Jeremy and Angela,
Ok, I will keep my fingers crossed to see you at Henry Coe.
Best,
Manfred
P.S.: And yes, Danny's breakfast bars were delicious. Michelle asked for the recipe and I assume I will get to taste them more often now.
Topic
California GGG #7 – Jan 29 to Feb 1, 2015
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I had a great time this weekend and wanted to say thanks to all who attended. I didn't get a chance to take very many pictures and hope others will post theirs. Looking forward to next year!
A number of thoughts:
Most of all, thanks to DavidG for the organization and co-ordination work! I'm now thinking of cool bits I could commission you and your father to machine.
It was great to see fellow BPLers – some of whom I've e-chatted with for years now – finally in person (although NO ONE is as young as their avatar). Hikin' Jim especially because of all the respectful back&forth we've had about how to burn things up more quickly without quite blowing them up.
I'd felt like I'd known Michele after we were co-ordinating the remote care and feeding of her wet and cold boys in the Brooks Range and then sharing pinko-commie-liberal posts on Facebook, but we hadn't actually met before GGG#7. Which was nice for all especially since her and Manfred's first-to-leave-the-nest might land in my backyard – figuratively and perhaps literally in the coming year.
I wish I'd had more time to listen to Maya's tales of the PCT and plans for the CDT. It will be a number of years before I can possibly schedule a thru hike, but it does my soul good to know that other people do so. And it has more meaning hearing about it in person.
Jane had hoped to met me but I was running late so she came by the next day and we compared some of the many towns, colleges, relatives and neighbors we had in common. Always good to meet some of my fan base (?stalker?).
I've got a number of relatives who aren't getting any younger and mostly I was in the SFBA for some family gatherings. To do it again, I would have blocked out another day or two and attended more of the GGG. It's kind of amazing how often and closely spaced you southerners hold these GGG events – two in a weekend, 10 miles apart! I'm bumming a little that DougI, JennfierM, etc were so close and I didn't know about until Sunday morning.
Thanks for welcoming my wife and I over the weekend. Who knew that we would have such amazing weather at the end of January? It was nice meeting everyone and am looking forward to the next one.
Jane,
we talked about hikes in Henry Coe during the GGG this weekend. Private Messaging is not enabled for you on BPL, so I hope you will read this post.
If you are interested you can PM me and I can send you the elevation profile for the hike we discussed. I also have one or two ideas that might make the hike more convenient for your hiking partners.
Best Regards,
Manfred
David,
Thanks for stepping up and making the GGG your own to carry on the tradition.
Sure that a lot of people are making new friends as a result of your organizing all of this.
Not easy for sure.
Sorry that I was not able to attend any of the events.
This is the first time I have missed a GGG. :(
Had my evil, monkey butt daughter this past weekend and I was not able to have my ex take her.
That said, I am enjoying having time with my girl and building a closer relationship….now, if I can just get her interested in sleeping in the dirt in a tiny bivy bag….
Looking forward to reading about more of the stories of people's experiences at the GGG and seeing pictures of people.
Good to see old friends and to see how the GGG has grown and changed over the years.
Hopefully, I can make the next one.
Tony
Tony,
are you talking about the same daughter who came last year to the GGG. Mei-Ling – if I'm not mistaken?
Our daughter Hannah would have loved to play with her. Luckily Kristen and Danny brought their son Brock again and let Hannah take care of him. She enjoyed that a lot. The GGG is a great event to show kids that there are other kids out there who go backpacking too. It was always great for our daughters to meet Phoebe for example.
Your great photos are surely missed. I'm sure you would have taken fantastic photos of the stove burning contest or of Jim showing one of his stoves and cooking Chicken Masala or people exchanging stories about their adventures around the campfire.
Hope to see you next year!
Manfred
Manfred,
Good memory!
Yes, Mei-Ling is my evil little monkey.
She is cranking out about 16 hours of gymnastics a week, so on the weekends, she likes to drool on herself watching tv and eating cookie dough. :)
I did not push the GGGs on her this year given everything that has happened over the past 8 months with her mother and I getting divorced.
Lot of stuff for Mei and I to adjust to.
In particular, my learning how to cook without poisoning her. :)
With all the kids at the GGG, I am sure that she would have fun.
Thanks for the kind words…I enjoy taking the photos.
Processing them and posting them tends to be the pain in the butt.
I am looking forward to seeing everyone's photos to show me what I missed out on.
Tony
Thank you to everyone that helped organize this wonderful event which brought together so many fun, interesting, and friendly folk. I didn't get to participate in too many conversations because I was chasing around my son, but those that I overheard I wanted to join and learn more about everyone's diverse experiences. Hope to see you all next year again!
