From July 24, 2010 to July 29, 2010 I journeyed along the Highline Trail in the High Uintas wilderness region. I will be chronicling each day of that journey in my blog. This first post serves as an introduction to the region and my personal experiences with backpacking. The actual journey will be chronicled in my next post.

As far as I’m concerned the only way to go camping, or even take a vacation, is by backpacking. Okay, it’s not the only way, but it’s the best way.

As a child camping with my family consisted of staying at KOA Kampgrounds. Sure, I had fun doing that, but I always felt that there was more to camping than setting up a tent in a designated spot, with neighbors and their tent a few feet yards away.

I was also in the Boy Scouts of America, so I did have other wilderness experiences. Overnight camps were at least in secluded locations (albeit accessible by vehicle) and felt more like camping, but food was prepared over large grills, and was almost as good as fine restaurants (okay, that’s an overstatement, but it was still good and hearty). There were also week camps, which involved staying at a designated camping sites, and doing Boy Scout related activities with other troops. We only had one backpacking experience, where we went one or two miles into the wilderness, camped, and left. Anyone could have easily walked out at any moment.

This was all well and good, but I always felt the call of the wild. I didn’t want outdoor latrines or the comfort of shower stalls to bathe in. No, I wanted to be in the wilderness, with all the danger and excitement that comes with it.

I bought my first backpack at a yard sale for fifteen dollars when I was twelve years old. It was a piece of junk. Most of the straps buckles were rusted (it had metal buckles, which might give you an idea of how old it was). It was one of those external frame backpacks, it was green, but not dark green like an army backpack. It could actually hold quite a bit, but it was extremely uncomfortable. Still, I loved it, because I knew someday I wanted to go backpacking. I never went backpacking in that backpack, at least not really. I did bring it with me on all my limited camping experiences (including the one mile “backpacking” trip previously mentioned), but I never used it for any camping trips that lasted for more than one night. As an adult, however, my dreams have been realized. I have much better equipment than that first backpack, more experience, and much better physical conditioning.

Well, come this year I wanted to do a challenging, yet rewarding sojourn. I was looking to spend at least five nights, and cover a lot of distance. In searching for such, I discovered the Highline Trail in the High Uinta Mountain range. I’d been backpacking in the Uintas before, so I knew at least something about the region, but my previous excursion there had only taken me about fifteen miles in, to King’s Peak, the highest summit in the range (and the highest point in the state of Utah, for that matter), and then back out. It had basically been a walk in the park. Still, I knew the area was good for backpacking.

The High Uinta Mountains are the only mountain range in the lower 48 states that runs east to west. The Highline Trail runs almost the full length of the range. It follows the ridgeline, mostly along the southern slope, but crosses over to the north side for about four miles.

In searching the internet about the trail, I found a blog by some guy named Davy Crockett who had done a trail run through the area in 2007. He had started at the Chepeta Lake Trail Head, on the east end of the range, and ended at the Highline Trail Head, at the west end. He’d made the run in less than thirty hours, and estimated it was about seventy miles long. I figured that I could easily do it in six days. Technically the trail ends a little further to the east of Chepeta Lake, maybe another ten to fifteen miles, but as I understood it, Chepeta Lake was one of the more popular starting points. So I planned on starting my route there.

I figured I’d be going alone. Most of my friends don’t backpack at all, and it seems to be that with those that do, it is just too difficult to make arrangements to go at the same time as them. For that reason I have adopted the philosophy of Thoreau when it comes to backpacking, “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.” I did invite some of my friends, but with the date approaching and no one expressing any real interest, I knew it would be a solitary journey. That didn’t bother me at all. Most of my experience in the wilderness has been alone. Many of my friends did express their fears that I would die out there. All I could tell them, was that I, myself, wasn’t afraid. Most of their fears seemed to be that I would be attacked by a bear, but as you read this chronicle, you’ll realize that bears were the least of my worries.

