Heading Down Under Tomorrow

A sister company based out of Sydney is having some issues with a new installation of Citrix and the parent company that owns us both wants me to go down and see what can be done. Apparently, there is a shortage of IT people with Citrix skills in Australia. Should be fun!

I've managed to bookend the week with both weekends, so on the 19th and 20th I am going to go drive out to the Blue Mountains and stay in Blackheath near Katoomba. On Saturday I'm going to walk the Golden Stairs and hike out to Ruined Castle and maybe Mt. Solitary. On Sunday I'm doing the Grand Canyon walk and then driving back to Sydney on Bells Line of Roads. Saturday the 26th I'll go down to the Royal National Park and see what I can see there.

Its wintertime in Australia so Sydney is about the same temperature as Victoria during the spring (19°C during the day, 10°C at night). Katoomba is currently about 10°C during the day and 3°C at night). So I'm having to dig out my thermals and my Thermawrap to make sure I don't freeze out my walks.

I'll put up a Flickr photostream when I get back.

Building a starter PC for under $300

My oldest son, Adan, has wanted to upgrade his computer for a long time. To be honest, I can't blame him. He has been using a P3-600MHz beast that I built back in 1998! I told him that if he saved up his money he could buy the pieces to make his own computer that would be be a good starting point for future upgrades for about $300 CDN. After about 6 months of saving he finally had enough and I started looking to see what I could get.

He isn't a big gamer so the only thing it had to run was Runescape and Flight Sim X. I did some research and it looked like a motherboard using the AMD 780G chipset would be a good starting point. This would support AMD processors all the way up to the new Phenoms but we could start with a dual core 4400+ for $72. The motherboard also has an integrated ATI HD3200 video card that is capable of decoding a Bluray stream even using a cheap Sempron CPU. The HD3200 can also use Hybrid Crossfire to connect to a HD3450 or a HD3470 if you want better gaming performance. This would still be nowhere as good as a dedicated 8800GT or other midrange gaming GPU but it would only cost an additional $75 vs $200.

So, in the end we got:

Biostar TForce TA780G M2+ AMD 780G mATX AM2 1PCI-E 2PCI SATA W/RAID Video Sound GBLAN Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual Core Processor Socket AM2 Brisbane 2.3GHZ 2X512KB 65NM 65W Retail Box
Apex PC-373 ATX Mid Tower Case Black 4X5.25 1X3.5 4X3.5INT 400W W/ Front USB & Audio
Corsair Value Select PC2-5300 1X1GB DDR2-667 240PIN DIMM

I dug up an unused 250GB SATA HD and an unused copy of Vista Ultimate and in the end including shipping, taxes and insurance it cost $271. Not bad for a machine with a fair amount of upgrade potential and that also does everything that Adan wants to do right now.

Some tips for the West Coast Trail

Here are some quick tips if you are thinking of doing the West Coast Trail with Lightweight gear and/or a hammock in no particular order.

• I had Telus phone coverage for the entire length of the WCT. A PLB or a SPOT Personal Messanger is probably not necessary unless it makes you or your partner feel better.


• Even early in the season you can do the WCT with a lightweight gear. My suggestion would be to go from Bamfield to Port Renfrew as the trail is pretty good all the way up to KM51. I'm not a fast hiker and I don't get out and do much hiking but I still managed to do this stage in three days.


• Take a pair of lightweight shoes that you can use for wading through Michigan, Darling and Crib Creek. I left my New Balance 908s and socks on and my socks never really dried out completely even after leaving them out in the sun for an hour.


• I made the mistake of washing two pairs of my socks on day 2 which left me with only one pair of dry socks for the remainder of the trip. Merino socks are still warm and wearable when damp but it can cause blistering.


• You can easily hang a hammock at Michigan and Darling Creek. If you got creative you could probably hang off of the driftwood at TSusiat Falls. I carried on to KM29 on the beach and hung off some driftwood there. Make sure you have plenty of water as even in May there was nowhere to fill up until I got to Cribs.


• Bonilla Point has a couple of good spots for hanging a hammock and plenty of water.


• Make sure you bring a variety of food, including some fresh stuff. The highlight of my days foodwise were stopping for lunch and having some fresh hungarian salami, cheese and dried apple rings.


• Don't wash your base layer unless you are sure you can dry it completely before you need to wear it again. I made the mistake of doing this at Bonilla Point and then the fog rolled in. This meant I had to hike in my other baselayer shirt all day to Camper and then sleep in it while it was still damp. I'm sure this contributed to my cold night there.


• I only found one good spot to hang at Camper. Firewood is nonexistant here as well unless you are prepared to wade across the creek.


• If you are going to try and go around Owen point don't underestimate how long it will take you to get to the Beach Access points on the trail. On the map it looked like it was right at Camper but it took about 90 minutes to get to the first BA and onther 30 to get to the second. Make sure you factor this into your timings for the low tide.


• KM51 to KM75 are very challenging if you are wearing lightweight nonwaterproof shoes and spats. I found that I could pick my way around all of the mud holes and stay dry. However, on day 5 it rained the whole day and my feet were soaked for the whole time even without going in any of the mud. This was the worst day for my feet and it was the only time I got any significant blisters. KM70 to KM75 the trail was particularly bad. The trail has its largest elevation change and then the last 2 KM was in very bad repair. By the time I got to the end I was wiped out.

