Grandfather Mountain Backpacking Adventure (June 2022)

In early June 2022, I had the privilege to journey with our daughters to the Grandfather Mountain State Park for the first time. We embarked on a three-day, two-night backpacking adventure and relished a wonderful experience. Although we ended up hiking more on the second day than planned, leading to some exhaustion, the overall trip was superb. In this post, I aim to reflect on our journey, the trails we trekked, and my overall impressions of both the Grandfather Mountain Biosphere Reserve and the Grandfather Mountain State Park.

Grandfather Mountain Backpacking (June 2023)” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Overview of Our Trip

We have been residing in North Carolina for a year, and I have previously enjoyed backpacking and camping. I aimed to provide our daughters, aged 19 and 22, with a memorable backpacking experience, while also allowing them to appreciate the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachians of North Carolina. I had heard from friends that Grandfather Mountain was an outstanding place to hike and explore, and they were absolutely correct.

I recorded quite a few video clips during our trip, and I edited these together along with a few still images in a 12.5 minute video using iMovie for iOS.

Back in March, during Easter Weekend, my wife and I stayed at a vacation rental in Deep Gap, near Boone, and spent some time driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was then we discovered the Boone Fork Parking Area, which served as our launch point for this adventure. Our planned route to the Storytellers’ Rock campsite was a modest one-and-a-half-mile journey, ideally completed in about an hour. I made reservations online a couple of months in advance and planned to arrive on Sunday afternoon, which gave us plenty of time to hike into camp and set up.

Grandfather Mountain Backpacking (June 2023)” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Impressions of Storyteller’s Rock and the Nuwati Trail

The Nuwati Trail, leading to Storyteller’s Rock, isn’t particularly challenging, but it is rocky with many roots. It’s now essential to make camping reservations online and fill out a written camping form upon arrival, noting your plans and emergency contact information.

I chose Storyteller’s Rock due to its impressive views and reported native history, as well as its proximity to several streams and water sources. Purifying water is crucial in the backcountry, and I recorded a short video demonstrating three different methods of water purification.

The campsite was ideal; we particularly loved the wooden platform provided for tents and the excellent fire ring.

Grandfather Mountain Backpacking (June 2023)” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

We didn’t encounter any bears, but they are present in the area, so it’s important to take bear precautions seriously.

View from Storyteller’s Rock” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Daniel Boone Trail to Grandfather Mountain

On the second day, we returned to the Nuwati Trail and connected with the Daniel Boone Trail, which follows the entire ridgeline up to the top of Grandfather Mountain. This challenging and rigorous hike offered spectacular views. If you plan to tackle the entire trail, ensure you are in excellent physical condition and prepared for a significant challenge.

Grandfather Mountain Backpacking (June 2023)” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Overall Impressions of Grandfather Mountain Biosphere Reserve and State Park

Grandfather Mountain Nature Preserve and State Park are breathtaking areas of North Carolina. As new Charlotte residents, it’s fantastic to be just a couple of hours from the mountains. The communities of Blowing Rock, Boone, Banner Elk, and Linville are conveniently close.

We plan to return later this summer, having chosen to join the Grandfather Mountain non-profit and truly take advantage of the summit’s hiking trails. The area reminds me of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, which you can drive to the top of, but Grandfather Mountain offers a greater range of trail options. This spectacular area offered us a chance to introduce our girls to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

If you’re planning a trip, I recommend the mobile app ‘AllTrails,’ which proved invaluable on our journey, tracking our mileage and elevation changes, and allowing us to see precisely where we were on each trail.

Grandfather Mountain Backpacking (June 2023)” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Conclusions

To conclude, I’ll share a short video of a black bear we encountered at the Grandfather Mountain Preserve, which was one of the most incredible experiences we’ve ever had with a bear, either in a zoo or in nature. 

Grandfather Mountain is indeed magical, and I am eagerly looking forward to our return. If you’re considering a trip to North Carolina, I highly recommend making Grandfather Mountain State Park a priority – it’s an adventure you won’t forget.

