Great Hikes I Have Never Done (And Don't Care About)

I once read M.J. (Nimblewill Nomad) Eberhart's "Ten Million Steps". This is a good book. Not great literature, and not excessively well written, but I didn't expect a diary to be, and this is essentially a trail diary. He has spirit though, and I learned a lot. It would have been good to hike with him.

Even if the book isn't great literature you can't fault the man. He did what almost no one else could do. Go ahead. Raise an objection here. Lift your hand and wave it. Stand up and shout. Tell me about others who have hiked farther in a lifetime, or in a season, who have gone faster or lighter. Tell me something, and then watch me ignore you. All of that is good. That's all good, but irrelevant.

In 2007 Andrew Skurka hiked the The Great Western Loop, "a 6,875-mile footpath that links together five existing long-distance trails — including the Pacific Crest Trail, Pacific Northwest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, and Arizona Trail — and a trail-less segment through the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts."

OK. I will never do that. That doesn't mean that I hate anyone. I am incapable of it.

I admire the determination and mental toughness needed, not to mention the insane level of physical conditioning required. That said, I still say that Eberhart did what almost no one else can do. There are some like Skurka who have done "better" (farther, faster, flashier, with better public relations — categorize it any way you want) but they haven't really, I think. The pool of those who can hike from Florida to Quebec in one year at age 59 is so vanishingly small that I have to consider all of them as superior beings, members of a clan comprised of superhuman entities I can barely comprehend.

I'd like to see those who are now in their early 20s to mid 30s pass by about 30 years from now, heading out on 10-month trips that no one else has done. Given the way that people are leaping at new things every minute, virgin backpacking trips will be scarce as 60-year-old transcontinental trekkers by then.

Maybe what's most important is not major league sports or the extreme niches within a sport but what people do of, by, and for themselves, on their own. In other words, if you're looking for something to do, it might be that the way to go about it is to do what feels good. To you. I think so.

Sleeping in feels good, but only on some days, and only for a while. I'm not saying you should aim for that. You need a challenge, something useful for defining yourself and making you feel good about life while you're doing it and after you've done it. In the middle of it though, maybe not quite so much, not that often. Not everything that is good or worthwhile is always fun while it's happening. As an aside here, you've probably learned by now that it's many of life's little disasters and minor calamities that make the best and funniest stories, but only later, often much later, following an appropriate amount of reflection. And healing.

OK, challenging and interesting. After that, what then? Be specific. Trust your innards. They will let you know.

If you decide something with your head, it's probably wrong. If you think about something that you heard about, that's probably wrong too. Take Andrew Skurka. He finished The Great Western Loop. If you hadn't heard of it earlier, you have now. It's an impressive accomplishment. Does that mean that you should go and do it too? Probably not.

Notice that Skurka eventually began referring to himself as a "professional backpacker". In other words, though he may have liked his work, he ended up doing a job. The bigger and flashier he was able to make something, the more likely he could get sponsorship and be able to earn a living. OK for him. I'm not saying that it's bad, but as another example consider whether you want to be a government employee because the attorney general of your state just broke up a price-fixing ring. How much sense does that really make? Same with choosing the right backpacking trip for yourself.

If you hear about something, and if you've always kinda-sorta had it in the back of your mind, and this is the last shove over the edge and you can't help yourself anymore, then I'd say you have a winner. Go for it. Not necessarily elsewise.

Kick back. Give things a rest for a while. Ruminate. Let something come to you.

Assuming that you have experience at backpacking, and are comfortable with backpacking, and know about what you can handle, and have a feeling for places you have been, then you have a good base. Let those experiences talk to you. An idea or two will come along. Reading is good, and talking to people you know is good. If someone like Skurka is speaking nearby, go have a listen. Keep an ear open for the small sounds, the little mouse-like ultrasonic squeaks that everyone else misses. Look for the door that's open only a crack, letting a bit of intriguing light in. Investigate those things.

Look for the oddball, out of the way place, the trail you hear about that everyone seems to pass by, saying they'd maybe like to get back there some day, but don't. Feel your way into it. You're looking for yourself in the world, for a place that needs you and where you will feel at home. It may not be the famous trail where everyone else goes. The best experiences after all are the ones that tell you the most about who you are and what life is all about, and the less overhead the better.

I've always wondered about people who hike one of the really big trails. The Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Pacific Crest Trail. What are they after? I understand the idea of international borders. An international border is a useful concept, but I still don't quite understand the idea of starting at the Mexican border, touching it, and then hiking for months to go and touch the Canadian border. For those hiking the two westernmost of these three trails, that is the story, but why, exactly?

The Appalachian Trail seems to make more sense. It is still arbitrary but is also much more focused on actual geography: Springer Mountain to Mount Katahdin, no political boundaries really involved. It is all about place. Going from Atlantic to Pacific makes sense too, or traveling the same route in the other direction. Loop trails make sense to me, as do trips to experience particular seasons. Political boundaries and timetables do not.

