As excited as I am to complete the second half of segment 6 of the Colorado Trail this coming weekend, I’m even more stoked about my new gear.  Never slept in a one-man tent before.  Look at this puppy.  I just practiced assembling it and can’t believe how cool it is.  The Big Agnes Seedhouse SL1 weighs under 3 pounds, has an aluminum pole system with all three branches attached which snap together with a flick of the wrist, and takes about 5 minutes to setup – including the waterproof fly.  It’s wide enough at my elbows and shoulders to roll around, but tapers toward the feet.  More importantly there’s enough room to situp.  I’ll christen it at the Gold Hill Trail Head Saturday.

Next new piece of gear is a set of REI trekking poles.  Not sure if I adequately expressed the danger I was in snowshoeing over the Georgia Pass in my last CT blog, but the use of Tumbleweed’s trekking pole provided me with a well-learned lesson.  The most critical use was as a tool to dig my snowshoe out from treacherous post-holes.  But I also can’t underestimate the strength it provided to my posture.  With only the single pole, my balance was an order of magnitude stronger.  This saved my core – both stomach as well as back muscles – from constantly twisting from unsure footing.  Now I’ll have two poles – a complete set – and won’t have to bum gear from Tumbleweed.  Hoping the snow has sufficiently melted so I don’t have to use my other awesome gear – my snowshoes.  Looking forward to being able to run at least half of this trail segment.  Tune in for the next edition of CT Cronica for the story, and feedback on the new gear.