Grandfather Mountain Backpacking (June 2023)” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

AI Attribution: I used the Open AI iOS applications Whisperboard and ChatGPT to create and edit the text in this blog post.

Residential Water Interruption: Are You Ready?

It’s January 2, 2023, and large numbers of residents of Asheville, North Carolina have been without water at their homes since Christmas Eve, a little over a week ago. As a Communitarian Prepper, this unfortunate current event can provide a case study for all of us concerning the ways we need to prepare for temporary (or even long term) interruptions in municipal water service, as well as other life sustaining services and utilities. Whether or not you have a well on your property, have a nearby neighbor with a well, or start making plans to put in a well, making SOME plans and preparations for how your family can weather and sustain a temporary cutoff in access to purified drinking water through your household taps is important. That’s the focus of this post.

Water Purification System at Sawmill” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

How likely are you to lose water at your house? Hopefully not very likely, but if we consider our experiences living in Oklahoma City for 16 years, it’s a definite possibility. We lost water access a couple of times because of some slab leaks we had in our house, which required us to cut off our city water feed at the street. This was a big inconvenience, but thankfully just lasted a few days. I am in the habit of keeping about six, five gallon plastic water containers full in the garage, so at those times we had stored water to use in our toilets as well as for drinking and cooking needs. See the article, “Best emergency water storage containers for your home” from ThePrepared.com for more suggestions on water containers.

In the case of the current municipal water outage in Asheville, severely cold weather caused breaks in over 1700 miles of water lines, leaving over 38,000 people without residential water service. There are several threat vectors to consider when it comes to an interruption in water service at your house:

Regardless of the cause, when water stops flowing from the tap at your house, you need to figure out:

  1. How can I obtain and store water in containers that I can use at home?
  2. How can I purify water that I either obtain from a neighbor’s well or my own, or another source, that could include your own tap before municipal water purification systems are back online.

This latter situation is now affecting many residents of Asheville, North Carolina. Today, “Buncombe County schools” have switched to “remote learning” for several days because many families are either without water or without purified water, and “boil advisories” continue to be in effect. This means even though water is flowing out of taps at home, the water isn’t purified and can’t be consumed / used for drinking until is been treated with a filter and/or chemicals.

I’m a camper, backpacker, as well as a former Philmont Ranger (summers of 1991 and 1992) and USAF cadet survival instructor (summer of 1990), so I have some experiences with backcountry water purification. My experiences as an Eagle Scout on high adventure treks to Philmont as well as the Minnesota / Canadian boundary waters area on a summer canoe trek also inform my experiences and skills in this area. My former Scoutmaster, Ray Hightower (Troop 74, Manhattan, Kansas) was a fan of “Polar Pure” water purification, which uses super-saturated iodine water to purify (usually) quart sized water bottles. That is still my preferred method, and I keep a bottle of Polar Pure in our garage-stored camping gear. If you’re needing to purify larger amounts of water than quart water bottles, however, a different solution is needed.

In the past, I have kept a large bottle of bleach in our home emergency supply cache, since bleach can be used to purify water effectively. It’s recommended that you wait at least 60 minutes before drinking water purified with bleach. If you boil water to purify it, you also have to wait until it cools off.

One of the important things I learned in Scouting and various survival training lessons was that to be purified, water does NOT need to be kept at a “rolling boil” for 5 or 10 minutes. Once water has gotten to the boiling point, all the “bad stuff” which needs to be killed through the purification process (like the Giardia parasite, which we all DEFINITELY want to avoid, since it STAYS in your gut indefinitely after you’ve ingested it) will be killed.

The other water purification method which is on my “Communitarian Prepper Wish List” is a water filter. These can be drinking straws or larger capacity filters. It’s also possible to get a residential well installed, which has built-in water treatment, purification and treatment included. This latter solution is my “prepper dream,” but it’s not something we’re going to obtain in the near term.

As with all types of emergency preparedness, it’s vital to think about these issues and TAKE ACTION TO PREPARE for these possibilities well BEFORE a crisis starts. What would you do if your residential water supply was cut off today? What would you do if it remained cut off for three days? For a week? For a month?

