Training Log Archive: danfoster

Sea kayak camping on Boston and Hingham Harbors. Paddled out a whopping one mile on Tuesday afternoon from Hingham to Langlee Island, and spent the rest of the afternoon bird watching at the nearby protected rookery island. Borrowed a pair of marine binoculars from a friend and floated just offshore, watching dozens of cormorants, great egrets, and night herons courting, building nests, and flying in and out of the bird-filled trees. Two people were on the island doing some sort of nest survey, and occasionally a few hundred birds would take to the skies in a raucous protest.

Enjoyed an evening campfire on the gravel bar, and watched the rising tide devour the fire as we retreated back to our tents. Light rain overnight and again at dawn, and the threat of more on Wednesday convinced the group that this was a one night trip only. We paddled up the Weymouth Back River for lunch, and then fought a stiff headwind all the way back to camp. Got back to the cars and made it home just in time for dinner and a second night of unsettled weather, which turned out to be pretty mild in the end.

It was eerie being out on Boston Harbor this early in the season. Only saw a handful of boats - we had the entire ocean to ourselves for most of the trip, it seemed.

Roadside trash pickup with my adopted Cisco work/cycling family along an overlooked wetland on our weekday cycling loop, in honor of Earth Day. I filled 5 large bags, and the group of six picked enough to fill the back of an SUV two times. DH single-handedly unearthed a giant, silt-filled tractor tire that had graced our local riding loop for the last few decades.

Packrafted the Assabet from Gleasondale down to Magazu's Landing, with a first-ever foray into Fort Meadow Pond. Lots of wildlife at 9AM on the river: muskrats, great blue herons, wood ducks, a [red tailed?] hawk perched above the wetlands. But the highlight was a low overflight by a Sandhill Crane, which surprised me with a weird flight call and then circled higher and higher on the thermals and eventually soared off downstream. I wish now that I'd captured some phone video to confirm the voice match, but how many extra-large, greyish, stork-like (sans baby) birds are there? The Mass Audubon rare bird sighting page confirms a Sandhill was spotted in Worcester a few days ago, and a bunch have been seen along the coast.

Came home and dressed to the nines for a family picnic in the nearby swamp, which involved a very flooded trail and was more of a "tick-nic" than a proper picnic, with ticks crawling all over us instead of ants. I like the ant version better.

Up at 3AM, couldn't sleep. The times, they are a-changin', and the tires need to change along with them. Pulled the knobbies off the Cutthroat, and swapped the summer slicks back on. Couldn't get them to seat with the floor pump, and it seemed wrong to fire up the air compressor at 4AM, directly below the bedroom. Swapped out the 30t bikepacking chainring for a faster 34t. Goodbye, granny gear!

Since the back wheel was off, and the chain and cassette are both on their last miles, I pulled off the hub driver and matched pictures online until I was confident I had found the correct XD driver to replace the stock 11s driver. If the new one actually shows up in a month (shipping from China), I'll try a wide range 9-46 e13 cassette and have a true go-anywhere bike.

As soon as creatures besides mouses were stirring, I fired up the compressor and popped both tires on. Then banished the bikes and gear bins to another room and vacuumed and steam cleaned a winter's-worth of grit and grease off of the carpet.

Took Jess out at lunchtime for what was supposed to be a quick shakedown to bounce the sealant around and make sure the shifting still worked. Passed an enormous snapper laying eggs on the way in. Jess went straight to the muddiest of mud holes, and so we extended the ride in hopes of shedding mud and finding cleaner water. Ran into Crazy Daisy and the two of them ran each other ragged for a while. A few minutes later we heard a crack and watched a 100' pine come crashing down, a bit too close for comfort. Nearly got blown over sideways as we exited the woods onto the narrow, fast runout into the main field. Rain is imminent.

CP flag pickup in Stow Town Forest with Jess. Thankfully the two remaining flags were still there. Jess got some good runs in as we bombed around the singletrack (she cut a corner - cheater!) and several dips in the river and Elizabeth Brook. The deer carcass we found early in the winter is now just a pile of white hair, but Jess still paid it a visit. Almost made it to the top of Gardner Hill from the north side. One more tricky set of roots to get around, and I would have been home free.

Vaughn Hill loop with the Daves. 70 and windy. I'm really looking forward to these rides as the apple trees begin to bloom. I need to put the road slicks on, or grow a bigger set of legs, though.