True, if you want to do something you have to plan, and schedule, but scheduling down to the minute destroys a trip. Racing is wrong. Racing is a thing that I'm not talking about here. Racing is complex and done for other reasons. Backpacking is done for itself, in its own time, in its own way. There are hours and days and weeks and resupply points and there is always a limited amount of time, and you have to obey the limits but marching along the dotted line with a stopwatch in hand is going too far.

FTK kills the experience. Dead.

Keep it simple and you will be right. You get up in the morning, and after that you do the right things in the right order to get home again, but other than that you don't need to play along. Don't give yourself over to the rules of the game for the sake of the rules, or of the game. Steer an easy course while remaining in control. Maintain an even strain.

I used to know someone who scheduled things a year or two in advance, and hiked with a guidebook and map constantly in hand. She was precise about always hiking the "official" trail. She had been a lot of places over several decades and yet her life didn't seem to have a soul. Not to me. Maybe I'm too small to understand, but her experience on the trail seemed to be a lot more about bagging things in the proper time in the proper order by the proper, official rules than about finding joy.

And as I see it, that's what this is really about, the joy, and to find joy you have to keep things simple, and open, at least a bit.

I'm not in the big leagues, and not headed there. Maybe I truly am an idiot, but here's an idiot's advice if you want it: look for the small stuff. Go where others don't. Be quiet. Make yourself tiny. Move slowly. Stay humble. Keep your eyes open. Listen. Wait.

Some of my best times ever have been the unexpected ones, in places other people just don't go. Sometimes this is only a few feet off a trail. Cut away from the trail, get out of sight, sit on a log and have lunch, then see what happens. If you're patient and quiet, things do happen. You can have the same sort of experience while hiking on any non-name-brand trail. Simply follow the same ideas.

I haven't been able to explain this to anyone, not really — they don't want to listen. No one knows what the hell I'm talking about. They are blinded by the bright flashing lights and the dayglo colors. But many of my small trips have felt like they were the culmination of a dream long gestating, and that tells me that they were right. I haven't had to fly between continents or hire guides. I just go somewhere that might maybe be interesting and see what happens. If I try to stay light then I almost always come out ahead.

 

References:

Nimblewill Nomad web site

Ten Million Steps

Nimblewill Nomad, the perpetual hiker (Wikipedia)

Andrew Skurka web site

Andrew Skurka (Wikipedia)

2007 Adventurer of the Year: The Walking Man (National Geographic Adventure)

FTK

 

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See tabs at the top for definitions and books.
Have extra info to add?
If the commenting system is out again, then email sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Amounting to nothing. As usual.

And Then She Ate The Dog

Elspeth the Architect, the first English woman to ride a motorcycle around the world. (Image from 1stwomenuk.co.uk)

Now that many women are speaking out about their lives, and receiving some (overdue) justice, and at the same time revealing themselves as victims, let's take a look at a woman who charged ahead, decades ago, accomplished the breathtakingly unexpected, and is not also a victim.

Let us give thanks.

At the age of twenty-three, Elspeth Beard became the first woman to motorcycle around the world. 35,000 miles with just a tent, some tools, her savings and a ton of determination, she reveals what she learnt about herself on the road...

Interview with Elspeth Beard at First Women UK.

Image from In Venus Veritas.

She now runs an architectural business in Godalming, Surrey.

Image from In Venus Veritas.

From her web site...

Elspeth Beard specialises in creating or remodelling interesting and unusual buildings, both old and new. When working with old buildings, she likes to give them a new lease of life by mixing conservation with contemporary design; the clean lines and modern feel of new elements contrasting with the original features of the existing building. Much of her work involves the conversion of listed buildings such as water towers, lighthouses and barns into striking and unique family homes. She also creates all kinds of new houses, varying from traditional timber-framed constructions to modern buildings with rendered walls and large areas of floor-to-ceiling glass.

More info:

Elspeth Beard Architects

ELSPETH: Vanguard, interview In Venus Veritas.

Elspeth Beard - One of the Early Globetrotters at Motorcyclist Online (dog story, old photos).

Elspeth Beard is one of a select band of bold women to ride a motorcycle around the world, and she was the first Englishwoman to do so.

Around-The-World by motorcycle, misc info, old photos.

Another woman: Tamara Raye Wilson, rock bassist, photographer, motorcyclist, motorcycle racer, mechanical engineer at Disney.

Tamara Raye Wilson on the course. (Cicadawheels)

Interview with Cicadawheels: "Tamara Raye Wilson, Just Smiling, Having Fun And...Ride!"

Tamara Wilson: A Disney Engineer's Perspective on Quality Motorcycle Protection.

Snapshots from the Hell On Wheels Moto Scramble

Yeah, well, she chose to compete this way too. (Todays Cycle Coverage)

Tammi Tibetan, musician.

