Our First Shakedown Hike

Shakedown Hike to Huntsville State Park

We couldn't have asked for a better day to see if we were close to ready. The high was around 65 degrees, but it felt warm even with shorts on. We were sweating, but the sun wasn't sapping our energy as it was the other day we hiked when it was 83.

Our macaroni and cheese, the kind in the natural foods isle, worked great. Instead of six cups of water to make the noodles, we used about four cups for two packages of noodles and used the cozie to do most of the cooking. The four cups of water covered the dry noodles with maybe a knuckle's worth extra. After getting the water boiling, I added the noodles and then let it boil for a couple of minutes before putting the pot into the cozie. We had some neighbors come by for a chat, so I don't know exactly how long the noodles cooked, but it was maybe 15 minutes. The noodles were perfect. Pam had another idea that worked awesome. Instead of draining the noodle water, we just added the milk powder to the remaining water, then added the cheese powder and stirred it up, then added the chopped precooked bacon. It filled our two bowls perfectly (overflowing) and we ate it all up.

We were in bed a little after that 7pm; just after the sun went down. We listened to Mighty Blue on the AT for an hour and settled in to rest. Rest was a fitful one for me, and because of my tossing and turning Pam woke up chilled every time I turned over and let air into the quilt. This brought on the discussion of us needing our own sleeping bags. Without the ability to get a good night's sleep, we'd be worn out in no time.

We purchased our 3-person Kelty Gunnison 3.2 tent for our bicycle tour through the San Juan Island/Southern Gulf Island about four years ago. It seemed to me then that with bicycles the added weight wouldn't be that big a deal. I was wrong then and when faced with carrying the 8-pound tent on my back, I'm especially noticing how wrong I am again. Plus, just the physical size of the tent is unwieldy. I had taken it out of it's single long stuff sack and broke it up into to two smaller sacks in the hopes of making the bulk more manageable, but its still won't fit inside the pack. After a good deal of discussion and reading more reviews than I did when I bought a new car, we enhanced our yearly kickback from REI and ordered a new tent. This time we're going smaller and lighter with the Big Agnes Copper Spur High Volume (relative) Ultra Light 2 (also relative).

With this new tent, we expect there won't be that much opportunity to be wandering off with the quilt. We're going to try this new combo on our next shakedown hike next week. If it works out, it'll save us from buying two new sleeping quilt/bags.