Category: Adventure gear and techniques

So why did people start wearing underwear?  Probably to keep their pants clean.  And why did they start wearing pants?  Probably to cut down on chafing when they rode horses.*  And why did women start squatting to pee?  ‘Cause they were wearing underwear and pants. So if you’re not riding a horse you might find your life improved without either.

I’ve been exclusively wearing a Macabi hiking skirt for years now.    On trail and off, year ’round.  I don’t own a pair of pants or a pair of underwear.

The number one advantage of wearing a skirt is doing away with underwear and being able to pee standing up without having to remove your pack—-this is no small life improvement.

If you are a man you probably have  mastered peeing standing up.  If you are a woman you may need a little trial and error to learn what works best for you.

Here is one technique to get you started:   Wide stance, with one hand grab the back of your skirt and pull it away from your body,  with the other hand pull up the front of your skirt, grab your pubis and with a finger on either side of your urethra, pull up so that your urethra is pointing in the right direction and is freed from the folds.  Pee.  Blot dry with the hem of your skirt, continue hiking.   (For some reason my skirt doesn’t smell like pee.)

One problem you may encounter is thigh chafing when it gets hot.  I solved this problem by taking a Summer Buff, sewing a little pocket around the top to push through a band of elastic,  and wearing it on one of my thighs.   Monistat Soothing Care Chafing Relief Powder-Gel also works well but you have to keep reapplying it.    I have never tried this but these thigh chafing bands might work.  

With the Macabi skirt you can wear it long or snap it up for a knee-length skirt.  You can also turn it in to pants or shorts but I never do that.  I usually hike with it snapped up.

When it rains, I wear the skirt snapped up and a trash bag rain skirt over it.

It has huge self draining pockets so you can swim in it.   It also as a zippered pocket which is where I carry my money and cards— So they are always with me and secure.

The skirt is for both men and women–  it looks very good on men.

I met a woman in Sierras who would take off her top, pull her skirt under her armpits, and wear it like a dress to modestly clean herself on the trail.

* I didn’t research this or anything—just some info I pulled out of the atmosphere.

Now, I’m not totally blaming the marshmallow like Hoka One One shoes for me ending up with a knee brace, cane, and a dent in my leg muscle but I believe the high unstable shoe was at least partly to blame.    Would not recommend if you are hiking on uneven terrain.  Even though my feet didn’t hurt in them, they tweaked everything else.

After my injury healed, (the dent still remains), I tried the Altra Lone Peaks 1.5  combined with a soft insole.    They were close to the ground, no heal lift, and a big wide toe box.

Love them— I can put in a 30 mile day and not have feet that scream at me.   But then….they changed the shoe.  So, I bought every pair in my size I could find.

One thing I really dislike about the Altra’s Lone Peaks is the very loose weave of the shoe.   Even while wearing gaiters, my feet were as filthy and dried out as if I had been walking in sandals.    On the Oregon Coast Trail, they would fill with sand but I couldn’t just empty the shoes cause the sand would be inside the weave so I’d have to beat the shoes together for like 10 minutes to empty them and then they would start filling up again.

The loose weave made me long for a water-proof version.    I don’t mind my feet getting wet but I like  water-proof shoes cause they keep my feet clean and moist so my feet don’t dry out and crack.

I’m on my last pair of the 1.5’s.  Looking at the new ones I was happy to see they now come in a water-proof version.    It looks like the new shoe is a little higher than the old ones (which for the above reasons I feel is a mistake). They are however, feeling great on my little 7 mile walks but it’s hard to tell till I hit the trail.  I have high hopes.

One more cool thing about these shoes is they have a little hidden splotch of velcro on the back of the heel for securing Dirty Girl Gaiters.

This has been my trail shelter for years.  I think it’s the perfect set up– the ideal vagabond kit.  It’s a mosquito net, it’s a rain poncho, it’s a tarp, it’s a doubled wall tent.

The cape/tarp weighs 12 oz (340 grams) and the net-tent weighs 11 oz (311) and quickly sets up with 6 stakes and a trekking pole.

