Mt. Hancock & Dogs

tMail, Spanky and I hit the Hancocks for a quick 4hr loop.  

Mutha's Trip Report (pics here):  Excellent mild weather - easy brook crossings (frozen over - walked on ice).  On the trail surface it was typically a substantial coating of ice and a few inches of powder.  We took the clockwise route, saving the steep part for the descent.  Oddly, I remembered the north summit ascent as being steeper - I've got all my trails confused.  You'd think I had that all straight.  In general, the footing was fine for the dogs (had to lift Jake up some rocks a few times). South Peak was typically more windblown and snowy and the drop down the chute challenging at high speed - entire trek took about 4hrs which is only 1/2 longer than my 'good weather' time of 3.5 last November. Given that we had stops for dogs & footwear, and an icy descent I'd say that was pretty quick. 

Ran into good friend Robyn on the trail, hiking with a big group. Lots of folks on the trail - lots of dogs too. It was a surprisingly busy place (I guess it was the nice weather).

Heard it on the mountain:

• Relationships only work if the partner treats you like a real, complete human being.
• You can defend a bunker better with a shotgun than a handgun, except at close range when long knives are handy.
• Immediately:  establish food cache, communications and transportation lines.  Head for the hills and only take tactical/functional/survival items (leave books, photos and business records behind).
• The Canadians will never make it into the rough terrain.  They'll focus on established roads first, giving us time to build an effective resistance.

tMail's Trip Report:  What a great day a little bit of a leg burner as we dropped the hammer going up Hancock and across to South Hancock. I think we went from Hancock to the bottom of South Hancock at the split in 45 minutes.

Trip Report Conversation:

• Vermont is the ideal location for this group to relocate and form our own militia and become self sustainable.
• Only gear is that which is tactical for survival would make the trip North. Cross bike important - gas may be too expensive.
• We would need to arm ourselves, I have a double barrel shotgun and .22 with scope.
• We would live completely off the gov't grid in Hookersville in DogMan's compound all in camouflage.
• Wikileaks what a mess this is becoming. Is this Cyberwar?
• Cheaper to eat unhealthy and become a significant money pit to healthcare system than eat right. Cost of eating healthy out of control.
• Chapter 11 - United States of America Bernanke has hinted at QE3 another 600 billion.
• DogMan can you scout high ground something south facing lots of sun we can go solar screw the electric grid, grow our own food. Work on it.
• If we needed to milita-ize in Hookersville where is our ammunition supply?
• Bunkers would be huge.
• Telecommunications hub to transfer money.

Government is crumbling we need to think about this stuff. F the Hancocks!