshadow the suns gaze.

The dead, dried bushes overlapping the lush green palmettos, natural contrasts flaunted by their own demeanor.

The Great Egret combs the tall grass from high above...

... but always forgoes its humble perch for the hunt of certain prey.

Life's circle fully eclipsed, one day the fate of us all.

Water, water, and more water; the unlikelihood of crossing 20 miles in 8 hours and the encroaching cloud storm encourages the idea of camp craft.

Crossing an seemingly endless horizon with the sun and the teasing droplets of rain on my back, nevermore than a few...

...Vultures menace the skies above my head, as if I were to be the next of their pickings. They perched atop their lost mooseman, who desisted his excursion, to be left a lonely dying tree...

Is that a samsquanch?

The thick brush overgrown among the once treaded tire tracks along the trail; now knee-high I whistle, stomp heavily, and walk only along the the center high ridge between what used to be low channel left by tires in hopes of avoiding any territorial serpents, keeping my eyes sifting through my future path. The thorns prove my obvious regret of my short ankled socks: lesson learned.

The steady long strides between hoofed tracks lead the presumption of deer (above any other ungulates), almost corralled in this sanctuary leaves them not very far; however, they are difficult to catch off guard, they know this land more than us. To successfully surprise these deer intentionally, you would have to take arduous, devious implementations to do so; they are far from hunting grounds. 

As I trot past she leers at me, tirelessly holding her pose, the first instinct is camouflage. I neglectfully stare through her rusted golden fur simply seeing browning leaves and pine needles, distracted by my music. As I pass the one mere snap of twig catches my ear, the music could not be muted faster along with my own heartbeat. Examining my own surroundings in silence to anything but the birds and bugs conducting their business through the trees, the warm soft sand along the path, rusting barbed wire fence on the right, and small marsh land to the far left. I spot what looks like a molding leaf off a golden brown tree (I should wear my glasses) behind a bushel of palmetto brush not 15 feet from me... and it wags! My eyes instantly change to the other side the bushel and there is a golden doe with ears to the sky and eyes as big as golf balls scrutinizing my body language, deciding the run or to stay and hide. At that instant we were in a stand off staring contest; what felt like hours could not have been more than seconds, and with a blink she was gone in a gallop through the marsh.

The king of the monarchs!

Can you spot the dragonfly? Me neither!

This is what people know as "bad country," waist high brush leaving a mystery of what lies below with every step, giving any ambush cover up to your very boot.

What seems to be a field of grass is actually a water basin about a foot deeper than what you see, perfect for snakes. Don't play ball on this field.

Couldn't really tell exactly what this was, much less how it died, picked clean.

The rain was an inevitability, it was only a question of when.

This game doesn't get rained out... you get rained in. 

The torrential downpour patters and rumbles on the fly, like a thousand horses galloping across the plains. Moisture in the air wrinkles the page's edge. Stuck in an endless story on a ride I could not predict what happens next. The comic stylings of the zune list keeps morale high.

Even after the soaking of the ground some hard work, luck, and ingenuity made a campfire possible, it took over 30 minutes and I gave up on fire, leaving the smoking remnants to my back, then five minutes later a surprising flame sprouts out!

At about midnight long after hitting all trails, about 18.4 miles total; some well earned R&R; and the rain ceased to torture me with its rhythmic beating, I packed up and headed for home.

Cypress Creek Preserve: Behold the turtle, he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out

Pasco County Parks and Recreation Department, along side with SwFWMD (aka "swiftmud") have been working hard for many years to preserve and upkeep the natural habits in our very own backyards (I actually did volunteer work in their office building on US-41, mainly shredding paper and moving furniture) Some counties are more proactive than others, I think Pasco does a good job. And that is only central west coast of Florida. There are many many more across all of America for anyone to take on the task of the trail, with training and brainpower, goals are accomplished. So to start small and work my way up; well I have done some of these a number of times already, growing up in the area; however, as the point of this blog, to track my progress of expanding more, and different trails.

