Wild Bound

I can’t believe that it has been 3 months since I posted here.  I have a good excuse…really.  The Dog ate my homework.

Actually, March was spent on the couch with a cold/cough/upper respiratory crud.   I recovered just in time to go on vacation (I have posts to write from that).  I got home just in time to relapse with aforementioned cold/cough/upper respiratory crud.  April marked a big change in life as I lay on the couch still recovering from the crud and coming down with morning sickness.  Between now and November, the blog will probably have some focus on getting outdoors while pregnant.  Then you can expect Wild Bound with Kids to start up sometime after Thanksgiving (okay, maybe I’ll take a break between Thanksgiving and New Years).

Welcome to my new life.

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President’s day dawned bright and clear. After doing some chores around the house, the call of sunshine and the hope of spring were irresistible.

Brenton suggested that we throw some food in the car and drive North to Kootenai Wildlife refuge near Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

We took the Deep Creek Trail (2.2 miles), then walked along the road to the Island Pond Nature trail to make a loop back to the parking area.

We started out with snowshoes, but soon realized that the snow was shallow and ice-crusted. Without snowshoes, we had to be careful not to twist an ankle, but the hiking went faster with less weight on the feet.

The trail is clearly marked, but not well used in winter–at least not by humans. The most common footprints were moose, deer, and elk (along with their animal scat piles everywhere!)

Deep Creek trail meanders along the east side of the wildlife refuge mostly following the Kootenai river. The river was ice-free, but I don’t think it’s warm enough for a swim.

The wildlife refuge was actually created in the 1960’s after the Kootenai river had been tamed from the spring floods, and the valley was turned from wetlands to fertile farmland. In the process of creating farmland, the wetland eco-systems were disappearing.

The refuge is 2,774 acres purchased and maintained with funds from duck stamps (yes, this refuge is maintained with hunting dollars). In the winter, it offers feeding grounds for elk, moose, deer, and other big game animals that come down from the Selkirk mountains to escape deep winter snows. Spring and Summer offer numerous opportunities for bird watching. If you are into hunting, the refuge has designated areas for waterfowl, upland game, and big game hunting (make sure you check with the refuge office for regulations).

As spring comes on, Brenton and I like to drive up to the refuge to sit and read with the songbirds singing in the background. One of the most interesting sights at the wildlife refuge is a pair of bald eagles that nest there. We always see a moose or some deer, and too many ducks and geese to count.

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I planned on writing about assembling a survival kit today, but a migraine has me so twisted up that I can’t even think straight.  I’ll be back later this week with more bug out bag information.

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Every new year begins with re-evaluating life, setting goals, and making plans. This year, and this blog is no different.

My plans for this year include at least one winter camping trip. Every time we have planned on taking our first winter camping trip, a road block has come up. I fully intend to go camping at least once before spring.

I finally bought snowshoes, and have been out a grand total of once! I’m blaming on the holiday craziness. My plan is to get out at least once every other week between now and when the snow melts.

When I look towards warmer weather, I am already getting excited about tackling the Idaho Centennial Trail one weekend at a time.

As I watch the snow falling outside my front door, my thoughts turn towards the kayak sitting in storage. June and July I hope to spend many afternoons on the lake and rivers near by my house.

When fall comes back around an the air gets crisp again, I want to have a harvest bonfire complete with roasting hot dogs and making s’mores.

We will squeeze in a few more camping trips, and then there will be snow on the ground again. After the snow falls, I will pull out my snowshoes and start dreaming about a new year.

What do you have planned for this new year?

Happy 2008 Y’all!

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This weekend was taken up with more work towards our Christmas camping trip.  Saturday evening, I spent 6 hours wandering stores looking for outdoor gear on my shopping list.  I bought a lot of good stuff–sleeping pad, waterproof matches, good water bottles, etc–without spending too much money.  At least it wasn’t too expensive until I stopped at the book store to look at their selection of books on winter camping.

Today I intended to publish a winter camping gear list, but I started reading my new books instead.  I confess I feel overwhelmed and insufficiently prepared for winter camping.  I wonder how much more I need to spend to be ready to go out winter camping.

