Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I love all of your drawings and following your journal mountainFrugal!

I picked up Plotkin's Nature and The Human Soul from the library about a month ago, before I heard anything about it on the forum. Funny coincidence how many times it has been mentioned on the forum now. I am working my way through it slowly and am really liking it. The book is beautifully written and is giving me perspective on creating the life I want to live.

Reading your journal gets me so excited to backpack again in the spring and summer! I want to explore the Sierras more and have done most of my backpacking in the Cascade and Siskiyou mountain ranges.

Glad that my journal is getting others excited. .

What areas have you hiked in the Siskiyou ranges? Based on some reading there seem to be some under explored gems hidden in there so I was curious. (can keep secret if necessary).

Bicycle7 wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:34 pm

The book is beautifully written and is giving me perspective on creating the life I want to live.

This book is really good. It talks a little more practically about some exercises one can do to move through stages of development and increase our ever expanding circles of concern and compassion moving from individually minded to community/eco minded. The discussion about developing a Survival Dance (your resource skill base through hunting/gathering/working etc.) and the Spiritual Dance or finding a true calling is directly in line with ERE and the whole render unto Caesar discussions. There are a lot of discussions on this forum about stages of development (some that I participate in), but this book seems to offer one of the more refined practical smattering of techniques for trying to "level up" as it were depending on what the individual needs to work on. There are some methods of identifying these items people need to work on. I also thought it was a good discussion of how previous underdevelopment at earlier stages become major hindrances at later stages with suggestions to go back to work on those before moving forward. There is literally a lifetime of work in this single book.

I heard Bill Plotkin on a podcast back in August or September. I got a lot out of the interview, as he pointed out the necessity of establishing oneself in a social and vocational world which is both deeply authentic and socially acceptable. I had been hardcore on the former and barely scratched the latter, thus creating a lot of friction in my life. But when I picked up the book I basically went "OH! ADULT DEVELOPMENT EXISTS! THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH!" and then got sucked into Wilber.

I'm thinking I'll have to pick it up again soon. The Survival Dance discussion sounds super relevant to me.

RoamingFrancis wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:01 am

I'm thinking I'll have to pick it up again soon. The Survival Dance discussion sounds super relevant to me.

I think that it does. If I understand correctly, ultimately your survival dance and your spiritual dance should merge, but that can take most of your working career in the West to happen. By constantly seeking the good parts of every job and adding that to your basket of skills it is much harder to go wrong. A lot of hard (internal and external) work ahead for all of us regardless of life stage or development. The hard work does not stop, only changes shape and becomes ever more inclusive of humanity and nature. .

Married2aSwabian wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 20, 2021 8:23 am

Have you section hiked the PCT? That is something I want to do after hitting FI this spring. May not be until next year, due to getting our vehicle, gear and bodies in shape.

It would be awesome to have DW come with, so we want to target easier sections. I’ve read that Oregon and Tuolumne Meadows are scenic and not so difficult. Crater Lake is one place we want to spend time for sure.

@M2aS - I'll chime in here on the PCT question. Oregon is considered the easiest and flattest state for the PCT. My friend and I started in Ashland and got off the trail near Bend. When I hiked it I had never been out for more than two or three consecutive nights and most of my gear was pretty entry level, and thus fairly heavy for something like the PCT. It was definitely challenging for me as a novice/intermediate backpacker, but the trip went much better when we chilled out on mileage and gave up on the plan on trying to finish the state in 3 weeks. Camping out on the ridge of Crater Lake was one of the highlights of the trip, and we got to observe a fox playing in a meadow near our camp for what must have been five minutes.

My advice for anyone planning to do the PCT or AT is to try out a multi-night trip, preferably 5-7 days, and see how your gear works and your body responds to that type of hiking. That experience can teach you a lot about your gear, your mileage preferences, and the hiking style of your partner.

I've slowly been gravitating towards @mountainfrugal's approach of doing a hike into some beautiful wilderness, setting up a basecamp, and staying there for a couple nights to explore different trails. This is what my BIL does with my sister and their kids. It is easier on the body and makes the experience more enjoyable for those who aren't interested in carrying a 25 pound pack day after day.

