Archive for the ‘Hiking’ Category

Alcohol Stove Showdown: Supercat versus Unican

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
Comparing two homemade alcohol stove designs: Unican (left) versus Supercat (right)

Comparing two homemade alcohol stove designs: Unican (left) versus Supercat (right)

To save weight for my End of July Pacific Crest Trail attempt, I am going to take a homemade alcohol stove instead of a heavier and expensive commercial unit.  The ‘best’ two models I found were the Supercat, which is made from a cat food can, and the Unican, which is made from a single soda or beer can. On a side note, Heineken is not my favorite beer, I just had a lot of those cans handy from previous alcohol stove experimentation.  Also, please be aware that playing with fire and flammable liquids is dangerous, so don’t go blaming me if you burn your patio down or set yourself on fire.

Read on to see who wins the Supercat versus Unican challenge:

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Fishing at Estacada Lake

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Estacada Lake from the Canoe

Estacada Lake from the Canoe

Saturday morning, we weren’t even thinking about going fishing.  Paula and I decided to go hiking up at Milo McIver Park and check out the horse trails.  Paula hadn’t been up there before, and we were talking about the park Friday night, so we went hiking.  Once we arrived at the park, while we were driving down to the trailhead, I noticed a new sign for Estacada Lake.  Now, I had known about Estacada Lake, and knew there was a fishing dock on the town side, but I didn’t know of any access on the park side, so Paula and I detoured and scoped it out.  There was a nice launch, plus a dock–and people were catching fish!  So, we decided that we need to come back with the canoe on Sunday.  (the above pic is from the canoe on Sunday)

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Digging Thundereggs at Richardson’s Recreation Ranch

Monday, August 31st, 2009
Paula in the Blue Pit with a Rock Hammer

Paula digging Thunder Eggs at the Richardson Ranch

On Friday of the Crater Lake trip, we drove out into the desert outside of Madras to visit the famous Richardson’s Recreation Ranch, which is a worldwide destination for rockhounding.  While we’re not hard-core rockhounds or anything, we have been known to pick up the occasional cool rocks when we find them.  On this day, however, our quarry were Thundereggs!

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Smith Rock and Crooked River Canyon

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

On Wednesday (7/8/2009) of our Crater Lake adventure, we left Bend in the early morning and headed up to Smith Rock, a massive rock formation, probably an old butte that was carved away by the water, in the middle of the Crooked River Canyon, outside the small town of Terrebonne.

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Lava Cast Forest to Bend

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

On the next day, we traveled from our campsite at East Lake north on the way to Bend.  We were anxious to see the Lava Cast Forest, out in the remote middle of the Newberry Lava Fields, and what amazing mysteries that it held.

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