In retrospect, it was probably best that I went alone. The trail turned out to be a lot tougher than I expected, much longer than I imagined, and far more taxing than I had anticipated. If I had had travel companions that were less experienced than me, I’m sure they would have demanded to bail out early, or go at a slower pace. My goal was to spend five nights out there, and that’s what I did. Most people, I imagine, would want to spend at least eight nights, if not two weeks doing the same trail.

I did make several mistakes along the way, both in my preparations, and in my journey. Luckily none were too serious, and most were easily remedied. Hopefully this chronicle can somehow benefit anyone planning to backpack through the High Uintas, or any other region, for that matter. The chronicle begins on Day 1.

I had the unfortunate experience of killing a possum. I suppose I killed it in the way that most people might kill such a marsupial. It was killed by way of vehicle. Roadkill.

The occasion was a simple one. A friend of mine and I had visited some other friends of ours for a dinner party. This was in the country, of course, and the road leading to our friends’ house was a dirt one. Well, it wasn’t even a road really, it was their driveway, and, as you might know, the driveways to farm houses can be quite lengthy. We enjoyed a dinner of freshly killed lamb chops, and, as the day grew old, we said our farewells and departed.

As it is with nighttime, it was dark out, but the headlights of my truck allowed me to see quite well. And as we drove down the dirt road, I saw it before me, the possum. It’s conic nose bobbed in front of it’s plump body as it scurried across the road. It was a large animal, maybe fourteen pounds. Bigger than a newborn baby. I ran over it.

Well, I didn’t run over it per se, but I hit it. With what part of the truck, I’m not sure. But, certain that I hit it, I backed up a little, and there was the creature. It’s body shaking in violent spasms under the brightness of the headlights. I couldn’t help but feel bad, seeing the animal in such pain. Suffering, that’s what I saw.

After watching it’s convulsions for a few seconds, I wanted nothing more than for the creature’s suffering to end. I said to my friend, “Do you think I should just run it over, and put it out of it’s misery?” My concern was genuinely deep.

“I don’t know, do what you want," he replied. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed by his answer. I’d never killed such a large creature before, and somehow running it over seemed all the worse. I argued with my friend a little more, hoping that I could get him to convince me to run it over. I failed, and we both sat there in silence, watching that creature struggle in the dirt, grasping for it’s final breaths. Finally, it stopped moving. I watched it for a few more seconds as it lay in a pool of it’s own blood, so I could be satisfied that it’s suffering had ended, then I drove back to town.

I suppose, however, what really bothers me, is not that I killed the animal, but that I did it on purpose. Yes, I confess, I hit the possum on purpose. I saw it well in advance. Running across the road. And while I don’t think that I changed my course at all, I drove straight, knowing that I might hit it. I wanted to run it over.

You see, many of my friends at the time bragged about the size of their roadkill. Others, went out shooting jackrabbits and raccoons with their shotguns just for the fun of it. In a way, I suppose I envied them, they made it sound like such fun, and I wanted to be able to tell them that I had got a big one. Though the prospect of killing something larger than a bug bothered me, I still wanted to do it. And when I saw that possum, I knew it was my opportunity.

I never told any of my friends about the possum, and whenever I’ve received invitations to go out and shoot varmints, I’ve declined. The possum was the largest animal I’ve ever killed, and I intend for it to stay that way.

Before that, the largest creature I had killed was a lizard. Just a small one, maybe four inches long. I was camping at the time, and I saw the lizard sitting on a rock. It was barely noticeable, blending in with the environment, as lizards do. I wanted to see it move. I wanted to see it scurry over the rocks. So I picked up a small stone and threw it towards the lizard. My hope was that it would frighten the little creature, and get it to run off. It didn’t frighten the creature. I hit it right in the neck, and it’s head fell off half way. A friend of mine was with me at the time, and he asked why I killed it, and I told him that I didn’t mean to. Which was true. In many ways, I wish that had been the case with the possum.