The PCT is amazing and if it is your dream, by all means tackle it. Just remember that there is a wealth of wilderness and backpacking options out there, some of which may be a better fit for your DW. One example that I did for my birthday 4 or 5 years ago is the Chelan Lakeshore Trail. This could be a great option for a partner who still likes some creature comforts or who doesn't want to deal with trekking up and down mountain passes. You have to take a ferry to access the trails. After hiking for a couple days, you could set up a nice base camp at Stehekin and explore the North Cascades from there. You can get treats like ice cream or beer at the lodge after a long day hiking.

https://lodgeatstehekin.com/plan-your-t ... ckpacking/

https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/chelan-lakeshore

This is just one example, but is probably the kind of trip I would take DW on with me. I tend to take her out on river or lake trails because they are relatively flat and access to water is a really nice amenity when camping/backpacking. If you have the time and energy, the world is yours

If you want to experience the PCT, there are lots of options to do some loop hikes that include PCT sections but allow you to end at the same trailhead. This could mean less time on the actual PCT, but you'd still be experiencing the same environment. I suppose it is another way to think about "section hiking" the PCT. The Goat Rocks Wilderness is an amazing spot that I visited a few years ago. Tons of options for some really neat loops that include sections of the PCT.

https://www.wta.org/go-outside/seasonal ... zGEALw_wcB

Western Red Cedar wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 24, 2021 2:38 pm

@M2aS - I'll chime in here on the PCT question.

Thank you WRC! I don’t want to hijack MF’s journal here, so will keep it short…

I will be checking out all of these links! For sure, we will be doing many shorter trial runs here in N. Michigan first to get in shape and check gear. We definitely will plan to enjoy the hiking and backpacking experience without trying to set any distance records. A former colleague of mine backpacks with a group every year and they do some more ambitious week-long outings - often out west. I may reconnect with him to do that.

@mountainFrugal-

Yeah, there are some remote parts of the Siskiyous where one can find a lot of solitude. In the Siskiyou Wilderness, Devil's Punchbowl and Raspberry Lake are amazing and I saw few other people. Lots of opportunity there for more exploration.

In the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument (CSNM), there's a beautiful 17 mile loop hike called the Lone Pilot Loop that each time I have hiked, I have seen almost no one. The CSNM is known for its incredible amount of biodiversity being at the congruence of many different ecosystems and mountain ranges ( the Cascades, Siskiyous, and Klamath).

There is a lot of exploring I still want to do in these wilderness areas!

Bicycle7 wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 26, 2021 8:19 pm

In the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument (CSNM), there's a beautiful 17 mile loop hike called the Lone Pilot Loop that each time I have hiked, I have seen almost no one. The CSNM is known for its incredible amount of biodiversity being at the congruence of many different ecosystems and mountain ranges ( the Cascades, Siskiyous, and Klamath).

Seems right up my alley. Thank you for the recommendation. I will try to check them out if I am ever in the area. Seems like parts of the Klamath overlaps with the historic California Coastal Cutthroat drainages, but that species range is relatively large compared to some of the other species in the Trout Challenge. Might have better luck nearer the coast. Hmm... gears are now turning for a spring/early summer trip. .

2021 WINDOWS Review with December thrown in.



WINS
The major wins for the year were finding this great house in a perfect location (minus wildfire/smoke risk). There is a lot of potential and we look forward to making some changes this next year to the landscaping and garden taking the next few steps towards an edible landscape. Along with moving to our town, we are very happy and grateful for the "Dirt Buddies" crew we have fallen into. Exploring on the trails and snow along with regular potlucks, epicurean dinner attendees, and drop in hang out sessions. This is so different than city living that there is no way I would go back.

I am also grateful for joining this community and learning so much in a short period of time by participating instead of just lurking. Thanks ya'll!

