Scotland Gear: You Ain't Got No Alibi (But I Do!)

With only 4 days before I leave Duluth and start my Journey to Scotland, my brain is on overload and my body can;t take much more stress. I remember the six month mark, and even then I was worried about time. Not too worry, my brain can handle it!

However, I still have so much to do. Two group projects and a 20-page paper are still incomplete, and I have three finals to take on Thursday. In addition, it was recently finalized that I will be presenting a spotlight presentation on Scotland's Highland Culture for the Alworth Institute for International Studies here in Duluth on October 8th. Because of that, I have just another small stack of paper added to the slowly diminishing heap that is my desk.

I mentioned in my last post (nearly a full month ago!!) that I had two new pieces of gear. One was the Contrail Tent, which I already posted about, and the other finally made its way to my door. One of the minor oversights on made on the Superior Trail was not having a pair of gloves. In addition to warmth, gloves would have helped with the chaffing from the trekking poles (not very pleasant). Because of those two main reasons, I've spent the last few months trying on glove after glove, looking for one that is jsut what I need.

THE GLOVES
For this trip, I have decided to again go with a brand that is very familiar with the outdoors; Outdoor Research. While they make many fine gloves designed to keep your hands warm, they are all pretty bulky. The ones I settled on are the Alibi Gloves.

Pioneered for ice climbers, the Alibi has sticky palms that allow better grip rain or shine. Constructed Mainly out of Neoprene and Nylon, the Alibi hugs your palm and fingers tight enough to keep the water out while still allowing you to perspire and not feel waterlogged. The outside edge, along the pinky, is injected with a gel padding to cushion impacts and resist scraps. The cuff, made out of Neoprene as well, has been thermo-formed to contour tightly to the wrist, stopping water from entering there as well.

The Alibi Gloves also have pull-loops on the wrist to make them easier to get on. The velcro straps have a bite strip on the end, allowing you to still be able to put the glove on when your other hand is full. At 5.4 ounces, they are extremly light when compared to the 1 pound alternatives.

At first, I was concerned about their ability to keep my hands warm. However, I wore them for close to and hour in my apartment and my hands were starting to sweat. I suppose having the Neoprene that tight against your hand is what does it. After all, Neoprene isn't that thick of a meterial.

I'll make two posts before I board the place; one detailing my Route and another with the final farewell before I leave. However, both of these will ahve to wait till after thursday night so I can get my homework done!

Operation Scotland: TGOC 2009

Every year, around the second Friday in May, 300 people embark from the west coast of Scotland with the intend of reaching the other side of the country within 14 days, all under their own power.

This year, The Great Outdoors Challenge (TGOC) will start on Friday, May 8th. Having started in 1980, the 2009 Challenge will be the 30th. In celebration, Roger Smith (Challenge Coordinator) and the Challenge Control have upped the limited number of participants to 380. In addition to the physical challenges involved with walking some 200 miles, participants must also plan their own route and supplies. Unlike the States, where hikers need to stay on designated trails to avoid trespassing, Scots Law protects walkers with the Land Reform Act of 2003, allowing them the freedom to roam as a public right. Because of this, Scotland has less a system of national trails and more a loose system of paved, gravel, dirt, and single/double-track paths. This presents the need for TGO challengers, especially those not from Scotland or familiar with the terrain, to spend months pouring over maps, planning and re-planning routes before the submission deadlines at the end of January and February.

With my nine Landranger maps from the UK's Ordinance Survey, I've spent the last three weeks meticulously looking them over, planning both my Main route as well as my Foul Weather Alternative (FWA) route. The progress I make will be uploaded to Google Maps under the user name grun0177. The direct link is here.

Currently, I am on semester break from college. Tomorrow I start work full time for the next three weeks, at which point I will return to Duluth and to college. With a loose schedule and classes on only two days of the week this coming semester, I will hopefully have ample time to finalize my plans for this trip, as well as ample opportunities to spend some four-day weekends out getting physically ready.

If all goes well, in five months I will be boarding a plan for Scotland.

