I usually take some fruit with me on the trail, if it’s available. Fresh food is worth the weight to me. It’s power food.
I’m all about “leave no trace,” so I would have apple cores and orange rinds in my garbage sack. For awhile now I have been eating the apple cores. This winter I have discovered the joys of eating orange rinds. Orange rinds are tasty; I don’t why it took me so long to discover them.
I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2003. It was a wet and cold year. I hiked exclusively in Chaco sandals. To keep my feet from getting too cold, I often wore neoprene socks. My neoprene socks were wearing out and all the seams were splitting. In one small town, I tried to replace them at an outfitter. He didn’t have neoprene, but assured me that waterproof socks would work just as well.
I bought the waterproof socks and discarded my worn out neoprene in his trash. It wasn’t long before a horrible odor started emanating from the waterproof socks. After a
week or so, the smell was enormous and putrid.
I was meeting up at nights with another hiker. In the mornings, I would start hiking before her and by the end of the day; we would meet up and camp together. One afternoon she said to me, “I knew I was getting close to you; I have been smelling your socks for awhile now.”
One night we were camped under a huge open covered area. I placed the socks as far as I could from us without throwing them out in the rain, probably 35 feet or so. Once we laid down, she turned to me and said, “Where are those socks?” “Way over there,” I pointed. “Well, I still smell them.” she scowled.
When we got in town, we visited the Appalachian Trail Society. She felt bad because they didn’t want to take our pictures for the thru-hiker wall and they shooed us out of the hiker box. I said, “Don’t feel bad, I think it’s the socks they don’t like.”
She was meeting her husband in town. After we did laundry, where I washed those stinking socks twice, they gave me a ride to my motel. In the car, he said, “What’s that smell?” With a voice and face that conveyed the message, “Do you see what I put up with?” she sighed, “It’s Crow’s socks”
After a night in the motel, where I kept the socks encased in a plastic bag and still they stunk up the room, I decided I was going to send them back to the manufacturer and ask for a refund. I had to hitch a ride, though, and I had visions of the ride stopping and kicking me out because of the stink, so I threw them away.
To the manufacturer of waterproof socks: You owe me 40 bucks.
In preparation of the upcoming hiking season, I have started carrying weight in my backpack. I’m saving my Mountainsmith Ghost for the trail, so I’m using my Cabelas Alaskan packboard. What a comfortable pack.
That’s the thing about packs, they really can’t just be considered weight. If you are carrying a super light weight pack, okay, it is just weight. But if you have a nice pack that will lift and carry the weight off of your shoulder you are able to carry more weight with comfort so you can’t really count the whole pack as weight.
“Just Dave” and I use to laugh about the ultra-ultra light backpackers and say their sport wasn’t backpacking but getting their pack weight down. Just Dave said, “Why don’t they just bring a water bottle and a space blanket?”
Best Hike–The Blog list several ultra-light packs. There are many hikers out there who will tell you that their ultra-light packs carry well. I ask them, “Compared to what?”
The Camera Trap Codger, writes about a way that would possibly improve the carry of a light weight backpack–the trump line.
Mountainsmith quit making my pack, probably because of too many failures. It weighs just over 2lbs(1 kilo). The entire support is a thin fiberglass rod that forms a U shaped hoop and exerts a ton of pressure on the bottom of the pack. Eventually it wears a hole in the bottom and the rod pops out. It’s a good design though. “Pinball” thought that if you used a “D” shaped rod instead of a “U” shaped rod that it might remedy the problem. It completely lifts the weight off of my shoulders. It also is a front loader so I can get at whatever I want without taking everything out. Someone should start making this pack, again–in red or saffron and with no logos, please.
My friend Pinball is darning all his PCT(Pacific Crest Trail) socks and says he has enough darned socks to hike the CDT(Continental Divide Trail). He learned how from this article Learn 2 darn a sock.
I met this guy on the PCT(Pacific Crest Trail) last year. He has a site where he sells gear he makes. He also list his PCT gear list with a base weight of under 5lbs. (2.26kg)
See the pointing hat he’s wearing? It opens up flat so he could sit on it during his breaks.
