There was a 68-mile stretch of trail through the Wind River Range (between the Big Sandy Trailhead and the Green River Lakes Trailhead) without any points I could access by Jeep. In the best of times that would take Dad about 5 days, but we knew these were not the best of times. While recharging in Pinedale, we learned that there were definitely more blowdowns heading north, but how thick and for how long remained uncertain.
With Dad’s preferred maximum food carry of 3 days in mind, I came up with a plan to resupply him on foot at about the halfway point. Starting at the popular Pole Creek Trailhead (aka Elkhart Park), I’d hike 11 miles on the Pole Creek Trail up to where it bisected the CDT into two roughly equal halves, the first almost 35 miles, the second 33. I planned to carry the food he needed for the second half, camp with him overnight, and then the next day, hike back to the Jeep on the Pole Creek Trail while he continued northbound on the CDT. Given the overall difficulty of the terrain, Dad decided to allocate a conservative 3 days for each half. I brought him back to the Big Sandy Trailhead on Father’s Day, and we planned to meetup on the CDT 3 days later—on what would be his 72nd Birthday.
On the morning of the fourth day of our return to the Continental Divide Trail, Dad sent me the following inReach message:
“It’s taken me 1 hour and 45 minutes to go one mile. I might not make it today. Pack one day of [food] for me and head toward me. Bring your tent.”
What I saw on my inReach MINI
Receiving that just after turning on my inReach at 9 was very alarming. The night before he was camped only 9.4 miles away, which under normal circumstances would take him just under 4 hours to complete—I’d expect him to saunter into camp around 10 in the morning. But I knew that things were not exactly normal when he sent me this message the previous evening:
“I’m hiking through BLOW DOWN HELL. It took me hours per mile. I’m stopping for the day due to sheer exhaustion.”
Landscaping drew me in for a number of reasons, but I had completely forgotten about one until digging it up recently: on February 3, 2020, I got an estimate back from a landscaper that seemed so astronomically high, I decided I just had to start doing the work myself. I hired a tree service company to do what I couldn’t, and they showed up the very next day. You know how people say “Oh, you must be saving a ton of money doin’ that yourself”? My reaction is usually, “I dunno, I’m at Home Depot like every other day,” because it feels like I’m actually spending a ton, but at least I’m learning a ton, and I think I’m getting a better result in the end.
The dough recipe I return to, over and over again, is from a video by Mark Bittman in the New York Times for Potato Pizza (in which potato is just the topping). In our household, we refer to it affectionately as glug glug glug glug glug pizza—after the sound Mark makes (and I imitate) to “measure” the olive oil. I love precisely weighing out the flour and then glug-glugging the olive oil with almost reckless abandon before adding just enough water for the dough to come together. Here’s my adaptation, which makes enough dough for two 11–12″ pizzas:
8–9 g (2 tsp) kosher salt
This is double what Mark recommends, but I find that a single teaspoon results in a bland crust, and 8–9 grams is in line with a typical baker’s percentage of 2–3% salt for pizza.
2 g (1/2 tsp) yeast
This is half of what Mark recommends, because I make the dough ahead of time and allow it to rise in the fridge at least overnight, often for several days. If I was going to make the pizza day of, I’d use a full teaspoon of yeast.
5 glugs olive oil
about 180 mL (3/4 cup) water
I fill my liquid cup measure with 1 cup and add water into the food processor until the dough comes together. I almost always have close to 1/4 cup remaining, resulting in a hydration of about 55%.