I saw a movie recently where a man was strangled to death. The whole ordeal was about one minute long. The attacker came up behind and wrapped a piano wire around the victim’s neck. The victim struggled for maybe thirty seconds, then there was silence for another thirty seconds, and the attacker backed away. The victim was dead. It was fast. Too fast, and I couldn’t help but think how unrealistic that is. I’ve seen this a lot of times in movies, not always by piano wire, sometimes by hand, sometimes by hanging, but always instant death.

I remember when I was in 7th Grade I read a book entitled The Black Pearl by Scott O’Dell, which featured fairly lengthy descriptions of diving for pearls. The narrator stating that most divers could be underwater for two minutes, some three, and the best over four minutes. The narrator himself was able to dive for four minutes at one point in the novel. I never forgot about reading that. If these divers were able to hold their breath for several minutes, then why can someone in a movie get strangled in less than one? It bothers me a little, but then I also understand that watching someone get strangled for several minutes, could get pretty old fast, and make for a lame scene.

Maybe the divers described in this novel were the exception, though. Maybe they had trained themselves to be able to hold their breath for that long. Either way, I have personally held my breath for one minute. Not long enough to suffocate, but even if someone was obstructing my breathing, I think I could have hung on for at least another one, maybe blacking out, but certainly not dying.

I did an internet search to see how long it takes to strangle someone. I didn’t come up with any scientific research on the matter, but I did see the question posed on one of those Q&A sites, and someone had responded with, “I don’t know. I guess about a minute.” Obviously the respondent was basing his answer off of movies.

This actually brings me some comfort. Because if someone starts to strangle me, I’m just going to stop struggling, and hope that my attacker is basing his techniques off of movies. That way he’ll just leave me be, and after he’s gone I’ll get up, brush my clothes off, and walk away. Okay, realistically I’m probably not going to get strangled, and maybe that wouldn’t work anyway, but I’d at least give it a shot. Maybe my attacker would just give up after a few minutes, when he realized it takes a long time to strangle someone.

I also understand that there is more to getting strangled than just holding your breath. As in the movie I saw, a piano wire would probably cut off the circulation of the carotid artery, in which case the brain wouldn’t be getting any blood. This would easily cause someone to pass out in a few seconds and maybe even die. I don’t know enough about human biology to know for sure. I guess the best thing to do is just hope that no one wants to strangle me.

Link: http://www.kings-bounty.com/eng/legend/

King’s Bounty: The Legend is one of those games where at first glance it seems to be on of the funnest games ever made. Essentially it is a real-time overhead RPG with turn-based strategy style combat. The avatar you control doesn’t engage in combat directly, instead he has armies which he leads into battle. It’s actually a very fun combination of game play, and gamers familiar with the Heroes of Might and Magic series will feel right at home.

Basically, you go out into the world, you perform quests, you fight battles, and, hopefully, eventually you’ll get somewhere. The world is beautiful, it has a colorful and cartoonish look, and equally silly, yet fun, characters to interact with. It’s a hard game to put down. The first time you play, you’ll soon realize that eight hours have just passed you by. Sadly, however, you’ll soon discover the major problems with this game.

The problem is that THIS GAME IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT CHEATING. Okay, maybe it’s not impossible, but I personally put almost 22 hours into this game when I finally got to a point where I had to scour the landscape looking for battles that I could actually win. Most of the time I had to fight half a battle, run away, restock my army, then finish the battle. That was the worst. almost as bad as that, was fighting a battle, winning, then having to restock my army anyway. This involved a lot of running back and forth, and it was very tedious.

Finally, I was fed up, I just wanted to finish the game. I looked up the cheat codes, and it turns out that a link to the cheats are posted on the game’s homepage. The website says, “During the game you can use different cheat codes, which will make the game easier and gives you the possibility to [win].” They are basically saying you have to cheat to win. The game is too hard. It just isn’t well balanced, and it needed a lot more play-testing.