Out on the trail electronics, documentation wise, I only have my Moto Droid and Sony Handycam 30GB camcorder, without any solar charging either (I'll have to look into solar usb charger). I would like to able to use my hike tracking app, and not destroy my battery in a matter of hours, but a smaller usage of battery power and still satisfying documentation could be using plain text my and awesome descriptive power! With something simple like a twitter or blogspot app, I have to conserve battery. I want to try and mix together some raw footage into something people might be interested to watch, expressing many techniques of self reliance. I need to buy a digital still photo camera. I also have a Zune I can listen to music.

There also comes a major aspect of survival knowledge while hiking for more than three days, I really don't want to waste all my time typing about how to survive, but I'll include as much as I can, including my entire pack and contents, as well as some techniques. Every human should know the rule of threes: 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 days without water; and 3 weeks without food; the bare essentials of sustaining life. These can be exacerbated or alleviated in many ways. There tons of survival shows on discovery channel and others, all of which are majorly overproduced (except survivorman, they won't produce one any better than that) still teach many good lessons, but you should NOT watch these shows as 'training' for your own hike. The SAS survival guide is good starting point (read this like a bible, for you religious people), also you NEED to consult with your local parks and recreation center or a well know woodsman in your community about a training course with an expert for you and your party. If only hiking for the day or a few hours, hydrate and check the weather and hiking recommendations for that trail from you local parks and recreation dept., I'm not familiar with many preserve managers outside of Florida.
Last week I hiked most of Cypress Creek Preserve (aka The Pasco well fields) getting used to my new pack, on Thursday I hiked to both the camping sites, and read some of my book (art of self reliance, R W Emerson) really humid out, just over 3.5 miles that day. A few days after than I ran the 5k trail that goes past the camping around the back of Pine View Middle School. I borrowed a camera and they came out well.

Cannot find out how to export the map of my hike from droid app (I think its called 'all sport', it has good maps of trails and tracks your progress, I only use free versions, that could be why), if I figure it out I'll post it. Still finishing my pack, need a good camp knife. I already have a mess kit for cooking and cleaning drinking water, but I still need to make a good water filter. I could buy one but one could be made from simple materials, my first design will go in 3-4" diameter cylinder about 6" long (maybe aluminium) I was going to use cotton fiber fill at the bottom, a small layer of fine sand, pure charcoal, course sand, gravel, and more cotton fiber fill at the top. There will need to permeable layers on each end to hold the filter together, after this is field tested I will try improved, funnelled shapes. I should do a pH test to see which is more efficient, but they will both clog eventually and need to be replaced.

The formality of introducitions...

This is my first blog (haven't tried any html formatting for quite some time, gonna take some practice), I never made a facebook or a myspace, social networking is among real people with real conversation. Which makes this blog very ironic, but it has a purpose other than just me and "social networking." This is a blog to used to track my progress of hiking trails and being more at one with nature, the nature that is left right here not far from our own backyards, I have already done quite a few Pasco endorsed trails, as well as some not endorsed (endorsed meaning suggested by the swiftmud, parks and recreation department, or other forestry managers). Everything around here that hasn't been bought by SWFWMD is either private property or has been bought by developers,

This is more of a tool for me to use to track my progress, and anyone who views this can refer to me as my alias of Jig McGalliger, I don't really care who reads this. The reason I use this alias is among other things security, but not as much as internet security, but as security of hopes my family doesn't find this, they would not be supportive of the actions I have already taken and will continue to take regardless of what they try to talk me out of. Not trying to say I don't like my family, I love them but my father would be the only one who would say go and have a great time. He knows I'm not an idiot, I research the tasks I undertake, not many people get the opportunity to see nature in such a manner. My two sisters and my mother would be on the other side of the spectrum, hence the alias (they could see my name in my account but it won't be found with search functions). I find myself to be a man defined by the actions he takes, and these actions aren't for anyone or anything other than me. Personally I wanna do something fun, challenging, and cheap (cheap meaning self sufficient); I just wanna relax, read my books, draw, play music, whatever the hell I want, and not be distracted for as long as feel like, ya know?

