The Great Outdoors

Motorcycle trip to the Blue Ridge in western NC with a life long friend about 25 years ago.

I still ride.

Is that an Eureka Timberline tent? It looks like one. I used one back in the 1980s. It's supposed to be part of my tent review I keep promising. Spoiler: Easy to set up, durable, spacious, heavy.

I don't know it was his.(the guy in it). I doubt I'd remember if it were mine.

While checking out my backpacks for review I decided my basement needed rearranging. That's holding up my review but doing wonders for my basement. I did get out for a couple short hikes. On one I managed to get this picture of a wild Xterra in its natural habitat.

Some of my best hikes were by 4 wheeler.

I'm having difficulty finding time to finish the backpack reviews so here's a short and dirty one. The backpacks are, left to right, Jansport Dhaulagiri 3 (commonly call D3), Osprey Atmos 50, Gregory Baltoro 65, Osprey Exos 58.

There are two main types of backpacks, those with external frames and those with internal frames. External framed packs can generally carry heavier loads more comfortably than internal framed packs. Their drawbacks are their greater weight and they are clumsier on the trail. They hold weight farther away from your body so they tend to sway more and be more top heavy when bending over for some reason.

Internal frame packs are almost always lighter than an equal sized external frame pack. They keep the pack closer to your body which helps with balance and movement. They are usually hotter because the pack is closer to, if not actually touching, your back. They don't carry heavier weights as well but I don't carry that much weight. That's for the long-haulers and expedition people.

I used the Jansport through the 1980s and then for a brief time around 2000-ish. It has aluminum "wings" in the waist straps that very comfortably rest almost all the pack weight on my hips. Any pack should be adjusted so only a little of the pack's weight is on your shoulders. Its waist strap and aluminum buckle became worn so smooth they didn't hold well any more. It was also getting a little frayed at stress points so I decided I needed a new pack. It's a great pack, I give it a 9.

I wanted to go lighter so I evaluated my gear and decided I could fit in a smaller pack so I bought the Osprey Atmos 50. It's a wonderful pack for a weekend warrior like myself. Well sometimes I stretch a day or two more. It easily adjusts to a wide variety of body sizes and has some well thought out features. Except those two front pockets. That white loop is the zipper pull for one. Those pockets don't extend out from the pack but into the pack. If the pack is full it's difficult to put anything in them. If they are filled first then the pack is hard to load. I usually just kept my spoon in one and nothing in the other except maybe my water filter. Great pack with two useless pockets. It gets an 8. I'm not sure but I think Osprey's newer models got rid of those pockets.

I backpack with friends that like to push the ends of the season. My Osprey worked great in summer but, as I'm 6'6" and somewhere over 200 pounds, it was hard for me to fit enough warmer clothes into it. So I bought the Gregory Baltoro 65, which has 15 liters more space than the Atmos 50. It has never been on a trail. We got rained out on the only trip I packed it for. We don't mind wet as long as we can stay warm but it was about 40F and drizzling steadily. What we don't like is hypothermia so we went out for breakfast and cancelled the hike. Then the pandemic and all kinds of things went on that have kept me off the trail. It's a nice pack, spacious, maybe too heavy. It would be unfair for me to rate it.

I have a growing need to get back into some big woods, not any piddly, few hundred acre plot. I ain't getting any younger so I decided to lighten my load some more. The first thing I bought was the Osprey Exos 58. It has 8 liters more space than the Atmos 50 but weighs much less. It's a lot like the Atmos 50 but with fewer options and made of different material. The two useless pockets are gone but so is much of the size adjustment options. It seems to wear well but it's too new for me to rate. Later this summer, maybe.

‘Grade B does have more flavor and might be more nutritious from the extra minerals but syrup is not health food..’

Good point, lol. I just looked it up and it’s mostly pure sugar with some trace minerals, but it’s delicious.. now I wonder how the raw sap taste like. a friend of mine used to mix the grade B syrup with oats, bananas, raisins, etc, and bake it into bars that I used to take hiking, kayaking, diving, etc..

talking about sap.. last year I noticed those supercool trees with a red sap, maybe some type of eucalyptus, I can’t remember, but you can make a red dye out of it.

I remember Euell Gibbons who advertised Grape nut flakes and promoted living like natives Americans to be healthy.

Rumor spread he died choking on a pine cone.

Actually a heart blockage.

Just sayin.

Just saying what?

That sap looks wild. I wonder if it would have a pleasant smell when burned like frankincense and myrrh? I still have some grade B syrup. I may try making some bars like that.

There's very, very little flavor in maple sap and just a hint of sweetness because it's so diluted. I've been trying to keep track of how much sap I've carried in five gallon buckets back to the sugar shack. I was the only collector for four of the first run days and collected 16, 22, 12, and 11 gallons. Then a cold front came in and sap stopped running. It warmed up a few days ago and the sap started running big time. I collected 98 gallons Thursday night, maybe enough for two gallons of syrup.

In my experience, so called natural maple syrup is much thinner than the sugary fake stuff

The fake stuff is made with corn syrup which is quite a bit thicker than natural maple syrup. Gotta go, two cats are giving me that "Where's dinner?" look. Then dinner for myself.

I have 4 cats.

I prefer sorghum molasses to maple syrup.

Common here in NC

The red sap was bitter as hell. not sure how it smells because it was already solid, almost like glass.

2 gallons of syrup out of 98 g of sap explains why you say it’s almost tasteless. my guess is it’s mostly water? What’s the viscosity? would be cool if you post some photos of how you collect it from the tree, etc..

buen provecho

Speaking of which....

Looks good! I ordered pizza.

It takes anywhere from 46 to 65 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Holes are drilled a little over an inch deep and taps are tapped in with a hammer. Buckets are hung from the taps with covers over them to keep out snow, rain, and whatever. Every day somebody goes around to the trees and empties those buckets into 5 gallon plastic buckets. They get carried back to the sugar shack and poured into food grade plastic drums. During peak season, each tap may produce over a gallon a day. Smaller trees get one tap, larger trees two taps and the largest trees get three taps. This helps keep from stressing the trees over much.

Pizza's ready. Here's sample pics and I'm gone.

I spent the weekend making eight bluebird houses. A family member has had some out for years. I clean them out each spring to get them ready for the next generation. However, after so many years they were starting to fall apart. This year the birds get new digs.

The houses

Wikipedia's bluebird picture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebird