Gear - what to bring; what to leave behind

Sam has bogged before of our preparation to be physically ready for our great 500 mile walking adventure. Now it's my turn.  I have no idea how to prepare emotionally or spiritually so I am concentrating on the practical aspects of what we will be carrying on our backs.  I now look at everything in terms of ounces We will be staying most of the time on the Camino in albergues (al-bear-gays, which are accommodations  similar to hostels) so we will have no need of tents.  We will be walking through small villages as well as large cities so as far as food, we need only carry our lunch and there are fountains all along the way to fill up our water bottles

They say you should carry no more than 10% of your body weight excluding water and food (that’s 10% of what your body weight should be, not what it does weight).  That means a max of 13 pounds for me and 17 for Sam.  How do you do that and carry everything you need for two months?  Now we are not on the moon so we can always get more toothpaste and soap as we need it along the way but still!

As we got into this we discovered there are many deeply philosophical questions to be answered. 

• ·         Water bottles or water bladder?
• ·         Rain suit or poncho?
• ·         Sleeping bag or sleeping sack?
• ·         Hiking boots or trail runners?

Each of these decisions has its advocates.  You do not want to be in the middle of the passionate argument between the water bottle folks vs. the water bladder clan.  You could get hurt!

It might help to understand what we have been told is a typical day on the Camino.  Up early and on the road by 7 am, maybe with some coffee and a roll, maybe not.  Walk for a couple of hours and then stop for a café con leche and a croissant.  Walk for a couple of hours more until you decide to have the sandwich you packed the night before or stop for lunch in a town along the way.  Continue walking till about 2-4 pm till you find an albergue with space for you.  Once there you claim your bunk (no linens), take a shower, change into clean clothes & sandals, and hand wash the clothes you just took off.  Then it’s time to relax and explore, maybe find a store to buy tomorrow’s lunch or just nap.  There are special “pilgrim meals” that are served about 8 pm available in many towns and sometimes at your albergue.  Normally Spaniards don’t eat dinner till around 10 pm.  After dinner it’s to bed (in the clothes you will wear the next day) because the albergue locks its door at 10pm.  Next morning the routine starts all over again. So you really need only one change of clothes.  The albergues have bunks but you need to bring some sort of sheet or sleeping bag/sack. The weather in the fall can be very windy and rainy with morning temp in the mountains in the 40s and on the plains it could get up to the 90s so we need to be prepared for anything. We both decided to buy separate rain pants and jacket from REI; they weigh only 12 ounces each and have worked great so far. Thank goodness we’ve been working on “gear” since March since it has given us time to try out all sorts of equipment before making final decisions.

Water- I drink a lot of water while hiking and I can’t reach the bottles on the side of my pack so the bladder in the pack with a hose to suck on seemed like a great solution.  I tried that for a while but they are difficult to clean when you are on the road, also relatively heavy and difficult to refill while in the pack without getting everything wet.  Finally after researching and talking to lots of folks I found a $10 hose system from Blue Desert that attaches to an ordinary water bottle.  Now I can drink from the refillable bottle without removing it from my pack side-pocket.  Very exciting!  Sam has decided to use a couple of half-liter bottles with no hose, so I will probably have to retrieve his bottle for him when he needs a drink.

We have become ultra-light fanatics.  Sam has actually cut off half the handle on his toothbrush!  He says it fits into his bag easier. Everything gets weighed.  Safety pins to hang up our clothes to dry after washing weigh 0.3 of an ounce, much less than clothes pins.  I was delighted when I found a Patagonia insulated vest than only weighs 7.9 ounces and a warm hat at 1.3 ounces.  We have both been searching since March to find the lightest sandals to give our feet a break.  I am now the proud owner of a pair of Oofos sandals - 8.8 ounces for the pair!  Sam’s Rockport sandals weigh only 17 ounces, less than Teva’s lightest.

Seriously though, despite all our craziness I think the process has helped us prepare emotionally and yes, maybe even spiritually.  It has made us think about what “stuff” we really need in life.  It has given us an opportunity to pare down to the bare essentials for the next couple of months.  I’m hoping some of the lessons will stay with us upon our return.  Our lives will be very simple if extremely challenging in the coming pilgrimage. There will also be a paring down of our very busy lives. It will be a chance to think about what is truly essential beyond physical things in our life; each other, family, friends, passions.  In some way, all of you will be in our packs, taking the journey with us.  I’m just glad that you, and all that you mean to us, don’t show up on a scale. 

 If you are not bored to tears yet I have included my packing list, complete with weights.

