On Sunday I drove down to Calgary with Paula to do my MEC shopping.
The shopping was excellent. The weather was from January.
Inches of snow, the passes iced over and slippery, cars in the ditch, even in the valleys there was 3-4 inches of snow on the ground, then the wind - howling - knee high swirls of snow being whipped across the roads. It was, without a doubt, utterly unbikeable, as in, impossible to bike. Not hard, not challenging, IMPOSSIBLE.
For whatever reason, this is the coldest snowiest spring in anyone's memory. This is unfortunate, but the reality. Heading North in this in a week and a half would be a very bad plan. The thing about bad plans is they don't get any better unless you change them, so I've decided to change mine. To what, I'm not sure yet. I will still be heading out on my bike as close as possible to May 1 as possible, but I will not be heading North. I need to do some brainstorming!
Now the shopping!
I won't list it all, but here on some of the key purchases:
- MSR Hubba Tent (1.6 kg)
- Merlin -3 sleeping bag (690g)
- Bear Spray and Holster for easy access (did you know that bear spray is 10 time more effective than mace? The guy in the store was like 'make sure that you are upwind'. Make sure when? How? Presumably, I'm being attacked by a bear in an unexpected manner and from a non-negotiable direction).
- A whistle and an emergency space blanket
- Travel towel (my one luxury, I went for a large rather than a small)
- Oriskaso Solo. I am ridiculously excited about this. Origami cookware.
- Titanium spork.
- Also, I checked, my stove still works and I know how to use it.
2 comments:
I made a fire once when I was camping and just as it was blazing, the full container of gasoline I had for my stove lept out of my hands into that ranging fire. I had about 5 seconds to grab it bare handed before it would have exploded into a major fireball in the middle of the colorado wilderness. I can only imagine that you'll have about 300 of these stories. I can't wait.
whatever! that will not happen to me! I think, once I successfully *start* my trip, my problems will basically be over. I am confident that the wilderness-savvy knowledge lurking in my Canadian Ancestry will appear.
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