I believe the Gatewood Cape was named after Grandma Gatewood,  who walked the Appalachian Trail with a shower curtain that was her rain gear and her shelter.

  In Colorado, I would use it as a rain poncho in monsoons and then, when I got smart, would quickly set it up as a tarp, crawl inside and take a nap till the monsoon was over. 

I walked the Camino in Winter.  I was a little worried about crossing the Pyrenees in winter as some pilgrims get caught in snow storms and die.   I brought my tent stakes and my 4 ounce carbon Z- trekking pole and felt secure that if that happened, I could set up my Gatewood Cape and safely wait out the storm.    Although I never needed to set it up as a shelter, on the Camino, I wore it often as a rain poncho.

A mosquito net is the worlds best invention—why would anyone not carry one?  Whenever I watch survival shows where they can only bring a few items, no one ever brings a mosquito net, but that is the first item I would add.

If the bugs are bad but the weather is nice, I can sleep in comfort in just the net tent.   When I want to take a break from the mosquitoes or biting flies, I quickly set it up, crawl inside and restore my sanity while I eat my dinner or take a siesta in peace.

Sometimes, when it’s  really cold, I sleep inside the collapsed net-tent like a bivy and it adds a surprising amount of warmth.

Although I’ve never tried this, you are supposed to be able to hang it in a shelter for a bug free sleep.

You can leave the net tent attached to the Cape and set it up as one– as quick as a tent—and its a complete double walled tent.

It blocks the wind nicely.   No where does the net tent touch the walls of the cape, so, no waking up wet from condensation.   There is a big vestibule for cooking and to store muddy shoes.      The door is high enough for you to get a little view, even when closed, as you lay in your bag.

The hood of the cape makes a top vent.   If it’s raining and you want to make a protected top vent you can stick your hat on your pole, pull the hood over it and make a little protected air vent.   You can open and close the vent from your sleeping bag.

There is a big pocket that works as a pocket while using as a rain poncho,  an inside pocket when using as a shelter and the cape and net-tent can be stuffed inside the pocket for packing–although I usually just stuff it in my pack or in the outside pocket of my pack if its wet.

One disadvantage of  sil-nylon, is it relaxes once you set it up and can become quite slack in the rain, so, you have to leave your tent and tighten things up.   I solve this problem by setting up the cape with my trekking pole at an angle.  When I feel the tent slacken, I pull the pole towards me and everything is tight again.  There is also a tension adjuster inside the tent, on the new ones, that will further tighten things up if needed.

Tip for quick set up:  Tie one color of flagging tape on the back tie out and tie another color on each of the two front side tie outs.  This makes it easy to see  where everything is. First stake the back,  then stake the two front sides leaving a little slack.   Insert pole and stake out front.  Stake out the two remaining  pull-outs and go around and adjust everything so it is very taut.    There are two additional pull outs on the side walls, but I never use those and I can’t see how they would improve anything.

If you plan to use it as a rain poncho, I recommend making a little shock-cord belt for it so it doesn’t blow around so much.   There are snaps to snap up the excess when using as a rain poncho.  This isn’t my only rain gear, I carry a Z-packs rain coat and a trash bag rain skirt as well.

Tent stakes:  I used to go with all super light thin titanium stakes but after I got a trail lesson in high winds and soft soil, I started carrying at least 3 better holding stakes like these hex stakes.   Last year on the Oregon Coast trail, I tried carrying a few MSR Groundhog stakes; they held well in the sand and wind.

I only have one outfit—I’ve worn the same thing, on trail and off, summer and winter, everyday for years—a macabi hiking skirt and a nylon shirt.

Since I only have the one outfit, I carefully select my clothes like a super hero selects their outfit.

Although this combo works well most of the time, I’ve been unhappy with nylon shirts in the hot desert because they are hot and aren’t breathable enough.  So, before heading out to the Arizona Trail,  I bought a Columbia Sportswear omni freeze shirt.   My conclusion?– Basically they have taken every disadvantage of a nylon shirt–hot and not breathable enough, and combined it with all the disadvantages of a cotton shirt–cold when wet and slow to dry.