 

Item	component weight	Weight	number	Total Weight
Backpack		30	1	30
Sleeping bag/storage bag		27	1	27
Rain suit/storage bag		25.3	1	25.3
rain jacket	14.3		1	0
rain pants	10		1	0
storage bag	1		1	0
Clothes/storage bag		59.8	1	59.8
pants	10		1	0
short sleeve top	9.6		2	0
long sleeve top	5.2		1	0
bras	2		2	0
panties	3		2	0
socks	6		2	0
sock liners	1.8		2	0
fleece jacket	9.7		1	0
down vest	7.9		1	0
warm hat	1.3		1	0
light gloves	0.7		1	0
compression storage bag	2.6		1	0
bandana			1	0
Sandals		4.4	2	8.8
Toiletries		11.1	1	11.1
toothbrush	0.5
toothpaste	1
floss	0.2
comb	0.5
razor	0.3
deordorant	1.6
soap	2
face cloth	0.7
towel	3.7
tweezers	0.3
safety pins	0.3
storage bag	0.2
phone		4.7	1	4.7
phone charger/converter		2.6	1	2.6
hydration tube		4	1	4
head lamp		3	1	3
mini pack		2.4	1	2.4
sun hat		2.3	1	2.3
field toilet kit		2	1	2
journal/pen		2	1	2
language phrase book		1.8	1	1.8
sun screen		1.5	1	1.5
stone from home		1.5	1	1.5
foot care-extra toe caps/moleskin/blister aids/emory brd		1.7	1	1.7
vaseline/voltaren		5.7	1	5.7
first aid-bandaids, antibiotic,gauze pads,gloves,meds,needle thread		3.1	1	3.1
kleenex		1	1	1
sun glasses		0.9	1	0.9
rx meds		0.8	1	0.8
neck cooler		0.8	1	0.8
lip balm		0.4	1	0.4
spork		0.4	1	0.4
ear plugs		0.1	1	0.1
knife- buy in Spain			1	0
zip lock bags			1	0
Emergency pack		4.6	1	4.6
cord	0.4	1
compass	0.2	1
whistle	0.4	1
duct tape	0.8	1
extra reading glasses	0.7	1
extra head lamp batteries	1.3	3
storage bag	0.8
				209.3	Oz
TOTAL				13.08	Lb

 

Getting Ready # 2- Preparing for the mountains

There are significant chunks of our upcoming 500 mile pilgrimage walk across Spain that will involve climbing and descending major mountain chains (going down is actually tougher on your body than climbing - toes and quads get punished!) So we figured that we need to get some vertical into our normal six to ten mile road and pathway training walks and tackle something bigger. Like the nearby White Mountains in New Hampshire, for instance. These include Mt. Washington, at some 6,000 feet the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi, as well as many other peaks, most with well-established hiking trails to the top. So we drove up to Franconia, NH to spend the weekend hiking. After getting established at the Best Western Hotel in town and enjoying a good night’s sleep, we headed out next morning to climb Mt. Pemigiwasset, at 2,450 feet a decent climb of over 1,000 feet from the base. The two mile trail was ranked “intermediate” so we figured we’d have no trouble, not with all our gym workouts and Stairmaster exercises for the past year.

Did I mention that last Saturday was perhaps the hottest and most humid day of the year? Even in the mountains temperatures were in the low ‘90’s and with 100% humidity to boot. The air was so thick you could chew it! Things were fine for a while until we hit the vertical part.

Both Joan & I had forgotten that hiking trails in New England are often very rocky, covered with tree roots and usually filled with loose gravel and leaves left by the small streams that pour off the hillsides after a rainstorm. Since this has been an usually rainy summer, the trail was “interesting”.  We quickly found that any steep section involved climbing up and over 2 to 3 foot rocks in the trail, and that footholds were only found between the tangle of tree roots that basically defined the path. But we persevered and kept going, slowly and methodically, up the trail. As occasional fellow-hikers would overtake us, we’d joke with them about our nick-name of “Team Turtle” and how we “start slow- and taper off!” and all that. But it was tough going, especially since I (Sam) have lousy balance because of my fused left ankle, so I have to rely on my hiking poles much more than an agile youngster. Joan found it hard too, since she is still working on building her cardiovascular endurance. After about 2 hours we finally made it to the upper part of the mountain at about 2,300 feet and saw awaiting ahead of us a tangle of downed beech trees and a steep boulder-ridden narrow trail snaking to the top.