Any preparation you can do now can pay dividends in case of an emergency. Remember, communitarian preppers are not just interested in taking care of themselves and their immediate family members, they are also interested in providing for neighbors and others in the community who many not be as well prepared for a crisis or disaster, or may not physically be able to provide for themselves and need assistance.

There are important lessons to learn from the recent and ongoing water crisis in Asheville, North Carolina. The question is: What are YOU going to do now to better prepare yourself and your family for an interruption in municipal water service?

Residential Water Interruption: Are You” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

I’m a Communitarian Prepper

I’ve decided I’m a “Communitarian Prepper,” and I’ve started a new website to share related resources. This aspirational journey started this past summer, but connects with different skills and dispositions I learned about in Boy Scouting as well as my brief years at the US Air Force Academy and in the USAF, and through my lifelong journey of faith following Jesus Christ. My introductory ideas about this, which I’ve added at the top of the website, are:

I have a “slow hunch” we are living in a season of life and history in which we are called to become “Communitarian Preppers.” While some preppers may “incline toward individualism and competition,” I believe we are called (for both practical and faith-based reasons) to prepare for emergencies and even catastrophes so that we can not only take care of our own families, but also help take care of our neighbors. For me, this is the essence of being a “communitarian prepper:” Building strong relationships among our neighbors and in our own community, and developing both our resource base and skill sets, so that we can better weather and survive the storms of life together through all the forms they might take.

We need to prepare to take care of ourselves, take care of our families, and take care of each other.

From commprep.wesfryer.com on 13 Nov 2022.

The backyard video on “Prepping and Preparation” (38 minutes) I recorded in Oklahoma City this past Fourth of July addressed many of these topics, themes, and underlying motivation. In our society and culture today in the United States, I believe we need to do a much better job “taking care of each other.” We need to prepare for emergencies of all types not only to care for ourselves and our families, but also to better position ourselves to care for others. This is the “slow hunch” which now has a clearer title which hopefully communicates the ethic of neighborly care I believe is simultaneously a self-interested requirement in a catastrophic emergence “at scale,” is a secular responsibly for our fellow human beings, and is also a theological mandate.

Back in 2016 I listened to Ted Koppel’s eye opening book, “Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath”on Audible. The Amazon description explains:

Imagine a blackout lasting not days, but weeks or months. Tens of millions of people over several states are affected. For those without access to a generator, there is no running water, no sewage, no refrigeration or light. Food and medical supplies are dwindling. Devices we rely on have gone dark. Banks no longer function, looting is widespread, and law and order are being tested as never before. 

It isn’t just a scenario. A well-designed attack on just one of the nation’s three electric power grids could cripple much of our infrastructure—and in the age of cyberwarfare, a laptop has become the only necessary weapon. Several nations hostile to the United States could launch such an assault at any time. In fact, as a former chief scientist of the NSA reveals, China and Russia have already penetrated the grid. And a cybersecurity advisor to President Obama believes that independent actors—from “hacktivists” to terrorists—have the capability as well. “It’s not a question of if,” says Centcom Commander General Lloyd Austin, “it’s a question of when.” 

After that, I read “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen. The Amazon description is:

New York Times best selling author William R. Forstchen now brings us a story which can be all too terrifyingly real…a story in which one man struggles to save his family and his small North Carolina town after America loses a war, in one second, a war that will send America back to the Dark Ages…A war based upon a weapon, an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP). A weapon that may already be in the hands of our enemies.

Both of these books, paired with my experiences serving as the Director of Technology for a midwestern private school for 4 years, greatly increased my own awareness of the growing hostility of our cyber environment and the dangers those aggressions can pose in our kinetic, face-to-face world. The COVID-19 global pandemic revealed many things as well, including our universal vulnerability to supply-chain disruptions. The ongoing war in Ukraine with Russia seems like a surreal event at times, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s just a matter of time before that conflict is “brought home” to us in North America in very tangible, painful ways.

We live in extremely perilous times, and we take so much for granted. In addition to reliable electricity, cell phone tower connectivity, and clean flowing water, we assume our space-based GPS system and representative democracy are constants which will remain our “status quo” forever. We also may naively assume “that one password we’ve always used for everything online is secure. Alas, that may not be so.

“Technology Fear Therapy” by Wes Fryer at TEDxUCO (March 2022)

It can be easy to feel overwhelmed today by current events, political polarization, and just the deluge of information which washes over us in our polluted and fractured media environment. There are a great number of things I do not know, but here is something I’m confident about: I want to live in community with others who have both the motivation / desire to care for each other as neighbors, and (hopefully) are well-prepared to care for each other in the event we experience a catastrophe, either a natural disaster or a human-initiated debilitating event.

Those are some of the reasons I’ve decided I’m a “Communitarian Prepper.” I invite you to join me. Hopefully my website can provide you with some helpful resources and suggestions on your own journey of preparation and community care.

Remember the BEST TIME to prepare for an emergency is BEFORE anything bad happens!

Sign up for my free periodic newsletter, “Media Literacy with Wes,” to stay in touch and up to date on ideas about being a “Communitarian Prepper” and other related (mostly technology) topics.

Storychasing our Philmont Backpacking Trek in June 2012 with Images, Audio & Video

This month I was greatly blessed by the opportunity to serve as an adult advisor on my son’s first backpacking “high adventure” trek to Philmont Scout Ranch in northeastern New Mexico. We spent 11 days and 10 nights on the trail, and I probably lost somewhere between 5 to 10 pounds on the journey! In this post I’ll share a few photos and some of the ways I was a “storychaser” of our adventures using my iPhone in the Philmont backcountry. All 212 photos from our trip are included in this Flickr collection, and 7 of the 8 videos I recorded are chronologically connected in this 4.5 minute video I uploaded to YouTube.

The number one reason I wanted to use my iPhone4 as my camera at Philmont, instead of a battery operated digital camera, was its ability to take HDR (high dynamic range) photos with the Pro HDR app which Dean Shareski told me about several years ago. I absolutely LOVE this Surrounds Landscaping and the high quality images it enables me to capture. Especially in the mountains where landscapes have dark shadows as well as bright sunshine and clouds, the HDR app is priceless. Here are a few of my favorite HDR photos I captured on our trek.

Alexander by Cathedral Rock, on day 2 of our trek.

Alex at Cathedral Rock

Looking down the mountain at surrounding clouds and storms, climbing Mount Phillips (11,700′ MSL) on day 4 of our trek.

Climbing Mount Phillips

Sunset at Fish Camp, which is where Waite Phillips (the Tulsa oil man who donated the 127,000 acres which comprises Philmont in 1938 and 1941) built his favorite backcountry cabin.

Sunset at Fish Camp

View from “the notch” overlooking Rayado Canyon, between Fish Camp and Abrehu.

View from the Notch in Rayado Canyon

Alexander on top of the Tooth of Time on day 11.

Alex on Top of the Tooth of Time

The other iPhoneography app I really like on my iPhone4 is Pano, which takes great panoramic images. It’s incidentally also available for Android and Windows 7 phones. Here are a few of my pano shots from Philmont this month.

Having breakfast on top of Mount Phillips on day 5.

On top of Mount Phillips [PANO]

On the porch of the staff cabin at Cimarroncito Camp on day 2.

Cabin View at Cimarroncito [PANO]

Panorama (almost 360 degrees) on top of the Tooth of Time on day 11.

Top of the Tooth of Time [PANO]

Since we were on the trail for 11 days and did not have ANY access to electricity, I needed a way to use solar power to charge my iPhone. (I could have opted for a battery charger, but I didn’t want to carry all the extra battery weight.) I purchased a $35 G24i Solar Innovations Power Curve Solar Charger at Academy Sports before our trip where they had a lot of sports items and then even had require soccer equipment that I need for my new team, and was pleased with the performance overall. It came with a USB female plug which I could directly use with my iPhone USB dock charging cable.