My partner was away for a week in mid-december when the snow started. This gave me the opportunity to sit inside next to the fire, think, and draw a lot. It was start of the mountainFrugal as artist first vision. I woke up every day and worked on those comics/sketchnotes. Then I found "Nature and the Human Soul" mentioned on the forum a few times. It is all clicking together now. I had a small desk in the living room next to the fire place that I did most of my work at, but after this vision I decided I needed a more private space to work. I removed the doors to the closet and hanger rack in the spare bedroom. The desk barely fits and is now recessed into the closet. I have the shelves above to hold my art books and papers. Everything is within arms length. . If I ditched my hotspot data plan that I use for work on the road I would be well over FI. Life is excellent.

IMPROVEMENTS
The main improvement from this past year from studio and/or van living is the changes in our food system. Not only do we take care of a majority of the food waste stream into the compost, but being able to slowly buy bulk items on sale and having a pantry and freezer (normal fridge freezer) to store things really loosens up the slack. This extends to reductions in cooking time as well because we can cook rice and beans for the week and store them in mason jars in the fridge. This was just not possible in the mother in-law-unit, van or other studios we have lived over the past 5 years. Having extra space also allowed my partner to perfect a simple sourdough recipe that we use for bread, pizza dough, pancakes, etc. Overall we are spending about 30% less on food even by feeding 10-12 people for one main dish meal a month (usually potluck, so not responsible for everything). We are very happy to be putting down roots in this community and settling in. I have tried 30 or so different ways of doing a cold start on the stove. I think I have it dialed now (will share details in heating challenge thread).

NEW DIRECTIONS
My partner and I always have a theme for the year and 2021 was the year of the ratchet. At the start of 2021 we had no idea where we would be living after May and had been watching the market in town even before we moved here in 2020. I would say we have everything pretty much dialed into a first degree given the house. It is a lot more work than renting, but at least we get to see the benefits. 2022 is the year of Joy and Completion. We want to focus on the positive sides of things and wrap up some outstanding projects that were started prior to the house (endless new projects). For the month of December the new direction was reading through 2 of Plotkin's books and doing some "cocoon weaving" based on my visions. A lifetime of exploration to find my niche in nature/culture ahead.

I am very grateful to @sky for making and sending me some awesome fork cages for my bike-packing set-up in exchange for some beta-testing/abuse on the trail. Looking forward once it stops snowing or a nice crust forms for riding on.

DRAWING
What would a pro-artist do everyday? Draw and paint!

I filled 206 (103 individual) pages of printer paper, 98 full page digital illustrations, and 88 full pages in my sketch/painting book.

On the comics side of things I finished a 5 pager (published script), wrote and thumb-nailed my own 5 pager (to be completed in 2022), and thumb-nailed a 5 page action script that my partner wrote. A long way to go on sequential art and drawing characters consistently from multiple angles and multiple environments (see goals below). This month I completed psuedo-comics/sketchnotes of my vision. I could see how a page a day *could* work (pro-level), but I was left exhausted and needed to recover by retreating into my paper sketchbook and drawing logs prior to feeding the fire. haha.


OUTDOOR ADVENTURES
You can read all the stats in the image. I am happy with my progress this year especially with the elevation gain (53000 in 2020 vs 62301 this year). My watch based VO2 max is up a bit to 54 after the speed work, but now that the snow is on the ground I am unlikely to try and retest on a track until the spring. I want to increase volume next year by 10-15% through a combo of distance, intensity, and elevation gain.

WORK
Interviewed and landed a sweet gig this year in a good learning environment and chance to mentor a younger team member. Not that number of commits is be best metric, but I did write a lot of new code for data infrastructure, models, and simulations. I had some smaller opportunities to test the waters with consulting with one that could turn into a ~10 hour a month side-gig (only gig?) after my contract is up. Also got to do some designs for an outdoor brand, but unclear if they will actually be used or not.

This month I got to meet new co-workers mask-to-mask and I gave a 20 minute data talk that was well received and sparked some good follow-up discussion.

SOCIAL
I already mentioned the dirt buddies/epicurean dinner crew. This month we did a "jingle jog" and had a brunch potluck (everyone is boosted).

I got to travel home and meet my niece. On the same trip we organized a meeting between my partner and I and my late-wife's (LDW) family. The trip was easy on the niece side, hard on the LDW family side, but overall a gigantic relief.

