I Sleep With My Food

Note: Originally published in 2015. While this post doesn't have the standard satirrific tone of the usual NHTM post, I wanted to do something with it, and FB notes (its original home) has become harder to find than my headlamp when I'm on an overnight.

Since writing this I have switched to using a bear canister, because maintaining possession of my food at all times -- even when going to the privy -- became more annoying than carrying a wee bit of extra weight. But I still believe that bear bagging is the worst method of food storage possible,  short of just throwing it on the ground wherever.

I sleep with my food.  There.  I said it.

I’ve slept with my food in my tent while hiking in twenty-two different states, including ones that have Grizzlies.  When legally required, I’ve used bear canisters (Kings Canyon, Yosemite) and hung food (Yellowstone).  I’ve used bear boxes (New Jersey on the AT) as well as Bear Cables (GSMNP) and Bear Poles (SNP).  But otherwise, I sleep with my food.  And so do a lot of other people.

Why?  Simply put, I believe it to be the best strategy for protecting bears.
This statement is probably viewed incredulously by people who have been told over and over again by official agencies that sleeping with your food is a terrible idea, and that people who do it are lazy, irresponsible, and part of the problem.  But stick with me, and I’ll explain my line of thinking.

I believe that one of the reasons that official sites post the proper hanging of food as a best practice doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the efficacy of hanging food as a deterrent versus other methods of food storage.  I think it has more to do with the perceived safety of the hiker, and the potential liability involved in the event of an attack rather than the result of any studies.

Which is to say, keeping your food in your tent could be 1,000 times more likely to prevent a bear from getting your food, and authorities would still never suggest it due to the relative potentially bad outcome (in the woods and in a courtroom) should a bear invade a tent, regardless of how unlikely that might be statistically.  So if sleeping with your food decreases the chances of a bear getting it by a great margin, but increases only slightly the chance of you having an encounter with a bear, it won’t be recommended -- and that's true even if it's just the perception of an increase.
Funny enough, there's one group of authorities who will admit that hanging food is ineffective.  And those authorities are in places that require the use of bear canisters.

I have often thought that hanging food isn’t necessarily about keeping food away from bears, but rather keeping bears away from people while they attempt to get people’s food.  The argument would say something to the effect of, “well, the bear got my food, but at least I’m okay.”  People who hang food aren’t terrified that a bear might get their food if they slept with it, but rather of what a bear might do to them while it was getting their food if they slept with it. Which is one of the reasons you end up with this sort of thing.

Much of what we do regarding bears and food is, as with water treatment, faith-based.  If you hang food with success you are convinced that hanging food is why a bear didn’t get your food, whether there is a bear in the area or not.  If you sleep with your food, and are never attacked, you believe that sleeping with your food is a successful strategy.  When a bear does get food that is hung, the assumption on the part of those who hang food is that the food was improperly hung.  Why?  Because they have faith that a bear cannot get to properly hung food -- even though there are bears that have proven that they can learn to defeat just about any unattended system of protecting food (including bear canisters).

As for bears invading tents, it’s incredibly rare, despite the fact that at some point in a trip everything you own probably smells like food.  On the very rare occasions that it does happen the first question anyone asks is, “did the hiker have food in their tent?”  Why?  Because people like to find a cause that tells then that they are relatively safe from this kind of thing, so that they can tell themselves that they don’t have to be afraid.  “He had food in his tent and was attacked, I do not have food in my tent and therefore won’t be attacked.”

But even if you don’t have food in your tent, you still probably smell like food.  You’ve spilled it on your clothing, you’ve stored it (and trash) in your backpack and your pockets, you’ve got some on your hands, your beard, your mouth.  It’s not like you’re taking a shower every day, and storing toothpaste and sunscreen in your bearhang bag doesn't make your breath smell less like toothpaste or your skin smell less like sunscreen.  Putting all “smellables” in a bag doesn’t mean your tent and its contents don’t smell like food.  Funny enough, I've seen recommendations that included in the "smellables" you're supposed to hang are the clothes you cooked in.  Ever seen anyone do that?  I haven't.  Ultimately, actually having food in your tent might not make it smell any more like food than not having it in your tent.

But there’s not much you can do about that, right?  So you do what you can to minimize bad encounters, including (if you're like me) not cooking in camp and avoiding established campsites unless required to use them.  And if your food doesn’t get taken and you remain unharmed, then whatever you’ve done worked (at least in your mind).  Even if there were never any bears near you.

Are people who sleep with their food irresponsible and lazy?  Undoubtedly some are.  And then there are others who believe that it’s a better way of dealing with food and take maintaining possession at all times seriously, which, believe it or not, takes a fair amount of effort.  Do I have any statistical evidence to back up my belief that bears recognize possession as ownership, and that they are more likely to go after hung, non-attended food rather than expend the energy to attack another animal to take its food?  Nope.  But then again, people who believe hanging is the best strategy don’t have any statistical analysis to back up their belief, either.  If anyone has actual data showing that hanging food is a more effective strategy, I've never seen it.  And no one has ever really successfully explained -- if maintaining possession is a bad strategy -- what hikers are supposed to do with their food while actually hiking.  It's right there.  In your backpack.  Why aren't hikers constantly being assaulted by bears while walking?

And though many people will (rightly) cite food rewards as a thing that leads to future problems for humans and death for bears, another thing no one has successfully explained is how a food reward a bear doesn't get makes a bear more likely to attack someone else, either near a tent with food in it or on the site at some point in the future.

Anecdotally, I can look at the situation on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia and note that the bear or bears who get hikers’ food are getting it exclusively from bear hangs.  Is the food improperly hung?  Probably, but not necessarily.  Does it occur to any of those hikers to sue the ATC or NPS or any other agency for suggesting that hanging food is the best method?  Of course not.

On the other hand, you can imagine how quickly someone (or their family) would engage a lawyer if ATC suggested sleeping with food and a bear invaded a tent, regardless of how unlikely a scenario that might be, particularly if that hiker sustained injuries or was killed.

I sleep with my food.  Should you?  That’s really up to you.  If having food in your tent is going to keep you awake all night, probably not.  In fact, I’ve hung food when I’ve been around other hikers who were so worried about me not doing so that it seemed a kindness to hang my food so they could get some sleep.
I’m not suggesting what anyone else should or shouldn’t do.  I’m explaining my reasoning for what I do, and the fact that it isn’t as lazy or irresponsible as you might have been led to believe.

I sleep with my food because I think it’s safer for the bears.

Coda, added 7/25/24:

What do we say about the people who used to say that those who ignored the officially recommended AT food storage method (bear bagging) were lazy and stupid, who now say that the current officially recommended AT food storage method (bear canister) is heavy and unnecessary? Lazy & stupid or nah?

All Of The Mountain House Memes

My hiking partners and I have a running joke about what Mountain House meals do to my gastrointestinal system, and what my gastrointestinal system does to my pants and everyone around me as a result.  It's the sort of thing that makes me happy I already had a trail name before this came up.

With thanks to David Vitti!

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Fecal Matters: Four Short Hiking Stories

As this year draws to a close I realize that I only spent about twelve days in the woods, and I was thinking about all of the things I missed most about it: the immersion in nature, the enjoyment of physical exertion in fresh air, the feeling of freedom, the views.  But as I imagine is the case with pretty much everyone, the thing I missed most about backpacking was, of course, talking about poop.

And seeing as I also imagine that you — if you didn’t get out on trail much — missed listening to people talk about poop, I decided it might be nice to metaphorically dig a 6-8” hole and drop some stories in it.  Enjoy!

Appalachian Trail 2000: “The Jewish People Figured This Out Thousands Of Years Ago”

Many of the Shelters in the Smokies now have privies, but there was a time in the not-too-distant past when none of them did, on the theory that dispersed pooping done during the course of the hiking day was a better management plan than concentrating use at a privy that would have to be maintained. Unfortunately that plan didn’t really work all that well, and each shelter ended up with a nearby “Poop Hill” that in some cases seemed uncomfortably close to the water source. And maybe that still would have been okay too, if not for all of the people who decided that carrying a trowel and digging an actual cathole was unnecessary. What you ended up with was a surface dookie minefield at every shelter, replete with white TP warning flags blowing in the wind.

Smokies shelters were generally pretty gross
even without the Poop Hill.

But that’s all background. The important part of this story is that I always carry a book with me hiking. ALWAYS. And I don’t limit myself to short books like a person with common sense would do. I read Lonesome Dove on the CDT (900+ pages). I read Shogun on the PCT (1100+ pages). Reading is such a part of my in-camp routine that I find it difficult to get to sleep if I don’t read at night.

So you can imagine my dismay when, shortly before entering the Smokies in 2000, I had finished a copy of The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper and had nothing to read. Fortunately some well-meaning religious person had left a copy of the Bible in a shelter, and I thought to myself, “well, I’ve never read THAT the whole way through before.”

I suppose it was serendipity that on the same day I experienced my first “Poop Hill” I was up to Deuteronomy in the Bible and came across this passage in Chapter 23:

“Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go forth abroad:
And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee:
For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.”

Right there in the Bible: directions for digging a cathole.

And from that point on I did two things: I wrote the text of Deuteronomy 23:12-14 in all of the Shelter Registers until I left the Smokies — with a note that said “God wants you to bury your poop.”  And for the rest of my hike whenever someone asked me where I was going with TP and trowel in hand, I responded, “going to ease myself abroad.”

Pacific Crest Trail 2008: “I Blame This Decision On The Hypothermia I Didn’t Have”

I suffered from a bout of full-blown hypothermia while in Maine in the fall of 2003, and I was (I thought) justifiably paranoid about it in the fall of 2008 as I hiked through a cold and rainy fall season on the Pacific Crest Trail. And so it was that on Day 2 out of Packwood I was hiking alone in a cold rain monitoring myself for the Umbles and doing hand dexterity tests as I hiked. Dreading the idea of setting up my already wet tent in the rain, I briefly considered pulling up short and sleeping in a trailhead bathroom at Chinook Pass before deciding to push on towards my goal for the day: Camp Ulrich at Government Meadow.

Almost slept in a bathroom near here.

Camp Ulrich was the goal because there was a cabin with a wood stove there, and hopefully other hikers. It was 23 miles from Chinook Pass to Camp Ulrich, though, and as I slogged along it started getting dark. My progress slowed as my headlamp bounced ineffectually off a thick fog that set in. I was losing steam fast with about four miles to go and I realized I was getting slightly addled. Not wanting to risk missing Camp Ulrich in the pea-soupy darkness, I decided to bag the plan, set up camp, and do my best to ward off the early signs of hypothermia I felt setting in.

The cold rain continued coming down as I got my tent set up. I got into dry clothes and into my sleeping bag. I cooked in my vestibule. I made a Nalgene hot water bottle that I put in my armpit. And after eating I settled in to sleep wishing I had made it to the cabin while thinking I had made a solid decision not to try.

And then: I had to poop.

My brain still wasn’t firing on all cylinders but I knew I wasn’t going out there in my dry sleeping clothes and I also didn’t want to put the wets back on. Conundrum. Naked? Should I go out there naked? Is that what you do in this situation? I took a look outside and it was sleeting. Suddenly I realized that those stories you hear about finding dead hypothermia victims in various states of undress might be due to them simply needing to poop, and I was not going down like that. So I did the only other thing I could think of:

I pooped into a gallon Ziploc freezer bag.

Somewhere in this photo is a well-hidden bag of crap.
It's like a smelly version of Where's Waldo. 

The next day I rolled into Camp Ulrich early in the morning and called it -- it was a short mileage day but I needed to recover and dry out my gear.  Tex and Karen showed up (I had unknowingly passed their tent in the dark the night before) and they decided to stay as well.  We got a good fire going in the stove, and I am happy to report that as I spread all of my gear out to dry they did not notice — and I did not have to explain — the freezer bag full of poop that I would carry for another 46 miles before getting rid of it at Snoqualmie Pass.

Continental Divide Trail 2012: “The Cow Dung Trail”

"Can I . . . Can I get some of that water?  No?  Okay."

