Foiled, I Never Get To Suffer: AT Section 5.3

“Would you like a hot cup of tea? It’s no trouble.” Dennis the ridge runner had welcomed me to the Mt Wilcox South Lean-to the evening before. I was about to say no, but before I did he added, “I think I have some Earl Grey.”

That did it. There went my stouthearted plans to drink my tea cold. The ridge runner had found my Achilles heel, Earl Grey. I’d left my stove and tent at home to lighten my load. Here I was, braced for a rugged adventure and I was being spoiled yet again.

This always happens to me. I go out in the woods to suffer, and

I Love My Toothbrush: AT Section 5 Part 2

Some people will do anything to shave a few ounces of weight from their packs. Myself, I am a light weight, except when it comes to packing. Previously I’ve struggled and failed to leave my packrat tendencies at home. Rickety knees, however, inspired a great leap of faith. A few weeks ago I went hiking without a tent or stove.

The Rodent King

Strictly speaking, rodent is a neutral term for any member of the order Rodentia. Let's not kid ourselves though, there is a distinct negative connotation. Rodents may simply be mammals whose teeth grow for life but the term brings to mind rats, mice and other vermin. Historically rodents are unpopular for two reasons, peskiness and pestilence.

Until recently I thought of rats as the big rodents and mice as the small ones. Wrong. Apparently beavers are the King of Rodents.

Left Behind

"Are you kidding?" I asked frozen in disbelief. No, she wasn't kidding. "Leave No Trace," I’d heard that somewhere before. Through a fog of incredulity I tried to imagine how the phrase might be applied to me.

“Some people even carry out their solid waste."

Shit. Solid waste? “As in, they shit in a bag and carry it out with them?" I asked.

Tara nodded.

A Well Marked Trail: AT 4.1

We tumbled out of the car, clicked a picture of ourselves and headed for the wide beaten path. It had been a while, and by golly, we were just happy to be out on the trail again.

“Huh," I told Tara, "they've switched to plastic trail markers." A hundred yards later the trail butted up to a chain link fence running north to south. We pulled our hats over our ears against the mid-October chill and headed north.

“This doesn’t feel right,” said Tara, “there aren't enough trail markers.”

We back-tracked nearly all the way to the parking lot.

“Well there aren’t as many blazes as we’re used to, but the AT marker is plain as day,” I said.

*Note to self, never listen to me.

Stay Puff & Other Trail Names

Names are important... even when hiking. On the Appalachian Trail (AT) it’s customary to choose a trail name. Perhaps this is true on other trails as well, but it seems to be especially true on the AT.

Signing into the logbook our first trip, my hiking partner Tara, pen in hand, asked what my trail name was.

"Trail Name?" I asked right back. I had no idea. “I don’t have one. I don’t think I need one,” I said.

Tara gave me a look and convinced me that I did indeed need a trail name. Everyone does you know. In situations like these it is best to cave in to peer pressure. I looked myself up and down. I was dressed head to toe in white (anti-tick regalia) and the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man popped into my head.

"That's awful," Tara said, catching the implied out-of-shape clumsiness and does-not-belong-on-the-trail vibe.

I searched my soul, fished around for other ideas and after very little further deliberation decided to go with it.

The Mosquito Ghost

I’ve been waiting for this all year and finally it is here – mosquito season! [Insert maniacal laughter here.] I’m not kidding. All winter there has been virtually nothing to struggle against, no adversaries worthy of a good fight. A little cold and snow? Bah! The mosquito, however, lends just the sort of challenge to keep a girl on her toes, to make her feel alive…

Sending Messages - AT Sec 3 Part 2

We were a hiking party of seven. No surprise I soon fell to the back of the line and then a little further back. Lest anyone worry, I sent a message ahead with other hikers. In general fine and friendly folk hike the AT, happy to deliver messages and such.

“If you see a bearded man with a slew of red heads please let them know I’m thoroughly enjoying my dawdling. Tell them I’m fine and will be along eventually.”

The delivered message did not deter my sweet husband from worry.