That about wraps it up!


2022 GOALS- RAPID FIRE!



Here are my personal goals for 2022- The year of joy and completion! I hope to repost this same diagram in late December 2022 with all these boxes with large black Xs through them. Hold me to it!

MAKE
One 5 pager is already written and edited. Now to put down some lines. I am shooting for ~1 page a week (30 drawn pages) with the remaining weeks for writing and editing.

I will default to these upper level art classes to go deeper on figure drawing, perspective, and sequential storytelling.

Currently I am having fun with the snow pack and making illustrations and diagrams of that. In the spring I will switch over to flowering schedules of natives. In the summer I will make some illustrations of the resident trout in the mF watershed and their food sources. The fall will bring the salmon and steelhead so I will switch over to them.

LIVE
We are planning a wedding for Spring 2023. Planning has been fun so far. We have a summer camp venue picked out that will allow us (and friends) to do part of the cooking. I am trying to figure out what all this Plotkin/Cocoon business means for me. I feel ready to explore internally and in nature. We are planning on replanting the remaining lawn with natives this spring. I found a local group that collects seeds for exactly this purpose. We hope to figure out the tomato situation in our shaded yard, but most other green veggies grow quite well with enough water when it is hot. I will also finish up some detailed work on converting the spare bedroom into my art studio (currently 85% complete).

This is the year of completion and our van is no exception. I have to put in the detailed time to do all the finishing including the solar system, the kitchen (re)build, nicer storage, and wall art .


EXPLORE
Movement plan is to add 10-15% volume (distance/elevation) onto this year along with some running specific mobility work outlined in "Ready to Run". If I get on a good schedule for this then I will ask @blackjack for some more advanced progressions to try out. I will only train again for 50K distance, but hope to have better times rather than increasing the race distance (that will be for 2023). I plan to do at least three posts on the wilderness skills thread with how to comics/sketchnotes.

For the Blog, I will write up 2 of the trout watersheds I have visited and caught trout in the past along with planning and executing a bike-packing trip to a new watershed (along with write-up). This will prototype both past trips as inspiration for content and help define some of the observational paintings/photos I might like to plan ahead to try getting. I like having a default or if feeling inspired just go with that thread.


THINK
52 blog posts broken down into 24 for work (1st/15th), 12 ERE reviews, 3 trout watershed, 3 wilderness skills, 4 exercise data (1 for each season), and 6 mF watershed posts (2 each season).

I also hope to make at least 1 significant commit to my open-source exercise data package per week to keep things closer to top of mind, instead of "when I get around to it". I have the package outlined and all the functions that need to be in there, just need to spend the time.

1. I really like your illustrations. What a fun and creative way to put your life vision out there.

2. Your new living situation sounds close to ideal. Nice upgrade! Did you find it at all difficult to fit into the new community?

3. Do the fork cages lead to decreased handling on your bike? I don't see how they could not and it seems like that could be hazardous. I would be very hesitant to load my front wheel but I have never tried any kind of bikepacking so my mental model of this could be all wrong.

4. That's great you will be converting your lawn to natives. I'm slowly doing something similar in my pasture. It sounds like you found a good source for seed. Please keep us posted on how that project comes along.

shaz wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 29, 2021 1:06 pm

2. Did you find it at all difficult to fit into the new community?

3. Do the fork cages lead to decreased handling on your bike?

4. Please keep us posted on how that project comes along.

1- Thanks @shaz! It has been really fun!

2- Moving here during covid was a known challenge, but people here (for better or worse) are not as concerned about it. We specifically chose this area because we had spent time here prior in the summer, fall and winter and got a good vibe of the outdoor community (small, but existent) that we could likely tap into. There are folks (including our next door neighbors) that grew up here so we are careful to say we are from here. I think the joke is that you can only say that if your great-great-grandparents cleared the land and tilled the soil etc. haha. So we learned very fast to say that we just live here and we are not (and likely never will be) locals. Fortunately, most of our dirt buddies crew is from elsewhere as well so it all works out. I think the general vibe is that the older people in the community are split between keeping it as is, while the other half wants younger people to move here to keep the town alive, but with that comes the threat of outside "city-folk" ideas.