So the next year, when heading back to the desert of the Pacific Crest Trail, I decided to just go with a light weight cotton shirt–breathable, quick to dry, cools when wet and very comfortable.   Worked great and would use again for deserts.

There, however, is a reason you never see a super hero wearing natural fibers— they quickly disintegrate when adventuring.    Even though I kept repairing it with dental floss, in less than a thousand miles, it looked liked I had been marooned for 20 years— that shirt was nothing but a hopeless rag and had to be replaced; where as a nylon shirt will last years and multiple long hikes.

I replaced it with a nylon shirt but I would definitely go back to cotton next time I’m hiking in the desert.

An idea: I was thinking, if a person was sending themselves boxes on a trail, it might be an idea to buy a bunch of used shirts at a thrift store or yard sale and pop out a new shirt every resupply.   That way you could look spiffy when hitching a ride back to trail instead of trying to hitch in a stained raggedy shirt.   You  also wouldn’t have to do laundry, and you wouldn’t have to keep repairing your cotton shirt.  I’ve seen shirts at yard sales for .25 a piece.

I now have a Samsung Galaxy 6s Active, which is supposed to be waterproof, but for three years I carried an Iphone on the trail.   When it was raining I would put it in a sandwich baggie.   It weighs 2 grams and cost 1.59 for a box of 50.    I could easily operate the phone through the plastic.

To use the headphones I poked a little hole in the bag.

I also had a cheap little gel case for it to improve gripping and to give it some bounce when I dropped it.

My phone didn’t have an easy life.  I dropped it many times and  walked through  monsoons, showers, hail, and snow and my phone made it through intact.

Several years ago, I decided to look at trail water like something akin to the way devotees look at the Ganges River—holy and safe to drink.    That worked out okay for me on the Pacific Crest Trail and I can say I’ve hiked the whole PCT and never treated a drop, although sometimes I would filter out the floaties with my bandanna.

Hours before heading out to hike the Arizona Trail, however, my faith wavered and I stopped in at REI to purchase some chlorine dioxide tablets to throw in my bag—just in case.

I’m glad I did because I encountered a water source that tasted so strongly of cow shit that I couldn’t keep it down.    I broke out my tablets and poof my water tasted good.

I encountered worse sources on the Arizona Trail.   One was an almost dried up pond fully surrounded with acres of cow shit.  If that wasn’t discouraging enough, there was a guy with a jet ski in the little pond going around and around stirring up the muck.  He kept getting stuck because it was so shallow.

It would have been a funny sight if it wasn’t the last water for 40 miles and I wasn’t hot and water stressed.    I walked up to him and asked him to quit spinning around while I get my water.   He said, “I wouldn’t drink that if I was you.”    He said the pond usually had a lot more water in it.

I was hoping he might offer me some water but he didn’t.   He had a gallon of water on the tailgate of his pickup and I should have offered to buy it from him for any price but I was feeling too emotionally fragile to risk getting turned down.

I walked on with my muddy, cow shit water hoping that maybe I would find something better.   Several miles later, when I came to a road crossing.  I walked up to a house in the distance, told the guy that I was very disappointed with the last water source, and asked if I could have some water.   I worried he would say no but I later heard that in Arizona, if someone asks for water you have to give them some.   I don’t know if that’s true but it sounds like a good law to me.  Anyway, he gave me some water and got me out of that pickle.

I met a water treatment worker hiking the Arizona Trail.   One of the ways he treated his water was to use a pinch of alum to settle the mud.   I looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently this is an ancient water treatment method that clears the water by making the fine molecules clump together and sink.    Here is the science behind this.

So heading out to the Continental Divide Trail, later that same year, I brought a little container of alum with me.   You can buy it in the baking aisle at the grocery store.

In the Great Basin in Wyoming,  I came to a water source that was little more than a mud puddle,   I strained it through my bandanna, put a pinch of alum in it,  took a nap, and when I woke up it had cleared. 

When I first gave up treating my water I carried giardia meds with me– just in case.  I bought them from a pet supply store.