From the comments above it seems a good time was had by all. I certainly enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones; hope to do even more of the same next year. Especially enjoyed the families introducing their children to the SUL experience (car camping is a gentle introduction, where they see the SUL gear but still have most of the comforts of home).
Hikin' Jim Barbour arrived first around 2:30 pm on Thursday, which gave him plenty of time to scavenge a nice pile of left-over firewood from other sites by the time I arrived about 7 pm. We totally geeked on stoves the next day from the time we got up in the morning until about 3:30 pm – time flies when you're having fun! No fireballs this year, though we did get a dramatic (and wet) demonstration of poor-fitting stove lids.
Saturday's events were well-attended, and a number of local BPL'ers who weren't camping dropped by for the afternoon to see the gear show/swap. In addition we had a good number of people who just happened to be staying at the same park or stopping in for a picnic, who came over to see what was going on and ended up being amazed at some of the SUL equipment they never knew existed.
I was particularly interested in Stephan Catalan's 2-stake, 3-pole winter tunnel tent made from two vestibules sewn together. It's still a work in progress, and I'd love to see him finish it. He also brought the smallest cannister stove any of us had ever seen, a 25-gram model made by ??? An unofficial craftsmanship award goes out to "Doc" Les Waddel for his MYOG cuben backpack and beautiful hand-made and sweet sounding SUL carbon-fiber bodied ukeleles. Amazing work.
The annual wood stove burn-off was revived, with the winner's laurels going to first-time attendee Allen Robinson and his $13 steel folding stove. I started slow but thought I might have a chance of catching him until Tony's water spilled on my fire. Hikin' Jim would have done better too, but accidentally snuffed his fire with his pot before realizing he had forgotten to put the stakes in his Caldera Ti-Tri Inferno. Next year…
The first annual alcohol stove burn-offs went well too. The speed contest had four entries, including a brass Trangia and titanium Evernew from Allen Robinson, a homebuilt rig from "Doc" Les Waddel, and my own GOLD Gear rig, which won with a time of 5:46 min. to boil 500 ml starting with 20 ml of Klean Strip denatured alcohol. Hikin' Jim won the efficiency contest by default as the only entry. He couldn't quite get a boil with 15 ml of alcohol in Sgt. Rock Ion stove with a Flat Cat windscreen, although I watched him do a successful test run the night before.
I brought plenty of freezer bag meals, but Hikin' Jim is a gourmet camping cook and I benefited from sharing a camp site with him, so I ended up bringing most of them home. I particularly enjoyed his chicken Masala on Saturday evening, as did everyone else who got to try it.
The rangers were friendly and accommodating, and let us stay in the day-use picnic area until 7:30 pm so we could enjoy a group dinner, even though that area usually closes at sundown.
Dave Thomas managed to get there Saturday night, just when we were starting to think we might miss him. Great to finally meet, and enjoyed receiving two of the many XUL saws he made from band-saw and sawzall blades with plasti-dip handles that he passed out to whoever wanted them.
Below are some of the few pictures I managed to take, and some contributed by Doc Waddel. Hope others will contribute theirs too.
Driving north over the Golden Gate Bridge on the way to the event:
Hikin' Jim talking stoves with Jerome:
Friday night dinner at Site #56 with Mike Hill, Rebecca, Hikin' Jim, me and Tony's friend Sopria:
Saturday afternoon gear show/swap. The first picture shows one of Doc Waddel's UL ukeleles on the table, next to some of the cork running sandals he also makes:
More gear/show swap, mostly of my stuff:
Preparing for the wood stove burn-off:
Wood stove burn-off:
Me weighing 15.78 grams (20.00 ml) of alcohol for each of the contestants in the alcohol stove speed burn-off:
Alcohol stove speed burn-off:
Anyone else have more photos to share?
Hi David,
Did you ever get any of the Goodbelly bars?
Doug
Great. How about Roger or one of the other mods put this over in Post Trip Reports instead? Especially with the confusing title of this thread.
Greenbelly Meal Bars are made by Chris Cage as a solution for complete, balanced and healthful nutrition when backpacking or traveling in third world countries. Each package contains two bars made with natural ingredients and which together meet approximately 1/3 of daily nutritional needs for protein, calories, carbohydrates, fiber, fats & sodium. Delicious and hearty!