I will add more as I think of them. Good Luck!

Possible fix found MSA1500sc halting problem

Thanks to Eric at Genesis Hosting for finding a possible fix for our MSA1500sc and VMWare problem. He has had the same thing happen to him and has gotten further with HP and VMWare then I did for finding a fix.

His server hardware is a bit different than mine but the SAN and FC components are almost the same. Here are the various things that need doing to fix the problem:

• Make sure the FC HBA have the latest firmware installed


• We are both using Brocade switches, so the firmware needs to be v5.31 or higher


• Even if you only have a single controller in the MSA1500sc, upgrade to v7.00 of the firmware


• Most importantly, set the FC switch ports that your HBAs and MSA1500 are connected to to 2Gbps and unselect any unused port types. In my case I set the two MSA1500 connections to F-Type. I was unable to modify the type setting for the HP BL480p FC ports for some reason.

Eric's testing seems to indicate that the problem occurs if the SCSI Queue depth gets to high. You can view this by using the MSA1500 CLI and entering SHOW TASKSTATS.

You can change the FC port speed and type will VMs are running but you probably want to do it when there is no disk load on the SAN.

Eric also pointed out that instead of having to shut down all of the VMs and reboot the MSA1500 when the problem does occur you can go on to the CLI and enter DISABLE THIS_CONTROLLER REBOOT. If you have two controllers you would also have to do DISABLE OTHER_CONTROLLER REBOOT. This may hang or cause problems with the VMs but you should be able to reboot them without having to reboot the ESX hosts.

I have made all of the changes already except for the firmware on the Brocade switches. I have scheduled some downtime this weekend and will do the upgrade then as well as a reboot of everything and then I will leave it and see what happens.

West Coast Trail Photos Posted on Flickr

The photos from my West Coast Trail Trip are now up at Flickr. I'm still working on adding comments to them. I'll post a day by day point form log of the trip in the next couple of days.

West Coast Trail Trip 2008 - Day 5

• Wake up at 6am after a cold and uncomfortable night. Not sure if it is because my base layer was damp or underpad wasn't positioned correctly or what but I was pretty chilly during the night.
• Had to get up at one point to tighten the ropes as the hammock had sunk down far enough that I was bumping the log that was under me.
• Everyone else in camp is up at 6 as well so maybe it wasn't just me!
• Have a breakfast of oatmeal, pack up and am on the trail by 7:15am
• Trail is more of the same as yesterday: mud, roots and now rain!
• Feeling very tired and sore today and can't get up to speed. I have to be very deliberate going around each mud pit today to make sure I don't miss my footing.
• Glad I didn't try and go to Owen Point. It takes about an hour to get to Beach Access A and another 30 minutes to get to Beach Access B.
• Even on the boardwalks I can't seem to maintain any speed.
• Finally get to junction with Trashers Cove at around 11. Immediately the trail starts climbing up a hill.
• Start running into hikers coming the other way at about KM71. They all look happy and clean even with their gigantic packs on. Must go past about 20 people over the next 2KM.
• Phone wife to tell her I will be early and to get her to bring a change of socks, shoes and clothes as everything I'm wearing is damp or wet. Feet and socks are especially wet and soles of feet are starting to get sore.
• The last 2 KM seems to go on and on. It must take me over 90 minutes to finish. Lots of storm damage here and lots of mud. Knees are really hurting but don't want to stop to take anything.
• Finally reach the beach at KM75 at 2pm, exactly 5 days after I set out! Too tired and sore to feel anything except relief.
• Rise the buoy to signal the ferry and keep moving to stop right knee from siezing up.
• Ferry arrives after about 10 minutes and then head over to cabin to sign off the trail.

West Coast Trail Trip 2008 - Day 4

• Woke up at 7. Another lousy nights sleep due to the surf.
• Had breakfast and was on the beach by 8:45
• Crappy sand for walking on but ploughed.
• Weather still foggy. Made mistake of leaving underwear and crew out to dry. Wetter now then when I hung them up
• Meet one of the couples from the bus out to Renfrew coming up the beach and then the two German boys from the bus.
• Finally get to end of beach section and then more ladders.
• Trail isn't too bad but is definitely the worst condition so far.
• Still make ok time to Walbaran.
• No one around so have to pull myself across again.
• Trail gets much muddier after km54 . Have a big slip around km55 and right foot goes in up to my calf.
• Lots of ladders at Logan.
• Between Logan and Cultite trail gets even worse. Slowing down to about 1.5 kmh now
• Ladders at Cultite missing last section. Have to scramble over roots and rocks on a slippery slope to get down.
• Have an audience of a bunch of teenagers having a rest on the other side of the cable car.
• More big ladders going up now and then another big stream valley to decend into on more ladders.
• Trail from here to km61 is just one big mud pit with the odd downed tree just for variety.
• Go by a group that includes two kids about 8 years old!
• Make it to camper at 4:45. Couple saw coming up the ladders at cultite arrive about an hour latter and then the teenagers.
• None of the campsites suitable for hammock so end up in the trees a bit. Weather has gotten much cooler and still foggy. Looked like it might brighten up coming into Camper but that disappeared.
• Doesn't look like i'm going to be able to go the Owen Point route. Low tide is at 7:20 so would have to leave here at 6 to have plenty of time to get around the boulders and the point.
• Should make it to Gordon River by 4 tomorrow.

