I spent an exciting weekend at Lake Vermillion. During three days I hiked in Bear Head Lake State Park, boated on Lake Vermillion, camped on a quiet island, grocery shopped in town, kayaked both with and without my children, walked a portage into the BWCA, fished with my son, swam and waded in the lake, made smores on an open fire, went on the Soudan Underground Mine tour, finished “Forever Peace”, by Joe Haldeman, and started “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” by Edmund Morris. Did I mention it’s 4 hours by car so I also drove up there and back?

What a weekend! I thought about planting a letterbox or geocache while I was out but just couldn’t find the time.

thought I would list a few links to trail info, just as an archive from my bookmarks.

• Pacific Crest Trail Association
• Superior Hiking Trail Association
• Kekekabic Trail Club
• Minnesota Rovers Outing Club
• North Country Trail Association
• Brian Robinson’s Triple Crown Logs
• Tahoe Rim Trail(suggested by jennie (Tahoe Rim Trail site gets useless use of Flash award, but nice looking trail))

Pinned Hiker cuts off arm

The national news has covered this story pretty extensively. A climber got an arm pinned under a largish rock, and after running out of water he took the grisly option of cutting off hiw own arm rather than face death from exposure and dehydration.

Swiss Army Cybertool Pocket Knife

I had wondered about this conceptually ever since reading Mike Turner’s story in BackPacker magazine. (The article can also be found on the author’s web site, www.jeffrennicke.com)

Mike’s story is haunting as he gets both legs pinned under a very large boulder four days into a nine day solo trip. When his body is found it is weeks too late. While reading the story I kept wondering if back-country amputation would give a person a fighting chance. While I doubt it would have work in Mike Turner’s case, given the fact that he was in the middle a large wilderness area and he had both legs pinned it seems to have worked for Aron Ralston.

Mike Turners story is especially haunting as he left behind photographs and some thoughtful diary entries. Mike was a pastor, and judging from the article led an examined life full of faith and love for his family.

My backpacking friends jokingly worry about me performing a pre-emptive amputation, just in case a limb gets pinned. Ne fears there. I don’t plan to go on any true solo trips until I am in better shape and have a lot more experience under my belt.

If you haven’t read about my latest wilderness adventure, please check out “Hiking around Snowbank Lake, BWCA”.

I did a write up of my Fall 2002 hike around Snowbank Lake in the BWCA.
Aras, did me the favor of converting what I wrote into beautiful HTML, complete with photo’s and captions.
Hiking Snowbank