MOUNTAIN KHAKIS - Built For The Mountain Life Blog

RECAP: First Teton Valley Trail and Pathways Trail Day Success

The first Teton Valley Trail and Pathways' Trail Day was a great success.

"We had 35 volunteers, totaling 245 of volunteer hours! Thanks MK!"

A Collection of Stories & Links from the Wild Image Project

Daniel Fox from The Wild Image Project shared a few great links & stories with us: 

• Listen to the Land - Las Marias, a beautiful entry about a farm filled with life.
  
• Refuge, a reflection on jaguars and monkeys caught at the frontline of Man's expansion. 
  
• Selva Intima, en El Paranaense, an article in spanish on the expedition, in Posadas's newspaper, Misiones, Argentina.
  
• Mate Expedition with Taragui, Discovering Argentina through Mate.  Read the press release here (in spanish) and on La Ruta.com
  
• Gallery of iphone photos on Best Cam - a visual travel log "Polaroid" style!!
  
• Facebook - see the weekly updates and behind the scenes
  
• Don't forget to follow on Twitter the Wild Image Project and the Mate Expedition.
  

The Wild Image Project is presented to you by Taragui, Tesacom, Inmarsat,  Planet Explore, Alpineaire Foods, Kokatat,Periscope Creative & Wend Magazine. 

RECAP: Pangea Adventure Race 2010

The annual Seminole County Adventure Race (SCAR) had record attendance of well over 200 people attending. The tree canopied start / finish at Katie's Landing offered plenty of shade with the highlight of the event being the paddling section that took place on the Wekiva River which is designated by the State of Florida as a "Outstanding Florida Waterway". Teams also biked and trekked in much of the surrounding natural lands in the Lower Wekiva River Preserve State Park. All managed by the Florida Park Service, celebrating their 75 anniversary. Thank you Mountain Khakis for supporting adventure racing in Florida.

MK College Ambassador, Cody Scott, Hikes the Wild Azalea Trail

The Wild Azalea Trail in central Louisiana is an undiscovered gem of southern through hiking. The terrain varies from bogs to rolling hills to pine bottoms. This trail covers 24 miles beginning at Kincade Lake and ending at the Town Hall of Woodworth, LA. There are several spurs that can be added to the trip for those that want to add mileage.

The fatal flaw of our journey was the mileage. I stupidly intended to cover almost 50 miles in three days with packs. My former Marine mentality told me that 3 miles per hour was an acceptable pace. With that in mind I calculated 6 hours of hiking the first day 7-8 on the second and 6-7 on the third. Not easy but not impossible by any means. With no tough climbs and a light load I saw no reason why we couldn’t make this happen.

Once on trail you immediately find yourself in the bogs on the south end of the trail. Had I known the extent of the bogs we would have started at the north trailhead. My wife, a novice hiker, was using trekking poles for the first time and found them quite helpful in negotiating this muddy mess. She set a good pace following the yellow blazes of the well-marked trail and had we arrived on time we certainly would have covered the 15 miles I had planned for that day. However, Murphy had intervened and we were only able to cover about 9.5 miles before the sun was dipping below the trees. 

The next morning, footsore, we set out on the trail with Rebecca leading the way and a surplus of miles left uncovered from the previous day’s debacles. She kept up a great pace until late morning when she bonked and I took over the navigational duties. Knowing how tired she was I set a slower pace and tried to give both of us a chance to look around and enjoy ourselves, instead on participating in a self administered endurance test.   

Around mile 11, of that day, I realized that at our current pace there was no way to make it to the lake and head back before sundown. Due to a pair of light hikers that have since been retired Rebecca’s feet were in bad shape and couldn’t move much faster, so I decided to turn around early.

Back at our car my wife, a born and bred city girl, had handled it all very well but I knew she was at her limit. So I immediately searched my GPS for the nearest hotels and began calling to find out which one had a hot tub in the room. Finding one nearby we went directly there, checked in, cleaned up and went to grab dinner. Our little adventure was over; I still have no idea what started the fire, but my wife says it was an act of God to save her feet. All and all we had a good time and my Snake River Shorts could not have performed better.

How Do You MK? - Trent Hawthorne and Liz Barrett

MK friends, Trent and Liz did the "Y to Y" MS training ride - 32 miles. Whoa! Glad they had fun and rode in style!

Below, you can see Trent wearing the Team MK jersey.