West Coast Trail Trip 2008 - Day 3

• Up at 7 and on the trail by 8
• Trail between KM29 and nitnat is ok but muddy in spots
• Get to nitnat narrows at 9:30 but have to wait under 10 until ferry operator sees me
• Have a pop at the other side and then carry on
• Nice board walk that quickly disappears into a swamp
• Follow trail around and then more boardwalk
• After about and hour or so meet a party or teenages led by a guy who like the guy who led my youth group 25 years ago
• So much trail today it is all kind of a blur
• See first bear tracks on trail just before Cheewhat and then a couple sets of them and some droppings under the Cheewhat bridge
• Stop for lunch at Cheewhat beach. Nice place. Would be great for hammock but is closed for camping due to bear.
• Meet another solo hiker at Dare beach. Water is starting to get low and ask him how far to lighthouse. He says the mud is insane around km54. Another set of hikers confirm this later on
• Getting good at mud pit hopping. Just call me dances over mud pits
• Stop at Cribs and get water and have a wash.
• First nations rangers are doing a lot of work on the trail here
• Continue on trail until Carmanagh lighthouse.
• Have to wait just after leaving beach for another group of 18 teenagers.
• Have a look around the lighthouse grounds and then move on
• Get to Chez Monique's at 4. Have a burger and a pop. No one else there except workers. Say they spend the whole season there.
• Boogie along the beach until the cable car. River is going to fast to wade so have to haul myself across. Takes whatever energy I got from the burger and pop
• Beach is gravelly and hard going. Finally get to Bonilla at 5:30
• Have another cold wash and do some laundry.
• Get a fire going and figure I will try and cut a day off tomorrow and see if I can get to Camper. This next day is supposed to be very tough.
• Hope I can get some better sleep tonight but I doubt it. Tide is coming in and the surf is loud. Fog has rolled in as well
• Strange beach. Keep thinking I hear voices but it is only the surf or the trees.

West Coast Trail Trip 2008 - Day 2

• Got 4 or 5 good hours of sleep and wake at 9


• Ron and Mark already up and packing slowly


• Decide to get ready quickly and have a cold breakfast


• Set out ahead of everyone else and walk the beach to twocowis.


• Meet another couple going south at the ladders but pass them


• Have lunch on the beach by the anchor.


• Knees have been sore again, especially my left which is odd because it is usually my right that gives me problems


• Path has been pretty good but more wet and muddy


• Get to the cable car on my own and haul self across


• Trail conditions get worse from here. Lots of storm damage.


• Make it to the beach at tsusiat by 2:30


• No one there so take some pictures, email home and work and wash socks and get some water


• Was going to stay here until after dinner and then carry on to hole in the wall but about 5 other groups arrive so pack up and head out at 5


• Possible spot to hang hammock at Hole in the Wall but meet first other solo hiker coming the other way. Compare notes with him on Spot(which has been working fine but also have Telus cell phone coverage all the way from Banfield)


• Carry on to beach acces at KM29 and find nice spot to hang hammock


• Get fire going and make dinner


• Almost a full moon tonight


• No body at all around

West Coast Trail Trip 2008 - Day 1

Here is my notes for Day 1 of the Trip. I'll put it into more of a narrative soon.

• Left at Victoria at 6:30am



• Two other couples on the bus



• Everyone got off at the gordon River end of the trail other than two more couples that were picked up in Port Renfrew Took the logging roads over the mountains to Lake



• Cowichan and then on to Banfield



• Got there at 12 but had to wait until one for registration and intro talk



• While waiting at the bay saw a couple of hawks fishing



• Set out with Ron and Mark also from Victoria on the trail. Other european couple takes the beach to bypass the first set of ladders (second highest on the trail)



• Despite pack weighing about 30lbs due to too much food, I quickly move ahead of everyone else



• Figure i'm averaging about 3.5KM per hour.



• Trail is pleasant and pretty dry



• About 12 mud holes along way but manage to get around them with only a couple of slips



• Get to lighthouse about 20 minutes ahead of Ron and Mark



• Have lunch and have a look around



• Very nicely maintained yard and buildings. Two sat dishes



• See no one other than little boy on way out Trail quickly gets wetter and I hit a couple mud bogs that I can only go straight through.



• Get to Michigan about 5. Have to wade through creek



• No one there. Carry on to Darling



• Find a nice spot and setup hammock and undercover and pad



• Filter some water with the steripen



• Have dinner of beef stroganoff and have a chat with Ron and Mark around there fire before bed



• Have a very cozy night but don't sleep well until 5 due to sound of surf.



• Weird dreams. Wake shouting at one point thinking there is someone standing at foot of hammock.



• Knees starting to hurt

Bought a Spot

After talking with my wife last night about how I most likely won't be able to stay in touch while on the West Coast Trail, she left it up to me to decide if it was worth buying a SPOT Personal Tracker. I did some research and found that if used as directed it should be fine for sending the messages. A fair number of people said that it wouldn't replace a PLB for them but I can't afford both right now.

So I decided to bite the bullet and bought one today at lunch from Ralph's Radio here in Victoria (got a $10 discount as well!).

