How To Counteract The "Wild Effect."

Manufacturing A Solitary Wilderness Experience
With the release of the book “Wild” and the in-production Reese Witherspoon movie of the same name (as well as the revival of plans for the “A Walk In The Woods” film), many are expressing concern that National Scenic Trails will become overcrowded, ruining the value of the “wilderness experience.”  And while (to this writer) that seems the least of the worries for those who care about the trails, I feel it important to address it, and (of course!) offer possible solutions.

Since the weathy, oversexed, half-cybernetic version of me didn’t show up back in 1996 to tell me, “DO NOT GET ENGAGED TO THAT GIRL,” we have to assume that time-traveling backwards and hiking in 1986 is not an option.  The way I see it, you have one of three choices:

Hike When It’s Not “Hiking Season”

The obvious solution to wanting a solitary wilderness experience is simply hiking when other people don’t.  But there’s a reason why there’s a “hiking season,” and that reason is this:

This is Rachel "Hot Mess" Brown, who apparently thinks it's always hiking season.

For me, hiking high and camping in deep snow is a special level of hell reserved for serial killers and people who steal lighters.  So I’m clearly not enough of a badass for this option.  And let’s be honest.  Neither are you.

Seriously.  What is this?  Mountaineering?
This barely qualifies as hiking.

So accepting that, we move on to option two:

Southbounding

Here’s the thing about Southbounders on long trails: they’re crazy.  SOBOs who start late are even crazier.  And SOBOs who start late and actually finish end up being the craziest people you’ll ever meet.

Take Jake “Don’t Panic” Down, currently finishing up a southbound thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail.  He’s been alone for months now.  Alone long enough that he thought this schedule was a good idea:

630 miles in 22 days.  The schedule of a disordered mind.

But for the solitary southbound hiker, an outlandish mileage schedule is just the tip of the wingnut iceberg.  Do you know what it’s like to spend month after month alone?  Do you really like yourself that much?  I certainly don’t.  There’s a reason why solitary confinement is a punishment in prison.

Don't Panic with the pack that will
eventually leave him.

So back to Don’t Panic.  He’s not just talking to himself.  He’s talking to his pack.  They’re having long, meaningful conversations.  He’s thinking about proposing to it at Springer.  Now, maybe you think that’s weird.  But the truly crazy part is he thinks that pack isn’t going to be sluttin’ it around as soon as they get off the trail.  I mean, it’s just a trail relationship, Panic!  WAKE UP!

As far as southbounding goes, take my advice: you’re already the craziest person SOMEBODY knows.  Don’t be the craziest person EVERYBODY knows.

Take a moment for some self-reflection.  Are you, like me, NOT a badass?  Are you comfortable with your current level of lunacy? (note: you’re crazier than you think).  If you answered "yes" to both of these questions, you’re down to one other option:

Encouraging Avoidance (AKA the “See You Later -- Not If I See You First” Method)

Fortunately, even here you have choices:

Tell Me All About Your Homemade Gear.

Incessantly.

The Robots (PCT08) made all of their own gear,
but failed to be annoying about it.

The obvious downside to this method is that you have to make your own gear, and I’m incredibly lazy and unskilled.  I can barely make a sandwich.  But once you get over that hurdle, having the trail to yourself is a snap.  Your opening conversational gambit is to ask other people about their pack/tent/sleeping bag/stove.  And then after listening to them briefly you can launch into long-winded monologues about how much lighter your tent is, how much more comfortable your quilt feels, and how much you love, love, love your sewing machine.

You’ll be all alone in about a week.

Me?  I’m too lazy for this option.  In town, I hitch to places I can actually see.

So for the slothful and incompetent, there’s the following possibility:

Make Everyone Else Your Sherpa

Hint: Target people with big packs.

Not carrying all of the stuff you want to use has the obvious benefit of lightening your pack, with the added bonus of eventually encouraging others to avoid you like a stove-borrowing plague.

Why shouldn’t other people let you look at their maps?  Or loan you their knife?  Or their duct tape?  Or their headlamp?  I mean, sure, you’re going stoveless, but other hikers shouldn’t mind you using their stoves “just to brew up some tea,” right?  And if you don’t have a tent on the AT and they do, shouldn’t someone get out of the shelter for you when it’s raining?  Absolutely!  (Be extra demanding on that last one!)

Time ‘til complete isolation: four days.

There’s an obvious downside to this plan, though.  Eventually you’re alone and there’s no one to loan you their stuff.  So savvy lazy people will go for choice number three:

Be Dirty.  No, I Mean Really, Really Dirty

Discovered accidentally by hikers on the Appalachian Trail, being really, really dirty is a method of encouraging avoidance that takes no effort whatsoever.  This plan does take a bit longer to take effect, but when it does you’ll pretty much have the trail to yourself.