3- I have not tested the fork cages specifically yet with various loads redistributed on there. This is a common way to carry a few extra items for longer trips within the bike-packing community and there are not any glaring red-flags on blogs of longer trips. I am very used to riding my road touring bike for commuting and training when I lived in the city. The handling of the front panniers loaded down changes things and makes it slower to react, but the weight is distributed lower to the ground thus lowering the center of gravity. The bike-packing bike is already a bit top heavy, so this might balance things out if I can carry some water on the cages. When the bike-packing setup is fully loaded you are not moving very fast. I have 27.5+ tires which are kind-of a hybrid between 29" and a true fat-bike so the stability is generally very good, even for ripping downhill trails with it unloaded. I think that the additional width at fork height will be the main challenge to get used to for moving through rock gardens.
I will prototype first.

4- Will do!

The illustrations you make to track your goals are a really cool visualization trick. That high-level perspective helps keeps things clear/summarize progress. I may steal the idea to do something similar.

AnalyticalEngine wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 29, 2021 1:36 pm

I may steal the idea to do something similar.

Glad you find it useful. Please do steal! Share in your journal! I think the other thing that it is helpful with is training in designing layouts and composition.

I hope you recover well from Covid.

mountainFrugal wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 29, 2021 12:34 pm

I am also grateful for joining this community and learning so much in a short period of time by participating instead of just lurking. Thanks ya'll!

It is kind of amazing how this works out. I noticed the same thing when I created an account and started participating.

Can you elaborate a bit on how you track everything? I'm particularly interested in mileage, elevation, etc., but also curious about the other activities. Is this just a pen and a notebook, spreadsheet, some kind of fitbit or phone app for the physical stuff? Do you set it all up ahead of time when you start a new month? Track right after the activity or a specific time of day?

It seems like the practice of tracking reinforces the activity, so it is probably something I should consider building on. After reading journals like these I realize how weak my tracking game is, but I also worry a bit about taking it too far and not just enjoying the activity, staying present, or going with the flow.

Great progress on the art front this year!

I'll be interested to compare your method for starting cold starting woodstoves with that of my own. On a related note, have you read the book Norwegian Wood? I'd recommend it.

I've enjoyed reading yours and others insights so far on Plotkin and am planning on diving into Plotkin myself this coming year.

Looking forward to reading about more fun in 2022!

Western Red Cedar wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 29, 2021 7:51 pm

Can you elaborate a bit on how you track everything? I'm particularly interested in mileage, elevation, etc., but also curious about the other activities. Is this just a pen and a notebook, spreadsheet, some kind of fitbit or phone app for the physical stuff? Do you set it all up ahead of time when you start a new month? Track right after the activity or a specific time of day?

...but I also worry a bit about taking it too far and not just enjoying the activity, staying present, or going with the flow.

I wrote a bit more about my tracking early on in my journal:
viewtopic.php?p=243008#p243008

Basically you decide what you want to be accountable for and how best to quantify it. I find that a simple tick system where how I want to be spending my time is accounted for right after I do things. I started with lists, but the problem with juggling many projects is often times you have not taken the time to think about what is the next actionable step to take and instead have just written down an abstract goal. This is very clear if you are putting up zeros for an entire month. Also, most of my goals require deep work at some point, so making sure I am getting that time is essential to meeting harder intellectual goals. Each goal should have the quick start thought cycles done ahead of time (monthly or weekly), to make sure that the friction to start is very minimal. As a counter example, see @AxelH's journal for the opposite approach to prevent using tech or prioritizing digital time by increasing friction. If the task can be reasonably completed in a half an hour then lists work great. Each of the tick boxes in the above post represent a pomodoro of focused work (more or less). It does not take 25 minutes (1 pomodoro of focused work, then 5 minute break) to do 25 push-ups as an example. I like to show that I put in uninterrupted time towards projects as a good metric. If I am not making progress on something after a month I usually either do no understand the problem well enough to start, or I just have not taken the time to break it down into first steps. First steps being REALLY easy... like... what is the path to the files located on disk or the cloud? Or...are my paper, pencil, and art book already open on the drawing desk to the page I want to start on? I like the tactile feeling of paper and pen to do this and my planner is always open on my desk. You can see from the photo in that post that I am by no means perfect in accomplishing goals, or keeping track, but over time I am fairly consistent. It is easy to go overboard with this (ask any lawyer who bills by the minute), but I think it is well worth the effort. My morning routine before getting into art/thinking/work mode is the most consistent. Experiment and figure out what works well for you. No need to bring you out of flowing with the moment once you build up a simple tracking habit. Feel free to copy mine to start, but I look forward to seeing what you come up with after some time with it.