I've setup a site to share the OK messages here. When I'm back I'll give a more thorough review.

Starting Solo West Coast Trail Trip on May 16th

Well, everything is ready to go for my solo early season trip on the West Coast Trail using a hammock. I've chosen to go in mid May because you don't have to reserve a start date if you go between May 1st and June 14th. I've got my pack down to the lightweight class with a base weight of 6.4 Kg (14lbs 4oz) and a total pack weight of 10.3 Kg (22 lbs 11oz). Its definitely not the lightest load I've heard of for this length of a trip but it should make for a much more comfortable time than last year's aborted Juan de Fuca Marine Trail attempt with a pack weight of 27.2 Kg (60lbs)!

Even though I'm going lightweight I'm not going for any speed record. I'm planning on taking 6 days to do the entire 75 KM (46.6 miles) starting in Bamfield and ending in Port Renfrew. I'm going north to south because that was the direction I went when I was 14 and did the north half of the trail with a youth group and also by the time I get to the last couple of days, which are supposed to be the hardest, my pack will be at its lightest.

If I can get a cell phone signal, I'm going to attempt to blog from the trail. I doubt if I'll have a signal once I leave Bamfield but by the time I reach Bonilla beach at the end of day 3 I'm hoping I will have a signal from Neah Bay, across the Juan de Fuca Straight. I'll attach photos from the cell phone to start with and will replace them with real photos when I'm back and recovered.

Here is my itinerary:

May 16th - catch the West Coast Trail Express from Victoria to Bamfield
May 16th - sign on to the trail and hike to Darling campsite (14 KM)
May 17th - Darling to Hole in the Wall (14 KM)
May 18th - Hole in the Wall to Bonilla (20 KM)
May 19th - Bonilla to Logan (8 KM)
May 20th - Logan to Camper via beach at Sandstone Creek (6 KM)
May 21st - Camper to Gordon River via beach and Owen Point (13 KM)
May 21st - catch the West Coast Trail Express from Gordon River to Victoria at 4:30pm

UPDATE: I just found out that the West Coast Express only runs on odd numbered days in the shoulder season, so I'm going to move the leave day up by one day and finish on the 20th. My wife will pick me up at Gordon River.

Here are some useful links:

WCT @ i-needtoknown.com
West Coast Trail Express
The Gear I'm taking - If my current gear list changes much from this list I'll graft on a new link showing what I actually took

Gear dry run to Ruckle Park

With the departure date for my upcoming trip on the West Coast Trail coming up fast, I took all of the lightweight gear for a dry run on the weekend out to Ruckle Park on Saltspring Island. This was meant as a shake down trip to see how the loaded pack felt and to try out the hammock and clothes in some various types of weather.

For the most part I was very pleased with everything and with a few modifications and additions I should be set all set for the WCT.

The biggest problem I ran into was how cold I was sleeping in the hammock. The temperature on Ruckle was 7°C at night (44°F) with no wind. My campsite was right on the water. I had the Merlin -3 sleeping bag and the bivy pad in the hammock and was wearing my MEC Microweight long johns and long sleeved crew with the Wigwam merino socks. The side of me that wasn't against the bottom of the hammock was nice and warm but the other side was uncomfortably cold. I put on the Montbell Thermawrap at one point during the night but that didn't help much. I also folded the the bivy pad in half to put more insulation between me and the floor of the hammock. That helped more but as it is so narrow it was a hassle to try and stay on it. The hammock itself was very comfortable and if I had been more tired and warmer I would have had no problem getting a good nights sleep.

Since I've been back I've done some Googling to see what solutions there are to the cold problem. I'm happy to find I'm not alone. This seems to be a big gotcha with hammocks and it looks like everyone hits it unless they only warm weather camp. There are two main options to solve the cold problem, both involve adding more weight. One solution is to hang a down quilt outside the bottom of the hammock and use a sleeping bag or quilt inside. This seems to work well but is expensive and I don't think I've got time to wait for one to be shipped from the US.

The other option is to hang a cover under the hammock and put some kind of insulating material between it and the floor of the hammock. This is the route I took by ordering a Hennessy Hammock Undercover and Underpad. The reviews I've turned up see to be positive even though the open cell foam pad isn't the thick. This option is lighter than the quilt and cheaper. A bonus is that you can fine tune the padding under the hammock by adding your unused clothes, insulating layers and if needed leaves or moss. This should arrive by the end of the week so I can do another camp out at Goldstream Park to see how it works out.

The other issue I ran into was dirty clothes management. As it was chilly, I was wearing the long sleeved MEC Merino crew on the walk out to the park, in the evening while setting up and eating and to bed. I also wore it the next day on the walk back to Fulford Harbour to catch the ferry. By the time I got to Fulford I was smelling a bit rank. I had a quick wash in the sink while waiting for the ferry and changed into my short sleeved Merino t-shirt. If I was on the trail I would have washed the crew and left it to dry. However, because it was so cold in the hammock at night I feel like I need to wear a long sleeved shirt. I think the solution is to pick up another one from MEC and then I have one to wear if the other is drying. The t-shirt I can either leave or bring just in case.