Yesterday we got about 1 foot of snow over a 24 hour period.  Today the temperature has warmed up a lot, and I am facing the fact that winter can kill you.

What I really want is to embrace the wilderness as home, but in the “comfort” of my apartment, nature doesn’t seem very friendly.

I just have to remind myself that people have been going out on winter camping trip for hundreds of years–long before goretex was invented.

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I have quite a few things planned over the next few weeks, and I want to give my readers a taste of what’s to come.

Right now, I am planning the first winter camping trip I have ever taken. This involves putting together gear lists and finding a place to go camping.

We will be testing new sleeping bags. I want to make sure these bags are warm enough before I take them out backpacking.

One of the major obstacles of winter camping right now is finding or making a cooking stove. Next week, I will be making and testing several different styles of home made cooking stoves. Hopefully I will find a style that works well enough to take out snowshoeing.

It will be a busy December here at Wild Bound. I hope you stick around to catch all the articles here. To make sure you don’t miss a thing, subscribe to Wild Bound in an RSS feed reader, or subscribe by email.

Photo: Todd Petit, used by permission CC-By

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About a week ago, I ordered two backpacks and two sleeping bags off of ebay. Late last night, I found a box on my front porch!

As soon as I opened the box and pulled out my new toys, my hunger was forgotten, and supper stayed in the fridge.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is two thousand:

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Almost two years ago, I moved to North Idaho with my husband.

Let me start out by saying that Idaho is not all farmland and potatoes. In fact, north Idaho has very little farmland and all that seems to grow around here is trees and mountains. And it is wonderful!

The state is a patchwork of national forests criss crossed with hiking trails and dirt roads. The people in north Idaho are enthusiastic about hiking, backpacking, camping, hunting and just generally getting outdoors.

I keep running into the same problem, over and over, that keeps me from getting outdoors the way that I want to.

I…

dont…

have…

money.

Things started to change in May. We bought a kayak, and almost prophetically I told my husband, “You know, this is the beginning of an addiction.”

The summer that followed was filled with adventures on water, and when it got too cold to keep on kayaking, I turned my attention towards camping. That backpacking dream came up again.

Here I am writing about pursuing my dreams and seeking out adventures.

Won’t you join me as we are wild bound.

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For two summers, I worked as a camp counselor at Camp Chattooga in Tallulah Falls, Georgia.

I had almost forgotten my backpacking dreams until I applied to work at Camp Chattooga. I read over the camp brochure and saw the Adventure program—caving, mountain climbing, rappelling, backpacking. Oh wow! That would be cool!

I didn’t have enough experience to qualify as an adventure leader, but the dream and the passion re-awoke.

For those two summers, I lived my dreams. At night, I would fall asleep out on the cabin porch listening to the bull frogs. For two summers my sleeping bag was my bed.

I taught campers how to catch bullfrogs with a flashlight and how to shoot a rifle. Wherever we went, we were singing at the top of our lungs.

Once a week we would take all the campers out for a camp out. I usually got the job of starting the fire for the cook out. Most of the campers had never experienced cooking hot dogs or roasting marshmallows over a campfire. The S’mores? Well you can imagine.

The most important thing I learned that second summer of working at Camp Chattooga is that I had to figure out a way to do that (live outdoors) for the rest of my life.

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I can’t really say when this all started. Was it the hikes that my parents used to take us on at Happy Jack in Nebraska? Maybe it was all those fishing trips? Most likely, I think my love for the outdoors began with a little sister’s admiration for her big brother.

My brother Jesse has always loved being outdoors. When he built a campsite out in the woods, I found my own campsite to maintain. He went out camping with his friends, and I even found one or two girl friends who would sleep out under the stars with me.

We rarely used a tent, but when he found this great deal on a small nylon rope hammock, I bought one too.

Shortly after after he started talking about hiking the Appalachian trail, I started dreaming of it too. We read the Home Handyman encyclopedias over and over. The most well read one was the volume on building a log cabin.

Jesse still does camping, but most of his adventures involve building rock crawling buggies. My dreams got stuck on camping and backpacking.

High school and college came and went and introduced a lot of distractions into my life. Even living in the middle of a city, I get a serious case of wanderlust at least once a week. That can only be cured by an afternoon (or a day) wild bound.

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