As The Crow Flies

This is from “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall.

We monitored the results of the 2004 New York City Marathon and compared finishing times by age. What we found is that starting at age nineteen, runners get faster every year until they hit their peak at twenty-seven. After twenty seven, they start to decline.

So here’s the question — how old are you when you’re back to running the same speed you did at nineteen?

The answer: 64!

I just finished a book you’d love. It’s called “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen” It’s by Christopher McDougall.

A good story and useful information—what more you could ask for. I couldn’t put it down.

My days of shelling out 700 dollars a hike for footwear are over.

These guys do 100 mile runs wearing homemade sandals. Their energy drink is chia seeds dissolved in water with lime and sugar added. And their energy food is pinole(roasted corn flour with sugar added, I believe). I think pinole is going to be the next corn pasta on the PCT.

I bought my Macabi hiking skirt in 2004. I tried hiking in it on the CDT but my legs would get burned when I laid down for a nap and I got some chaffing between my legs.

I see many thru-hikers wearing them though, men and women, and they love it.

I wear mine all winter long with long underwear underneath. It feels warmer to me than pants. I also think there is something about wearing a skirt that is good for flow.

There are snaps to shorten the skirt. There is also a clip to make the skirt into pants or shorts. The shorts thing doesn’t really work because it’s still really easy to expose yourself…. maybe I was doing it wrong.

If it rains, you can shorten the skirt with the snaps and wear a trash bag skirt over it or put on rain pants and pack the skirt away till it stops raining.

One thing you need to be mindful of when wearing this skirt—don’t stand next to any heat source or it starts to melt and burn. I have little burns all over mine from standing near a campfire, a propane heater, and even just standing next to a wood stove.

When I start dragging on the trail, I unfurl my Z-Rest and take a short power nap—maybe 20 minutes or so.

Most of the time it’s just me in my sphere on the trail.   So I lie down in the middle of trail confident that no one will be coming along.

I need to be careful  of doing that right out of town because there are often day hikers around.   One time I  felt sleepy coming out of town, so I laid down on the trail and went to sleep.  I woke up to a day hiker screaming because she thought I was dead.

A hiker on the Appalachian Trail told me this story:  She was hiking along when she saw a man lying on the trail.  He had his tent laid over him and a “Do Not Disturb” sign out.  “Odd place to take  a nap” she thought as she carefully slipped by him mindful of not disturbing him.   A little ways down the the trail she met a sheriff who said the man was dead.

This is a seam ripper. You can use it to remove the company logos that have been sewn on to the outside of your clothes and gear.

There are enough ads in this world we don’t need them on our clothes.

Company names and logos look  bad and render clothes useless for anything but for the activity they were intended.

I once owned a nylon shirt in vibrant blue with no logos on it. I wore it for everything. When I took my dying mother on a cruise, I wore it with some black slacks and fake pearls to formal night. Then I wore it on a 5-month Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike. I kept wearing it every day for the next year. Then I wore it for the Florida Trail. Next, I wore it for the Appalachian Trail. Somewhere in Connecticut, I replaced it.

That was a good shirt. It didn’t have any logos so all I needed was one shirt that went from formal night on a cruise to hiking a long trail.

My grandchild is preparing to be born, so, I have been shopping for baby gear. The outdoor clothing manufactures are putting logos on baby clothes! I can’t believe anyone could be so crass.

They aren’t going to stop until people refuse to wear their company toting stuff.

Everything looks better without logos.

Related Posts: Yes, we have no logos
Removing the logo from your pot lid

Once I was hiking along with Pinball and we were talking about gear. He boasted that he used Kelty Lightline on his tent. It’s reflective so you don’t trip over your tent lines at night.

I said, I used to use that too until I hiked the Florida Trail and then the hunters that roar through the woods at night shooting at anything that reflects made me change my mind.

Then, one long hard day, we made it to a campground with water. There was a bunch of drunk loud people but we were too beat to carry on further. We both put up our gray tents.

After dark, as I was lying in my tent, I hear a truck and see the red backup lights getting closer to my tent. Then I hear, “Oh fuck! There’s people back there.” Then I saw brake lights glowing through the wall of my tent.

It was probably Pinball’s reflective line that caught his attention and stopped him from backing over us.

One time when my son and I were on a hike,  we were lying on a mountain top.   I pointed at a hill off  in the distance and said, “I think there is a cell tower on that hill.”

He took my reading glasses and his glasses and lined up the two pairs of glasses so he was looking through both of them.   Then he moved them closer and further away from each other and closer and further away from his face until the hill came in focus and said, “Yep, it’s a cell tower”.

He says,  it’s easiest to start with  both lenses pretty close to your eye, then slowly move them away from your eye.  Depending on the lenses, the first one will probably be 4 inches away from your eye, the second will be 3 inches farther.

He also says if you only have one pair of glasses you can still do it,  if you don’t’ mind popping out one of the lenses.

Stinky hikers don’t bother me; I don’t really notice.  But stinky hikers that try to cover up their stink with deodorants and scents  can make me gag.

Deodorants and scents are for clean people that don’t smell.  When dirty, stinky people try to cover up their stink with scents and deodorants it doesn’t make them smell good, it  amplifies the stink.