If you hike the Continental Divide Trail you’ll notice that a fair amount of your experience revolves around cows. You hike through BLM land leased to ranchers. You go over and under barbed wire cattle fences. You get water from windmill-driven wells that are there for the moo rather than you. You’ll probably accidentally spook a herd at least once, and you’ll definitely get comfortable with cow shit. Because all of the places you might like to rest are also the places cows like to rest, and the places that cows like to rest are also the places that cows like to poop. I have taken naps laying directly on crap more times than anyone really should.

One of the other things about the CDT is that it’s not always as well marked as you’d like, so it’s not unusual for hikers to occasionally build piles of rocks for the friends behind them at particularly tricky navigational spots. They're not the “artistic” rock stacks made by people with the hubris to think they arrange rocks better than nature does.  They're just helpful and boring directional cairns that are normally pretty unremarkable.

At a certain point you don't even really notice the poop.

Almost out of New Mexico, we were eagerly headed for Ghost Ranch and the cafeteria at Ghost Ranch (which had the food at Ghost Ranch) on a dirt road that we can call that only if we’re being charitable with our definition of “road.”  We had taken a break a few minutes earlier and checked our maps while stopped, so we knew that the trail took a hard right off the road at some point. Eventually we found the turn at a fenceline, but would we have been looking for it if we hadn't just checked our maps?  Possibly, but maybe not.  It was unmarked and a classic spot to build a cairn, but the problem was there were no rocks. At all.  What to do?  We could wait for our friends behind so they didn’t miss the turn. That was certainly a short-term solution, but what about friends a day or two behind? And more importantly, what about the food at Ghost Ranch? Would the food at Ghost Ranch still be there if we waited? Probably, but maybe not. And even if the food was still there, it felt like cutting into Ghost Ranch food eating time was more of a sacrifice than anyone should reasonably expect from us.

So looking around and considering our options, we did what anyone who had hiked through most of New Mexico would think was completely normal: we made a cow pie cairn.

It was a perfect directional marker, because you definitely noticed it. You didn’t have to play the “cairn/not-a-cairn” game that would occasionally happen when you saw a small pile of rocks. No, this was a very tall, very obvious stack of crap. It was either a directional cairn or these were the weirdest cows in all of New Mexico. And thanks to the poop, everyone made it to Ghost Ranch with ease. Where the food was, in fact, still there.


Appalachian Trail 2015: “Proper Planning Prevents Poop Panic Performance”

I have hiked enough trails by now that I am usually pretty good at planning. So it was with both surprise and disappointment that I found myself in Caratunk, Maine waiting for the Post Office to open as my hiking partners walked out of town. We had crossed the Kennebec on the first ferry trips of the morning and had breakfast at Northern Outdoors. And then had another breakfast at the Sterling Inn. Having already hiked 4 miles and with 14.7 still to go, they rightfully didn’t feel like loitering any longer due to me being an idiot. So off they went; I would get my mail and do my best to catch up.

Why did I have a package waiting at the Post Office? I have no good explanation. I had a new pair of shoes mailed to Caratunk despite the fact that I would literally be in Monson the next day (a town where I had a planned zero day). And it wasn’t like I was being clever in avoiding a day the Monson PO would be closed when I got there. I was going to arrive in Monson on a Tuesday. And to add another layer of dumbassery to my decision, the Caratunk PO was only open from 2-4pm.

Later, on the far shore, the phrase "dropping a Caratunk"
would be coined.

So there I was, sitting in front of the closed Caratunk PO at noon, when I started receiving warning signals from my gastrointestinal tract that a pint of ice cream as part of second breakfast had been a terrible, terrible choice. I looked around me and started to sweat. They were doing construction on the building attached to the PO; the workers told me the bathrooms had been torn out the day before.  My last thought before getting truly frantic was “that’ll teach me to take a zero in Gorham.”

I ran around behind the building. Realistically, there was no place to poop without being seen. And reviled. Back around to the front of the building, and now I was desperate.  Desperate enough to do something embarrassing, but something not nearly as embarrassing as pooping my pants.

