Dear Diary RSS

Between the three of us— Tom, Mary, and myself— we had 95 miles of bikepacking experience. We scrapped together gear from our various outdoor pursuits to conquer the Cabezon Peak Overnighter route. The Cabezon Peak Overnighter is a 70 mile route outside of Albuquerque. The route, a lollipop route leaving from the White Mesa Trail System, heads up a valley popular with weekend target shooting and then circles Cabezon Peak, a 2 million year old volcanic plug.    Mary was on the really nice bike from 10 years ago. Tom had the full suspension bike designed for local trail networks, and I was on the finest hard tail that $1000 and hours of time spent on eBay could put together....

As a long-time Search and Rescue volunteer, I’ve met many people — usually in the middle of the night— who started with a grand adventure ahead but ended the day a victim of Murphy’s law. A snapped derailleur. A bad crash. Or even just appendicitis striking at the wrong time. Just as a pilot completes the same checklist for each flight, the Ten Essentials are a list of items to be carried on every adventure in the backcountry— the essential list of just-in-case items. The list was originally designed for mountaineers, but adventures of all-kind can end in unexpected situations.