Personally, I think, people who feel that their 4 oz packs are comfortable, just don’t know any better. But he does have great prices on cuben fiber stuff sacks and if you want a 4 oz pack this would be the place to get it.
Check out Samurai Joe’s site at http://www.zpacks.com
I wear Chaco Sandals a lot when hiking. A drawback to wearing sandals is dry cracked feet. To avoid them, I filed my feet with a foot file, greased them up with Carmex and put plastic shopping bags over my feet while I took my siesta. Carmex comes in .35 ounce tubes and is found at most stores along the way.
If I neglected my feet too long, I used super glue to glue the cracks together. The cracks felt like walking on glass. Super glue is key to comfort when you have cracked feet. It is also sold at most stores along the way.
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I hate logos on my gear. I am not a walking billboard. The affixing of brand-names and logos on the outside of gear has got to stop. North Face will be first against the wall when the no-logos revolution begins.
Until then, I dream of making my own logo-free gear. I could make it just the way I want it. I haven’t sewed on a machine since 7th grade home ec class and I don’t own a machine, but that doesn’t keep me from dreaming.
I found a couple of good sites that sell fabrics and patterns for gear.
http://www.questoutfitters.com/index.html
http://www.thru-hiker.com/index.html
And while I dream of making my own gear it’s equally important to dream of a place to travel with it. At besthike.com I can plan my “around the world hiking extravaganza!”
Sometimes, when you are on a long hike, you may find when you get into town, you start feeling really tired and maybe a little sick. Best thing, I think, to do is grab a bunch of food, skip the shower, laundry and internet, and get back on the trail as quick as you can. Once you get back on the trail, you will probably feel fine again. If you don’t: lay down, eat, drink and take a nap.
When there are lots of floaty things on the top of the water but underneath the water is clear, submerge your water bottle in the water source with the cap on. Take the cap off while it is underwater and fill. Once full, screw the cap back on underwater.
On this summer’s PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) hike, nobody ever accused me of being too clean to be a thru-hiker. Instead, the comment I most often garnered was, “Wow, you look like you’ve been out there for awhile.” The longest I went without washing my clothes was 450 miles. That’s a record for me.
Even after washing, my clothes still looked dirty. I found that if I washed them twice, they looked a lot better after the second wash.
When I was at a silent retreat in Thailand, they had cushions and little wooden stools to help us meditate more comfortably. There were a record number of participants so only some of the people got stools but all of us got at least one cushion.
The rules for the 10 days were: we weren’t allowed to speak, make hand signals, write notes, or make eye contact with anyone. Also once you established your spot in the meditation hall, it was your space. You could leave your cushion there and know one was supposed to take it.
Some people had a stool and a cushion. Some people had a stool and lots of cushions. They were propped up like cushion queens. While the cushion queens meditated in relative bliss I was very uncomfortable with my one cushion. Then one day I came to meditation hall and some one had swiped my cushion, so I had to sit without one.
After a painful day of meditation where I worked on giving up my attachment to comfort, I looked around and found a pillar that no one was using and sat propped up against that. The next day I arrived to find some one sitting against my pillar. So, back to sitting on the floor with no cushion. Then I eyed a little bench that sat out side of the open air hall. I started sitting there for meditation until, again, someone stole my place.
Tired, sore, bored out of my mind and with intense thoughts about quiting the retreat, I brought out my therma-rest and chair kit and sat for the rest of the retreat in comfort. It was the trump card. No one could take my camp chair because it was mine. When we would say our vows to not sit on comfortable chairs I could feel the eyes on me but I didn’t care.
Now I’m turning over the idea of going to Nepal and one of the attractions for me is the meditation retreats. Since I’m always looking for an edge, especially when my
enlightenment is at stake, I found this possible solution to the pain of sitting in meditation all day. I read about it on KK cool tools. It said that it was inspired by the ropes worn by monks to help them sit up straight for hours in meditation. It’s called a Slouch! Buster . It weighs 8 oz (227 grams) and is supposed to be helpful for getting through long flights as well.