Moto Lady: Posts Tagged 'tamara raye'

At Born Free 6 Chopper Mania. (The Moto Lady)

Tamara On The Burly Brand Jackrabbit. (The Moto Lady)

Another woman: "Sarah Marquis (born June 20, 1972) is a Swiss adventurer and explorer. From 2010 to 2013, she walked 20,000 kilometres (12,000 mi) alone from Siberia to the Gobi Desert, into China, Laos, Thailand, and then across Australia. In 2011, she gave a TED talk and in 2014 she was named one of National Geographic's Adventurers of the Year." (Wikipedia)

From her web site.

Why walking is the ideal speed to see the world

How do you walk 500 miles? Extreme hiker Sarah Marquis explains how pain gives way to pleasure during an epic trek through the wilderness.

From Siberia To Australia: Sarah Marquis' 10,000 Mile Walk

"This story, it is my story," Sarah Marquis says. "And it is a story of a woman." Marquis is an explorer, but she doesn't scale mountains or jump off cliffs. She walks.

The Australian: Sarah Marquis faces her toughest test on epic Australian adventure.

On Point: Her Long Walk: 27,000 Miles Adventurer Sarah Marquis has walked from Siberia to Australia. Alone and fearless. She shares her story. [audio]

BBC World Service: The Documentary, Sarah Marquis, Explorer In a classic Aboriginal walkabout, Swiss explorer Sarah Marquis fished, foraged and gathered food from the wild. She discusses her Australian odyssey with Steve Backshall – himself a world-class adventurer. [audio]

3 years Alone On Foot: An Interview With Sarah Marquis Hear her tales of survival, nature connections, perseverance, various encounters, and learn about an overall amazing spirit- all documented in her book, Wild By Nature. [audio]

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I usually don't post photos belonging to others, but this is all too good to pass up, so I'll chance it. Enjoy.

Definitions: Bog Hole

(1) A bog hole is, of course, a typical bureaucratically-determined sleep feasibility site. Look for the telltale sign that says "Designated Camping Area". Prepare your bug defense perimeter. Accept the damp. Keep your official permit at the ready in case of a snap inspection.

(2) A bog hole is the preferred habitat of the plant known as bog myrtle, named after the famous and rugged (though some say mythical) female backpacker, Bog "BM" Myrtle, "The Honkin', Stompin', Stoopin', Poopin' Princess of the Backcountry", who had a soft spot for soft spots and also left liberally fertilized pocks scattered throughout each of the moist landscapes she traversed.

"BM" was the granddaughter of, and possibly gained some of her energy from, Josephene Myrtle Corbin, the Four-Legged Woman and noted dipygus dibrachius tetrapus, who was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee in 1868, and had two of everything from the waist down, including pairs of legs, but was otherwise pretty forgettable, though an intimidating square dancer in her day.

Not so for "BM". No. She was different in a different way.

"BM" had only the one pair of legs but she used them like nobody's business, though only outdoors. (She wasn't a great dancer.)

But she was big. And she was strong. She ate like a lumberjack, and possessed a fearsome speedy digestive system that kept her hopping at all hours.

Because of this physiological quirk she was unable ever to remain still and so managed to cover huge sections of trail in short order, setting several land speed records for foot travel during her short lifetime.

It could be that her unnatural hiking cadence did her in, or the toxic effects of the excess vitamins and minerals contained in her enormous lunches, or that, as is sometimes said, she was pursued one day too far into the wet, peaty, acidic reaches of a forb-infested quivering bog by pestilential clouds of savage biting midges, and was ultimately sucked deep down into the soft damp darkness, to expire there and at last find some peace.

No one knows, but to this day such landscapes are favored by bog myrtle ("sweetgale" or "myrica gale") a pleasantly-scented traditional enemy of midges and horseflies of all descriptions. Does that sound believable? (Say yes!)

(3) And finally, a bog hole is Town (any town), where zero days happen, where zero days form, collect, pile up, and spontaneously glomerate one to another, tending to mire and restrain you, the thru-hiker, from ever getting back on the trail and finishing anything, at all, ever, especially if there is ice cream. To go with your beer.

The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide

Rate me unimpressed.

This book was my biggest disappointment since I bought Lightweight Backpacking & Camping (LB&C) by Ryan Jordan, etc. (The "etc." being George Cole, Lee Van Horn, Alan Dixon, Rick Dreher, Dave Schultz, Stephanie Jordan, Alison Simon, Bill Thorneloe, and Ellen Zaslaw)

Both books are losers but in different ways. LB&C is pompous, attempting to be academic in tone, and goes on forever while introducing little of value, and without even covering all aspects of the subject. It makes backpacking sound insipid.

Ray Jardine, whatever one thinks of him and his huge ego problems, is a better writer, and can at least hold a reader's interest for the duration of a book. (I've read The Pacific Crest Trail Hiker's Handbook and Beyond Backpacking, but not Trail Life. He does have gaps in his work, though the last volume might be better.)

