Ultralight...

Looking at Kort and Jim's packs this past trip reminded me of all the effort I put into reducing my pack weight. Check the feeds from May 2008 as I chronicle my pack base weight reduction. I've done much more since and will post an updated gear list in the near future.

Hard to believe that at one point I struggled to get my gear down to this weight.

Triangle of Communication

As TEAM 42 looks ahead to its second decade, some big changes are happening. The website (new), Twitter and Facebook are going to integrate to form the TEAM 42 Triangle of Communication.

WEBSITE

The blog is going to be integrated into a complete website that will eventually be hosted on www.teamfortytwo.com. For the website, I need the following information from each expedition member:

• Expeditions that you have been on (these include wilderness expeditions with or without TEAM 42. Front country or park camping do not count, ie, Many Point, Northwind, Stearns, etc). I need the expedition name, where you went, names of the participants and the date of the trip.
• A personal bio.
• Your favorite trail.
• Your base pack weight.
• Your favorite item in your pack.

You can just leave the info in the comments.

TWITTER

The Twitter account is up and running. All blog posts are automatically linked with the Twitter account, giving you real time TEAM 42 updates. You can sign up for Twitter and have these updates sent to your mobile device. http://twitter.com/TeamFortyTwo

FACEBOOK

I honestly have no idea what we are going to do with this. We have like three Facebook pages and I don't go to any of them.

BRANDING

Right now we have Jim's logo on the top of the website, mainly because that is what I had and I liked it. We should all agree on an "Official" TEAM 42 logo. We can go with Jim's, or if someone wants to submit something else for us to vote on that sounds good. If I don't hear anything by the end of the week, I will just assume that everyone is happy with Jim's logo.

With whatever logo we decide on, I think we should make a commemorative ten year logo for next year 2000-2010. It can just be an addition to the logo we select by putting the years on it or something. Ten years of expeditioning should be celebrated. I'll leave that up to one of our graphic designers.

We need to agree on how the writing of TEAM 42 should look. I have seen Team 42, TEAM 42 and T.E.A.M. 42. I have my preference, but we all need to agree so we write it the same way.

MEMBERSHIP

It was suggested on the last expedition that we have requirements for continued membership in TEAM 42. It was brought up that there are expedition members that do not attend any expeditions and therefore should be removed from the team or labeled as "inactive". The suggestion was that people go on a minimum of two expeditions per year, which should be easy considering there are about a dozen opportunities a year.

That's it for more, watch for more changes coming soon...

Good job T.E.A.M. 42

I am very glad you folks had a successful adventure.

At Sonic in RC. Great expeditiin in the Black Hills. Harney Peak is a new TEAM42 favorite!

DW, CV & KJ at happy hour in Rapid City, SD. 1 hour from trailhead, meeting Jim in the morning for our third Turkey Day Expedition.

Harney Peak

FYI - Harney Peak, which is on our route, was named readers choice favorite mountain in the midwest in Backpacker magazine.

Turkey Day III

Jim, the route sounds good. We're good on the pies, right????

Where exactly would you like us to meet you? We're shooting for 10:00am?

I think your route is a good plan, as long as there isn't any snow. Aside from that I think we can cut out the BSing as long as there are no cool signs for me to stand on top of! Also, pole tricks are really sweet when done as part of a small group, but kinda lame by oneself.

Chad and I are going shopping for the Thanksgiving feast tonight. How many liters of gravy do you need?

Proposed Route

I looked at the map and came up with something. There is supposed to be a Trail Head right by Mount Rushmore, which I thought would be a good place to start. From there it should be a short hike into the Black Elk Wilderness. We can either stop there for dinner or push on a little farther. In the wilderness (see map below) we can go a number of differnt ways but I picked a route that takes to Cathedral Spires, which is just outside the wilderness, then north to Harney Peak. After that we keep heading north to loop back to the Centennial Trail.

I figure we can probably get through most or all of the Black Elk Wilderness in 1 day, depending on how ambitious we are. After the Wilderness, we'll keeping heading North on the Centennial Trail. There are a couple good stopping points, again depending on how ambitious we are (see map below). The first is Sheridan Lake Rec Area, about 10 miles North of Black Elk Wilderness. The second is Pactola Reservoir Rec Area, about 10 - 15 miles North of Sheridan Lake. (These 2 areas are in the red insert boxes in the map). If we do a little on Thursday then follow 15 miles a day we should be able to do all of it. If we follow our pace from last year we'll be lucky to get through the Black Elk Wilderness. So it depends on how much BSing we want to do. Let me know what you guys think.

To see more maps and info http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/blackhills/maps/index.shtml

Thanksgiving Hike

What dates are we planning for our Thanksgiving trip? It'd be nice to know so I can take the right days off from work. Also, we should probably figure out a place to meet. If we are going with the Centenial Trail and the Black Elk Wilderness there is supposed to be a Trail Head off of Hwy 16 a few miles North of the wilderness. There is also a trail head and campground just north of the wilderness off of 244 just pass Mt. Rushmore. Any input?