I went up to a random house and knocked on the door.

You want to talk about Trail Angels? I’ll tell you about a Trail Angel. Because the woman who answered the knock on that door graciously let a random stranger into her house to destroy her bathroom. Granted, it was the half bath next to the garage, but it had a toilet and that’s really the only thing that mattered. I apologized profusely on the way in, and I apologized even more profusely on the way out. She said it was okay, emergencies happen, pay it no mind. I’m sure after I left she Febreezed that room like she owned stock in it.

My hero.

Anyway, I got the new shoes, clocked the 14.7 miles in them before dark, and to this day I still don’t know why I had shoes sent there instead of Monson and ended up having to poop in downtown Caratunk.

The new shoes: KEEN McGuffins.

I like to imagine that woman telling someone that same story right now, about the day she saved a dirty hiker’s dignity and also his pants. As for me, I like the story not only because it’s about how things can go wrong even when you think you know what you’re doing, but also because it’s about the kindness of strangers that is a hallmark of long distance hiking. It’s the sort of thing that reaffirms your faith in humanity, and I think we can all agree that’s exactly what a really good poop story is all about.

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This Just In: Hiker Who Never Carries A Trowel Has Also Never Dug A Cathole

Despite years of recommending something other than a trowel for digging a cathole, NHTM has recently discovered that long time hiker and advice-giver Jim “Stank” Brandley has never actually dug a proper cathole.

A selection of items with which Stank has definitely not dug an actual cathole.

“Honestly, when I first started backpacking — and not carrying a trowel — I genuinely tried to dig catholes,” explains Brandley.  “I’d try digging with my heel or a rock or a spoon or a stick or what have you.  But I discovered that the amount of time between when my brain told me ‘you have to poop’ and poop actively coming out of me was way too short for me to dig a real hole with a stick.  I started having to carry, like, five pairs of pants.  Which more than offset the weight savings of not carrying a trowel.”

Instead, Stank settled on the compromise of telling people he digs catholes.  “I discovered it’s way easier to just tell people you dig catholes than to dig a 6-8 inch deep hole with the heel of your shoe.  I mean, six to eight inches deep?  With the heel of my shoe?  C’mon man.  I’m wearing ALTRAS.  They don’t really even have a heel.”

John Gordon, a trail maintainer in an area of the AT where Stank regularly backpacks, confirms his behavior.  “If you’ve ever heard the phrase ‘character is what you do when no one’s watching,’ then Stank’s character is ‘Drop Your Pants And Poop On The Ground.’  And then maybe cover it with some leaves.”

Hikers who are concerned about trowel weight might want to think of
a trowel as dual use item.  Of note: Stank doesn't claim to eat food
with a tent stake or a stick.  "That would be ludicrous." 

Stank insists that despite never digging a cathole, what he does works just fine.

“I’ll, you know, scrape at the ground for a few seconds before I drop trou.  Maybe make, like, a two inch deep divot.  And then when I’m done I definitely cover it with a rock or something.”

(Gordon: “Yeah, he definitely does that.”)

“And I’m always considerate enough to be far enough away from the trail that no one will ever come across it.”

(Gordon: “I wouldn’t describe any of the poop rocks I’ve picked up while maintaining as ‘far enough away,’ but that’s just me.”)

Why not just carry a trowel?  Stank explains.
“Listen, a Deuce of Spades weighs 0.6 of an ounce.  0.6 of an ounce!  Do you know how heavy that is?  I know you’re going to say it’s not very heavy at all.  And it’s not.  But when you consider that I’m never going to use it?  It’s excess weight.  It makes a lot more sense to claim I’m digging catholes with a tent stake I’m already carrying if I’m not going to dig a cathole anyway.”

Brandley went on to add that he also doesn’t carry soap or sanitizer and then stuck his hand in our bag of M&Ms.

Stank only uses one of these items and you definitely shouldn't
share food with him. 