A slight bit of introduction, I go by Jig McGalliger. I was born in Tampa, FL and have lived in Land O' Lakes since forever ago. I went to Land O' Lakes High School, played football through school and other sports recreationally throughout my entire life. I have been working at a restaurant that normally offers about 35 hours a week, been there over 5 years, worked up fast. Started there when I was 16 and I am now over half of my 21st year of age. Job isn't that great (tips tips tips), but It's a job, and I take pride in my work. I also attend school at Hillsborough Community College, I major in computer programming. I almost have my AS, hopefully I can get enough classes to be one at the end of spring, HCC isn't that great at offering classes at all semesters, but PHCC isn't any better or any closer.

I like programming, I want to work on gaming engines (specifically physics engines even if only used as middleware such as Havok) but many gaming engines offer the same physics features. The study of physics has interested me for many years. I have taken computer classes and languages including Visual Basic, C#, Database design (MSSQL and Oracle SQL), Systems Analysis, Networking, Unix/Linux, some Javascript and HTML; I just need some work experience. As a child I was a lego fanatic and have always aspired towards all things engineering, as well as all things natural. I made models of cars, jets, or houses; anything that would keep my interest. I was also in boy scouts for years, which was fun and teaches kids alot. I have also pursued some musical interests, I play guitar and drums (not that good but always fun to play) simply a hobby, much like video games, reading, or movies. I have also worked on multiple cars, working on my own project car for a matter of years now (1998 mitsubishi mirage with 4G64 2.4L swap, needs new ecu system) glad my parents don't hate me for having this car being a junk pile. Well it's far from a junk pile, the engine has been fully rebuilt with racing parts, I just don't have much knowledge of electrical systems, it's always a learning work in progress. I have also built my own gaming PC and have built a few for others (it much cheaper than buying a dell or anything else) I have also fixed a number of different laptops, desktops, gaming consoles.

As for all things natural, I like camping, mother nature, and hope many people realize this is our world we have to live alongside it, not overbear it; Earth would eventually reject human life. This isn't some macho chop down a tree and conquer nature bull crap, 'Leave No Trace' is rule #2 when hiking or backpacking, which means no littering, burning too much, or hunting or trapping (unless otherwise specified) especially on government owned or protected land, rule #1... survive (there are other rules posted at trails). My family has been riddled with people who aspire towards mother nature for generations, who love to go camping. My father is an environmental engineer for the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission, basically he's a professional tree hugger, and a damn smart one at that. He mainly works with wetlands, using topographical maps to preserve ecological habitats from corporate developers, he also has to go out into the field occasionally, but it's much more extensive than my simple explanation. Sad thing is

I broke my elbow last year that came with surgery, an osteotomy, and about 11 screws. I've worked through physical therapy at Florida Orthopedic Institute for as long as my Humana HMO insurance covered me, it wasn't very long. But I learned enough from the therapist to be able to do many exercises at home to help bring my arm back to full strength. Been back in school for what classes I can get (HCC doesn't always offer classes towards my programming specific degree), and back in work for quite some time.

Since my surgery I have found myself limited to physical activities I used to participate in, and since my arm feels functional I feel like I can do them until the time really comes, so I practice, and re-train. I can now do push ups, and throw baseball (not very well though!) another activity that is physically stressing, mentally challenging, and downright fucking exhilarating is hiking; tackling a trail can be easy and relaxing, those that last for only a few hours, which a great starting points; however, some trails are too long to finish in 1, 2 or even 3 days, some local preserves have over 50 miles of trails (many accommodate biking, canoeing, and more), which is where the training is required to be able to finish and not be a hazard to your health or even your life. Other training includes arm weights and long jogging, cardio and endurance. My dad and his friends (aka "The Bubs") also like to just go out and hike, explore, camp, and appreciate what there is left of our natural world. They've been neighbors and friends for a matter of decades. And I have the same kind of friends, they know you only live once, and if "leaving your mark on history" means the avoidable destruction of other living things, there's not much to be gained. I don't really care who reads this, just don't wanna hear any grief from my family for going hiking.