Citrix File Security button greyed out

A couple of times now, we have run into a situation with Citrix where a user will have selected No Access and Never Ask Again the first time they go into Citrix. It looks like there is a bug with some of the native client upgrades that cause the File Security button in the Connection Center to be greyed (this is where you would go once the user is connected to changed there permissions to access their local drives).

The only workaround I have found so far is to delete the C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\ICAClient. Another option is to change the webica.ini file in this folder so that the GlobalSecurityAccess line says GlobalSecurityAccess=405.

WigWam Merino Light Trail Socks

I've had 3 pairs of these socks for the last year and I have to say that I love them! Not only do I wear them out on the trail but I they are so warm and comfy that I wear them most other days as well. They are classified as a light trail sock so they wouldn't be warm enough to wear out in the snow but for spring, summer and fall use they are great.

Even with the regular use that I have been given these I haven't seen any signs of thinning out or holes developing. Odour control is still good even after a years worth of use and washing. There was some minimal shinkage after the first couple of washes but nothing too dramatic. I started out running the socks through the normal cycle on the washer and then leaving them out to dry but after they accidentally got put in the dryer without any harm I just treat them like my other clothes.

Paid $15 at MEC in Victoria, BC.

MEC Tarn 3 tent

This is definitely not a one person tent! Another purchase from my aborted attempt at the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail. I'm not sure why I thought that this would be a good attempt for a solo attempt at the JDF.

The tent itself is bullet proof and stands up to a hell of a lot of bad weather without any problems. However, it weights 3.2 Kg (7 lbs) and doesn't pack down to a very manageable size. If there is two of you it is much better as one person can take the tent and fly and the other can take the poles and pegs.

The tent is roomy for two but three would be very cozy. The vestibule is big enough to get two packs into and still have enough room to get in and out comfortably. There is a window in the fly vestibule and a nifty zippered flap that you can poke your head out of to see if the weather has cleared up. There is a footprint available for it (which I have) but I haven't had a chance to use.

Set up of the tent is pretty easy. The tabs for the three poles are color coded so you don't try to put the wrong tab on the wrong pole. The fly is the standard type that stretches over and attaches to the bottoms of the poles.

Currently only using the Tarn if backpacking with other family members. Retired and replaced by a Hennessey Ultra Light A-Sym Hammock.

MEC Ibex 80 Backpack

I purchased this pack in the spring of 2007 to use to attempt the Juad de Fuca Marine Trail. I hadn't done any significant backpacking since I was in my early twenties and figured that I needed something with a large volume and lots of pockets. I almost bought an Arc'teryx Bora pack but figured that I would save the extra money and purchase the Ibex 80 instead.

The pack itself is great but as I now know it is nowhere near being a lightweight pack. The empty weight for the standard length pack is 2.9 Kg (6.4 lbs) which is 3 times the weight of the Granite Gear Vapor Trail that I now have.

Tha pack is very well built and stands up to a lot of abuse. There are pockets everywhere on the thing so you should have no problems finding somewhere to put all of that gear.

The shoulder straps and padding on the back of the pack make it pretty comfortable even when hauling large amounts of gear. I had over 27 Kg (60 lbs) of gear with me for my attempt on the JDF and even though I came off the trail at the half way point it wasn't because the pack was uncomfortable.

If you are looking for an expedition grade pack and don't want to spend a wack of money this is the pack for you.

I still have the Ibex but for now it is retired.

SPOT Satellite Tracker

If you are like me, you have a spouse or partner that doesn't share your love of being out in the great outdoors and gets a little worried when you do go. The very nature of the places that we like to go to means that cell phone coverage is usually pretty spotty if not nonexistant. How cool would it be to have a small, light weight, long battery life device that could send a preconfigured email message to someone at the push of a button? That is what the SPOT Satellite Messenger does.

The device weights 209g (7.3 oz) and is waterproof to 1m for 30 minutes but it does float. The unit costs $169 CDN for the unit plus $100 USD/Year for the subscription. For this you get three functions: Check-in, Help and 911. When you press the Check-in button on the device an email is sent to an email address that you have setup before you left saying that you are OK, tells them your latitude and longitude and contains a link to Google Maps so they can see exactly where you are. The Help button sends a different message to an email address (which can be different than the Check-in email address) but it still contains your location and the Google Maps link. The 911 button sends a message directly to SPOT's emergency service provider who will then send out the closest help for you.

Coverage seems be everywhere in the world except for south Africa and India but I'm sure that will come. There are some extra services that you can subscribe to as well. For $50/year you can have progress monitoring and for $8/year you will be covered for up to $100,000 USD for the cost of your rescue.

There is a more complete review on Gearlog. You can purchase SPOT directly from their website or in BC from London Drugs.

I think I'll be adding this to my wish list.

UPDATE - April 22, 2008
I came across a thread on Backpacking Light that has some SPOT owners saying that OK and Help messages aren't getting through. This could be due to misuse by the owners but it doesn't sound like it. Maybe I'll wait for the version 2 product to come out instead.

UPDATE - May 14, 2008
I ended up buying a SPOT for the West Coast Trail 2008. I'll link to a review later.

The Kludahk Trail

I've know about this trail for 5 or 6 years now but have not hiked. When we lived in Sooke, we knew someone who was a member of the trail society who raved about the cabins. It seems to be a very well kept secret probably due to the number of cabins that the trail society have put in but can only be used by members. My guess is they don't want the cabins getting trashed as they most likely would if the number of people hiking the trail went up.