So we rationalized while we drank water and munched on our Cliff energy bars. These New England trails are nothing like what we will experience in Spain. People have been walking our Camino Frances route since the Middle Ages and millions - literally millions - of feet have trod the path we will take. Pilgrims have crawled, pushed carts, dragged a cross or just walked as we intend to do and we will not face boulder-ridden, tree obstructed, root-ridden pathways like this was turning out to be. Vertical feet to ascend-yes! Descents-sure. But not these ankle-busting trails that make hiking in New England so difficult. So we finished out snack and headed down. Those same boulders and roots posed an even more tricky descent for us but surprisingly, neither of us had any real issues. The mantra we kept saying to ourselves was: “Find a safe foot placement; keep away from wet leaves and muck- and think about what you’re doing before taking that big step down!”   We got to the bottom and figured we had done a “hard 1,000 feet up and down” and that was fine for training.

But we’ve decided that from now on until we leave on Sept 2^nd, we’ll get our vertical training by finding car roads up the mountains around here. We’ll do Mt. Pack Monadnock in NH next Saturday and maybe tackle Mt. Washington auto road the week after that. At least we won’t have to worry about breaking an ankle!  But the view from the top was awesome!

We're Having a Heat Wave!

Today is July 17th and we are in the middle of an old-fashioned heat wave here in Southern Maine. It's only 94 degrees at 3 in the afternoon and the beaches in Kennebunk are jammed. But we need to try to stick to our training schedule to prepare ourselves for out long walking journey. We have only seven weeks to go before departure to Madrid and we know it will be hot in Spain in September too. We went out for a 10 mile walk a few days ago, carrying 10 pounds in our Gregory backpacks and the trip along the Eastern Trail and the back roads of Kennebunk and Arundel was really a rough experience. I was semi-OK with the heat but my boots were laced too tightly and my right ankle started to get abraded against the Blaze brace I wear. Joan, who has a narrow temperature comfort zone, really felt the heat, even though we both drank plenty of water along the way and even stopped for about 20 minutes at the Seed & Bean coffee house in West Kennebunk for a cafe con leche. Even though we both were wearing really light-weight clothes, all made of some exotic polytech fast-drying fabric, we were both dripping wet when we got home. But at least the polytech stuff dries fast. No "killer-cotton" clothes for us!

Our intention this week was to walk three consecutive days for 10 miles, carrying a 66% load of 10 pounds in our backpacks. Next month we jump up to carrying a full load -15 pounds for me and 12 for Joan - as a replication of our schedule in Spain, where we will  walk every day for 16-20 kilometers and can't take a "lay day" while staying in an albergue de perigrinos (pilgrim hostel)  because that's the rule! All pilgrims must be up and out by 8 AM. We do plan to stay in a pension or hotel about once a week just to take a day or two off, soak in a hot bath and clean up a bit essentially pampering ourselves in recognition of the fact that we are not 25 years old any more. 

So while we will have logged well over 300 miles walking during our six month preparation, we're getting a little worried that we haven't yet done enough consecutive days or enough vertical climbs. Those Pyrenees aren't getting any flatter and there is no place to stop and spend the night on the second 12 mile climb from Orrison to Roncesvalles. We're heading up to Franconia Notch this Friday to hike up to Lonesome Lake and try some climbs in the White Mountains of NH. Our thought at one time was to walk up and down the auto road on Mt. Washington- at 6,288 feet it's the highest mountain east of the Mississippi. Maybe if this hot weather breaks a little bit and we get down to a more seasonal 70 degree range we'll try it. Stay tuned!

Getting Ready - Mind & Spirit

Walking 500 miles, day after day, sounds like an impossibly hard task and is not probably something that most people would think of as a "fun" way to spend their Fall. Yet literally millions of people have walked the various pathways and roads to Santiago over the past 1,000 years. OK, back in the "Dark Ages", when the Catholic Church dominated every aspect of European medieval life,when the millennium-closing "End of Ages" belief was accepted as an omni-present inevitability by almost everybody and people didn't have the global grounding of current events coverage that we are blessed with today - sure then it made sense to perform the obligatory pilgrimage to a Holy Place. The Holy City - Jerusalem - had been taken from the Byzantine Empire by the armies of the exploding Islamic faith in 637 and the way to Rome was done only by traveling through an ever-shifting Rubic's Cube of warring city-states, kingly relationships and feuding families in what is now modern day Italy. So most of the faithful in Europe looked to Santiago in Spain as their destination of pilgrimage and for absolution of their sins and fulfillment of a sacred duty, a holy pilgrimage then being one of the fundamentals of Christianity, as a pilgrimage to Mecca is even now of Islam.

