Don't Miss Me Too Much!

I'll be on the Ouachita Trail tomorrow doing maintenance with Mark Davis, then I'm going to stay out there tomorrow night, and maaayyyybe Monday night too.

You kids behave yourselves while I'm gone!

See ya next week.

Jay,

Don't work to hard! Going to be hot! You will need more bottles!! We should get back out next week end.
Ether back inot Canney Creek or up on ht OT. Ready to get all this work done!

Take care!

Well, I bit off more than I could chew yesterday. With my trip to Arizona looming and all this new gear sitting in my living room, I decided to pack it all in my pack and go for it.

Well, poor Mark Davis (ar.hiker) ended up waiting for me more than anything on our way in, or should I say UP. I loaded my bag with every peice of equipment I own in hopes of a.) getting in shape and b.) testing some stuff. Also, there's no real water on this section, so I had to carry extra water for the overnight, which meant even more weight.

I climbed about two miles with that hulking pack, found a suitable campsite and dumped it off before we went on to do trail maintenance. It killed me. I haven't carried a heavy pack for years and I'm still not ready. I'm going to have to lighten my pack a little AND get in better shape before I do that again. I was almost embarrased. But, hey, I didn't get out of shape overnight, so I guess I can't expect to get back into shape overnight either.

Otherwise, we got a little bit of trail maintenance done and I got to spend the night out there (it was hot) in the wind checking out my new tent and stuff. I had a great night and had a great workout.

P.S. If you plan on hiking with ar.hiker, come prepared because that guy can flat cover some trail! I had a great time with him, I just feel bad for slowing him down hauling all my junk up there. Really good guy.

Jay,

I know what you mean by heavy pack and a lot of uphill. Janet, by trial and error, are narrowing down our pack weight. It can be a killer.
We have to go lighter. With bad knees and such! How far did you and Mark make it on the trail work. We are thinking about working on
our trail this week end including painting new blazes. I don't mind doing trail work but am ready to get it done!

Well, I'm pretty confident in saying that the first 1.5 to 2 miles of his section (61 thru 66) are nice and clear, save for one big tree that we couldn't do anything with. I'm not saying we really worked all of it because some of it was in pretty good shape already. We aren't totally sure how far we got because there seems to be a mile marker missing somewhere in there.

On another note, I told my better half that I would check in later last night if I had cell phone service out there, and needless to say: I didn't. So, when I didn't call all night last night and slept in until about 8:30 this morning and didn't call her until I decided to hike out about noon, I discovered that she had already called Mark asking if I was okay...

I felt like saying "Mommmmmm! You're embarrassing me in front of my friends!" LOL...

So, we had "The Talk" and now she understands not to get worked up about me unless she sees men in orange jumpsuits flying over in basket-toting helicopters.

"Yes dear," I said. "SAR stands for See? I'm AlRight."

Well looks like you have it under control! I can't wait to see the trees down on the west side of the Caney Creek trail.
And am wondering how long the trail will be blocked. At least on the OT you can report that there are trees down and
they can get a crew together to cut them out. In the wilderness are it is "HURRY UP AND WAIT"