Preparation for Glacier
3/31/15 Well, I've walked 35 miles over the past month averaging just over 2 mph. Ten of those were on a treadmill set at 10% grade, the balance outside in our neighborhood with several moderate hills. Yesterday I dug out my backpack and loaded it with 30 pounds of flower, blankets and other stuff as my goal is to start carrying it in April. On our Isle Royal hike two years ago I used Trimble Outdoors Navigator on my Android phone to make a record. Also used its trip planning feature online to enter some of the trails in Glacier National Park that my son was most interested in. It was very helpful to see the elevation changes, etc. It has a trip guide feature but I'm having trouble figuring out how to make that useful.
Today I used an App called Alltrails. I downloaded it a few days ago and was particularly impressed with the local trails it found almost immediately. Also it seems to have most of the trails in Glacier National Park. So I decided to try it out today on my walk. No evaluation at this point other than that it worked! I don't know if it has a trip guide feature or how that works if it does. Outdoors Navigator allows you to choose way points from a guide trip but then simply gives you a heading and distance as the crow flies, not as the trail goes. That may be helpful but I would like one that you can instruct to guide you on a selected trail. Will keep plying with them.
4/7/15 AllTrails seems to have a couple fairly major bugs, at least on my two Android devices. The company says they will look at the problems I ran into and provide a fix in their next update. That has dampened my enthusiasm for it just a bit. We'll see whether it gets fixed or not.
4/8/15 AllTrails just published the upgrade, emailed me about it and I downloaded it. And the good news is that it fixed the problem! I am impressed with their customer service as well as the product. I'll be back on the trail to test it out soon.
4/13/15 I donned my backpack loaded with 30 lbs of "stuff" and hit the trails at Richard Bong State Recreation Area again. It was a beautiful day in the upper 60s and nearly clear skies. Everything went fine until I hit the first "major" low spot. It was flooded more than ankle deep from the recent, badly needed rains. I backtracked and took another trial. It too had some fairly serious wet spots but they were passable. But the backtracking lost some time for me and I had to turn back and retrace my steps back to the car due to a prior commitment. But it felt like that was for the good as I was bushed after only an hour of walking the 3.5 miles. Clearly I need to keep training!
4/26/15 I've gotten serious about training for this trip now as we have gotten our itinerary from the Park Service. We have two days with as my son describes them as "doozies" with steep long climbs. So I'm out nearly every day for a two to four mile walk with pack on the hilliest streets in our neighborhood. No one has called the police on me yet, but a few folks look at me longer than is natural!
Today I used an App called Alltrails. I downloaded it a few days ago and was particularly impressed with the local trails it found almost immediately. Also it seems to have most of the trails in Glacier National Park. So I decided to try it out today on my walk. No evaluation at this point other than that it worked! I don't know if it has a trip guide feature or how that works if it does. Outdoors Navigator allows you to choose way points from a guide trip but then simply gives you a heading and distance as the crow flies, not as the trail goes. That may be helpful but I would like one that you can instruct to guide you on a selected trail. Will keep plying with them.
4/7/15 AllTrails seems to have a couple fairly major bugs, at least on my two Android devices. The company says they will look at the problems I ran into and provide a fix in their next update. That has dampened my enthusiasm for it just a bit. We'll see whether it gets fixed or not.
4/8/15 AllTrails just published the upgrade, emailed me about it and I downloaded it. And the good news is that it fixed the problem! I am impressed with their customer service as well as the product. I'll be back on the trail to test it out soon.
4/13/15 I donned my backpack loaded with 30 lbs of "stuff" and hit the trails at Richard Bong State Recreation Area again. It was a beautiful day in the upper 60s and nearly clear skies. Everything went fine until I hit the first "major" low spot. It was flooded more than ankle deep from the recent, badly needed rains. I backtracked and took another trial. It too had some fairly serious wet spots but they were passable. But the backtracking lost some time for me and I had to turn back and retrace my steps back to the car due to a prior commitment. But it felt like that was for the good as I was bushed after only an hour of walking the 3.5 miles. Clearly I need to keep training!
4/26/15 I've gotten serious about training for this trip now as we have gotten our itinerary from the Park Service. We have two days with as my son describes them as "doozies" with steep long climbs. So I'm out nearly every day for a two to four mile walk with pack on the hilliest streets in our neighborhood. No one has called the police on me yet, but a few folks look at me longer than is natural!
2015-07-11 The clock is ticking, just 13 days until I leave for Minneapolis and 14 'till we board the train for West Glacier. Just learned that we cannot take bear spray with us on Amtrak's Empire Builder so I guess we'll have to buy it on that end, just one more thing squeeze into that first long day! I've been working hard in preparing, hiking up and down and around our neighborhood and area with my 35lb+ pack: 28 miles in May, 29 miles in June and 15 miles so far in July. I can almost say it feels good to get out and walk!