I’m sure some will argue that it is possible to win this game, and I acknowledge, that sure, it may be possible. If you want to inch your way through it, and spend over 100 hours in it. Frankly, that is too long. Being that this is, for the most part, an RPG, it is in my opinion that you should be able to play through the main quest, doing only a minimum amount of side quests, and finish this game. You can’t do that. You can’t even come close to doing that. With cheating it took almost another ten hours to finish this game. That was ridiculous.

It’s really not that bad a game, and I’m sorry to say, that as fun and amazing as this game appears at first, I cannot recommend it. It just doesn’t have the polish it needs. It doesn’t have the balance that it needs. I hate relying on cheats to win games, but honestly, without them, I was just going to give up on this game anyway.

Rating: 5/10

Those that lived through the 90s might remember the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry got a man-purse. Before a few weeks ago, whenever I heard about man-purses I thought to myself gay, gay, gay, gay, but I was probably wrong to think that, since I don’t actually know any gay men that have a man-purse.

I bring up the topic of man-purses for two reasons. First, I realized that I had sort of been carrying one around myself. And secondly, I saw a man with one today. When I saw this guy, I wasn’t even thinking he was gay, or even metro-sexual, or anything else for that matter. No, he looked like your standard businessman. I wouldn’t have even noticed his man-purse, except that I had been planning on writing about them. He wore it as naturally as someone might wear shorts on a hot summer day.

To clarify, the term man-purse sounds unusual in nature, but it turns out it’s not really that unnatural. They’re usually called satchels, and it is a pretty standard replacement for the hard-sided briefcases of yesteryear. It turns out that lots of guys are carrying around man-purses, they just call them by a different name, laptop case is another name for them.

I don’t know what women carry around in their purses, and, frankly, it’s none of my business. More and more, however, men are needing to carry around a lot of things as well. And that brings me to the other reason I decided to write about man-purses. I was sort of using one.

Back in my younger years, it was pretty standard for me to go out with only a wallet in my back pocket, and my keys in the front pocket. It was that simple, and I was set, but talk about a pain in the butt, literally. First of all, when you’re wallet is in your back pocket it means that when you sit you’re going to be lopsided, maybe unnoticeable to an observer, but you feel that wallet underneath you. Secondly, keys in the front pocket means that they are poking at your thigh, which is uncomfortable enough in itself, but they are also very likely to tear up the fabric in your pocket, eventually leading to a hole. Yet that’s what I was doing. Eventually I got tired of it, so I started using a backpack.

My backpack essentially became a man-purse. I use it to store my keys, my wallet, and anything else that I might need while I’m out. Generally, it’s pretty empty. Other than my keys and wallet I usually carry a pen as well, but not much else. Even though it’s mostly empty, and takes up more room than I absolutely need, it is a lot more comfortable than using my pockets. In my opinion, it’s better than the more common satchel as well, two straps means less strain on your body, and, quite frankly, it is not that unusual to see someone walking around in a backpack. I admit, I used to feel weird about wearing a backpack into a store, because I was afraid someone would accuse me of steeling, but no one ever has. It’s probably be about as rude for a clerk to accuse someone of putting something in their backpack, as it would for them to accuse a woman of putting something into her purse.

Now, you might be thinking it’s a pretty big jump to call a backpack a man-purse. And you’re right, it is, but let me explain the reason I see my backpack as my man-purse. Just recently I left my backpack behind. I had ridden my bicycle, so I didn’t need my keys in order to go home, and I didn’t even realize it was gone until the next day. Then I started really missing it. I searched all over the place for it. I was worried that I hadn’t just left it behind, but that it had been stolen. I realized that my entire life was in there. My driver’s license, my credit card, and my keys were gone. In a way, I felt naked, the way some women feel when they can’t find their purse. That’s when I started thinking of it as a type of man-purse, and I realized that I would have to keep better track of it. It was right were I had left it, and it was a great relief when I found it.

I say, if you’re a guy, use a man-purse. Whether you want to go for the common notebook computer case, the Indiana Jones style satchel, or, as I do, the backpack, you are going to find that it is a much more comfortable and convenient way to carry your stuff around. A lot better than pockets.