Anish, off to a good start.

I’ve gone without a shower for 17 days, but you need to be more committed than that.  You need to be someone who doesn’t shower even when showering is a possibility.  Someone with clothes so dirty they'll make a commercial washing machine stop working like the French in August.  You want hotel maids approaching your room with trepidation and a HazMat suit.

Yeah, You’ll get the odd staph infection and fecal-matter-related illness, but isn’t that a small price to pay for a little seclusion?  Absolutely!

Swiss Cheese's shirt used to be white.  And that's not

a tan on Buckket's legs.

Ideally, people will be able to
actually SEE your stink

So despite the trails getting popular to the point that they might actually exist in 30 years, you CAN have the very, very lonely trail experience you desire.  Get crazy, get annoying, get filthy.  And if all else fails, and you really, really want to be all by yourself, you can always do this:

Scott "Squatch" Herriott, Guaranteeing solitude
on the PCT.  But do you really want people
to think you're a Yankees fan?

Photos Courtesy Of: Benjamin Newkirk, Jake Down, Heather Anderson, Peggy Smith

Special Thanks To: Hot Mess, Smooth, Don't Panic, Anish, Bonelady, and Squatch!  

Video: Katie May by Rorey Carroll

Rorey Carroll

Ask A Thru-Hiker: Lint's Favorite Gear

Wes Ratko on the AT.

Once again it’s time for another installment in our ongoing series, “Ask A Thru-Hiker!”  Today’s question comes from Wes Ratko, a beginning hiker who loves the outdoors.  “I have been known,” claims Wes, “to walk all the way to the train station, even in a light rain.”

Our Thru-Hiker today is Lint, a Triple-Triple Crowner who has also hiked the Ice Age Trail, the Colorado Trail, the Arizona Trail, and the Florida Trail, and currently holds the record for Yo-Yo section hikes on the Appalachian Trail in Duncannon from The Cabin Strip Club to the Perry County Beer Distributor and back (143).

Lint's CDT Map: "Just because you have to carry the ink
doesn't mean you have to carry the paper."

Lint is known for his dedication to the lightweight backpacking ethos, so much so that he now uses maps tattooed to his body instead of the cumbersome paper versions or those found on heavy electronic devices

Today’s question from Wes for our Thru-Hiker: “What’s your favorite piece of gear?”

Says Lint: “I know it might come as a surprise to people who think of me as a lightweight hiker, but my favorite piece of gear is my car door.  Sure, a car door is heavy, but I’ve modified mine and stripped it down so that it comes in at a manageable 47 pounds.  And it’s such a versatile multi-use piece of gear that I think the weight is more than justified.”

Lint With His Backpacking Car Door

How does Lint use the door?

“Well, you know, the obvious things.  When it’s really hot out I roll the window down.  And when it’s really buggy out I roll the window up.  Cold wind?  No problem with a car door, eliminating the need to carry a wind shirt or windstopper fleece.  But I’m always discovering new uses for the door -- on the PCT in ’09 the rear view mirror kept me from being stalked by mountain lions, and also allowed me to promptly get out of the way of hikers overtaking me.  Which happened quite often, because, you know, I was carrying a car door.”

Not only is it a mindblowingly useful piece of gear on trail, gear that some have called “the Swiss Army Knife of auto body parts” -- but a car door also comes in handy during town stops.

“There are times when the only ATM in town is a drive-thru.  And you can imagine the stares I used to get just standing there, waiting in line with a car door in front of me and a car door behind, and me right in the middle, no car door.  Ridiculous.  Same with ordering food at a Sonic -- NOT leaning through a car window to order is just weird, and when the girl on the rollerskates shows up, she has nothing to pass your food through.  And I also feel safer in towns -- every once in a while I find myself in a sketchy neighborhood, and I just casually lean over . . . and press the lock down with my elbow.” 

A hiker suffering the indignity of no car door in town.

For those interested in a car door, you can find them in the desert attached to cars in places that seem impossible for a car to have ended up.

Seriously.  How the hell did this get here?

And for those still concerned about the weight, Lint offers the following advice:

“First, don’t think about the weight of the door.  Think about the weight of all of the things you don’t have to carry when you’re carrying the door.  DEET, bear spray, a bear canister, wind protection, rain gear, heck, my window is tinted -- I don’t even need sunglasses.  Second, try to keep in mind that everything is relative, and I can tell you from experience that it’s a whole lot lighter than carrying the entire car.”