This is my new headlamp. It’s a Petzl e+lite. A lot of thru-hikers only carry this headlamp but I think it will replace my Photon as my spare light. At .9 ounces(27 grams) batteries included, it’s heavier than a .25 ounce Photon but it packs a lot more features, power, and light:
For hikers or travelers not planning to night hike this could be a main light. But for night hikers I would suggest using this as a backup light and carry a 1 watt LED head lamp for hiking at night.
I hiked with a guy for awhile (until he got sick and I left him to die in the desert alone), who only hiked with this headlight. He loved it–it is a nice little light– but I don’t think he did much night hiking once we parted ways. He commented that he was experiencing some light envy in regards to my 1 watt LED Black Diamond Spot.
Note: The band had “petzl” written 7 times in white lettering on it, so I took a black Sharpie and drew over it. I think it looks better this way. I also think it would look better without the logo on the light–I hate logos on my gear–maybe I’ll get a red sharpie. It comes with a case to loop it on to your belt–I don’t think a person needs a case for their flashlight.
Oh, and that man I abandoned in the desert to die…. he lived and finished the hike. I’m glad I didn’t shoot him.
When I was little and my mother took me to downtown Portland, I remember seeing my first “bag lady”. I was maybe six or so and I thought,” Yes! That’s who I want to be when I grow up.” And though the image of the roaming self-sufficient woman living on the edges of society still appeals to me, I don’t want to smell like one. For this reason, I take a rag with me when peeing in the outdoors to dab away the stray drops of urine.
The best rag, I have found, is one that isn’t too absorbent, because an absorbent rag, like a terry cloth washcloth, will begin to smell and is hard to clean– just rinsing it out doesn’t usually work. Half of a lightweight bandana cut diagonally with a buttonhole at one end so you can loop it on to the back of your pack works well. The best pee dabber I have used was a worn out Teva bamboo sock. I kept it in the outside side pocket of my pack.
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Menstrual care–on the trail on off.
I have a fair amount of gear and some of it, is at my son’s. I tell him when he looks at the gear he should get all tingly, thinking about the independence and adventure that it will bring, but he doesn’t feel it. He is moving to a place with less storage, so, he is sending the gear back to me.
Since you’re not supposed to store your sleeping bag compressed, sleeping bags take up a lot of room.
I read a mother Earth News article called, “The year round down bag.” and the accompanying diagrams, where the writer uses her down bags as a comforter and as bolster pillows when she is not backpacking.
I stuffed a sleeping bag in a pillow case and–viola!– a pillow. The big pillow in this picture is a body pillow case stuffed with a Feathered Friends Hummingbird and a Marmot Helium.
My sister made some bolster pillow covers for me. They are just open ended tubes with a contrasting color inside and a tie on either end. I tried stuffing my tents into them. In one bolster pillow cover, I stuffed my Lunar Solo and my Travel Tent ; it looked okay.
I sleep in my Marmot Helium every night, it’s easy to tidy up my cabin by just stuffing it in a pillow case and laying it on my couch.
Figuring out how much food to bring on a hike is easy, once you know how many calories you need. If you get into town with too much food, you know to lower your calories per day and if you get into town hungry, you can bump it up. You will at least know how many calories you get each day, so you can ration your food.
I usually figure 1500 in the begining of a hike and move it up to about 3000 once my appetite kicks in. But I can always ration it, to make it last longer if I slow down, or eat more if I’m going faster. Some hikers needed 4000 -5000 calories, some only needed 1500, even after being on the trail along time.
When I arrived at the begining of the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail), my food bag contained: 2 apples and 3 bars. When I got to the Lake Morena store, 20 miles later, it still had an apple and a bar in it.
To get through a 200 mile section of the Sierras, I bought a basket of food, sat down, and added up the calories as I loaded my bear canister. I filled a Bear Vault 350 with 20,000 calories, figuring that would be 2500 calories a day for eight days. I then brought some extra food, in my food bag, for my first day. That gave me an extra day of food in case I needed to slow down. I got into town 8 days later with nothing but some really bad trail bars rattling around in my bear canister. I was hungry when I got there, but it was a good, edgy hunger, not a debilitating hunger.
Some people quit because they can’t carry enough food. I think they would find, if they slowed downed their pace a little but upped the hours that they hike, they could still hike the same miles per day but would require less food.