A successful day.
Tina's spending the night at Cooper Canyon Trail Camp (mile 395.5) after an early morning traverse of Mount Baden-Powell. Just as we had been advised, it was best to head straight for the peak and then walk down the ridge on the back side to meet back up with the trail later. The down hill walk is essentially clear of snow. In a first, we spent a fair bit of time visualizing the off-trail foray in Google Earth beforehand. Tina reported tonight that the time spent doing that paid off in that she always felt sure of her location. She also reported that the views from the top were spectacular! Once Tina had cleared Baden-Powell I launched on my 50 mile ride down to Lancaster -- 1000' up followed by 4500' down. I had been worried about a predicted afternoon 40 mph headwind but I only experienced approx 20 mph headwinds and the portions of the route directly into it were sloped very gently downhill and so that was a big help. I arrived in Lancaster about four hours later. I got the bike over to the shop and will go over there in the morning to "help" them with it as soon as they open. :-} Yesterday I promised some words about how Tina and I keep track of each other and how we communicate when one or the other of us has no cell coverage. In short, we use a new satellite service called GeoPro to track each other's position, let others see our positions, do emergency notifications, and to do 2-way messaging between ourselves or any cell phone or email. The service has its issues, but it beats the heck out of what we used on the AT (a combination of SPOT, ham radios, and cell phones). I decided the details of that would be boring for most of our readers and so I've put those here for those who want to dig in. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. The solution is not for everyone but I think many who currently use SPOT would be better served by GeoPro. /David