Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

You are one lucky son of a gun, Tribe. Post pics of your wilderness or give us your website. Are you a smoke jumper?

Baby Herc

I am not a Smoke Jumper ( Squad Boss Trainee on a 5 person Initial Attack Squad ) ... I recently returned to university & am now attending grad school ... I still work for the US Forest Service in the summers except this year ... I am currently in NY but will be returning to Oregon this Fall ... ...

I will post some pics soon ... Sadly, I rarely take pictures ... ...

I am fortunate to have been literally face to face with a Mountain Lion in Colorado ... An amazing experience ... ... Long story short ... My first fire season was in Colorado ( Pike NF ) ... For many months ( Exploring & on local fires ), we came across Mountain Lion scat & tracks ... During some days off, myself & another would seek out the Lion or its den, from a distance because we did not want to disturb the Lion ... One random day towards dusk, I was walking back to the bunkhouse ( the Fire Crew was stationed in the middle of the national forest ) & rounded a bend on the two track trail & there She was, 4 feet away ... Both of us startled, but either of us did not move ... We stood there for a minute or so before She walked off ... Once in a lifetime ... I have since seen many scat, tracks & have heard the calls, but have not seen another since ... ... ...

Wow, how cool to see a mountain lion! A friend and I visited Olympic National Park last summer and wanted to see one so bad that we had ourselves "seeing" them everywhere. Two marmots sunbathing together, a deer, etc...

Sah-weet! Big kitties! I've only seen pugmarks, but they were huge. Story here: http://allthoughtswork.wordpress.com/20 ... e-3-07-09/ I felt that prickly sensation at the back of my neck a couple different times, too, the one you get when you sense you are being watched, but I never saw the one who was watchin' me. Bears I've been close enough to pet. They are wonderful animals and not at all the monsters people think they are.

Tribe, have you ever manned a lookout? I recently read "Fire Season," by Philip Connors. http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Season-Field ... 0061859362 He was in the second-highest lookout in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico for many seasons. His writing makes you suddenly wish you weren't in front of a computer but outdoors, steeped in the smells of pine and granite. I envy the hell out of you being in Colorado.

Speaking of Pike, I was there, literally in the forest, when the famous Hayman Fire broke out in 2002. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayman_Fire There were a couple other smokes on the horizon at the same time and I had to haul ass out of the area where I was four-wheeling and bushwhacking because they would have socked me in. The cloud rose behind me and spread out in the sky like the biggest cumulonimbus in the world. Denver was heavy with smoke for several weeks and the sunlight was turned a weird yellowish shade in the middle of the day, like the off-color from fluorescent lights. Sunsets were orange for a long time--not that they aren't incredible all the time there, anyway. :) The smell was thick but I loved it, actually opened my windows so my furniture would smell like wood smoke for as long as possible. My friends thought I was nuts. I moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2005 and never made it back to the Hayman area to check out the burn zone. I probably wouldn't have, anyway, because I distrust mudslides and landslides but I've seen a couple burns afterwards. I toured the aftermath of the big one in Great Sand Dunes National Monument with the resident geologist who was mapping it. What a tedious job that guy has.

Closest I ever got to flames was a sobering moment. I was stuck in gridlock traffic on I-70, bumper to bumper with no shoulder, no where to run, no where to hide. There was a fire literally right on the hill next to the highway, about five hundred feet away and a hundred and fifty feet up. I was sitting in my truck cab and watching 70-foot Lodgepoles light up in seconds like Jersey torches. It was June and drier than an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting out there. Fire tornadoes were whipping up into the evening sky every few seconds. I downshifted into four low in case the wind shifted and I had to do something about it quickly. I had a few more options than the low-riding cars around me but I still wouldn't have made it very far--you've seen I-70. Crazy thing was, the whole time they kept telling us not to worry, that the wind was pushing it away from us. But I was watching those trees and counting. I was counting how long it took for the flames to reach the next tree closer to me and the next. Moving away, my ass: in less than an hour, it would be melting the paint off my hood. Turns out, I was right: they called in a team to cut a line shortly after we passed by that area.

Now I'm up in the big mud puddle of the Pacific Northwest. Not as much fire but not as much lightning or thunder, either. I miss all three. (sniff!)

Baby Herc

Never manned a lookout but certainly hauled gear & supplies to many ...

The acreage from the infamous Hayman Fire was literally across the road from Our bunkhouse ... My Ranger District as had a large percentage of the Fire ... I arrived on the Pike in 2003 ... Needless to say, many folks around the area were not happy with the Forest Service ... My introduction to Fire also included public relations ( I Am not so good at that ) ... ...

I Loved CO ... But, I didn't like the general pop or attitude ... I found the Pac West people more to My liking ... You do have to give up on " better " weather though ... I have to all the lower 48 & still haven't found the perfect place ... I refrain ... The perfect place is among the flora & fauna ... Far enough away from civ but close enough for travel to get basic supplies when needed ... ...

& Bears ... Not scary @ all ... I found a stampeding herd of buffalo to be the scariest ... & not so scary but amusing ... Getting head butted by a Mountain Goat in Glacier NP ... He was playing around but kept head butting Me every time I turned around ... ... ...

