The hiker's favorite acronym. It stands for "All You Can Eat".
Sometimes hikers burning 4000 to 6000 calories per day, or more, coming into a quiet town hosting an unsuspecting AYCE buffet tend to amaze and frighten local people and inspire rapid policy changes at all restaurants in town after taking advantage of an offer like that.
Hikers then get thrown out, and maybe banned. Example: Fred got tossed from the MunchyTown Cafe after cleaning out the AYCE buffet. They said he was pigging out, not munching, and told him not to come back, ever.
There is a story illustrating trail hunger that I came across once upon a time, about four Appalachian Trail (AT) hikers who entered a cafe, settled into a booth, and waited for the server. When she came, she asked what they would like to order. Person A, who happened to be a male, ordered something like two chicken dinners with a side dish of fried potatoes, and another side dish of fried onion rings, a chocolate malt, and apple pie with ice cream. When the server finished writing down all of this, she began to turn away to place the order with the kitchen, but the three other people in the booth began to panic, scared of being left out, virtually shouting "Wait! Wait! We want to order too!"
So about like that then.
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Me? Patiently waiting for feeding time.
Etc...
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"Zip Stove" was the original name of the ZZ Manufacturing stove. It's now called the "Sierra" stove. It is a self-contained wood stove with a battery-operated fan which keeps the fire going strong. The stove weighs over a pound (half a kilo, but less for the titanium version), plus the weight of a battery (AA or D cell).
Alternate Reality Story
(1) A sort of wood-burning stove made of discarded metal zippers. Can be zipped together for cooking, and then quickly unzipped again for breakdown and storage. When broken down, it resembles a pile of useless zippers, and can safely pass even the most rigorous customs inspection, though it might take hours or even days to reassemble if you lose the instructions, which will likely spoil your lunch and make you cranky.
(2) A sort of wood-burning stove made of sheet metal. (This sounds better already, doesn't it?) And this stove is now called the "Sierra" stove. It has a battery-powered electric fan built into its base so it can operate like a tiny blast furnace. No, really. Has a battery-powered electric fan built into its base? What the fork? Actually said to work pretty well, but it's big and bulky. Some clever individuals have made their own from empty coffee cans and computer fans. A no-moving-parts, no-battery-required wood gas stove works just as well, and is simpler, cheaper and lighter. And you can make it yourself, even with a limited selection of tools, and/or limited intelligence. (Worked for me.) So there.
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Me? Still AC-powered. (Cord not included.)
Etc...
so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(1) The process of food shooting up into your nose when you have a simultaneous hiccup, belch and gag experience while eating. You know. You do.
(2) The sound you make when this happens.
(3) A small in-tent fart that you hope no one else hears. Another good reason to stealth camp.
(4) The soft, hairy, dark stuff you get on yogurt when you've let it sit too long in the container after opening it, or the hair itself, which is really a fungus. Fungus...
(5) A portable, circular tent with a low conical roof, traditionally made of yak hide, or possibly felt, laid over a collapsible framework. Native to the steppes of north central Asia. Mostly too big, complex, and heavy for backpacking use, unless you're an ogre. If so, all bets are off, of course.
(6) The thing you wake up in, suddenly, alone and naked, somewhere on the steppes of north central Asia, in the dead of night, after meeting the supposedly mythical trail yogi and failing to leave even a token offering. You poor, stupid bastard. Better luck next lifetime, if there will be one for you. Probably not, considering.
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Me? Also portable.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(2) A form of barter in which you get something you want, like a warm, dry nook out of the weather to sleep in for one or more nights, and possibly a meal or two, in return for giving up some of your pre-death hours, usually accompanied by a degree of labor on your part, for the good of a hostel.
(3) Also known as the practice of allowing thru-hikers to work in exchange for bed and board. This is usually on a first come, first served basis, depending on need. Sounds like: "They let me do a work for stay and it saved me a lot of money."
(4) Moral of the story: You get as about as much as you pay for it. (Might still be fun if you're not fussy.)
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Me? These days, I always stay awake and on alert while sleeping.
Etc...
so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
A construction method used for down filled sleeping bags and clothing using individually constructed v-shaped chambers or tubes.
The narrow part of one baffle (the pointy part) sits in between the widest part of the two adjoining baffles, so the insulation is more even and drafts become less likely.
