In my early days as Ranger Bob, during college and law school, my outdoor buddies and I took many backpacking trips to Linville Gorge. We often took the loop route from Kistler Memorial Highway down the Conley Cove trail, up the Linville Gorge Trail beside the Linville River to Sandy Flats (no longer on the map, located where the spring is marked by the river on the trail southeast of Wiseman's View), further up the river to the Babel Towers Trail and back down Kistler Memorial Highway to the Conley Cove Trail head.

Sometime during my first or second year in law school, I am thinking maybe in January 1975, my roommate Jim McKinney and I planned a winter day hike over Grandfather Mountain. Accompanying us were our standard outdoor companions Billy Gardner, (Jim's college suitemate at NCSU) and our NCSU buddy Bruce Frasier, nicknamed Nooksoo, because he always wore an "NCSU" T-shirt (...get it...it looks like it should be pronounced...).

Also along were my younger brothers Frank and James; a girl from UNC law school who was Jim's date, whose name I also forgot; and another girl from NCSU or Meredith who was Nooksoo's date [I think'or did Jim have two dates?].

We spent a cozy several days in my family's cabin at Hope on Shulls Mill Road, Watauga County, before and after the hike. The only heat was a wood and coal burning pot bellied stove in the living room. The bedrooms were so cold as to have frost in them, but we were young and tough and it felt great anyway. The girls were good cooks so we ate hearty.

The main feature of this hike across Grandfather was the heavy ice of various sorts all over the mountain: solid frozen water ice on the trail, rime ice on all the trees, hoar frost in the dirt and snow in the air. We ate lunch on the trail, and it was so cold that we could not take off our gloves. The peanut butter and crackers broke into pieces and we had to eat them off our open palms ' like horses eating grain out of a pail!

Near the top of the first main peak, Calloway, the snow got deep enough that we had a couple of snow ball fights. Jim and Frank exchanged some accidental (or maybe not?) face hits and got into a shoving match. In one of the photos at the top you can see Frank is still scowling.

I have been back on Grandfather Mountain several times since then in similar icy conditions. Each time I found it to be very rough going and memorably tough trips. But for some reason, I have no memory of this 1975 trip being so difficult to traverse the mountain. In all the photos we look like we are having a good time in pleasant circumstances. Were we that much tougher when we were younger? Or does our memory grow rosier as time passes? Either way, a fun time was had by all.

The weekend before my graduation from Wake Forest University, I went backpacking in Linville Gorge. Along for the trip was yours truly Bob Laney, my sister Ann Laney, my good friend from high school Mark Boone and another good friend from NC State Billy Gardner.

The summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I joined a Boy Scout sponsored 70 mile canoe trip on the Shenandoah River near Luray, Front Royal and Harpers Ferry, Virginia. I was the only member from my Explorer Post to go, so in order to have a canoeing partner, I recruited my Boy Scout younger brother Frank Laney. We went with a half dozen other Raleigh area troops for a District organized High Adventure. To give us proper adult leadership, Frank and I were attached to another troop lead by a kindly older gentleman named Rudy who had immigrated to the US from Austria.

DeLorme is a GPS (global positioning system) equipment manufacturer in Maine. Their products are usually regarded as the best on the market, and often win the Backpacker Magazine best gear of the year award. They currently have three overlapping and somewhat confusing products available.

The well known outdoor gear manufacturer Mountain Safety Research has developed a newer, better pump water filter. It is the Guardian Purifier. This equipment garnered the 2016 Backpacker Magazine gear of the year award.

Before you make a first dive with new gear, try to find a way to get in the same kind of water (salt or fresh), wearing your dive suit & all your gear, and adjust your weights to the least amount possible. If you are wearing an exposure suit with no neoprene, and are skinny with little natural flotation, it may be as little as 6 pounds ' which is the buoyancy your air tank will add when empty at the end of the dive. Even with a full neoprene suit and endomorphic body [how is that for a polite way to avoid saying 'fat'!], more than 18 pounds of lead should be suspiciously heavy and re-calibrated.

Humans evolved over a half-million years with body chemistry that produces breast milk for babies that is far superior to any nutrient that can be made in a factory. Mother's milk not only provides food and drink, it is also loaded with vitamins, minerals, antibiotics, enzymes and all kinds of other requisites for a baby's growth and health. Of course, the same thing applies to all mammals.

I like my products as natural as possible. That is why I have advocated down over Polarguard sleeping bags, leather over nylon boots and fires over gas stoves for years. So it is with some chagrin that I report the greatest development I have found in outdoor clothing since Gore-tex. Schoeller fabric is the way to go. It is most often seen in mid-weight pants. But it has recently been cropping up in gloves, hats and coats.

A recent Backpacker magazine article about research by Wilderness and Environmental Medicine in many national parks was enlightening. It studied outdoor water sources and back country illnesses.