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Photo Credits --

Lint's Legs: Warner Springs Monty Tam

Lint w/Door: Chase Nelson

Lint w/Car: Ryan Weidert

With special thanks to Lint Hikes and Pea Hicks!

It's A Gas That Makes You Laugh Before It Kills You

The John Byrne Band

Embrace The Brutality

The Power Of Cheese

I’m reasonably confident that this will be the best blog article I’ll ever write.  Because it’s about cheese, and cheese brings out the best in everything.  And even if it’s only 10% as good as cheese, it’ll be pretty close to perfect. 

But before we get to the actual article, I think that we should take a look at some of the things I’ve previously written about what I have referred to as “my possibly illegal love of cheese”:

                                                                                                                                                                                         

CHEESE CHEESE CHEESE!!!!!!!!!!!

I loves me some cheese. Largest block you can carry out of town without causing stress fractures, say I.

Bigger lasts longer! Harder is better!

Cheese does not go bad!

Melty/Oily? Recombines at night!

Moldy oldy? Cut that part off and keep chomping!

One Pound blocks! Eaten like candy bars!

Bonus feature: no poopin' 'til the next time you hit town. . .

Cheese, baby! Sounds gouda to me! 

I have yet to meet a cheese I haven't liked immediately; with which I haven’t struck up a long, meaningful conversation and developed a deep, abiding relationship.

Cow, goat, sheep, cat, out of a can, on a nacho, with my breakfast, between my toes, on pasta, on stuffing, on Donner, on Blitzen!

With cheese!

Con queso!

Avec frommage!

Ag tigh cais! 

The only reason to cut cheese with a knife is if you're sharing it with someone, which is what I was thinking of in my post regarding what one needs a knife for. Unless you want to do a whole Lady and the Tramp thing, but with a big block of Sharp Vermont Cheddar. My god that's romantic. 

Combine cheese with everything. Anything. I can't stress it enough. CHEESE.

And don't just limit yourself to "flavoring food" with it. Flavor everything with it. Flavor your joys and sorrows with it. Flavor your Flav with it. Flavor your life with it! 

The author at the Cheese Monument.

I live in a world of cheese, all of it there for the taking. Cheese hanging from the trees, cheese raining from the sky. A world where cheese is an accepted form of currency, an appetizer, a meal, a way of life, an acceptable thing to wear to a formal occasion. Where you can love cheese as you wish, and it doesn't accuse you of being codependent.

A world of possibilities, all of them shot through with cheese. 

I have done my hajj to Vermont. I have bowed before an alter of delicious sharp cheddar, and then eaten it. I didn't have to go to the bathroom for four days.

Award winning?

Soul winning! 

I have been to the monument to cheese along the AT in Cheshire! I have leaned against it, filled with thoughts of cheese! I have gone to the post office across the street, taken a picture, and been drawn magnetically back to "the Big Cheese Monument." Intending to stay in town for a moment, I stayed for what felt a lifetime.

Then I went to the convenience store on the way out of town, and bought some cheese. 

                                                                                                                                                 

Okay.  We’ve set the mood.  Now on to the actual article!  But first, some historical facts about cheese that I will make up off the top of my head.  Did you know that:

The word “grieve” comes from Greve, a Swedish cheese made from cow’s milk? (it’s current meaning obviously referring to the sadness of not having any)

John Lennon originally wrote a song called “Happiness Is A Warm Gruyere” about Fondue, but changed it due to rhythmic and meter issues?  And the fact that Gruyere is a terrible cheese to use for fondue?

The seemingly endless wars between Britain and France in the 18th and 19th centuries were motivated primarily by the English desire for French cheeses?  And that the blue of the Napoleonic Army uniforms was meant to mock the quality of English cheeses such as Cheshire Blue, Devon Blue, and Yorkshire Blue?

I have to say that at this point I feel like I’m never going to get to the actual article.  I mean, this thing is already getting long, isn’t it?  And looking at what's been written so far it isn't readily apparent that this is supposed to be a backpacking blog.  So I think that before getting to the actual article I’d like to write for a bit about the history of cheeses along the Appalachian Trail, and in particular the 90s -- arguably the high point of backpacking with cheese.

A hiker resupplying at "Cheese Row" in Dalton, Mass.

Believe it or not, there are people today who don’t carry cheese while hiking (I know, I know -- It makes no sense whatsoever).

Not so the 90s!  

