Talking Tenkara

Hey Everyone,

Ive been invited to be the guest speaker at two Trout Unlimited chapter monthly meetings. I will be discussing how my passion for ultralight backpacking and fly fishing lead me to Tenkara. I will also be talking about how I view the sport and where I plan to take it. If you're in either of the areas feel free to drop by and say hey. You may already be a TU member or might even decide to join after being around all of us trout bums.

August 27th 7:00pm - triangle fly fishers

September 11th 7:00pm - nat green fly fishers


See you on the trail,
Lance

Burning Wood = Saving Forest

Hello Everyone,

I just received an email from Erin Engelson from the Kenya Stove project. Most of us backpackers are fully aware of wood gas stoves and probably own at least one. Well now that cool little stove that runs on twigs laying around the camp site, and you've been using to make coffee on is going global. If you have been following the recent issues in Africa dealing with the illegal charcoal production, you know its a growing problem and its destroying habitats for many animals most notably Gorillas. The problem is that charcoal is what is used in many of the home cook stoves and fires of the local population. Well the Kenya Stove projects has taken the idea of the wood gas stove and come up with a possible solution to that problem. I don't want to steel too much from the kenyastove site but burning wood most notably mesquite (an invasive species) in these larger stoves could reduce if not eliminate the need to make charcoal. I urge you to check out this site and help out if you can. It sure is nice to see that a piece of gear that backpackers built just to boil some water is about to help people and conserve nature in such a positive way.

See you on the trail,
Lance


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/627536440/kenya-stove-revolutionizing-how-people-cook

Pages

Hey Everyone,

As some of you may have noticed I have put up a page "outdoor quotes" and a page of trail words called "enHikielopedia". I have put a lot of information on both of these pages and have just added some new quotes as well. If you know of a great quote about the outdoors, or a word to add to the enHikelopedia let me know and I will get it up on the page.

See you on the trial,
Lance

San Gabriel Mountains

Hello Everyone,

Well I'm back from California. It was quite the trip and I went for several reasons. I flew into LAX and my first impression of Los Angeles was that of too many people, too much traffic, and too much city. You can imagine my excitement and relief once I was in the mountains. We hiked up the East fork of the San Gabriel river. There is a lot of history to this small river that flows through a high dessert just North East of L.A. If you pay attention as you hike you will see the evidence of an old road that was built in the thirties which was washed away in a flood only a few years later. If you are willing to take on a ten mile hike you can hike up the canyon to "the bridge to nowhere" which is five miles from the nearest road now. There are several other signs that this remote area was once much more populated than today. The main goal for our hike was to do some prospecting. This area has a rich history of producing gold that goes all the way back to the Native Americans who settled there. The other reason for going was to do a little fly fishing or I should say Tenkara. There are native wild rainbows which are the descendants of the steel head that used to run all the way up the river before dams were built down stream. The area is truly rich with trout and I spent every morning before the sun and anyone else was up, walking the river casting dry flies to these little gems. Well Ive attached a video and some photos. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I did taking them.

See you on the Trail,
Lance

Poncho Tarp

Hey Everyone,

Ive had this little piece of gear in my day pack for at least a year now, and I don't know why Ive never done a post on it. This piece of gear happens to be the Sea to Summit Tarp-Poncho in ultra-sil. It's actually a pretty cool item to have in your kit. It's very small and pretty light weighing in at 12 ounces. Although I don't use it on backpacking trips, I do take it with me when I hike into remote native trout streams as an emergency shelter and, well, poncho. I figure that if I have to stay the night in the mountains (and I'm not backpacking of course) its because I have somehow gotten injured (If was lost I could just fallow the stream back). So with that said I most likely will not want to or be able to gather materials for a shelter. Also if I get caught in a rain storm, which I'm sure we all have at some time, I have a poncho to at least hike out in. I pair this up with a SOL Bivvy which is a high end space blanket and a small kit with a whistle, fire starting supplies, a few bandages, and some cord for a nice little survival kit (yes there is always a knife in my pocket or pack). I have added lengths of cord to the four corners for tie downs and have looped them on for easy removal for poncho mode or reconfiguring how I want to set it up. Its simple yet effective and good insurance to have if you ever have to stay the night in the woods. Heck I may even take it on a mild weather backpacking trip just to see what its like.

See you on the trail,
Lance

p.s. I should also note that I take a small aluminum water bottle as well which I can use to boil water. You can do the same for bring some other way to treat water.

The Otter

Hey everyone,

Ive had this video on my camera for a little while now. I was small mouth bass fishing on the fly one day and had seen several otters along the river. I decided to sit on a log and watch one for a while. I had no idea what was about to happen. I wont spoil the video but I will say its one of the coolest things that has happened to me in the outdoors.

See you on the trail,
Lance

Fish, Fish, and More Fish

Hey Everyone,

This is just a short post and video that is in addition to my last post. I wanted to post a video of some of the fish that we have been catching on the fly. Its been a pretty fun adventure, and were not done yet!

See you on the trail,
Lance