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The Power Curve has a rechargeable battery built into it, so I would charge it during the day and then recharge my iPhone at night. I generally was able to get a 30% to 40% charge of my iPhone4 each night with a full solar battery charge. Near the end of the trip during the day I got down to less than 10% battery at some points, but I was able to boost the iPhone battery enough that I was able to take all the pictures I wanted. I did turn the brightness down to almost zero (probably about 15% of max brightness) for the entire trip, along with turning on airplane mode to conserve battery. According to the instructions, the solar charger needed 6 to 8 hours in direct sunlight to become fully charged. I found this was not possible when the charger was just hanging on the back of my backpack on the trail. I needed to set the charger in direct sunlight at camp for many hours each day, when possible, to obtain the maximum charge available.

I was able to make a couple calls at different points of our trip, mainly on top of mountains and high ridges where cell phone service was available. Since the Oklahoma City Thunder was in the NBA finals during our trek, it was ‘critical’ (in the minds of several of our boys) to get score updates. Overall, however, I was ‘unplugged’ from the grid for almost two weeks and really enjoyed it.

Since I had my iPhone, instead of keeping a written journal during our trek I decided to make an audio journal using the free app AudioBoo. (In addition to iOS, AudioBoo is also available for Android and Nokia phones.) I recorded a short audio journal entry each night before bed, and selected a photo from the day to accompany it. After getting back home to Oklahoma City, I uploaded all of those AudioBoo recordings to the web. This worked great and is an audio journal option I highly recommend to others taking trips you’d like to document.

I came very close before the trek to buying a Spot Connect satellite GPS device which would allow me to tweet from the backcountry with our updated GPS coordinates. Our Maryland auto accident lawyer told us these are discouraged in the backcountry, because of the possibility of accidentally hitting the “panic / come rescue me” button and inadvertently calling in a rescue helicopter. It’s possible in the next couple years my son and I may go on another high adventure trek canoeing in the Minnesota / Canadian boundary waters. If so, I might again explore that option. As it turned out, it was great to be largely disconnected from technology and information during our trek, and the option to “tweet from the backcountry” might have been more of a distraction in our journey than it would have been worth. To learn more the latest trend about technology including PDF file converter online services, check out www.sodapdf.com/pdf-editor/ for more information.

If you ever have an opportunity to go on a backpacking trek to Philmont, I highly recommend that you go. I went on a trek with my scout troop from Manhattan, Kansas, (Troop 74) back in 1986, and was a Philmont “zoomie” ranger in the summers of 1990 and 1992. Philmont is a truly magical place and it casts a spell on you that will last a lifetime. It was a tremendous blessing to be able to share these experiences with my son this summer!

Alex and Wes After the Trek

Evening Chapel Service at Philmont

Closing Campfire

This trek was, by the way, the reason I was not able to attend ISTE 2012 this year. Next year I definitely hope to attend ISTE 2013 in San Antonio.

To learn more about my favorite iPhoneography apps, please see my iPhoneography workshop curriculum. An hour long videoconference I taught on iPhoneography in December 2011 is also available free on YouTube.

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More camping photos from the Pecos

I’ve added 46 more photos and 1 more video from our trip last week camping in the Pecos. These were taken using Shelly’s camera, which is Carl’s “old” Sony DSC-H2. What a difference this good lens makes! I added these to the same Flickr set as our other photos and videos from the trip.

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Too bad Alexander’s eyes were closed for this one. The kids has so much fun swimming in the stream Saturday!

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A few quick photos as we packed up Sunday. Note the whiskers! 🙂

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In all I think we caught about 10 fish on the trip. We ate 6. These were some of the best trout I’d ever tasted!

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Does this girl look ready for fishing or WHAT?! They even checked out ReelChase to get their fishing essencials.

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What lovely flowers!

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Sarah took this photo of Shelly and Rachel. Way to go, Sarah!

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The video quality on the Sony camera is not as good as the iPhone, but still better than not having video– in this clip, Rachel explains that we are camping and fishing!

Check out the entire set: 120 photos, 7 videos!

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