The average hiker of the time carried between four to five pounds of cheese when leaving town -- a weight that today is equal to many people’s big three.  And this love of cheese was fueled by the high quality fromageries of the trail towns.  Who can forget “Edam And Weep” in Duncannon?  “Limburger King” in Damascus?  Or possible the greatest cheese shop of the era -- “Live Brie Or Die” in Hanover?  This was a time of cheese-fueled hiking, a time before Baltimore Colby Jack shortened his trail name.  Sadly, this high-flying cheesy, lactose care-freesy era came to a close, with only the blue blaze trail to the Cheese Factory (between Tray Mt. & Indian Grave Gap in Georgia) and the walk past the Cheshire Mammoth Cheese monument in Massachusetts to remind us all of a better, cheese-filled time.

But an interest in cheese persists -- as you can imagine it would pretty much have to.  Because cheese will not be denied, and cheese will never surrender.  Even now, hiking forums are filled with questions about the longevity of cheese on the trail, and I think that this must at long last be the focus of this blog article, an article that I think we all have to admit is all over the place and not my best effort.

I feel like I am failing cheese.  But I must cheese press on.  Cheese would want me to.

The Longevity Of Cheese On The Trail

Always the question at the forefront of any prospective thru-hiker’s mind. Yes, also: what tent, where maildrops, which shoes, why hiking poles -- but always, always, HOW LONG CHEESE? And the answer, to be honest, is: not long. And not because of spoilage (after all, cheese extends the life of milk). But rather because while you may have the willpower to hike a long trail, you honestly don’t have the willpower to not eat the cheese you’re carrying. It will be gone all too soon, like the light dew of the morning, the crisp days of a New England Fall, indeed like the hike itself. Only more delicious. And with more fat.

Lactose-tolerant hikers enjoying a breakfast of
ice cream with cheese.

So once we accept the fact that the cheese will not last longer than its trail life, the questions you really want to ask become, “how much, which cheeses, and in what order?”

 I see where you’re going with those questions, so I'll continue the thought. You're going to want to bring a lot of cheese with you. I mean A LOT. Studies have shown that while lack of sunlight will eventually drive you insane, lack of cheese will make you incredibly unhappy, to the point that you will drive everyone else insane.

The two essentials for a successful thru-hike.

But you've got to get on a schedule. Say you're going out for a week. You want seven days worth of cheese, but not the SAME cheese. You want at least seven different kinds of cheese, and you want to eat them in ascending order of hardness.

So maybe you bring a huge thing of crumbly feta with you for a salad topping on day one, with maybe some goat cheese for lunch. Then you move on to your mozzarella ball on day two. A really big mozzarella ball, and you eat the whole thing by itself, like you're eating a snowball.

You get the point, so I won't belabor it. You end up on the last couple of days with some extra sharp Vermont cheddar and then a block of parm. I do recommend also carrying a can of grated parm to put on top of every other meal you eat, as well as to add to coffee and tea.

The cheese will last, as long as you eat it in the right order! You'll hike like you have wings! You'll stay toasty warm at night! You won't poop the whole time you're out there!

Good luck, and enjoy the cheese!

My god, I got a little amped up there at the end, didn’t I?  Hard not to do when writing about cheese, though.  I’m going to go lie down for a moment.

I’m back.  Now that I’ve calmed down a bit I’m looking back through this article and I realize that the whole thing is a mess.  All sorts of tenses, multiple perspectives, no coherent arc or pattern.  I mean, how did John Lennon get in there?

Have I failed cheese?  I think perhaps I have.  But the brilliant thing about cheese is that it loves us all unconditionally, with the exception of the lactose-intolerant.  Cheese forgives me and I know that cheese will give me a second and even third chance, which is more than I can say for hypothermia or my ex-girlfriend.

So I retire now from this piece, knowing that although it is awful, I will try again.  And write the greatest trail-related cheese article ever written by man.  Or cheese.

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Bees In My Pants: CDT Edition

FSI: From The Skin In (Rough Draft -- DO NOT PUBLISH!)

(Editor’s note:Please see me before this draft is published.  Associating ourselves with dead lunatics might not be in our best interests.)

It was not that long ago that backpackers struggled under the weight of enormous expedition-style packs, packs designed to carry so much weight that it was not unusual to find hikers in the woods carrying five-pound tents, stoves actually made by stove manufacturers, and even entire Tom Clancy novels.

1990s Era Backpack

But with the emergence of the idea that a backpacking trip didn’t have to end with your orthopedic surgeon owning a beach house came the popularity of “Lightweight Gear,” followed by waves of successively lighter gear setups: “Ultralight,” “Ultra-Ultra-Light,” and “Ultra-Ultra-Seriously-All-I’m-Carrying-Is-A-Spoon-Can-I-Borrow-Some-BodyGlide-Light.”