V-baffled is what you get if you try to sew up your own sleeping bag.
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Me? Still baffled. Always the same. Always.
Etc...
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Thunder: Any loud resounding noise (Boom!), or the sound of some self-important jerk haranguing everyone in a loud, threatening voice. (Been there, right?)
Bolt: A short, stout arrow with a heavy head, or maybe a flash of lightning. (Either one works, especially if you're out there near the pointy end.)
So then, put them together and you get "thunderbolt": "A flash of lightning accompanied by a crash of thunder." Works for me.
Often scary.
Seems more flashy and crashy the closer it is to you, and the darker the night, especially if you're out there all alone in your pup tent, having trouble getting flat enough not to feel like a target.
In various mythologies, a thunderbolt was a thing hurled by one god of thunder or another, generally for no discernable reason, because they were piffed about some insignificant annoyance, and could get away with it, being big and immortal and dickheads.
Thor was pretty good at this game: "Odin's eldest son, strongest of the gods though not the wisest." Fits the pattern, doesn't it?
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Me? No one has ever called me Sparky.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(1) Wheezing sound made as your stove runs out of fuel.
(2) Whistling sound coming from your nose when it's full of goop.
(3) Brand of brass, white-gas-burning Swedish stove first made around 1880 and only recently discontinued, then maybe not again. Anyhow, last listed a few years back by Recreational Equipment Inc. as the "Optimus Climber Svea 123R." I used to have one. Fun. Made in Sweden. Noisy. Ran incredibly hot. Pretty small overall.
(4) A Swedish female name, popular during the first half of the 20th century. Also "Mother Svea", the Swedish national emblem and the female personification of Sweden. (Yay, more or less then — yet another woman who can beat me up without breaking a sweat.)
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Me? Got gas? No, just a mild case of svea.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(1) Method of cooking using radiant heat. If this doesn't mean anything to you, then think of a hot dog on a stick over an open flame. Sound familiar now? (Better, eh?)
(2) Since ultralight stoves are so small, and ultralight backpackers so frugal about carrying more than a few drops of fuel, they don't have much use for roasting, although it could be an option if you find a good supply of small, edible bugs some day. Other than that, roasting is really the basic idea behind a full-coverage wind screen, which allows complete use of a stove's heat output by protecting the stove and pot from wind, and bouncing the heat around inside the wind screen as much as possible before finally letting it escape through the very smallest of chimney holes at the top. (It works!)
(3) Cooking by dry heat, usually in an oven, but possibly over or near an open flame or other heat source. Roasting causes caramelizing or "Maillard browning" of the food's surface, which enhances flavor. (Also true. Everything here is true.)
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Me? Recently reaffirmed that roasting does not make my fingers feel better.
Etc...
so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(1) A biggish, web-footed water bird having a large, pouchy beak that it uses for fishing, and maybe for shopping. Who can say? (And they don't taste good.)
(2) North America's original pre-Columbian trail food, made by mixing together powdered, dried meat (jerky) with congealed animal fat. Mmmmm...yummy?
(3) A mixture of lean dried meat beaten into a fine powder then mixed with fat, used as food. The word itself roughly translates as "fat", or "grease".
(4) An indigenous North American travel food made from dried meat (usually bison) which has been pounded into a paste, then mixed with rendered fat and sometimes a few dried berries, and finally shaped into patties.
(5) pemmican (n.) kind of nutritious and durable foodstuff made by Native Americans, 1791, from Cree (Algonquian) /pimihka:n/ from /pimihke:w/ "he makes grease," from pimiy "grease, fat." Lean meat, dried, pounded and mixed with congealed fat and ground berries and formed into cakes eaten on long journeys. Also used figuratively for "extremely condensed thought or matter." (Online Etymology Dictionary)
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Me? Still wishing I had a beak.
Etc...
so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
OW is a word used most often for the amusement of companions.
It really works best this way, which is a good reason to have friends, or at least one or two random people who have nothing better to do than to go hiking with you. And if that doesn't work, there is probably a cell phone app so you can pay someone to pretend they can stand you for a couple of hours.
Anyhow, OW.
OW is rarely used alone. It's a start, but is usually accompanied by other words like @#$%&!, expressions which convey a special enthusiasm, or by ritual body movements, such as sucking on fingers or shaking one hand wildly in the air while hopping on one foot. (The "OW Hop".)