But saying that The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide (TUHGG) was a disappointment isn't quite right. I bought it only to fill out my Amazon order so I'd get free shipping. Sounds odd, but rather than paying for shipping and getting only shipping, I paid for an extra book and got shipping added on at no extra cost.

Hey. I was curious. How bad could it be?

Pretty bad.

Or, more succinctly, crap.

TUHGG contains no useful information. It is so bad that it could have been written by Karen Berger, a successful and (in my opinion) talentless outdoor-writing hack.

Once upon a time, when Backpacker Magazine online had a "jargon file" section, I came across a hint that said Ms Berger had written it.

There were gems in it such as these:

• Loop Trail: As the name suggests, loop trails start at point A and returns back to point A without repeating any section of the trail (or at least, not much of it).
• Shoulder Straps: Curved anatomically so they don't slide or pinch neck.
• Whitewater: This term is used to describe stretches of rivers that are considered technical for boating purposes. The turbulent aerated water is recognizable by the steep drops it pours over and the loud roaring noise created in the process.

Presumably, all the foaming white water is not a clue to the presence of white water.

Gladly, for me at least, Mr Skurka can write gooder. But his book needs an editor. Really. He writes too bloodlessly, using "and/or" on almost every page. (Make up your mind, eh?) And he assumes too much knowledge on the reader's part by not being explicit enough, especially about equipment, mentioning many things in passing without explaining what they are, where one can find information, or where they can be bought.

The good: This book had a great art director. The book is visually appealing and easy to surf around in. It has a consistent color scheme and great typography. It is well laid out. It gave me ideas I can apply to my upcoming work.

Some other stuff:

Goofy terminology.

Where did this Ultimate Hiker phrase come from? Mr Skurka bills his style as "ultimate hiking", as opposed to "ultimate camping", or other outdoor pursuits such as birdwatching, which might also involve carrying a pack and moving one's feet in an organized way for part of the day.

By "ultimate hiking" he means only that he likes to walk, mostly. Dopey.

And worse, "ultimate" found its way into the title, which, in case anyone has forgotten, is The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide, which leads a person to believe that this book is the final and last word about hiking gear, which it ain't. Gear talk is tossed off casually, and everything else in the book is almost incidental as well. Which leaves lots of time to appreciate the art direction, but that wasn't what I was hoping for.

Fuzzy thinking.

And there is loose gear talk too.

Take the "Cooking Systems" section. In it Mr Skurka describes how to make an alcohol-burning stove from a cat food can. Having written a book on ultralight stoves, I've put a lot of time into thinking about them and how they work, so I know a bit.

OK so far, but Mr Skurka's book provides no step-by-step illustrations. Well, not too bad – any mostly-normal person can figure out the steps. But there's more.

He describes a wind screen but doesn't show one, or how to make it. I can guess what it looks like and how it's used, having seen lots of pictures elsewhere, but a noob probably can't. And it's a crappy sort of windscreen once you've got it made, especially crappy for someone soloing hundreds of miles across Alaska and northern Canada, when one needs the most efficient wind screen possible. Even I figured this out years ago, and have published plans for the style I use. Because it's awesome (i.e., it works).

And then there are a couple of worse things. For one, there is no reflector under Mr Skurka's stove. This is huge.

As someone who personally set Mt Rainier National Park on fire one summer day, I know from bottom reflectors. Using an alcohol stove with an adequate wind screen almost guarantees shooting mass quantities of reflected heat back down toward the ground, so you definitely need a ground reflector. But Mr Skurka didn't mention one. I don't think he knows about the idea.

The other thing is more subtle. It's his fuel bottle. The photo at the top of page 142 shows Mr Skurka fueling his stove from a hard-sided plastic bottle. Again, dopey. This is a true beginner's mistake and is crazy stupid.

Leave air in a bottle and ascend, and then what? Pressure builds inside. It could be enough to split a bottle, or to force fuel to leak out around the cap. Alcohol is fugitive enough, as anyone who has ever used a push-pull type cap knows. (Yep – I made that mistake too.)

Leave air in a bottle and descend, and then what? Pressure builds outside and the bottle crumples. Also not good.

So, then what, Mr Smarty-Pants?

Simple. Just use a 16-ounce/half liter Platypus bladder for fuel. Squeeze out excess air before replacing the cap, and you have a slim fuel container that is impervious to altitude changes and fits into even the tightest pack pocket. Somehow Mr Skurka, in all his thousands of miles and years of tramping around, has never figured this out.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

No sources of information.

Dig for them and you can find them, but Mr Skurka doesn't help.

Example – stakes. Mr Skurka likes the "REI Tri-Stake", and he mentions it as being one of his picks, but provides no picture or URL, and does not even say what "REI" is (not everyone knows). So, obviously, do a web search, Dumbnuts. Which I do, and find...nothing. Much. A couple of reviews, but not even a link to REI.