So what’s next for Stank?  Brandley recently bought hiking poles for use on his backpacking trips, and he’s excited.  “I think they’ll really help take pressure off my knees, help me maintain a rhythm, and aid in balance on a lot of the uneven parts of the trail.  Who knows?  I may get one of those tents that uses hiking poles too.   But mostly they’re another thing I can claim I dig catholes with, even though I think we both know that’s never gonna happen.”

Note: As always, thank you to my friends for letting me steal their names for articles.  Especially Jim, whose trail name is not "Stank" and who definitely doesn't just crap on the ground.

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Hiker Asking For Advice On Facebook Doesn’t Actually Want Advice

Mike objected to "people on their couches" suggesting
that his homemade bleach water treatment helmet
was the "dumbest and possibly most dangerous"
thing they'd ever seen.

When inexperienced hiker Mike Smith recently went online and asked for advice regarding his hiking plan, he thought it was pretty clear that he didn’t actually want advice.

“Totally not what I expected or wanted.  I went on this Facebook group and outlined the plan I came up with without knowing what I was doing and asked what everyone thought,” said Mike, who goes by the trailname Samsonite.  “The last thing I wanted was experienced people being negative by politely suggesting that what I wanted to do might not be the best idea.  I mean, it's not like I'm going to change my plan.  Jerks.”



“All I did,” said 2-Time Thru-hiker Rachel "DUCK" Hecht, “was point out that carrying all of his gear in a hard-sided Valor 2-Piece Luggage Set seemed like a bad idea.  Even if they do have wheels.  I think I said something like, ‘what’s wrong with a backpack?’  And then he and a bunch of other people in the group attacked me for being negative, so I didn’t even get into all of the other stuff he was planning on doing.”

Samsonite, who got on the Appalachian Trail at Springer Mountain on January 1st, had no previous backpacking experience.  But he did read a lot of crowd sourced information from people he didn’t know who were possibly marginally less clueless than him.  Or not.  “I decided to use a 40-degree bag, go no-cook, and not bring rain gear.  I really needed to get my baseweight down so I could be the first person to carry a cello on a Thru-Hike,” said Samsonite, “and then some jerk told me I’d be the second person to think he was going to carry a cello on a Thru-hike, and also the second person to quit while carrying a cello on a Thru-hike.”



“Yeah, that was me,” said Triple Crowner Katie "Wing-It" Howe.  “I mean, I didn’t really go into the possibility of him freezing to death in his 40-degree bag in January.  But I probably implied it when I said that once he regained feeling in his hands he could play Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 3 for the SAR guys after they pulled him off Blood Mountain.  And then a whole bunch of people said I was being mean-spirited.  And complimented me on my musical taste.”

“I just don’t understand why experienced hikers can’t just say ‘you got this.’  THAT’S what I’m on Facebook for.  Why can’t they be like all of the people who were super-supportive of my decision to keep hiking with severe tendonitis?” asked Samsonite, who ended up quitting the trail due to severe tendonitis.  


“It was all, you should rest it, you should take a couple of days off, blah, blah, blah, blah blah.  Fortunately I found a Facebook group for hikers called, ‘You Got This! (For Hikers Asking For Advice Who Don't Really Want Advice)’.  No negativity.  Zero criticism.  And very little common sense.  Just a bunch of people you don’t know typing ‘GO FOR IT!’ even if it’ll lead to you seriously injuring yourself and getting off trail.  Because they understand that I’m there for the positivity, and they also understand that bad advice has no consequences for them.”

Some people prefer to get backpacking advice exclusively from cheerleaders.

What’s next for Mike?  He says he feels he’s “conquered the AT” after his ten days on trail, and now he’s ready to move on to the CDT.  “I’m going to carry two live chickens for eggs and a folding bicycle so I don’t have to hitch,” says Samsonite, who has apparently not learned anything.  “I’m gonna go SOBO this time, starting in April.  And nobody suggesting the trail is gonna be under twelve feet of snow is gonna stop me.  Haters.”


As usual with these things, the quotes are fake but the names are real.  Thanks to the people who let me use their names, and thanks to all of the folks who inspired this post.  Sort of.