Not only that, but Greenbelly's company slogan is "Buy a Meal. Give a Meal." and its stated mission is to fight hunger in children living in the Atlanta, GA area:
"1 in 6 Americans are food insecure. 1 in 5 Georgians are food insecure. And yet, even worse, more than 1 in 4 Georgian children are food insecure. The USDA defines food insecurity as the lack of access to adequate food resulting from the lack of money and other resources. That means that 28.1% of children in Georgia are in households that cannot afford to feed them adequately. Greenbelly is proud to partner up with the Atlanta Community Food Bank to help reduce these high numbers. For every meal bar you buy, we will give a meal to someone in need. Help us help those in need."
A great product and a great company. Unfortunately, in the hubbub of getting the picnic area ready for the group gear show/swap the box of samples that Chris sent me somehow got misplaced and I couldn't find it until cleaning up after dinner at the end of the event, so I didn't get to share the samples with others. Kind of a "Doh!" Homer Simpson moment on my part, which I regret.
I hope people will give Greenbelly and Chris the business they deserve: http://www.greenbellybar.com
Almond Cranberry and Peanut Apricot bars:
Chris also sent some Dark Chocolate Banana bars, but I gave that package to Hikin' Jim and don't have a picture.
Companion Thread per Ken Thompson:
Sorry my daughter Phoebe I and I missed this years event, but it looks like everyone had a great time. Hopefully, we will make it next year.
Rick, I hope you can make it next year. I'm definitely planning to do it again. See you then!
A thousand thanks to David and to everyone who came to the GGG and to Ken and Ken for starting this fantastic community. One of the things that always amazes me about any GGG is how incredibly welcoming everyone is and how much everyone helps one another, whether by letting them try out gear, showing them a technique, sharing a cook fire, etc.
I had to work that weekend with a programmer friend in from Russia, and have pretty much gone straight through now COL (cry out loud), but I dragged him with me for a few hours and we had a blast. Grigory really enjoyed meeting everyone and seeing lightweight gear up close. He’s just starting to take an interest in backpacking after years of car camping and hiking and everyone could not have been more welcoming. I finally got a chance to come up for air and post some photos below.
We were both amazed by Manfred’s photos and stories from his Alaska trip with his sons. All I can say is that if you have the opportunity to see these photos live with Manfred, it’s an incredible treat and a testament to how much he built his skills for this trip.
Manfred thank you again and it was a pleasure to meet Michelle and your daughter Hannah – she and Rick’s daughter Phoebe (Rick missed you guys and hope to see you again soon) may be the most polite young ladies in all of California.
Manfred, this is the link to the Clayton Christiansen talk I mentioned analyzing the history of spiraling costs in higher education: https://www.parc.com/event/1646/innovation.html Compares loan originators in the mortgage crisis to universities and colleges pushing overly expensive education and unsustainable student loans, with government grants making this possible but not for much longer. One reason for the cost increases I’ve seen up close – administrative bloat – so many universities are top employers in their areas and I’ve seen administrators creating so many unnecessary jobs for friends and family (and also to increase the number of their direct reports to justify higher salaries), etc. But I venture into chaff…
Debbie, your brownies were even better than the last time (I thought that couldn’t be possible but it is), and bringing some back to share with the Ms. got me a huge smile and a Get Out of Jail Card : ) Thank you! These are reason alone to come to a GGG:
Kristen and Danny, it was a pleasure seeing you again and meeting Brock. He’s got all the makings of a great adventurer and a killer smile. Grigory sends his regards and is looking forward to reading your BPL global travel articles.
Hiking Jim always great to see you. Learn something new about stoves every single time. And isn’t it amazing how many things always go wrong for people during every stove boil-off?
Allen, congratulations on your stove boil-off win. Well done.
Crazy variety of stoves as usual. Blazing hot fires and quite a lot of tilting going on this time.
"Doc" Les Waddel it was a pleasure meeting you and checking out your MYOG cuben backpack and beautiful UL ukuleles and cork sandals. Look forward to playing one next time.
Maya R. it was a pleasure meeting you – I’d love to hear more about your PCT adventures and learn from them. My wife would love to ping you regarding some of your clothing choices. You can learn so much from gear and clothing choices when carrying means carrying for 2600 miles.
David T. I just missed you – hope to see you again soon, in the Bay Area or even better, Alaska : )
Jane, it was a pleasure meeting you again. You’ve got twice the energy of many high school students.
Joe L, pleasure to meet you.
Tony W., hope that everything is as well as it can be after a tough year. Your trip reports and photos are a work of art, and before I was in California near a GGG, those reports helped me better understand how UL gear was used in the field.
Hope to see everyone, from both GGG’s, again soon.
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