So I go to REI (Recreational Equipment, Incorporated) and search for "Tri-Stake". And the results are: "Tri-Stake (0 matches) Sorry, we couldn't find any matches."

Huh.

So now what? Dunno. With an image a person could get an idea, and probably buy something similar, or go hunting around on the web and so on, and find something similar, but without a URL or an image in the book, you don't know. And TUHGG is full of these references. In fact, there is no appendix or supplement or table of URLs for the reader to start with. A person has to guess, and that ain't good.

Poop on it.

Half-baked anecdotes.

There is too much of this:

The forest was dense and the side of the abandoned logging road was filled with brush and slash piles, so I'd wound up pitching my poncho-tarp directly on the road...A particularly strong gust at around 5 a.m. yanked a stake from its mooring and my poncho-tarp fell on top of me like a wet blanket...After about two hours of hiking I was sipping hot cocoa while my clothes tumbled in the dryer, and being entertained in the home of 85-year old Elizabeth Barlow.

And that's about it.

Mr Skurka set up camp, got rousted by a storm, ended up in someones' house for a while (no telling how) and then wanders into a discussion about shelter functionality. The reader never knows how he found Ms Barlow's house, why he was let in, or invited in or whatever, who she was, or anything interesting about her or the whole situation. Sure, hey, he got pooped on by the rainstorm, but hasn't that happened to him about 8000 times in his hiking life? What was it, then, about this particular rainstorm or this location, or this person that is relevant?

Dunno, 'cause Mr Skurka don't say.

Crap on it. There's too much of this in the book. Way too much.

Strange gear choices.

OK then, on to titanium.

On page 147, under material that cookware can be made from, we get back to the canard about titanium being the absolute lightest material available, which is so wrong it hurts my head: "Titanium pots are the lightest...".

Ah, no. The "AntiGravity Gear Non-Stick Pot" (a.k.a. "Evernew Titanium Non-Stick .9L Pot", which is the closest item that AntiGravityGear is selling now) is not $10 but $65, and weighs 4.8 oz or 136 g.

I use an 18-fluid-ounce / 0.53L aluminum cup that weighs 1.8 ounces or 51 g, and cost me $5.95 (please note where the decimal point is). Even an empty steel tomato can is lighter by 1.8 ounces than the above titanium pot, and costs (with original contents intact) less than $2.

Titanium, as a material, is nearly the weight of steel, and much more expensive than either steel or aluminum, but it is almost corrosion-proof, and tough (it doesn't dent easily). It all depends on how it's made, and most titanium cups and pots are not whisper-thin, which means that they weigh a lot.

If you want titanium for its particular physical and chemical qualities, then go for it, but no one with even the attention span and intelligence of a mouse can really claim that titanium is inherently light. So if Mr Skurka, with his mega-mileage trips, is buying titanium because it's the lightest, then again. You have to wonder.

And what's with the link anyway. Oh, right. There is none. You say "AntiGravity Gear Non-Stick Pot", and hope for the best. Well, there is no such thing as of right now, and no picture or supplemental information in the book, or on a supporting web site, so the best guess is the Evernew pot, which is a long, long way from $10.

OK fine.

What about really cheap solutions? "...don't be tempted to use a Wal-Mart Grease Pot or a Foster's beer can – neither is durable enough for a week-long trip...." WTF?

They evaporate? Break into shards when you look at them? Explode?

I've used both, and it's true that the giant beer cans are thermodynamically inefficient, and not terribly durable, but both that and the grease pot are easily as durable as Mr Skurka's home-made alcohol stove, let alone the tarp he sleeps under, so I don't get this part either.

Is anyone home?

Dangerous omissions.

Well, sure. This is the part where a person has to use common sense. But a real noob might take things literally, and get into trouble.

Mr Skurka does not carry an extra shirt, or backup footwear. Or so he says.

This is nuts.

I truly cannot comprehend how a person can go on a 4700-mile trip on foot, taking only one shirt and one pair of shoes. Mr Skurka doesn't say so, but it is implied here and there throughout TUHGG that on his trips he frequently receives supplies on roughly a weekly basis. This would mean at worst that he's getting a new, clean shirt weekly or thereabouts, but the shoes!

What happens if you need to cross a stream, or simply want to strip down, wade in, and bathe? You have one pair of shoes, which you either leave on (and soak) or take off (and risk ripping up your feet). This is nuts.

I'm a lightweight-er but I've come up with several rules over the years, and carrying some kind of backup foot protection is one. Even if it's shoe insoles that I swap out for something more helpful from the after-market, like Superfeet insoles, at least I have something, and I'm not stuck with nothing.

Likewise for socks and shirts. I normally carry three sets of socks because the washed pair takes roughly 24 hours to dry (where I live), so with three pair I can have one pair to wear, one pair dry and clean switch to, and one pair not quite dry yet after having been washed.

And with shirts, I can wash my dirty one and still have a clean and dry shirt to sleep in.

Easy, simple, still light, and redundant enough to increase both comfort and safety.