I've found good directions to get to the trail heads on the Club Tread Victoria website and a thread on the Club Tread BC site. There are some maps here as well which I've included below in case they go missing.

Solar charging mobile devices

I'm starting to look at power options for the various devices that I like to have with me when backpacking. The HTC P4000 uses a mini-USB jack to recharge it and both the Garmin 60CSx GPS and the Canon have this type of jack as well. Unfortunately, neither charges via it. The 60CSx can be powered by the USB jack but it won't recharge the batteries. This is better than nothing as I'm looking at a Solio Classic solar charger. This 156g (5.6oz) fold out unit has three solar cells on it that recharge a built-in but replacable 1600 mAh Lithium Ion battery. The battery can be recharged from the solar cells, from AC or from 12v DC. It comes with a number of different charging tips that allow it to charge or power lots of different devices. The idea is that you can leave it charging the built-in battery with it strapped to the backpack or while in camp and then when needed plug the device into it that needs powering up.

So, with this, the PDA/phone and the GPS would be covered but the Canon SD850IS camera would not. So far I can't see any compact camera from Canon or Sony that can recharge the battery in the camera body; they all have separate AC chargers for their custom batteries. I already have two batteries for the Canon and I get about 120+ pictures from a charge so as long as both batteries were fully charged before the trip they should last for as long as a trip like the John Muir Trail would take (15-21 days).

The Brunton ADC, I'm not sure about yet. I haven't purchased one yet as I'm not convinced of its utility. I have a home weather station already that tries to predice that weather using the barometric pressure trends but it is almost never correct so the only useful features of it I can see would be time (but I've got a TAG watch already), alarm, temperature and wind speed. I'll continue to look for some reviews before making a decision.

Initial thoughts on Ultralight Gear purchases so far

I've now got all of the big stuff off of my Ultralight Gear List. On Saturday I packed it all up except for the food and took it for a 10 KM walk around the Victoria waterfront to see how it carried and how the clothes I'm going to wear felt in the cool spring coastal weather.

The Vapor Trail pack was very comfortable with the 8-9 Kg (17-19 lbs) of gear, water and fuel I had in it. The straps didn't dig in to me at any point and didn't slip or loosen as I walked. The only thing I'm a little concerned about was that all of the gear filled the pack upto the bottom of the sleeve that you roll down to close the pack. Getting 7 days worth of food in shouldn't be a problem but thinking ahead to the John Muir Trail, I've got to get a bear canister in as well. It would probably fit, but it is going to make the pack a lot taller. As it is now, the pack goes from the small of back to the top of my shoulders. I had the OR hat on and the back brim of it was only hitting the top of the pack every now and then. With food and a canister it would probably be hitting it all of the time which could get annoying.

The New Balance shoes were great as well. No pinching or rubbing and they probably don't need any more breaking in. They are a lot more airy than what I am used to wearing which makes my feet feel cooler which I guess is the point!

I also had the Montbell Wind Shirt on over the MEC Microlight Merino shirt and once I got going and warmed up it was fine. It wasn't very windy along Dallas Road but it should be fine in the forest trails of the West Coast Trail and JDF Trail. The bright red color did make me feel a little conspicuous though!

I'm going to take it out again a couple of times a week over the next month or so to get used to it. I will also be going camping on the weekend of April 26 and 27 to give everything a more thorough trial.

Initial thoughts on the KAP Winstar II bow

The Winstar II and all of the bits finally arrived from Lancaster Archery last week. I dropped it off to George for him to set it up and I had my first go with it at the range on Saturday. I also bought 10 used Easton ACC arrows off him for $75. The bow feels good but I will definately need to work on my arm strength as the 30# limbs are causing my arm to shake when I'm archored and trying to aim.

For some reason I was consistantly shooting to the upper left of the target no matter how much I adjusted the sight. I suspect that the sight needed some larger movement than the micro adjustment I was giving it. I moved it out some more when I got home and will be going back out to the range on Wednesday.

The foam in the carry case was not precut so I had to do it myself. I traced the outline of the riser, limbs, horizontal sight bar and sight aperture on the foam using chalk and then cut the foam using a sharp knife. It is a litle bit of a hack job but it will do for now.

I'll post some pictures soon.

MSA1500cs periodically grinding to a halt with VMWare ESX 3.5

Last night for the third time since going live with VMWare in Sept. 2007 we had an issue where the MSA1500cs SAN that acts as the datastore for our 3 host ESX cluster ground to a halt. As the MSA1500 has no ability to log what it is doing this is a tricky one to figure out.

The first time it happened, I though it was because I had set the multipathing on the ESX hosts to fixed. Apparently this is a not the suggested configuration for the MSA1500 as even though it has the v7.00 Active/Active firmware on it, ESX doesn't see it as a true Active/Active setup. So I changed the path setup to Most Recently Used (MRU) and left it to run.

The second time it happened was shortly after upgrading to v3.5 which caused High Availability (HA) on one of the hosts to go nuts and fill up the log partition.

