Beating the "Dead Horse"

Flogging a dead horse (alternatively beating a dead horsed) is an idiom that means a particular effort is a waste of time as there will be no outcome. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. A few months ago...

A few of us signed up for a new self supported, 200 mile, bike-packing ride called the "Dead Horse" as part of it takes place on a Wisconsin trail named the Dead Horse and it looked to be a good mix of dirt road and double-track in the woods of Wisconsin and nothing beats bashing around the back woods with your buddies.

The night before we arrive late and hole up in the RV so we do not have to repack camping gear. Repacking gear sucks, it takes time and it's often wet and, well, it's almost always cold out. Add to that, you want warm clothes on for the hour or so before the start and if you change early and repack you have to stand around in gear that it's idea. This way, you can change into riding gear at the last minute and head out.

Morning of is cold and wet, yep, that's about right! We meet the ride organizer and get the cue cards or what we call tulip cards. They are the backbone of gravel riding in Minnesota. A card from a ride I did in 2015 is to the right while below is Josh picking up our sets of cards for the Dead Horse.

Early on a few people new to bike-packing turned back as they had very heavy gear and were struggling on the hill. They decided to drive to the camp we were all headed to and camp and ride from there and we'd see them later that day. Only 1 of them showed. 

Early on everyone is together so we can get to know the other riders, make some friends and help everyone get their navigation legs. Remember we have 200 miles to go so you'll probably need help before it's over.

Our friends Neil and Jen surprised us by showing up.

Some of the interesting things you find on long back country rides is the local junk pile. We can't help but stop and look around.

Regrouping after a small navigation error. The road signs don't always match the cue cards but it's not hard to figure it out if you're ok riding a few miles out of your way.

 

Resupply at the local store. We need to get a dinner as this is the last town before camp. I get a steak and some snacks. I have a pasta side to cook if I have to but getting something substantial is better and I can always have second dinners. Second dinners is a real thing on long rides.

Just down the street is an eatery and it wasn't even asked, we all just pulled in for a hot lunch. The owner tried to sell us, seriously hard sell, the business. Talked on and on about how great it is. I tried to tell him, we are just passing through and have zero interest in owning his problems. He replied by how he would share his secret hamburger bun recipes. It was tempting but we said, sorry.

 After lunch the route gets a lot more interesting and we have all settled into 2 groups. I'm in the lead group with Josh, Neil and Jen.

Behind is the organizer of the Dead Horse and a few others, however it's been too long and I forget their names. Below is the Organizer.

We start running into the mud holes all too common on forest service roads and low maintenance roads. Some ride around, some through. Hard to say what's better. Walking around is always muddy but less wet, riding through is wet but no mud and you never know how deep the mud or the water is so it's a crap shoot.

 

 A few miles from camp the cue card contains several errors in a row making a mess of navigation. We are supposed to turn Right on 187th, but there is no right, only a left. We head up the road like 3 miles, realize it's wrong, turn around and find part of the second group coming up the road. We talk, head back, make more errors and eventually get on route. The last instruction on the cue card is turn onto the trail before the road bends. We can't find it. Almost everyone is there by now. We are on the spot and everyone is searching up and down the road but it's all houses and people cutting their grass and washing cars. The only trails are their driveways. Everyone quits and just sits on the road waiting for one man, the organizer to show us. He arrives and turns into someones dirt drive and around a tree and around that tree and we are on a old dirt road headed to a really great campsite.

 Camp at last. I think the day ended at about 90 miles. It was great if you ignore the 30 minutes of searching and the frustration of being totally lost for 5 miles. The large fella is the one person that drove over. He and someone take his truck into town to get beers so everyone could have suds with dinner.

 I didn't get pictures of my camp. I used a bivi bag and small tarp. I slept well but bivi bags are not comfortable. Back on the road, headed back to the start using new roads. The route has us listed for 90 more miles and the "Dead Horse" trail.

Many hours later the roads are in poor shape, we left camp late and our cue cards contain more errors so things are going slow. We talk about it and figure we're not going to get back until 6pm or later and all of us need to drive the 4 hours back to Saint Paul. That is not good and it's not going to happen but we have little option on our bikes. What we need to food and beer and a good thinking.

 Long about that time we find a road house with all the fixings of a good escape route.

 We pull a MN Snowmobiling map down and start planning our exit. Everyone wants out! It's already close to 3PM

 We all have bits of the map on our camera and we stay together so nobody gets dropped and lost. By now we are all friends trying to get home.

HOME AND IT'S STILL DAYLIGHT!

We started out knowing we could do the miles and wanted a little adventure with our friends. We thought we would have no trouble beating the dead horse, but as it turned out we didn't finish - but we did get to the end. We rode for two days and really got nothing done because we didn't stay on route so, oddly, you could say we got nothing done and that's called Beating A Dead Horse. 

Codename: Beirut

Beirut Camp:

I'm not making any statement about the Lebanese Civil War and/or the Barracks Bombings in 1983 as any statement about the current issues. It's simply a shell of a building (in Minnesota) that resembles a war ruin.  So get a history lesson on the wiki links but don't go and read anything into a name.

Up a road, down a hill, up a hill, down a trail and into a Friday night with some buddies.

Oh! And there is a puppy dog with us. That's cheerful.

You can see way we code-named it 'Beirut'

Below is my favorite tarp shelter. It's just a tarp but it's a wicked good shelter. Packs flat, cheap and has multiple uses outside of being a tent. I also enjoy using knowledge and skills to reduce my dependency on gear. The better you are at camping the less you need to carry.

