aaron wolf in the white mountains

I considered titling this post “how not to hike the White Mountains,” because to be perfectly honest while I had an absolutely unreal experience, the White Mountains kicked my ass. To anyone who would consider a journey through the White Mountains, do heed this piece of advice: pack light. My pack was way too heavy, I had among other goodies some fishing gear (+5lbs), loads of stove fuel(+3 lbs), a spare pair of camo pants (+ 5 lbs), and most gratuitous of all a nice Canon Digital Camera weighing at least 7 lbs which made it out of the pack for all of 15 minutes (mostly used my pocket sized Fujifilm). In all my pack must have starting out weighing at least 50 lbs. By the time the trip was over the tent was weighed down with ice, and two pairs of frozen socks added more weight.

Near the swim area at the Tracker Schools primitive camp.

Stayed an extra two weeks at the Tracker School to volunteer for a “back-to-back” series – one week of the advanced standard class followed by another week of the advanced tracking class.  Volunteering at the Tracker school is definitely a piece of work and I left exhausted but it was well worth it.  I really can’t begin to describe what an awesome experience I had these last two weeks.  Tom Brown was very involved with the classes and focused a lot on the spiritual and physical mind duality and how it relates to survival skills and tracking.  It was incredible, there were things happening in the background that are impossible to describe and reducing it down to a sentence does no justice to the concepts or the skills covered over the two weeks.  Unfortunately I don’t have the time to hash out everything that’s going through my mind.   Just have to save it for another time.

Charles River Sailing club, I set sail from here a few times.

From the NJ Pine Barrens I headed North to stay with my sister in Boston for a couple days.  Much to my surprise I was able to I find the remains of a debris hut I built several years ago in the Needham woods.  Spent a rather dull Sunday evening in Harvard Square.  I was hoping to run into a few old friends but honestly it’s been so long since I’ve seen most of my Boston buddies I could have passed right by them on the subway and not even noticed it.  I also made my way down to Plymouth Plantation before heading to New Hampshire to visit with my mom who is recovering from surgery.

A photo of the remains of a debris hut I built in the Needham woods.

There’s a lot of ideas and notions floating around in my head from the experience of the last few weeks.  I’m way too busy to process them now.  When I return to Indiana it will be full on preparation for winter, which up here in New Hampshire does not feel very far away at all.  If my computer does not freeze I should have plenty of time to organize my thoughts and actually post a few practical articles.

Tomorrow I’m heading into the White Mountains.  Unpredictable weather, possible snow next week.