Another "first descent" in the packraft. This time a miserable 1.5 mile trek along busy, shoulderless Rt 117 from Bolton Flats to a tick-infested launch on a grassy bank, 6 ft above the water. This gave access to a 4.5 mile paddle down the North and South branches of the Nashua River, completing the triangle back to the car. Both rivers carve their way through fertile bottomland, surrounded by woods and farms. In reality, this meant the whole trip was looking up at sheer 6ft muddy banks to a floodplain covered in knotweed, poison ivy stems, and No Hunting signs. The scenery wasn't that great, but the rivers were moving along at a healthy clip, with lots of quick water and eddies behind every fallen tree and obstruction. I had a great time hopping from eddy to eddy, ferrying across the current, and doing figure eights in places.

The first river-wide obstruction was surrounded by high, muddy banks, and I crept up, hoping to find a way through. When their wasn't one, I found myself in a bit of a pickle, frantically back-paddling and trying to retreat back upstream to an eddy while water started piling up against the stern. I really wished I had some sort of boat leash or tow line, as I needed to throw the boat and paddle up onto the high bank and then climb up a bunch of tree roots to get up to the flood plain above.

After that, it was smooth sailing for a few miles downstream, joining the South Nashua at a confluence with a huge paper wasp nest on a bridge abutment. When I reached the dead oxbow of the South Nashua, there was a huge pileup of detritus on trees spanning both forward options, and thankfully I chose to pull off on a grassy point just upstream to scout around the corner. It was a scary mess ahead, with the current funneling into a nasty strainer in the small portion of the river that wasn't completely filled with drifted wood.

I don't think I could have portaged around with anything other than a 5 lb packraft. I ended up smashing my way through a forest of dried, head-high Japanese Knotweed stalks, tossing the boat over a fallen oak, and then clamoring down the muddy bank a hundred feet downstream. What a shame that the river is basically blocked to boat traffic here, and will probably remain so for a year or more. I'd managed to paddle upstream to here years ago, and probably got stopped by the same blockage.

After that, it was smooth sailing down to the car, with one notable play spot at a submerged v-shaped log that set up the perfect surfing hole, on a scale that I was comfortable tackling (that is, very, very small). I spent some time with the boat stuck to the wave, hopping in and out of the eddy on either side, and edging the boat against the downstream current.

I finally peeled off and drifted the remainder of the way down to the highway and a muddy takeout, flicking the last remaining (I hope) tick off of my neck and out the window on the short drive home.

Ran my "Stow Faux 6hr AR" training course with Janet and Steph, in preparation for their first AR (NYARA Trilogy) at the end of the month. Postponed from yesterday so we wouldn't have to train in the lingering nor'easter slush and drizzle. A good call! We had temps from 48-60, with chilly parts and even a bit of sun later in the day.

Started with map handout and route plotting on the hood of the car. They came up with the route choices, which worked out almost perfectly into two-hour segments for each stage. First up was biking, and Steph took my map board and led us around the southern portion of the course through the wildlife refuge, taking us right to the controls. One little bobble where an abandoned trail lured them in, which they quickly caught and reversed. One mistake on my part, promising open bathrooms outside the visitors center, which weren't.

We allowed ourselves 7 minutes off the clock to break down bikes and lock them in cars for security, but then the transition to paddling was back on the timer. The warm sun was quickly replaced by a cold breeze, and I pulled out my rain jacket at the first shore visit. Lots of practice hopping in and out of sea kayaks into cold river water while wearing bike shoes. Janet was very happy to find a tricky on-shore control right where she expected it. The team made the decision to skip a shoreline point rather than land and disturb two fishermen who had just arrived right at the spot we needed to be. They also made a smart call to skip a 20 minute out-and-back for a single point to bank more time for the final orienteering stage.

After the boats were back on the cars, we stopped the clock and drove a few miles to the scout reservation, where NEOC had a set of practice orienteering courses, complete with streamers. To keep things complicated, I gave them both the Yellow and Orange maps, and told them they could get points from either map, in any order. They were very strong on the orienteering section, and we flew through the course, having to add back the CPs they'd initially decided to skip. Saw several other orienteerers out in the woods, and one of them was kind enough to mention that they'd started taking down the controls. So our last two points were "virtual", but clearly at the correct locations. We finished with about 30 minutes to spare on the race clock.

Total distances:
Bike: 11.3 miles in 1:51
Paddle: 3.9 miles in 1:26
Trek: 4.4 miles in 1:54
Two transitions: fairly quick

Packraft training on the Squannacook and Nashua Rivers - my own personal Two Rivers AR, complete with giant rootstock.