The 'tent' is open. There is a flap that can get staked down to close it up entirely. Had I had a fire in front, I could be in my bag and still tend to a small fire and when it's time to sleep close up the tent.

Into night and we hang out and roast meats over the fire and snack until midnight.

A long exposure created the lines from headlamps. It's dark; this exposure is 30 seconds.

It's simple and short and it's the way the camp went. It's just something to do on a Friday night to make a weekend feel a bit longer. It's not worth more than a few hours but it's a great way to test gear, hang out with buddies and spend a quiet night in the woods.

Hidious HideOut to Hobo Hampton

Back a few months and we are all eager to get some camping in before the bugs start and the low overnight temps, ~20ish,  give campfires extra meaning besides cooking dinner. That and summer sucks for camping, too many people walking around and you don't get any solitude.

All the bikes have a heavy load of gear. Nobody is going light on food and all the fixings of a well provisioned camp site. I have some extra gear and some experimental gear. A folding saw is the first. It rocks and we get to burn  full size logs and not armloads of sticks a human can break off of dead and downed trees.

We arrive at our camp site and promptly fall off the grid. We planned to arrive late so that the natural order of , set up camp, dinner, fireside talk and sleep would all land on the correct chronological landmarks.

After we all fire roast our dinners and have a long talk about nothing it's time for me to learn how to pitch a tarp shelter. I don't expect snow and there are certainty no bugs. I did no research because I wanted to have an authentic experience and it's a tarp, how hard? About 11pm, i'm hunting for a site that has some natural curve or something that makes a wall or anything hollow to tarp. I don't want to use a ridge pole or make a scout tent that is open on both ends. It's windy and I expect it to build and blow like mad so shallow ground hugging is the plan but enough headroom to get into the bag. I struggle for 30 or 40 minutes and come up with this Hidious HideOut. It works, I sleep and don't have a tarp in my face or feel like I'm in a body bag, al la Bivy Sack, and the wind doesn't thrash it all night and keep me awake.

In my defense, it was in a small hollow between two small berms so I had just enough room to crawl and the wind past over and not into my shelter and the end mostly closed so I had some feeling of being in a shelter. I've slept under a tarp (folded taco style) a few times and it works but it's sleeping only fit for the most desperate of circumstances. Hardly my circumstances so we are skill building. Below is a daytime look at what I ended up with. I need to do better. (zero rated sleeping bag)

6am I wake and take a picture from my 'front door'. We forgo breakfast, pack up and ride out to get home before 8am as we all have plans and i'm suppose to go ice diving (yes, lakes still have ice and windchill is near zero)

The rest of the crew packs up and we all leave as a group but it's not long and we all take our own route home. I ride an hour into a vicious headwind and almost lose a finger to frost bite.

My bike has maybe 20 pound of gear on it. Large saddle bag, frame bag, bar bag.... That also needs to change. Putting all the gear on the bike is much better than on your back but it still loads you down. This trip, I planned to not use a backpack. 

The next trip out and it's only two weeks later and this time I have a new plan for a tarp shelter after a few clicks on YouTube and other UltaLite and BushCraft sites. I pack down my gear to just the best stuff but without going without. Anyone can go lite if they want to suffer without. I bring a camp chair, stove, shelter, and a load of food and water.

 Above, my ride, Below, 'their' rides loaded with gear.

Below, my gear. Its maybe 10 pounds and that includes the 2 liters of water. They all laugh at me and ask if I even have a sleeping bag! They are force to suspend disbelief when I list all the gear.

Left to right. Folding saw, bivy bag, 2 liters water, 2 inch pad, chair, Inside: 35degree bag, Esbit stove, telescoping wiener fork to cook veggi brats, veggi brats, mac&cheese, snacks, oatmeal, coffee, insulated mug, tarp, some cord, winter hat and gloves. Leatherman multi tool, flint to light the stove, headlamp .... all the good stuff and I forget all the small items like extra flash light, batteries...

 Remember, I said it was spring and still cold out.

Shortly after getting to camp I needed to try my tarp plan. I didn't know for sure it would work and I had to allow time to set it up. Last time I waited until 11pm, no good. This time it worked great and all the guys gave it a huge thumbs up for being, well,  totally awesome and a proper Hobo Hampton.

 Our camp was a real hobo site with all the trash connected with the cruft of society.

If the name "Stag horn diners club" ever comes up, this is the fireside talk that coined the term.

The camp site is full of trash but looking past that, I needed to put out the fire and it was a simple matter of finding a 1 gallon jug and scooping up some river. A task that took less then 10 minutes in the dark. We all crawl into our shelters and I'm full of hubris about my tarp-craft and I still have one more design to try but summer and bugs arrived before we could get a third night out.

 A roomy morning. I cook from my sleeping bag. This is not easy in a real tent because the door gets in the way and it's too sealed to cook indoors. That and the nylon melts easy and your out a $400 tent if ANYTHING goes wrong. With a tarp it was easy. I make oatmeal and coffee about 6:45am. I stay in bed for a long time. It's nice and I have plenty to eat and drink while I wait for the others to rise.

 Recall, all this fit in my small pack and I'm totally happy in Hobo Hampton.

All things end and it's time to ride home and get on with our Saturday. These are 'free' nights. We camp Friday night so that we can use the entire weekend and still leave 2 days open for bigger activities.

This site had a name, we think it says "Peaceful Plaze". It looks like "Peak Hull Plaze". I like Peak Hull because with this much trash it isn't peaceful and nobody wanted to spend the night solo or risk getting jacked by a hobo that thinks my shack is his. There be strength in numbers and Peak Hull definitely loves the company.