Doodles Of Loons

Look, there is something wrong with this picture. No it's not just that the loon has no feet. It's that the loon lacks looniness.

To Buy Or Not To Buy

When someone says “hiking” the next word that pops to mind is invariably “shopping.”

For my first hiking trip, I bought long underwear tops and bottoms – bright white. White long underwear was the foundation of my anti-tick defense system. I wasn’t stepping foot into the wilds of New England without them.

Ouch, I could have bought a candle-lit dinner for two for the same price. At least the word Patagonia was embroidered on the waistband. It makes all the difference in the world to ticks.

Strap Something To Your Feet - Part 1

Hiking in the winter is just like hiking in the spring, summer or fall - except for the ice and snow. To avoid the hazards of winter conditions, people have invented a variety of devices to strap to one’s feet: bits of metal, old tennis rackets and waxed sticks (aka crampons, snowshoes and cross country skis). The application of these devices depends largely on the conditions. If the leftovers of yesterday’s precipitation is terribly deep, snowshoes are the gadget of choice. If it’s an icy mess, crampons are likely in order. On the other hand if you’ve got a foot of perfect powder, pull out the skis.

Today I strapped snowshoes to my feet. This was completely unnecessary. The trail was so well packed we could have hiked in sneakers. This bothered me a great deal at first.

What’s the point of going down a marked snowshoe trail that a thousand other people have already gone down? If you aren’t breaking your own trail you don’t really need them do you? Arg. These fandangled pieces of shat are flipping snow up my back. Why aren’t I skiing? These nasty contraptions are noisy. Each step sounds like a giant crunching the bones of little children. Slog, slog, slog. I can’t believe we came all this way to a snowshoeing trail that renders the snowshoes unnecessary.

One can’t think such lovely thoughts for too long before sharing them with the world.

Finding the Right Partner In Crime (Part 1)

I have no illusions of myself as a rugged loner, a rock or an island. My stoic self-reliance stops at ticks and leeches. Therefore, to hike I (and by extension you) must have a partner in crime. But not just anyone will do.

When evaluating potential partners, consider the following:

Will this person tolerate me, under said conditions and circumstances?
Will they appreciate or at least have patience with my idiosyncrasies?
Which of my foibles is most likely to be problematic while executing this particular crime?

If you know your own idiosyncrasies you can combat or counter weight their negative effects. Mine happen to involve fickle knees, food intolerances and a penchant for stopping, stalling and dawdling at every opportunity. I know this and am prepared to bat my eyelashes, give flowery apologies and/or make other overtures of goodwill.

That is, unless I am livid.

Winter Hiking, New Year's Resolutions & Glitter

As a rule I don’t advocate making New Year’s resolutions. So easily broken; they’re like lies. But too strict an adherence to rules makes one old and stodgy, so this year I'll not discourage you. Go ahead, make a glittery little resolution or two in honor of the coolest new year in a decade. Yippee 2010!

Let’s say for example, your New Year’s resolution is to be more active and get out of doors more often. This would be an excellent variation on a common theme. Getting fit and/or losing weight has to be the most popular New Year’s resolution. It is certainly the poster-boy for resolutions abandoned. New Year’s resolutions make the word resolve feel insecure and ill-used.

But why be pessimistic needlessly?

Slow-Hiking the AT Section 1 Part 1: Hubris

“If you can’t be confident, be arrogant!” my math professor said. It was excellent advice. Yet I never managed to walk up to the chalkboard and write a proof with anything but dread and terror in my eyes and on my sleeve. It was, I believe, most unbecoming. Alas, at the time it was the best I could do. Though I do not posses the talent of summoning hubris on demand, I do parade around a fair bit of unfounded arrogance at odd times.

Unfortunately, I did so while packing for my first overnight hiking trip (AT in MA - Lee to Tyringham). “I won’t need this wussy camping pad,” I thought and tossed aside the heavily duct-taped blue foam. It is not surprising that my macho instinct kicked in. I have a long history of toughness-proving activities: riding red motorcycles, hitchhiking, eating roast guinea pig, wearing fishnets. All of these character building experiences bolstered my all important self-image as a badass (yet deceptively innocent looking) girrrl.

