If you’ve had the pleasure of reading the 40th anniversary edition of Mountain Gazette, I’m sure you noticed the advertisement on the inside cover. It’s one of the best I’ve seen in a long while (who makes custom ads like this anymore?), so hats off to you, Patagonia. Well done.
Excuse the Instagram photo (cold_splinters) but the pages of MG are too big to fit on the scanner. Scorpion paperweight courtesy of El Cosmico.
I’ve spent a good amount of time in Portland, OR this last year working with Danner, and whenever I’m in town, it’s impossible not to have a few this and thats from Deschutes Brewery. I got an email from those kind beer-makin’ folks yesterday with a link to their latest and greatest, the Deschutes River Recordings video series. First up is Eric D. Johnson of the Fruit Bats singing The Byrds’ “Ballad of Easy Rider.” If you have a few minutes, which I know you do, watch it. It’s a real humdinger.
Learn more about the project here.
The Outdoor Life Conservation Pledge:
Established in 1946 and then revised in 1993, the Outdoor Life Conservation Pledge was written to remind readers of Outdoor Life magazine and other sportsmen of the vigilance needed to preserve the natural world. The pledge has been taken by thousands of people including Harry S. Truman and Al Gore, and it runs on the letters page of every issue of Outdoor Life.
If you’ve read any of the previous posts about camping food in these parts, you’ll notice that most of them contain some sort of tofu/TVP/peanut butter ingredient, so it might be obvious at this point that I don’t eat meat. Though after years of practice, it’s rather simple to work with while in the woods, and if I’m really being completely honest with myself, all I crave after a full day of hiking is a massive amount of carbs.
Chickpea flour, or Gram/Besan flour, is a mainstay at home and is easy to pack into the backcountry as a source of protein. Here’s a very easy recipe for Indian chickpea “burgers” to try instead of those god awful freeze-dried packs of “food.” Man, I get the easy cleanup and preparation of those suckers, but they’re all just so bad. So so bad. It’s like eating McDonalds at your wedding. Sort of.
Recipe after the jump…
On our drive back to the Bay Area from the JMT/PCT, we stopped several times along the road, smelling this and looking for that. (This is what you do when your friends/hiking companions run a wildcrafted soap/incense/perfume etc. company.) One of the most aromatic plants in the area – one that you could instantly smell as soon as you rolled down the windows – is Chamaebatia foliolosa, more commonly known as Mountain Misery. It gets its name for the wildly resinous and sticky leaves that adhere to just about anything. It’s scent is unpleasant to some, but a few of us (including me), were absolutely transfixed by the somewhat innocuous fern-looking plant.
In any case, look for Mountain Misery next time you’re out in the Sierras. Kitkiddizze, Gary Snyder’s famous homestead built in the early 70s, is named after the local Wintun Indian word for Bear Clover, also known as – yes, you guessed it – Mountain Misery.
God only knows what’s going to come up in conversation when you’re hiking 15 or so miles a day, and one of the topics that kept popping up on a recent adventure was Bigfoot. For those of you living in the PNW, I’d imagine this comes up a lot more than on the Appalachian Trail, so it was good to listen to all the good stories that my friends from Portland have come up with over the years.
“What would happen if he was found?”
- It’d crush the logging industry. Everything would be shut down.
“Is he real?”
- What do you mean? Of course..
“Why haven’t you been to the museum in Felton, CA before?”
- There’s a museum? Where is Felton?
Not sure if I believe in the big guy, BUT, if you want an interesting take on the history of the Yeti in Tibetan culture, read Matthiessen’s Snow Leopard. One of our favorites in these parts.
Thanks to the ladies of San Francisco’s Gravel and Gold for hipping me to this album. Recorded in the mid 70s by weirdo electronic musician Mort Garson (who also did the backing music to Richard Burton’s interpretation of The Little Prince), this was given out with the purchase of a Simmon’s mattress at Sears in 1976, and as a bonus, came with extensive instructions on plant care. Track names include “Symphony For A Spider Plant,” “Ode to An African Violet,” and “Mellow Mood For Maidenhair.” Perfect.
As mentioned previously, I spent a few nights on the JMT last week with friends from Juniper Ridge and beyond. Because I was in a foreign land, I made a stop at the Whole Foods in Oakland before we headed out to Yosemite and made it a point to buy only things that I’d never eaten on the trail. Of course I always eat loads of nut butter (everyone told me to stop calling it that), but surprisingly enough, I’d never bought these little packets of Justin’s. Game changer. Anyone? Yes, probably everyone. Chocolate Hazelnut and Chocolate Almond literally taste like brownie mix. And they’re vegan too, if that may matter to ya. Score.
Have the goddamn weekend of your lives, alright?
Apologies for the last week of crickets. Cold Splinters was out on the John Muir Trail for a couple of nights (more on that to come) with some lovely new and old friends. At the end of our trip, we shacked up at cabins in Inyo National Forest (more on that to come too) and while building a fire the first night, we found an old book of cowboy poetry with this humdinger, “For Jeff.” Perfect. Here’s the beginning:
A few months back, Christine Mitchell sent out an email asking people to contribute recipes that she would illustrate for her wonderful site, N’East Style. I must have been excited about it at the time as I was the first the respond. Works for me.
See the Cold Splinters Peanut Butter and Pasta recipe over at NES. Hope y’all had a great weekend.
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