But Joan & I live in more enlightened times and neither one of us is a Church person. Joan was brought up a Catholic and attended St. Charles church & elementary school in Woburn, Mass. Once her insatiable scientific curiosity got going in high school however, she was asked to leave St. Charles, it being suggested that perhaps Woburn High School would be more suitable for such an inquiring mind. Sam was raised a Congregationalist and attended sunday school and later church in Grafton, Mass, curiously enough, in the same old church that had been founded in 1738 by his direct ancestor, Rev. Solomon Prentiss, whose name Sam bears as his middle name. But even with all those churchly foundations, we are not undertaking this journey to fulfill any obligation to a church or to any particular "faith". But there is a spiritual element that is somehow there for each of us, a element that gives an as yet undefined sense of a much deeper meaning to our upcoming journey than just visiting old ruins or hearing legends about places where once, long ago, a miracle was reported to have happened or a vision of St. James as Matamoros - the Moor Slayer - turned the tide of a battle between the Christians and the Islamic Moors for control of Navarre and the rest of Iberia..

For me (Sam), there is something deeper I am seeking in my life, some dimly sensed thread connecting the web of my life, family, loves and "things" together in a meaningful way.  Maybe this is a common feeling as one gets older and realizes, as I am starting to do now, that the end of my existence is closer - much closer - than we usually let ourselves think about. And somehow - and right now I don't have a clue as to how, why or in what form - I have a feeling that some of the answers lie waiting for me on the Camino. Maybe it will be a place or a person I meet. 

But more likely it will arise from the simple experience of being with Joan as we walk together -step by step, mile after mile -across the mountains, high plains and pathways of this hauntingly historic Spanish landscape, through big cities small towns and empty spaces. I've found that we talk a lot now as we do our 'training walks" around New England and those times are very rewarding. The idea of doing the Camino is bringing us much closer together and every now and then I feel so happy just to be with her, walking through new places or pointing out to each other the little things we see along the way. maybe its a jack in the pulpit plant hidden away in the swamp we're passing. Or perhaps a sweeping vista of a hidden river valley that most folks never stop to admire. Sometimes we talk honestly and trustingly about our secret dreams and fears, the new pain in her foot that could be the start of something more serious or my hanging fear of another encounter with Death waiting for me along the road in Spain.

So getting the spiritual part ready is harder that the training walks or picking out the right gear. It's a work in progress. There will be more dispatches from "The Way" as we move ahead.

Getting Ready # 1

Getting Ready

So how are we preparing for our pilgrimage?  Since we made the decision to do the Camino de Santiago about 18 months ago, there have been so many different aspects to “preparing” that we’ve realized that it’s good we’re both “mostly retired” and have the time and resources to spend. Getting ready means we needed to make sure (as least as “sure” as any future human endeavor can ever be certain) that we planned for what we needed to do to get ready for the two months we’re on the road in September & October but also what needs to be done to take care of things back home in Maine as winter looms ahead and our beehives and gardens will need their own preparation. 

We’ve focused on four main areas of preparation for the Camino itself:

• Our bodies

• Our gear & clothing

• Our travel plans

• Our minds

The first thing that needed work was our bodies and took the longest time to get ready. After 20 or so years of not doing anything really physical, Joan & I were- to put it bluntly- way out of shape, overweight and frankly more couch potatoes than pilgrims. Sam couldn’t walk more than a mile even after his series of operations in 2009-2011 and Joan wasn’t much better, even though she had a natural advantage of being “only 60”.  Sam will celebrate his 79^th birthday somewhere around Pamplona in September, so I had all the other natural disintegration that accompany the human aging process.

So we created our Training S Curve to chart our preparation. What’s an S Curve, you may ask?  It’s something we’ve been using for any complex activity-for Christmas dinners, our 25^th wedding anniversary party a couple of years ago and now our Camino training program. Here’s the S Curve that is posted on the kitchen wall where we’ve plan & keep track of what we’re doing every week- how far we walk, how many days per week and what weight we’re carrying. 

Since our normal daily walk on the Camino will be between 10 to 15 miles and we’ll be carrying backpacks of around 15 pounds with all our gear and clothing, we needed to slowly build up to that capability. Maybe at age 25 it would be OK just to hop over to Spain and start walking -but we’re not 25 anymore!

So in March 2013 we started in the melting snow walking various side streets and pathways around our home in Arundel. Our first walk was two miles, carrying nothing but a water bottle. Over time we’ve built up and yesterday we walked 10 miles easily with no pain or incipient injuries afterwards. A week ago, we walked the Eastern Trail for 13 miles carrying a 12 pound backpack. In August the S Curve plan calls for us walking 10 miles four times a week carrying 15 pounds. I figure we’ll have walked around 400 miles in our preparation period. From what we hear, that’s a pretty good base.

Luckily Joan & I both walk at almost the same pace. We started at a pace of about 2.5 miles per hour and now are better than 3 MPH. We call ourselves “Team Turtle” (Joan is T-1; Sam is T-2) and our motto is: “We start slow…. And taper off!”   But we get there in the end and enjoy the journey even as the younger or fitter speedsters past us by in their hurry to get to the finish line.