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My Favorite Trail Warning Signs

I love signs.  I have no idea why.  I know that there are many hikers who don’t like signs littering up the landscape, and there’s certainly such a thing as too many signs.  On the other hand, when you’ve been lost for an entire day and you finally come across a sign that points you in the right direction, you literally hug that sign.  And ask it what it’s doing for dinner later.

Of all the signs I love, though, the signs I love most are warning signs.  Sure, directional signs are nice.  They tell you where you are and where you’re going.  But warning signs tell you about the things that will kill you while you’re on your way there, which is pretty exciting.  Some of them are helpful, some of them are terrifying, some of them are hilarious.  And some of them are all three.



Below are my favorite warning signs I’ve come across while hiking, with explanatory notes.  At this point it feels like the way to end this intro thematically would be to do it by issuing a comical warning, but “WARNING: POSSIBLE HILARITY AHEAD” is dorkier than I’d like, and “WARNING: LIABILITY-RELATED HUMOR AHEAD” seems like it would make everyone except insurance adjusters stop reading.  So I’m going to just launch right into it with:


 Lassen Volcanic National Park

Some of these signs are favorites not just due to the signs themselves, but the circumstances under which I saw them.  As you might be able to tell from the photo, I night hiked through Lassen.  I saw this sign as I was leaving the Park, and here’s the thing: I didn’t recall being on any boardwalks the entire time I was in the Park.  Which is terrifying.  Was I supposed to be on boardwalks?  Had I been off-trail, unknowingly wandering around a volcanic death trap?  Maybe the PCT part of the park didn’t involve any boardwalks?  Who knows?  Ideally, warning signs happen before the danger, and I probably missed the one on the other end in the dark.  But there’s something very odd about the unnecessary fear that hits you after you unwittingly survive something.  Like when you find out the next day that just after you left the bar, karaoke started.


Homicidal Trees (All Over The Place)

When I was hiking through Colorado, one of my partners had what seemed like an unreasonable fear of trees.  And then we started seeing warning signs about trees, and he used them to justify his paranoia.  But while I think it’s a good idea to be aware that pretty much everything in nature generally is trying to kill me, the warning signs I often see in this regard have to do with specific trees.  I mean, how many times does it have to kill to be called a “Tree of Death”?  When I see a specific tree marked as a Killer Tree, I move past it quickly as if it was going to grab me (I really do), but even when I do get past that tree, I AM STILL SURROUNDED BY TREES.  Which, honestly, is the truly terrifying thing if you let it be terrifying -- people really do get killed by trees, but unlike the statistical unlikelihood of even seeing mountain lions or grizzlies or wolves, I am surrounded by trees ALL THE TIME.  And I also feel like they have good reasons to hate us.

PCT, Day 1

 If you don’t speak Spanish, this sign roughly translates as “don’t expose your life to the elements -- it’s not worth it.”  Admittedly this sign is really directed at people coming across the border, but it’s still pretty depressing to have a sign tell you, on day one, that the thing you’re planning on doing for the next five months isn’t worth it.

But this sign does get across the valuable message that EVERYTHING IN THE DESERT IS TRYING TO KILL YOU.  EVERYTHING.  And against all expectations, you might even drown.  How weird would that be?  But I think if we’re honest what we really need to worry about is the guy who shot the crap out of that sign.

The Grand Canyon

Have I mentioned that EVERYTHING IN THE DESERT IS TRYING TO KILL YOU?  I love everything about this sign.  How sunburned the guy got despite having a shirt.  The realistic splashy vomiting.  The cargo pockets on his jean shorts.  This guy looks absolutely miserable, and the joke here is that he hasn’t even started down yet.  The only way I could like this better is if there were a couple of Clif Bars sticking out of his pack and the sign was sponsored by Lara Bars.



Tuckerman Ravine

A sign so big it takes three photos to capture it all.

While there’s definitely something to be said for realistic splashy vomiting, I love it when  someone manages to make a stick figure look terrified.  The bottom panel of the ice fall warning sign near Pinkham Notch Visitors Center is fantastic.  Stick figures running for their little stick figure lives, about to be crushed by giant ice boulders.  I walked past this sign in August and it gave me the heebie jeebies.  Then it made me laugh.  Then it gave me the heebie jeebies again.