Yowza.



You can't please all the people all the time. Around here, they only hate the Parks Service and Wilderness Management divisions. But our Forest Service employees haven't burned down 200,000 acres with a flaming letter, yet. Give 'em time. My only beef with the local FS is that the dude who mans the phone lines at a particular ranger district is a flaming idiot. You call with one question, a real easy one, and ten minutes later you still have no answer and you want to bang his head against a wall. My buddy at another station keeps laughing at me and warning me not to call there but it's literally the only resource for information on a particular section of Mt. Hood. I vote for getting rid of Mr. Idiot and using his pay to install webcams. Problem solved. Or, hey, you could take his spot. I have a feeling people would get answers REAL quick with you guarding the clubhouse.



I got sucked into a forum conversation last night, trying to explain to someone that science is not infallible, especially medical science. Every person's body is different and the most valuable thing you can learn to do is to listen to what yours is asking for. Seemed he'd rather have strangers make his decisions for him. Poor guy. (sigh)



That's why I moved here: less keeping up with the Joneses, more variety of people and ideas, less dry cleaning, more Polartec. Ha, ha.



I have acquired an intense distaste for sunburn, so I love it overcast. The humidity I can do without, though. I only like to towel off once when I step out of the shower. Up side is that everyone's skin and hair is lush and healthy from all the moisture in the air.



Ditto on stampeding people, especially when it's a mental stampede of ignorance and ego.



It was your hair, it turned him on. I got head butted by a Great Dane this past winter. He dislocated my nose and broke my sphenoid. He was just playing--he was a puppy--but damn, dem puppies is big!

Time for my leg workout.

Herc

I'm only a few trails away from completing the entire 5000+ square mile Forest Park! Yaaaay!

Baby Herc

It's done, baby! About 200 miles in three months, the entire Forest Park system: every trail, every road, every firelane, even user trails that aren't on the map. I made a bunch of new friends out there and dropped 15 pounds. My hiking shoes look like hell--Ha, ha! Pics and stories about every hike at link below.



Baby Herc

Damn, that is impressive! Congrats!

I needed a new challenge after the Forest Park win so I just took up trail running. It's only a couple miles at a time so far and it looks more like trail shuffling to the casual observer but I absolutely love it! This morning I ran in a torrential downpour with high winds and took great pride in being one of the few souls dedicated enough to be out there, no matter what. (pause for chest thumping) Plus, the hot shower after a weather-beaten route through the hills can border on the ecstatic. A lifting friend at the gym agreed to celebrate with me in the spring with an easy 5 miler in a nearby park we both like.

Anybody here trail run?

Baby Herc

Did you intend to quote me and then just forgot to reply??

Baby Herc

Got these in the mail today and looking forward to testing them out this weekend! Nice and light for a Vegan Boot

http://www.altrec.com/salomon/womens-3d ... iking-boot

Just moved to the tropical end of the Outback and I've been out and about seeing incredible scenery and waterfalls and looking at rockclimbing destinations. Currently out-of-commission a bit due to a 4-month-old baby... Swimming almost every day atm. The wet season is HOT.

I'd love to hike the Appalachian Trail in the USA!

Outdoorsy? Hell yeah! Filling my lungs with fresh air, escaping the noises of the cityscape, clearing my mind, re-energize, re-vitalize!
Running, climbing, hiking and playin' in the dirt. Does it get any better than that?
We're all children under one sun, children of the open air. Mother Earth and Father Sky - it's in our genes, man!

Namaste

Renee, I'm envious. I've always wanted to see the lush parts of Australia. Hey, just get a baby backback and in a few months, you'll have a tiny hiking partner that will work your quads extra hard.

It's funny, because just the other night a hiking buddy and I were laughing about our favorite Appalachian Trail book, "A Walk in the Woods," by Bill Bryson. http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Woods-Redisc ... 0767902521 Go find this book immediately, it is absolutely hysterical. Bill is a professional writer who decided out of the blue to hike the AT. Out of shape, with no gear or skills, he describes his journey from pudgy newspaper columnist to hard body hiker with humor, detail, and little tangents that tell some history about the area. An old buddy whom he hasn't seen in years, Katz, joins him and the guy is like a walking slapstick comedy. If you are outdoorsy, have some hiking experience, and want a good picture of what the AT experience is like, start with this true story account and go from there to maps, guides, and technical manuals. As a matter of fact, I think I'll check this book out of the library again on my next trip and read it for the tenth time.

My favorite part of the whole book is when he buys all his brand new gear and sets it up in the basement to practice. He gets in the tent, into his sleeping bag, and lays there, trying to imagine what it will be like to do this every night under trees in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, he has just read a book on bear attacks in the wild, so his imagination is getting the best of him in a hilarious way. Also, he's worried about the toothless, inbred hillbillies out there who are just waiting to reinact a few choice scenes from "Deliverance." He fantasizes that he can hear one of them just outside his tent, whispering loudly, "Hey, Virgil, here's another one. Git the rope!"



Baby Herc