Another cold, raw, day after two days of Nor'easter-driven snow and spitting rain. But at least the rivers are running now! 3.4 ft on the Squanny gage. Trekked in 1.7 mi from the car through Groton Town Forest to an old ford across the river, where the current was ripping and audible long before I arrived. An intimidating spot to launch into, and probably crux of the trip.
There's a perfect, boat-sized eddy to launch from, and the first paddle stroke takes you out into the main current, under a sweeper (more of a face slapper), and then you immediately need to cross the river to avoid a half-river strainer, and then the river disappears around a tight corner with the promise of more debris in fast-moving water, just out of sight.

It actually wasn't that bad, and I'd scouted it with Jess earlier this winter (it snowed on us that day, too). I spent the first quarter mile hopping from eddy to eddy, making sure I could catch them before proceeding downstream. The water velocity mellowed out, and the game now became how to pick a way through the frequent strainers and river-wide obstructions. I lost count of the portages, although only two of them really took much effort. At this flow, I was able to butt-scoot over a number of submerged logs and some of the marsh grass, and shoot a few of the beaver dams through gaps that barely seemed wide enough.

The wildlife was incredible. Lots of wood ducks. Nesting geese. A chickadee with a perfectly-cylindrical nest hole carved into the end of a rotted-out tree limb. And in the most peaceful, wild backwater, the river backed up to the Shirley Rod and Gun Club, which added a "woodpecker-esque" rat-a-tat to the otherwise enjoyable surroundings.

It took me well over an hour to work my way down 1.7 miles of the fast-flowing Squannacook, mainly due to the frequent obstructions. Once I paddled into the north-flowing Nashua, the river was clear (despite a river-wide disaster area just upstream of the confluence) and my pace quickened considerably. I paddled over to get a closer look at a mink, who darted into a riverbank hole when he caught wind of my approach.

1.5 miles down the Nashua, I passed the fancy boathouse of the Groton School's crew team, and then pulled ashore to deflate the boat, doff the drysuit, and step back into soaked trail runners for a quick hike back to the car. Having stowed all of my gear in my pack for the packrafting portion of the day, I was very happy to have access to my bag of gorp again, and chowed down on the trek and drive back home to a warm shower.

Setting a few orienteering flags out for a 6hr practice AR this weekend with friends. Jess managed to roll in something while I was getting my ear talked off by another mountain biker, and earned herself a bath back home. Wanted to head back to the adjacent no-dogs wildlife refuge to set a few more flags, but the nor'easter arrived earlier than expected, and I'll get plenty wet enough when we do the actual event.

Mixed road/gravel Assabet loop with the Cisco Daves. Tacked on the Delaney field loop at the end for extra vitamin D. Dry, sunny, bugless trails - what a great day to be out!

Spent a second night out in the hammock (this time on the back porch, after a dog walk in the dusk), since I wanted to see if I could improve my chilly butt in 45 degree weather, and give the tarp a chance to do its thing with some rain moving up from the south.

Despite heavier layers, I still felt cold through the bottom, and after a 3AM wakeup to "water the lawn", I grabbed my ultralight summer bag (mandatory gear from Untamed) and sandwiched that between the underquilt and the hammock bottom, and enjoyed a comfy remainder of the night. Woke up to the orange glow of sunrise, light showers, and a dog nose announcing it was time for breakfast (hers, with mine to follow).

It was mid-70s here yesterday, and the house was up to 77 inside by evening. With overnight temps dropping from 60 to 47 (not for another hour - it's nice when the overnight low is 3 hours after you wake up!), it seemed like a perfect night to try out the new camping hammock. After a picnic dinner on a nearby hill with Jori and Jess, I loaded up the fatbike with hammock, underquilt, and sleeping bag, and then waited around for it to get really dark. The Pest instinctively knew that adventure was brewing, and had to be lured away from the bike several times before I could slip away.

Set out at 8:45 into a moonless night, in balmy conditions. Despite my effort to go slow and not get overheated, I was sweating in shorts and t-shirt by the time I reached the grove where I intended to camp. Along the way I passed a couple deer grazing in an open field, and encountered another set of glowing eyes right where I was going to bed down for the night. I actually continued on for a bit until the eyes turned and dashed off, confirming I'd be sharing the spot with a young deer and not some coyote hungry for hammock burritos.

Took about 20 minutes to set up camp in the darkness, and then I settled into what seemed like a hanging sauna. I was still putting out a lot of heat, and when I unzipped the top cover to vent out, I was looking up at a starry sky through the bare-leaved trees. I get the appeal of hammock camping now! Drifted off pretty easily while gazing up at the stars and listening to the noise of the forest (and the muffled, low, background noise from the highway).