Jefferson Rock

 A stick figure warning sign done wrong.  I like this sign because I enjoy seeing signs with  very specific weirdly-shaped objects on them, because it’s super obvious that it’s a custom job and that a photo eventually had to be sent.  “Yeah.  Jefferson Rock.  Well, it's like a rock, but it’s not on the ground.  It’s resting on these four pillar things.  If you have clip art of a dog silhouette you could just use that and cut the head and tail off.  You know what?  That sounds awful.  I better send a photo.”

The problem with this sign is that it’s not scary.  That stick figure honestly looks like he’s having fun.  The only way you could make that look more fun to me is if you added sound effects.

Explosives (Way More Places Than I'm Confortable With)

Usually found either where they use howitzers for avalanche control or where the 10th Mountain Division used to train.  The idea that there may be unexploded military shells lying around is frightening, but the reason I like this sign is that it begs the question: is anyone who is dumb enough to want to touch unexploded shells smart enough to pay attention to warning signs?


In any case, I feel like the directions on this sign should read,

“If you find an unexploded shell or explosive:
1. Get the hell out of there.”


Mount San Jacinto State Park

This isn’t really a warning sign, but it filled me with a vague sense of existential dread that increased to a mild panic, and I spent the next couple of miles with my brain spinning trying to figure out what I was responsible for knowing.
“I don’t know what it is.  Is it math?  Is there math involved?  I’m terrible at math.  Maybe it’s not math.  Do I have to know how to navigate?  Start a fire without a lighter?  Fight mountain lions?  Treat hypothermia?  Is it avalanche safety?  Holy crap, it’s avalanche safety, isn’t it?  MY GOD SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR KNOWING.”


The point here is probably that it’s pretty easy to make me freak out.


Plague Warning, Idyllwild, California

 As with the explosives sign: who the hell is touching dead animals?  Why would you have to tell people not to do that?  But let’s put that to the side for a minute while we mull over the fact that The Plague is still a thing.  Not like when you’re feeling cruddy from being sick and tell everyone, “ugh, I have the plague.”  The actual Plague.  That killed 60% of Europe.  I guess I always thought the Plague just died out somehow, but it turns out that the Plague is a lot like the band Sugar Ray -- you think it’s something horrible from the past that disappeared forever, but really it’s quietly humming “Someday” to itself and plotting a comeback.

Yellowstone Warning Signs

Let’s start by acknowledging that holy crap Yellowstone is dangerous.  There are so many things that can kill you in Yellowstone that it’s pretty amazing they just let people walk around unchaperoned.  In the backcountry, there really aren’t a lot of warning signs or boardwalks or roped off areas.  You’re free to be as stupid as you want to be.  The front country, on the other hand?  Warning signs everywhere about all sorts of things, although to be honest the one they really need is about how that bag of M&Ms costs four bucks.

But the signs they do have are terrific.  Look at that guy being tossed around by a buffalo!  It hit him so hard you can’t even figure out where the selfie stick went.  That dude is going to land three signs over on the one about not stringing a clothesline (Because of elk potentially rampaging through the campground)(Seriously).  And this sign is in a bathroom, where you think you’d be safe from that sort of thing.  But if you’re thinking that, WHAT PART OF “UNPREDICTABLE” DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?

And it’s not just the animals.  If you don’t stay on the boardwalk in the Upper Geyser Basin, the ground will apparently swallow you up and burn you alive, traumatizing your sister as your blissfully unaware dad continues strolling down the boardwalk lost in admiration for his Ted Baker London Bengal Leather Satchel.  And while most of the time it's fun to traumatize your sister, in this case IT IS DEFINITELY NOT WORTH IT, BARRY.

With thanks to Heather Anderson and Daniel Wilkerson!

As noted above, I love signs.  You can look at sign slideshows I put together from the PCT HERE and HERE.  I also have slideshows of signs from the CDT and the Appalachian Trail.  Or you can just check out everything on the YouTube Channel via the link below.  Enjoy!

TBW PRODUCTIONS

TBW YOUTUBE CHANNEL

TBW INSTAGRAM