Thanks for the report! (Even the chilling details about the chipmunk!)

It works well for me and has a decent flow rate. But, I also keep up on the maintenance of my Sawyer Squeeze by backflushing and disinfecting it after every trip.


What's your method for disinfecting?

I like the idea of squeeze systems (because I don't like the taste of chemical treatments ...

I tend to carry about 1.25 pounds per day---and fail to eat it all!

this was a ongoing topic for my Moosewatch team. We were in the field for 8 days, and each day's discussion got franker.*

I was the backcountry bidet advocate. In my system (and it is a system), the bidet doesn't completely replace toilet paper, just minimizes how much I need and --- this is the ...

is this the first time the cover has been wolf-less?

Fantastic report! I'm glad to hear that there was moose presence at Feldtmann Lake. It's only right. As for the lake itself, I wouldn't have pegged it as a large enough to make its own weather, but it seems to be!

Are your traveling companions converted, and already planning their next IR trip??

Unless they've been moved---unlikely, since they're 300+ pounds and the small clearing they're in is surrounded by heavy brush on three sides and a lake on the other---the Feldtmann lockers are conveniently placed in a small lakeshore clearing about 60 meters north of group campsite one. I've ...

It seems like you’ve got a sound plan A, and a good grip on contingency plans and the circumstances that would trigger them! Just a few thoughts:

*3M to RH on the Tobin Harbor trail would be more manageable in the rain than the rock harbor trail. I suspect that even without the slick surface ...

the (mildly satanic) Days 22 and 23 mileage coincidence is uncanny!

Malone: I haven't got the Nat Geo map to hand---is the spur trail from the dock to Siskiwit Falls on it? And is there also a mapped spur that visits the lakelet just upstream from the falls? (I hiked the latter the one time I was ...

For anyone considering a bushwhacking experience, wear long gaiters so when you step into a wet hole you didn't see you'll have a few seconds to extract your foot before your boot fills with water.


Also keep your phone and other valuables in a secure pocket! jon, how many moose did your team ...

Are you thinking ahead to next year ... or was this enough?


Although this was plenty, I am hoping for return engagements. For one thing, I haven't yet achieved the zen of bushwhacking!

I wouldn't be the first returnee: the vast majority of team 1 were repeat offenders.

There's something ...

(May 15, continued)

Not much later, we come across teaser bone in a beaver meadow. Once again, our leader catches, and follows, the whiff of death. Donald is a nearly-complete recently wolf-killed moose entirely unrelated to the teaser bone. She’s not as wet as Benito, but she’s still pretty wet ...

May 13. From Feldtmann ridge, we thought we’d spotted some high ground we could exploit to negotiate the swamplands south and east of Feldtmann Lake. We follow the trail past the eagle corpse and over the bridge across the Feldtmann outlet, then take a hard left. Readily traversed high ground ...

(continued)

May 11. Today, we start to search in earnest. We head off-trial, west then north of the lake. Our first serious action is a teaser leg bone near a minor swamp. From a tree near the teaser bone, our leader hangs a blaze orange safety vest fragrant with putrefaction. We fan out hoping to ...

**note to reader: due to filesize issues, photos [none of which are mine, due to a May 15 incident described below] are linked to rather than attached. As befits my longest-ever trip to IR, this report is not short. I've broken it down into installments.**

Introduction. Biologists have been ...