We’re quickly, however, reaching the point where lighter and lighter gear isn’t enough anymore, and people are so desperate to save weight they are now willing to buy products manufactured with fabric made from actual Cuban people.

(Editor’s note: Check source on the above -- doesn’t sound right.)

As hikers and backpackers search desperately for more and newer ways to get their packweight as close to zero as possible, I think it may be time to reintroduce a concept that was perhaps ahead of its time, an idea that I was reminded of when long distance hiker Jason “Totally Different Subject” Bivin told me how delighted he was with his prosthetic foot because it “weighs something like six ounces less than the real one they cut off.”

Jason "TDS" Bivens, left, post-FSI Upgrade.

I am, of course, talking about FSI, or “From The Skin In.”

Some of you may recall that “From The Skin In” was a concept introduced in 1995 by Lester Zemons in his Not-Even-Close-To-Bestselling book “Why You Probably Suck At Backpacking.”  To Lester, living in an era before trail runners, carbon fiber tent poles and titanium sporks, removing parts of your body to reduce the impact on knees and ankles made perfect sense.  But a number of factors conspired to keep Lester’s ideas from gaining traction.  Surgery was expensive. Sewing your own tarp sounded slightly less painful than an invasive procedure to remove your tailbone.  And Lester Zemons was kind of a jerk.

So it wasn’t a surprise that “Why You Probably Suck At Backpacking” was a critically unacclaimed failure, with one reviewer saying, “every once in a while you come across a book of inspired genius, with ideas you describe as ‘so crazy they just might work.’  This is not that book.”

Billville Press, 1995

Lester died in 2008 following single eyeball removal surgery, when a lack of stereoscopic vision caused him to walk in front of Mount Washington’s Cog Railway Train.  Later, while recovering, his lack of pinkie toes caused him to fall down the steps of the Tip Top House, breaking his neck.  Lester spent the last thirteen years of his life convinced that his book and ideas were overshadowed by the 1996 release of Ray Jardine’s Pacific Crest Trail Hiker’s Handbook, so much so that his last word are reported to have been, “an umbrella?  Really?”

Five years after Lester’s death we’ve reached the point where cutting even more handle off a toothbrush just isn’t possible, and many are already carrying a shelter that doesn’t protect from the elements whatsoever because “seriously, can you believe this?  It only weighs four ounces.”  And since ultramarathoner Marshall Ulrich and long distance hiker Nimblewill Nomad have both had their toenails permanently removed, getting rid of body parts seems like the next step for those who are truly serious about lightening their loads.

(Editor’s note: I don’t think that’s why they did that.)

Says long distance hiker and FSI proponent Kevin “Fester” Gallagher: “Three feet of lower intestine weigh about four pounds and you have tons of it to spare. That's like four Hexamid tarp tents sloshing around inside of you!  Would you carry four extra tents?  No?  Then why are you?  It's time to think FSI.”

So off I went to my doctor, Dr. Paul Fowler, to see about having my philtrum removed, which, it turns out, doesn’t result in any weight savings.  So next on my list was my spleen.  Because how important can it be if I have no idea what it does?

Supposedly there's a spleen in here somewhere.
Alternately this might be a pair of ski goggles made out of meat.

Here’s how the conversation went:
“That’s a terrible idea.”

Repeated subsequent conversations and phone calls ended with what I considered to be equally vague “opinions” from him, but I think that if not for the restraining order he would have eventually come around to my point of view and operated.

(Editor’s note: have received your lawyer’s bills regarding this.  We will not reimburse.)

So for now I remain full of spleen, which is weighing me down by anywhere from five ounces to 12 pounds, depending on who you ask and what it actually is.  I’m currently considering other possibilities and less scrupulous doctors.

And I would encourage all of my readers to consider your FSI options.  Appendix, tonsils, male breast tissue & nipples, wisdom teeth, fingernails, pinkies.  I mean, you’ve got an extra kidney.  An extra!  That’s a quarter of a pound you’re hauling around for no reason!  And let’s not forget that they’re doing incredible things with titanium bone replacements these days.  Start cutting useless pounds -- pounds! -- from your body's baseweight, and get out on the trail lighter and happier!

(Editor’s note: remove last paragraph -- opens us up to possible legal action.  Let's not have a repeat of The Leki Pole Incident.)

Thanks to Charles Chesnutt and Kevin Gallagher for their help with this article.  The quote from Jason “Totally Different Subject” Bivin is an actual quote, just in case you're wondering.