I don't get the no-backup position at all.

Other stuff.

There's lots.

If it weren't for the fact that Mr Skurka had company on some of his trips, and had the rest of his trips documented one way or another, I'd be guessin' that he really didn't know crap, and was a beginner like the rest of us, and hasn't gone that far in actual fact.

I first heard of him when he sent me a query about publishing a story proposing his first-ever thru-hike of the Sea-to-Sea Route. I was editor of the ALDHA-West newsletter at the time. Since then I attended a post-Sea-to-Sea presentation he gave at the Seattle REI, and I heard him speak one year at an ALDHA-West Gathering near Mt Hood. So I know he actually exists, and has worked on his technique and equipment, and is young and strong and smart, but I don't understand this book.

And I'm not jealous. I did write a book on backpacking stoves, and in the last half-dozen years it has sold around 12 copies. I'm sure that Mr Skurka's book has sold enough to buy him more than one light beer. Go for it, Andy. He has a name, and he has National Geographic behind him, and those things count. His book is beautiful. His sales will be good. This is all fine. It is how life works.

But TUHGG would be so much better if it actually said something. Right on page 7 in the introduction Mr Skurka mentions Colin Fletcher's The Complete Walker (1968 edition), which, dated as it now is, is better than Mr Skurka's book. Because it tells a story, and has personality, and teaches techniques that transcend random equipment mentions.

Andrew Skurka is a person whose name appears in several record books. Colin Fletcher was a mensch.

One will be remembered.

More:

If you want better from Andrew Skurka, see his web site.

Lightweight Backpacking & Camping

Karen Berger, Writer

Sea-to-Sea Route

Super Duper Ultralight Windscreen

Low Tech Cooking Pottery

Occasional Definitions: Titanium

Cherry Picking A Pot

Hiker Attempting

Records are made to be ignored.

Upon hearing the news that Josh Garrett pushed off to have a poke at setting a new Pacific Crest Trail speed record on June 10, I took a nap.

I'm in training after all, and if you're in training you keep to a schedule, or otherwise it's all wasted effort.

Effort. Man, that word gets used a bunch, doesn't it? It's getting so bad that whenever I hear someone say "effort" I just start yawning. Blame it on the training, or blame it on me, but that's what happens. Maybe I'm getting older, or maybe I'm getting wiser, or just maybe I'm approaching my peak fitness -- I don't know, but it must be one of those, and I think the answer is behind door number three.

You don't get to this level without planning, and planning is what I've been doing a lot of, because it's so effective at conserving energy. You could say that planning is the better part of valor, right after running away, but running away is way too much work for the payoff it provides, so I think I'll promote planning to the number one position and forget about running entirely.

Even the thought of running makes me and slide down in my chair and reach for the remote, which is always nearby since I learned that it's never too early to catch an old movie, and it's so relaxing.

In 2011, Scott Williamson set what is apparently the current PCT record of 64 days, 11 hours and 19 minutes, or 41 miles a day (66 km). Garrett will have to shove his way past that by doing about 42 miles a day (68 km). I expect he'll exhibit a fair bit of panting behavior while he's at it, skinny vegan or not, and no doubt he'll be looking at his watch a lot. Sounds like fertile ground for whipping up a case of carpal diem syndrome, which is like tennis elbow without the little white outfit, and affects only the watch-bearing wrist as it gets stressed through increasingly frantic attempts to grab more time out of the air.

I gave up on watches decades ago, about the time I realized that working was too much work. If you get up early enough to make it in by 8:00 a.m., they expect you to look busy for hours, and all too often they want to see what they call "results", other than your satisfaction and having spent a day worth living. Well, I eventually had enough of that, and dumped both the job and the watch, at about the same time, and it was a decent decision. Now I never get out of bed before I wake up. After that, I take what comes along. And I do some backpacking.

I too am contemplating a long hike, and a record attempt of my own, if I can get organized, which is why I did the planning and what got me into this training regime. Which is to say that my record will mean spending the longest stretch of time ever on my chosen trail, going the fewest miles per day it is humanly possible to do, or less, and avoiding towns and resupply points whenever possible. And the point of all this is to find those things that cannot be found. Some things have to come to you, and you never know what they may be until you find one of them crawling into your lap, or up your pants leg, or until you happen to look up and see one of them silently flapping by with a dead rat hanging beneath it, as happened this morning, right near where I live, which I never would have seen had I been killing my life by doing something productive.

In other words, there is nothing like waiting to stimulate the mind and invite random miracles. Most things are shy. Most animals, all plants, and the vast majority of experiences, which require a proper invitation and a show of respect before they tentatively come around to introduce themselves.

Another way of saying this is that you pass by anywhere only once, no matter where it is, even if it's your own doorstep, because each and every day and exactly all parts of that day are unique in themselves and will never be the same today as they were yesterday, or the same tomorrow again, which is why, for those of us who have tried this and that and some of the other, turning off the ignition and coasting to a stop brings rewards you can't find any other way.