Last night it happened again but nothing had been changed on the setup for weeks. Basically, the VMs grind to a halt and then become unavailable and then some or all of the LUNs presented to the hosts disappear. The only way I've found to fix it is to shut the ESX hosts down (which takes about 30 minutes each as it is trying to gracefully flush the cache to the LUNs but they aren't there) and then power down the MSA1500 controller shelf and bring everything backup again in the correct order.

I opened a ticket with HP about it today but they couldn't see anything from the CLI show tech_info dump I sent them (which I guess they wouldn't as the thing had been power cycled!) and suggested that it could be the drivers or firmware in the BL480c servers that we are using or a firmware upgrade may be needed in the Brocade fiber channel switches.

As I had the time last night, I also applied the last batch of v3.5 patches.

So far it has happened after about 50-60 days of uptime so I think for now we will be proactive and do a manual shut down of everything on a weekend every 6 weeks or so.

Bow equipment for me

Here is the setup that I am looking at for my bow. The limbs and the sight are subject to change as I'm not sure what is going to be better to spend the money on. I want to get something that Adan can move up to once he outgrows the T-Rex. After that I may move to a compound bow.

KAP Winstar II 25" Black Riser
KAP 70" 30# Winstorm Craft Limbs
Sure-Loc Contender-X Target Sight or Shibuya Dual Click Standard
2 Dynaflight '97 70" 14 Strand bowstrings (one black, one white)
Spigarelli Bow Stringer
Aurora Techno Jazz Quiver
Aurora Dynamic Take-Down Recurve case
Win & Win 360 Perfect Finger Tab
Arco Sport Spigarelli Z/T (Zero Tolerance) Rest for W&W - Now that I look into things a bit more I'm seeing that there have been some people having problems with this rest on UK Archery Interchange
Cartel Midas Cushion Pressure Button

KAP T-Rex has arrived

Adan's bow and equipment arrived last week from Alternative Sports in the UK and we had George from the Victoria Bowmen club set it up for us. George had to make a few last minute substitutions for us as the arrow rest and cushion plunger I ordered weren't suitable for the T-Rex. This was my fault for not running it by George first but they should work fine with the KAP Winstar II riser that I want to get for me.

Adan used the bow for the first time on Saturday and seemed pleased with it. The weight of the bow and pull weight of the limbs is a bit heavier than the wooden recurves we had been using during the lessons and this is causing him to be a bit shakier. I'm sure after a few weeks of use he will be fine.

Basic Target Archery Setup

My oldest son and I are coming to the end of a set of 6 archery lessons with the Victoria Bowmen Club. We have both joined the club so that he can carry on doing lessons in the club's Junior Olympic Program (JOP). Up until now we have both been using basic wood bows that the club provides for lessons but to carry on we must get our own gear. Since my son will grow out of whatever we purchased him now I wanted to balance the cost against getting him a good setup that now hold him back from shooting well.

Unfortunately, there are only two shops (Island Outfitters and Bucky's in Duncan) that sell archery equipment on Vancouver Island and both of those mainly cater to the hunting side of archery instead of the target side. The are two online stores in Canada, The Bow Shop and The Archer's Nook as well as Lancaster Archery in the US. All of these have a good selection of equipment but their prices are kind of high. The best pricing I have found so far is Alternative Sports Services in the UK. Even with the shipping charges it is still cheaper than the North American stores. When I've order stuff from abroad in the past it has always been hit or miss if I got charged customs duty so we will see what happens with this order.

After some looking around on archery sites and forums we came up with the following setup:

KAP T-Rex 23" riser
KAP T-Rex 66in 22# limbs
Cartel Midas Cushion Pressure Button
Cartel K-Sight
Arco Sport Spigarelli Z/T (Zero Tolerance) Rest
2 Cartel Dacron Fast Strings
Cartel Bowstringer
Cartel Dynamic 501 Quiver
Cartel CR-3 Arm Guard

The only thing left to get are some aluminum arrows and a case. Both of these we should be able to get from the local suppliers without any problems.

As for myself, I'm going to wait awhile and try some club members bows out but I'm currently looking at a KAP Winstar II and Winstorm limbs but it depends on how much I want to spend.

Backpacking Trips that I would like to do

I've been finding out about some backpacking trips that I would like to do at some point in the near future.

The North Coast Trail - this is the one I'm most looking forward to. 61 KM around Cape Scott at the north end of Vancouver Island. Various people are describing the NCT as like the West Coast Trail when it first opened. I think it is currently scheduled to be open for hikers in the spring/summer of 2008. I planning on doing this in the spring of summer of 2009.

The John Muir Trail - 211 miles of California ending at the top of the highest peak in the lower 48 states. Yikes! I think I've got a bit of training to do before I'm ready to attempt this one.

The Pacific Crest Trail - The big brother to the John Muir Trail. 2650 miles from the Canadian border down to Mexico. I doubt if I'll ever get a chance to thru-hike it but hopefully I'll be able to do some of the more interesting bits.

The Wonderland Trail - 93 miles around the base of Mount Rainer in Washington State.

BC Leg of the Trans Canada Trail

I would also like to enter (and finish) a MOMAR race

Citrix Secure Gateway Certificates

Just ran into an interesting problem at work. We use the Citrix Secure Gateway (CSG) to allow remote users to access Citrix through the web. This tunnels the Citrix ICA traffic (which is normally on TCP port 1493) through port 443. Our certificate on the IIS server was expiring soon so I had renewed and installed it a couple of weeks back and everything appeared to be working.