As far as mileage, elevation et al. I used a suunto watch from 2017 for most of the fitness tracking data this year. It creates .fit files which have the GPS coordinates and all the exercise data along with it. There is a pretty good IOS/android app set that talks with the watch and uploads the data. This is something I want much more control over so I am writing my own package. For a first approximation just using Strava or similar will get you the basic data tracking using a phone GPS (caveat I have not ever used Strava, but my partner does). If I know the running routes, I can just record them (and still do manually after each exercise), but the watch adds additional biometric data that if you are actually training for something that you could not accomplish outside of dedicated training lasting more than 6 months, then it could be a good additional tool. Or to put that another way, exercise consistently for 6-9 months before even considering additional gadgets (general advice not specific to @WRC).

Feel free to ask clarifying questions if I am not communicating this well.

theanimal wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:38 pm

Great progress on the art front this year!

I'll be interested to compare your method for starting cold starting woodstoves with that of my own.... have you read the book Norwegian Wood? I'd recommend it.

...am planning on diving into Plotkin myself this coming year.

Thanks!

Looking forward to comparing notes on stove starting. I started sketching some ideas for my stove that I hope to share soon. I will check out Norwegian Wood. You are the second person that has recommended that to me recently. Usually a good sign. Thanks for the recommendation.

Group deep dive into Plotkin and surrounding discussion is going to be really interesting. Looking forward. The key for the rationals out there if you take a look at Plotkin, he is talking nearly entirely in metaphor. This was my dismissive mistake when first grazing his ideas a little over a decade ago.

Re: tracking, one thing I need to be careful about is that the tracking/racking up better numbers not take on a life of its own to the point where the activity becomes detrimental to my overall goals or well-being. Other people have mentioned something similar in regards to to the habit of accumulating money. I'm particularly susceptible to that problem when it comes to any kind of athletic endeavor so I have to keep squashing impulses to track mileage/altitude gains/times, etc. I made the mistake of putting some physical activity goals in my journal last month; this discussion has reminded me why that is a bad idea and I won't do it for next month.

@mountainFrugal I'm glad to hear you were able to connect quickly to an outdoor community. I had an experience of moving to a lightly-populated area that was surrounded by a huge amount of public land and awe-inspiring natural features. The first couple of years were frustrating because there were no trail guides and almost no signage anywhere so it was extremely challenging to figure out what was public v private v public-but-treated-as-private. Once we got in good with locals who had similar interests it was fantastic.

Thanks for explaining why loading the front wheel on a bike works OK. I have updated my mental model.

@MF - thanks for the details on your system. I've set up a spreadsheet to improve my tracking and accountability for things beyond finance as I move into 2022.

shaz wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:31 pm

Re: tracking, one thing I need to be careful about is that the tracking/racking up better numbers not take on a life of its own to the point where the activity becomes detrimental to my overall goals or well-being.

Yes, there is a balance for sure. It is good that you have figured out your limits to have a healthy relationship to tracking anything. This is the same for tick lists of climbs or ski descents. It can easily be taken too far or beyond ability because "I have to get this done". When I used to take rock climbing more seriously in high-school/college there was a numbers game for sure that can take you out of the moment and beautiful settings or lead to over-training and injury. The people that were the most stoked on ticking higher grades were also the ones that got injured from overuse injuries because of the compulsion to train.

Tracking things, if you have not done it at all, can be a really good tool though. I look forward to hearing more about @WRC's tracking starting from near 0 (outside of finances) and seeing where the right balance is for him.