-Shawn

Hiking With the Lake; From Canada to Two Harbors

On Saturday, May 17th, 2008, I embarked on my first major backpacking trip. The trip featured all 205 miles of Minnesota's Superior Hiking Trail. Hiking the first 10 days by myself and the last three with a few of my relatives, I thru-hiked the trail in 13 days with an average of 18 miles per day solo and 9 miles per day in the group.

Here's a quick recap I wrote shortly after returning home:


"Over two weeks ago, I left everything and everyone that I knew to seclude myself on the North Shore of Lake Superior. After a short car ride up the highway, I walked away from my family, not more than a stone's throw away from the Canadian border.

I set out walking not to commune with nature or to contact my inner self. I left for 14 days to find what drives us as individuals, as a society, and as humans.

The reality of my acts became apparent before the first day was out. The trip had been in 'proposal' mode pretty much up until the moment I started walking. It hit me within the first few hours the severity of the situations I had willingly exposed myself to. While I pride myself on my knowledge, I lack the ability to control the elements, and those were my biggest risks.

My second night nearly brought disatser. The pump filter I was using to clean my drinking water broke into several pieces. With the knowledge that the filter was beyond repair, I used my two emergency iodine tablets to clean two liters of water. I officially had no way to obtain more drinking water, as any and all groundwater could contain deadly Guardia bacteria or an even worse Crypto cysts. With the realization that I was 22 miles outside of Grand Marais, I woke at 5 am the third day and moved about as fast as I could to get into Grand Marais before the shops closed. I then opted to buy a chlorine dioxide solution called Aqua Mira, which is similiar to the process used to clean water in large city centers.

Without much human cantact, nor much to do, I decided to turn inwards and stretch the physical bounds of my body. Carrying 14 pounds of gear, plus 4 days of food (8 pounds) and 4 liters of water (8.8 pounds) at any given time, I woke at sun-up and hiked until the sun went down or until I fell down. Days four, five, six, and seven brought 23, 24, 26, and 20 miles, respectively. By days eight, I was 32 miles, or about a day and a half ahead of where I had planned to be. With this, I slowed to a mere 17 miles a day, and coasted into Split Rock Lighthouse State Park 24 hours before I was supposed to. On day 12, after a full day of zero miles, I left Split Rock once more in the company of my Mother, her husband Paul, and his duaghter Andrea. from there, we crawled a mere 9 miles a day for three days until we reached Two Harbors, offically walking 206 miles of trail, and 235 miles of total distance.

I learned that it is not nature that sets us free, it is ironically civilization. Human Enginuity is not an un-natural thing. We were granted the ability to manipulate, to create, and even to destroy at our own free will. We have the ability to eliminate risk and random chance from our existance. It takes, I guess, the partial removal of this gift to truly understand its full value. We take for granted the things that we define as normal. The ability to communicate with anyone at anytime. The ability to move and travel faster than our physical bodies can take us.

While time may be a concept of nature, it is certainly an invention of man. Hour, minutes, seconds, weeks...they mean nothing to the world outside humans. Time is a label we have placed on our day-to-day lives based the the solar movements. Nature cares not what time humans say it is. It has free reign to snow in May, to be 70 in January, and to hold back the morning light a few extra moments if it sees fit. While part of nature, humans are not considered in the grand scheme of things. Our planet does not rely on us, we rely on our planet. At any point it could shift slighlty and wipe a town or city out of existance with a tornado, or pour tons of gallons of rain on someones special wedding day. nature does not care what we plan to do or actually do. It is independent of us, while we are fully dependent on it.

Two weeks of solitude has not changed who I am at heart, it has merely effected the glass through which I see the world. The world is not a Human place, the world is not ours to dominate. Nature, and only nature, holds the true power and control over the happenings of this planet."


In addition to recaps such as above, I recorded the trip with the help of my trusty Flip Video camcorder. The documentary is in 3 parts, totally about 28 minutes. The video itself is pretty rough, as the idea to create a documentary was a last minute decision. Basically, the video will guide you through the experiences and situations I went through. It might be hand to have a coy of the guidebook at hand if you own one, or visit the SHTA website (link above) for online maps.

Note: The quality of the embedded videos is not so great. If you watch them on YouTube (keyword Shawn Grund) you can switch them to high quality.


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3