If you want to smell better, wash up.

A lot of hikers start their long hikes very early, with the thought that they will train on the trail.    On the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) that means they may run into snow in the first 150 miles.   Then, many of them start skipping right away, setting the tone for the rest of their hike.

You also don’t heal as well on the trail as you do at home where you can, sleep comfortably, take baths, eat good fresh food, and hydrate well.  The trail has stresses that make it hard to fully rest and recover.

A smarter alternative to starting early is to stay at home for those two or three weeks and do training hikes of 20 miles every other day with a 35-40 lb pack.    Get good rest, eat good food, take baths,  heal and build in a stress free environment.   Then when you hit the trail with your light pack, you will be ready to go.

This is a reprint of an old blog post but I don’t think it got the recognition it deserved so I’m posting it again.

When I travel around with my kayak on my roof rack and people see the wheels attached, they drive by and give me a thumbs up because  right away they can see my method for loading and unloading my kayak by myself.

1. Put a bath mat on back of your vehicle where your kayak will touch it, so that it won’t scratch your car ( the rubber on the back is so it won’t slide of your roof.)

2. Put a V-shaped kayak foam block on each of your roof rack rails.

3. Attach  a wheeled kayak cart to the back of your kayak.

4. Lift  front of kayak up on roof.

5. Go to back of kayak, lift up letting the front of the kayak rest in the V of the foam block, and push on.

6. Leave the wheels attached so they are ready for you to unload again.

To unload:

Grab hold of the back of your kayak and pull it off and down so the back is resting on the wheels.

When the back is resting on the ground on the wheels and the front is resting on the top of the roof rack, go to the front and just lift the front down to the ground.

Now you are ready to wheel your kayak to the water.

When encountering a fellow hiker,  don’t feel you need to shake hands when you introduce yourself.   Just smile and nod.  I read somewhere that hobo’s don’t do a lot of hand shaking.  Probably because they aren’t sure about their fellow hobo’s hygiene.   Same as on the trail.

Bags organize gear and make it  fast to pack up.  They also make it  easy to know where everything is.    I think they should be different colors.  I like bright colors because they are less likely to get left behind.    I hiked with a guy, for awhile, that thought his should not only be different colors, but different textures as well so he could reach into his pack and just by feel know what bag he was pulling out.

These are my bags.

Clear plastic pack liner:  I stuff my sleeping bag into this because it’s faster and easier than stuffing it into a stuff sack.  It also more evenly fills up the bottom of my pack.

Big red bag is my food bag.

Yellow bag is my clothes bag and also my pillow.

1 or 2 gallon Ziploc is my office:  maps, guide book, pen, cellphone, etc.

Red zippered bag is my ditty bag

I stuff my tent without it’s stuff sack into the big stretchy outside pocket of my pack.  I put the tent stakes  in there too, in a little bag.   That way I don’t need to open my pack to set up my tent and I can pack up everything, pop out of my tent and stuff it into it’s pocket.

When everything is in bags it makes set up and break down of camp easy.   Not to brag or anything but I can set up or break camp in under 4 minutes.

I’m not one of those huffing hikers powering down the trail with their trekking poles a flying.

When I hike it’s more like I’m coasting–like I’m just resting on my legs as they move me along.  I pick a nice even easy speed that I can keep up hour after hour day after day.

I don’t carry poles so my hands are free.  I have a beverage in my strap pocket to drink as I go; snacks in my hip belt pocket; I fiddle with my MP3 player listening to music or finding a radio station; I look around at the scenery; I have my GPS in the other strap pocket that I can amuse myself with.    Feels a lot like driving.

A lot of people power past me, especially boy scouts, then 40 minutes later I pass them resting on the side of the trail and I never see them again, but  every once in awhile I get stuck with someone,  or even worst a group of people, who power past me, then they take a break and I past them, then here they come powering up behind me again.  I have had that go on for days—that drives me nuts.    Leapfroggers are the worst.

You might remember the Nomad Lites made my Wanderlust Gear.   Wanderlust Gear was one guy, a sewing machine, and a good idea for a tent.   I carried a Nomad lite for years.   I think it weighed less than 2 lbs,  I could set it up and take it down  in less than a minute.  It fit anywhere; which can really be appreciated when you are tired and it’s raining but you can’t find a spot big enough to put up your tent….But, it required trekking poles and I hated carrying trekking poles.

Well, Wanderlust Gear disappeared off the face of the Internet a long time ago.   I contacted his webmaster— he hadn’t heard from him;  I sent him a check for a tent and it came back.  Poof, this guy was gone.

I often wondered why no one picked up his design.   In fact with my new sewing machine I was thinking of pulling out my old nomad light, tweaking the design a bit and making  a lighter improved one.

Looking around the Internet this morning I stumbled on to LightHeart Gear.    It’s a hiker/sewer selling a tent that  looks to be a lot like  the Nomad light.     It’s a double walled tent weighing in at 26 oz (737grams).  It requires 4 stakes and two trekking poles.   It comes in some crazy colors.   I like colors but I think gray is the best color for a tent so people can’t see you.   In standard gray it cost 235.00   The fly is attached but you can roll it up and enjoy the stars when you just want a net tent for the night.