Today we started getting calls from users who were getting SSL errors after they had authenticated on the Web Interface page and tried to launch a Citrix session. After quickly verifying that the IIS certificate was indeed the new one and doing an iisreset to no effect I did a quick Google search and discovered that not only do you have to install the certificate on IIS, you also have to configure CSG to use the new certificate.

Planned hikes for 2008

So far I've booked time off work to do the following hikes:

West Coast Trail - May 15th to 22nd.
Juan de Fuca Marine Trail - June 29nd - July 2nd

This is the second time around that I will have attempted both of these trails. I did the WCT when I was 15 with a group organised by the Y. I was a real hoot. We spent a couple of days out at Cape Beale and then did the North half of the WCT. This time I'm doing it solo and will be doing the whole thing. I don't think I'll have time to get out to Cape Beale but I'll see what happens. I'm going in May so I don't have to make a reservation and to beat some of the crowds. The weather may be a bit problematic but I don't mind hiking in the rain.

I also attempted to do the JDFT last summer and got from Mystic Beach to Sombrio Beach but I brought way to much stuff (about 60lbs!) which killed my back and feet. This is what got me into Lightweight Backpacking in the first place as I wanted to finish the JDFT this year but don't want to take that amount of stuff.

I may do another in the summer depending on how things work out, not sure which yet at this point.

VDI for home use?

I've got two boys at home that are constantly fighting over the use of my computer. At the moment they are young enough that they aren't playing games that need lots of computer resources. Mostly, one of them is playing games like Runescape and its Moparscape clones. The other plays some more advanced games like Flight Sim X.

After reading this blog site about building a $200 PC I got to thinking if it would be possible to build a cheap PC for the boys and have one of them use a real PC and the other use a XP virtual machine using some kind of cheap windows terminal to connect. I guess the terminal would be the key thing. If it is too expensive you might as well build another cheap PC.

I'll do some more research and post my findings.

Ultralight Gear list

Here is my light weight gear list for a 7 day pack. My goal was to get a sub 30 lb pack with gear that will keep me comfortable and warm. I'm not happy when I'm on the trail if I'm cold, wet or hungry so I've made some choices that aren't necessarily the lightest but will address these. If you want to see the spreadsheet in fullscreen you can do so by clicking here.

Running ESX Server in VMWare Server

After trying to get this running today, I ran into some problems and did some googling tonight to try and find a solution. I found a thread here and a white paper here that document how to do it using Workstation 6 and Intel processors with the VT extensions. Looks like this is the only way to do it and the PE2650s I've got to play with don't have VT. Oh well, I will have to just keep it the lab setup using 3 or 4 real boxes for now.

Virtual Virtualization lab

I'm doing some preparation for some cross training I'm doing on Friday on VMWare Virtual Infrastructure 3. I've used some old servers to create a lab environment consisting of a virtual SAN (using SANMelody) on one to act as an iSCSI target, another server as a VirtualCenter server and two old Dell PE2650s as VMWare ESX 3.5 servers. This works fine for VMotion, DRS, HA and all the other good stuff that VMWare supports but still takes 4 physical boxes, two of which need to be multiprocessor or multicore and have a fair amount of RAM. In a pinch you could get this down to 3 servers if you combined the VC server and the SANMelody server onto one box.

Then I got to thinking, I know people have installed ESX Server as a VM under VMWare Server or GSX Server so would it be possible to create all four machines as VMs on one physical box? This would let me give the two people I am training their own server (the PE2650s) and they could run through the entire setup on their own.

I'm going to have a go myself today and see what happens.

Rain Gear

I think I have most of my lightweight gear selected without too much internal debate over which to choose. But for some reason, I've spent a huge amount of time trying to figure out what type of rain gear to get.

I started off with the Marmot Precip jacket and pants as that seemed a pretty common choice amongst other backpacker's gear lists. At a combined weight of 586 grams it looked to be a good (and cheaper!) choice. I'm now leaning towards the Montbell Peak jacket and pants which have a combined weight of 530 grams but appear to have much better ventilation which will be important since I do most my hiking in spring, summer and fall and being on the west coast of Vancouver Island we get a lot of rain!

I had toyed with the idea of using an umbrella and a wind jacket and pants but I don't think I can make that leap just yet. We get too much rain here which can come out of nowhere for me to put my trust in a flimsy jacket and pants and an umbrella. I'm also not sure how I'd grow the third arm to hold my poles and the umbrella.

If money was no object I'd go for the Integral Designs eVent Rain jacket as this seems to have gotten very good test results, both for ventilation and water repellancy. I don't think I can bring myself to drop close to $500 for jacket and pants for something that will hopefully spend a lot of time in the bottom of the bag.

First Post!

I wanted to create a blog to keep track of various tid bits of information that I come across while researching for projects at work as well as hobbies and interests at home.

Currently, I'm looking into Ultralight Backpacking after an aborted attempt at the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail last summer due to carrying about 25 Kg of gear. My target is to get my "skin out" weight (gear in pack including consumables plus gear worn) under 12 Kg. Once I figure out how to post it,I will put up the gear list that I am currently using or thinking of getting.