After a while, after a stretch of stillness, after the novelty of anticipation wears off and you start to get bored, you begin to see what is actually happening. You understand that what you thought was only a smooth and undifferentiated background is actually not that, but an infinitely rich foreground, and all that rushing around and heavy breathing and shouting that is labeled "Urgent!" is only a collection of mere intermittent distractions that flicker briefly and then diminish to a distant tinny buzz before vanishing entirely.

Good luck, Josh. May all your trails be straight and free of roots, your days sunny and cool, and may you live long enough and well enough to reach your goals, to achieve everything you are reaching for, so you have time to return when you no longer care about that, when you can wander aimlessly inside infinite time, and be startled by what you realize is looking back at you from the forest.

More:

Hiker Attempting Speed Record On Pacific Crest Trail While Raising Awareness For A Cause

Noise From The Driver's Side

Any bozos on this bus?

Congressman Scoots Popoff of Colorado wants fairness.

In December he expressed concern over Forest Service plans to exclude mountain bikes from a new segment of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, despite allowing hikers and horses there.

"How long will we, the American public, be forced to put up with this leftist recreational regime?" Mr Popoff thundered in a recent speech.

He likened the National Scenic Trails to the Interstate Highway system - both built and maintained with federal dollars, but only one of them allowing tractor-trailer units and speeds over 70 miles per hour (115 kph for you foreigners).

In addition, the Congressman labeled backpackers a public nuisance and a possible health hazard to both those living along the Trail and law-abiding citizens who just want to tear up a little turf every now and then, and shoot at signs along the way.

First, he said, backpackers are too slow, and pose a risk to more normal trail users. "Those scruffy idtiots just can't move fast enough to get out of the damn way," he snorted.

And, he asserted, hikers are "elitists who have all the time and money in the world to wander around aimlessly while the rest of us working poor have jobs to go to, and can only take our Hummers and Husqvarnas out on weekends, and then guess who's clogging all the trails?"

Grudgingly conceding that mountain bikes are honorary machines, the Congressman nevertheless hoped to ban not only hikers and horses from the entire National Scenic Trail system, but any vehicle not capable of sustained speeds of at least 40 miles per hour (65 kph) on level ground.

Next week he plans to introduce legislation to grade, pave, and stripe all trails, upgrading them to meet FHWA Functional Classification (Section IIB) Channelization Guidelines.

With that level of improvement, the Congressman said, trails will no longer be embarassing vestiges of pre-civilization, but they will become national emergency military transport routes, so funding can be provided by the Department of Defense, which has all the money needed to do anything, anyway.

More:

Tipton Urges Forest Service to Allow Mountain Bikes on New Trail Segment near Gunnison and Crested Butte

Deer Randall

The story of Grandma Ogilvy and Sam Nicks, and Randall the deer.

Well, now I'm recovered a bit I feel I should speak up, so here's my side of this story.

It was around April when this man showed up at the farm, about four years back, you see. He was kind of dusty looking and worn around the edges but nice. You know? Didn't seem like a bad guy and he had this little deer with him, a fawn, it was just a young thing.

He said it didn't have no mama, being as she was killed on the highway, which is where he found this little fawn wandering around, the man did, or so he told it, and it was a cute little one too.

Funny thing about the man, as I recall now that I think back, he looked kinda old and young at the same time and had a little bit of white fur trim on his jacket, which he wore although it was a nice spring day and not really that cold or nothin, but he still had on his jacket, kinda reddish color as I remember it, with the fur trim, which didn't seem to stand out so much at the time but it does now as I remember it.

But he seemed a decent enough fellow and wanted to take good care of this deer, not see it go to a zoo or be left wild with no mama to get run over too, or let the coyotes get a hold of it. You know?

And he didn't look well off or nothin but he offered to pay so's I could keep this deer for a while, and he paid me for a whole year up front if I'd keep it in my yard or in the corral or the barn when the weather got bad and I didn't see nothin harmful in that, seeing as how he paid up and all, so I said sure, I'd keep it, but I asked what he wanted to do with the deer and then he got kind of a bit vague and said something about safe keeping for when he needed to brighten up the night or something, I don't know, but he seemed kind enough so I said sure, I'd do it.

Seems he had some other deer of some kind at his place, which sounded a ways off, up north somewhere, and didn't have room and no easy way to get this one up there since he was hiking around the countryside with his backpack and stuff, which was when I thought I had him figured out, one of those rich city people who get tired of it all and go out and buy a toy ranch or go hiking around but he didn't seem like a rich guy or a city guy neither, pretty nice and sensible over all I thought, and he had a good attitude and seemed all around a pretty decent jolly kind of fellow, kind of grandfatherly sort of, with his white beard and all, but young at heart.

He said his name was Sam Nicks.

So that's how I got started with the deer and then the years went by.