Mahatma Gandhi Endorses My Method

Mahatma Gandhi believed that the ends do not justify the means (or so I have heard). He is most famous for applying this to India's struggle for independence. He condemned the use of violence to attain freedom. For hiking, we can extrapolate that one should not toil away in misery just to see sweeping vistas and panoramic splendor. One should only toil away in misery and pain if one finds at least a modicum of pleasure in it. I myself enjoy at little pain with my pleasure, but panoramic splendor just isn’t for me. Therefore, getting to the top of the mountain is inconsequential in the grand hiking scheme. (I know; I’m a rebel.)

I have been known to go to the tops of mountains but this is always a self-sacrificial homage to compromise. I suffer through being surrounded by open space and steep drop offs, in hopes that I’ll be humored on the way back down. On the descent I will doubtlessly be entranced by woodland sprites who’ll compel me to watch the light pass over fern fronds next to a babbling brook. Of course there will be a moss covered log or two. Rotting logs are my favorite, especially when they’re all fungusy.

On the topic of fungus, I’m on a mushroom quest. Regrettably the quest is in a sad state. I had such high hopes for my mushroom field guide, but beyond giving the common and scientific names, where it grows and a description, it really doesn't say much. I find this most irritating. I am generally quite content to make up my own names, thank you.

What I want to know is everything else. What that everything else might be is nicely summarized by this Science Friday interview of mycologist Roy Halling, president of the Mycology Society of America.

Yep, this is the kind of information I’d like to have… now I just have to get my fingers on more than a field guide.

[Note: If you want to know more about mushrooms, please check out the awesome blog written by Cornell's mycology department. I have also added a link to Science Friday, because they are just cool. Both are now listed in my "links of interest." I didn't photograph Gandhi. This particular photo is used so frequently that I can't imagine it is copyrighted. I hope this is true and that the piracy gods don't smite me.]

Taking On the Wilderness Alone

Americans love stories about conquering nature. There are all kinds of famous books about surviving alone in the wilderness. I haven’t read them. As previously discussed, books are dangerous.

Keeping certain books closed is not always enough to safeguard from imprudent ideas. Some ideas sneak out of their books at night. They menace the unsuspecting and lurk about like mental ectoplasm. I must have walked through an errant pocket of the stuff once myself, for at one time I entertained fantasies in which I was alone. In case you have failed to insulate yourself from such notions, I offer you a cautionary tale.

Once upon a time there was a girl who had a week that needed killing. Semi-stranded in the southwest, she decided to go it alone. She set up a tent and lived on a creek with a can of sardines and some cheese. The first day she played harmonica in the early morning sun. She breakfasted and sat down to write postcards. All her postcards written, she looked around and could think of nothing better to do than launder her under things. She gathered them up and waded into the creek. A leech got her.”

Do not attempt such foolery, don’t go into the wilderness alone - there could be leeches. See the beatific picture at the top of this post? There could be leeches there too.

The Hiker’s Dress Code

1) Don’t dress like an REI or LLBean model. If you look “put together” you might as well wear sign saying, “I don’t belong here.” If you want to fit in, scrounge for your clothing, the geekier the better. This came surprisingly easy to me. Even on my first trip I probably fooled a couple of people on the trail into thinking I was a real hiker. I wore bright white long underwear with teal surfer shorts, a purple striped lycra tanktop and my light blue gardening visor. The one with little watering cans, trowels and hoes.

2) Display your ingenuity. Always tie things to the outside of your pack. (Unless you are day hiking – then you should carry only a mini-pack or if you’re really hip – a fanny pack). Tying things to the outside of your pack communicates ruggedness and resourcefulness, traits esteemed in the hiking community. What to tie on the outside of your pack? Sleeping pads, sandals, wet laundry, tortilla chips, a harmonica or a cello will do. Do not under any circumstances tie raw meat to the outside of your bag. It attracts wild animals and will potentially offend the real hikers (many of which are vegehoovians).