Woke up a number of times throughout the night, with my butt and back getting cooler - I'm not sure this cheap underquilt is up to the task. I was enjoying the forest noises and the connection to the surroundings, so I skipped the earplugs. With them in, and with a little bit more insulation on my back, I think I would have slept quite nicely through the night.

At 5AM I emerged from my cocoon, packed my bags, and was on the trail 20 minutes later. Passed three more deer in the darkness, and then dawn began to break. Decided to loop in some extra miles instead of heading straight home, and passed a bunny in the dewy grass on my way to a short break at the heron rookery. Made it home just in time for a hot breakfast of eggs and toast, with some much-needed coffee!

"Bozo the Packrafting Clown" made an unsolicited appearance in our shared pond during my neighbor's kids party. First up - packrafting with a fat bike strapped to the bow. Wanted to test out the bikerafting configuration with the fatbike rack attached. Worked great, and the weight up front made the boat track much better than it did for the rest of the session.

Fatbike came off, to the amusement of another neighbor who wanted to know how to ride a bike in the water, and then it was time for stroke practice, and messing with seat height and position. It's kind of silly to practice sculling draws to move the boat sideways when a quick flick with the paddle turns the entire boat that direction, but at least the boat cooperates. Let some air out of the seat, dug in my toes, and practiced leaning and edging the boat. Got up on the back tube and threw braces while partially swamping the stern. Which quickly led to...

Re-entry practice! Pretty easy to flip the boat upright and scramble back in, but with nothing to hold on to when falling out, and high, slippery tubes, it's easy to see how boats and boaters get separated.

During all this Jess managed to lose her replacement dog feeding toy in the pond. The replacement replaced the same toy she lost earlier in the week into the pond. I managed to find both, and she happily rolled them around and in and out of the muck while I bobbed around in the same just a few feet offshore.

Took Jess on her first bikepacking trip. Scouting trails at Douglas State Forest for our AMC bikepacking trip next month. Rode 14 miles of trails each day, a mix of cinder rail beds, forest roads, and rock-studded hiking trails. It was mid-sixties and sunny both days, and seemed hotter with no leaf cover. Luckily there were plenty of CCC-era stone-lined water holes for Jess to splash around in.
Jess wasn't sure what to think when we set up camp at the shelter, ate dinner, and then hung out around a fire instead of heading for the car. She sat and pointed herself down the trail home, sending a not-so-subtle message. But when I opened up the tent and unveiled her sleeping mat and bed, she got the idea and was soon fast asleep, nestled under my down puffy and various parts of her own bed.
The trip went off without a hitch, until the final miles when I must have hit a pointy protrusion on a stick in the middle of Stud Finder, and punched a v-shaped incision right down the centerline of my fatbike's front tire. Sealant went everywhere. Stans and tire bacon wasn't doing the job, but super glue came to the rescue. Gingerly made my way down the rest of the singletrack, and then rode the old rail line straight back to the car. Except the road passed over the rail line on a 20' stone bridge, so the final feet of the ride were near-vertical. Jess was dog-tired by the end of the trip - a rare accomplishment.

Another circuit of Delaney in the tandem kayak with Jess. Added a deck pad and dog perch to the poop deck, and some non-slip SUP traction pad where Jess' hind feet should be when in goose-spotting mode. Apparently I put the pad too far forward, as she stands just behind it. Oh, well. The boat trimmed out nicely with my seat far back and Jess perched up front, as evidenced by the water pouring in through the now open mounting holes for the kayak foot pegs that I moved back. Added incentive to paddle faster in rough seas.

Mixed-terrain ride with the Cisco Dirt Road Ramblers. Just above freezing at the start, but sunny and windless and warming up to a balmy 53 later in the day. Nice mix of quiet roads, broken pavement at Quabbin, dirt roads, and some ripping chunky forest roads in the Ware River Watershed. Found ourselves at the base of the same stupid abandoned farm "road" that we hiked down last November. This time we needed to go up. Luckily there was a much more civilized dirt road that lead us around it, but then dropped us into another muddy farm road for the final few miles of the ride.

More messing about in boats. Stripped all of the seats and hardware out of the tandem. Moved the foot braces back, and then added in a seat without actually screwing it into the boat. Jess and I paddled around (38, windy), trying out various seat placements to see if anything made it easier to hold a straight line. Jess was not happy having her front seat removed - apparently it provides traction when she jumps out to shore, and she belly flopped twice with it missing.

Jess and I ventured out this morning for an ill-advised paddle, since my knee is still sore from cycling. 40 degrees, blustery, and spitting rain. On the plus side, we had the whole place to ourselves! Bought a shorter canoe paddle this afternoon, so hopefully that will work better with the tandem kayak.