There is a statistically significant association between these words, these actions, and activities such as removing hot cookware from a fire without a pot gripper (dumb), or using random lumpy rocks as hammers to pound stakes (more dumb).
In this sense OW is sometimes mispronounced as OUCH (or even OWICH), "an interjection that denotes pain", as your high school English teacher might put it, clueless. (Why do we need to study English anyway? For those of us who already speak it? Why don't we have an expression class? Learn to share ideas and think and write? Have fun? OW! There's an idea.)
OW! — Over Weight.
If you've been bitten by the packweight bug then you've entered a new dimension, one in which you are judged by numbers. Random, arbitrary numbers.
If the numbers you choose to associate with are smaller than the next person's numbers, then you are not over weight, they are. (Note: the term "over weight" applies only to pack weight, and size. If you are a big hootin' hollerin' honking doofus, nobody cares, mostly, if you bathe regularly, if you have a pack so small, so tiny, so light that you can only pick it up with the tips of your fingers.)
Over weight is a sin, the first sin, the original sin, the Sin of Infinite Stink for ultralighters.
Because.
Because we need a standard to judge you by. Because. Because if we don't judge you then we have to judge ourselves, and OW! — we don't want to do that.
Because if you have a standard to judge other people by, then you can do it and say because. "Because it says so right here on the weight chart. Your base pack weight can't be over 9 pounds (4 kg for metroids), or you're a total dick. We don't talk to dicks. They can't be in our club. OW! So go away. But not so far we can't see you and keep judging you."
Which results in another OW! response for you, a bad one. You go home and wonder "How Far Along Am I, Really?", and you think about life and if it's worth it, and if you'll ever get there even if you take out a second mortgage and buy that three-and-a-half ounce (99 g, eh?) crinkly titanium-foil pack that's too small to actually carry anything in. (So it stays at three and a half ounces forever, right? No matter what? Right?).
And then you think some more and finally have that enlightenment moment when you say "OW!, hey. I'm owl wright just liek I am — I'm gonig to HMOH and ful speed ahead and so on," completely forgetting how to use a spell checker and picking up random acronyms without knowing what they mean but it's all OK now. You have moved beyond OW. You are no longer Over Weight.
You now know everything. Everything that matters anyhow. Because. Because you just know it. And so, by a simple change in attitude you have become Omnisciently Wonderful (OW!). So you start your own dance meditation studio (PrancyDancyMed), but no flapping hands and hopping and howling in pain any more. Now you help others move from a life of bumping into walls and slamming their fingers in car doors to one of grace and light and hip humping and cool booty grooving. (If they purchase the premium plan of 12 easy monthly payments.) Life is good again, such as it is. OW!
Then you die.
See?
Please note that your final life score stands at 3½ out of a possible 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Approximately. (Had to be rounded down a bit to meet our standards.)
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Me? Feeling that way today.
Etc...
so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction definitions: outdoor terms fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals
(1) A brand name of Nalge Nunc International, a distributor and manufacturer of plastic containers. Go figure.
(2) Brand name for durable and dependable plastic products made by Nalge Nunc International. Most of these are water bottles. Clever backpackers eventually realized that disposable plastic soft drink containers were both cheaper and lighter than the Nalgene kind. So most backpackers continue to use the heavy ones. It's as old-school as smoking. (WTF?)
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Me? Just found an ashtray. (Another endangered species.)
We gots email! From our reader!
Matt S (Wed, Jan 4, 2023):
Excellent, as always.
My favorite is Gatorade bottles. Sturdy plastic. Several sizes. Large threads, so it's rare that you cross thread the cap and later find a very wet pack. No cap lanyard tempting you to do something stupid like biner it to the outside of your pack.
On multi day trips, we still carry one Nalgene because the threads mate with the water filters. But it's a Nalgene gallon-ish sized sack. Much lighter, and works great until a careless hiker knocks it off a picnic table and the seam splits.
Matt
Dave replies (Thu, Jan 5, 2023):
Hey thanks for writing. I didn't know that anyone read this stuff any more, especially since I haven't actually been able to go anywhere for way too long.
As far as bottles, I finally switched to the Platypus-style collapsible bladders for everything. Light, and they fold down to nothing when they're empty. Everybody eventually finds what works best for them.
Etc...
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