Day 382: Equipment progress

It was still 35 degrees this afternoon, so we walked for miles and discovered that the daffodils were also teased into blooming by the warm weekend.  They will be shocked by the Arctic air on the way over the next week.

Otherwise, I spent hours on the equipment chapter.  It was fun to relive my disastrous early experiences.   I am including the stories in the chapter to illustrate the advances in equipment over the last forty years and how I learned all my lessons the hard way.  In 1978, when I was 29 and a new mom, I signed on to go with Lee on the House I expedition.  I didn't know until this week that it was a total of 8 days and 75 miles.  Lee found a newspaper article describing our adventures, the routes and the mileage.  Most of it is a blur, probably because I was in total agony.  But, I do remember that I used a pack frame that my father-in-law built made of steel with a canvas sack that had just canvas shoulder straps and no hip belt.  We lashed on a down sleeping bag.  It weighed 40 pounds and I weighed 98.  My leather boots were too large and my feet slid around in them creating blisters on my heels and the balls of my feet.  Then I slid down a ravine and my toes smashed into the toe of the boot and snapped off four nails at the base.   Despite the torture, I was hooked.