I didn't see Mr Nicks for a long time, but eventually he came around again and paid up for another couple of years, and the little fawn grew up and seemed happy, especially at night, nice and safe inside the barn and it would stick its head out and kind of look up at the sky, especially around Christmas time, on clear, cold nights and it almost seemed there was a glow around it some times, but maybe it was my imagination though there was something special about this deer, I could tell. He sort of warmed my heart.

And then a couple more years went by and I didn't see Mr Nicks though he did send me a check every now and then, enough to pay for room and board for the deer and then some and on the bottom of the check it said For Upkeep Of Randall, or something like that as best as I could make out and everything seemed fine as far as I could tell, though I understand it is technically illegal to keep a wild animal penned up, and Randall was free to go, but he didn't seem to want none of that.

Then around the middle of December this year Randall seemed to be getting anxious about something, especially at night, like he wanted to get out and go look for Mr Nicks or something, so I would take him some carrots out to the barn every now and then, and talk to him for a while to calm him down, but he seemed to be looking up at the sky all the time, like he wanted to get out there and jump up into the sky and fly around or something, and you know it's kind of strange but every time I went out to the barn at night there was this sort of warm glow coming out of it like Randall was lit up or something, no so much like a light bulb but more like a feeling almost, you know?

Like a warm comforting feeling coming off him that lit up the whole place, but he was kind of nervous too, at the same time.

Then, last Wednesday night, he seemed really restless and really wanted out, banging his hoofs around inside the barn, looking out his window and then turning around and running from one side of the barn to the other and all, and I didn't know what to do so I went over to the barn and opened the door a crack and tried to talk to Randall to calm him down so I could go to bed and not worry, but when I did that he just rushed at the door and hit it hard and knocked it open wide which then knocked me down and he jumped right over me and that is the last I saw of him.

My husband came out a few minutes later and found me in the snow, kind of a little beat up but not too bad, more shaken than anything, and I've been knocked around lots worse in my day, but Randall was nowhere to be seen.

We looked for his tracks in the snow but they went a few feet and stopped, like he disappeared, or took off like a bird or something so we had to give up and we went to bed but a little later on, after we put out the lights it seemed like there was some kind of light flying around in the woods out back, going around and around in circles, and then it shot way up in the sky and headed north, and that's really the end of it there.

Somehow I think it was Randall. Somehow I do. I think he wanted to be back with Sam Nicks so much he just took off.

And you know, I think Randall will be all right.

We don't know for sure what happened to him but I have a good feeling about him so don't fret, we took good care of him while he was here and I think he wanted to get loose and go find Sam Nicks and thank him for arranging for his care and all, and I bet you that somehow the two of them met up again and it's probably all for the best in the end.

More:

Captive buck deer injures Florence woman in barn attack.

Florence woman recovering from surgery after attack by captive deer.

Gear Bylls Finishing School

Look tough. Wear man pants.

CrapChoppers Ltd., a British outdoor clothing company, wants you to look like a man.

A man who can do stuff. Like eat bugs. And drink his own urine. For fun.

A man who can have his own TV show, wallow in the mud, sleep in the occasional hotel. And still look bitchen.

Because chicks dig it.

But even more important, guys do.

Especially guys.

Macho parking lot cruisers, guys with apartments full of guns, lifetime gym memberships, and TV remotes stuck to the Idiot Channel.

And who's going to lead the way? Who's going to show you how?

Well, the leader of the pack, dude.

The guy with the Frequent Sleeper Discount at the Pines Resort Hotel in California, the guy who can assemble a bamboo raft kit in front of an entire video production company magically filming him all alone in the world's worst hellholes.

Like Hawaii.

Are you up to it? Can you handle a room with internet access and blueberry pancakes for breakfast, advertised as "a cozy getaway for families"?

Yes?

No?

Tell you a secret here. It's lots easier when you got your own Gear Bylls Adventure Suit ® from CrapChoppers Ltd.

Chicks dig craggy guys wearing stuff from CrapChoppers. A mouth full of grubs won't do it. Not even biting the head off a snake.

You need some Bylls AdventurePants. ® (Like the Bylls Survivor Full Stretch Trousers ®, with enhanced elastic gut control for the mature macho guy.)

We got fit. We got size. We got colors.

Try some on and prepare to go missing in action.

And you get the Gear Bylls ® imprint on everything. Even the underpants, now with Teflon.

Gear Bylls Teflon Undos. ® EZ-off/EZ-on. Stains rinse right out, in any creek.

And the special super slippery Qwik-On UndoGear ® fabric helps you cut a quick escape when a marauding husband comes home early.

Chilly?

Never been outside before?

Is OK. CrapChoppers has your back covered as well as your butt.

Just buy a Gear Bylls Freedom Jacket ® in your choice of camo, super-camo, ultra-camo, or camo with realistic blood stains printed right on. No need to bleed, indeed. If you got the cash, we provide the flash.

Be the macho man's macho man. Be smothered in babes. Get free drinks. Wear underpants.

Just like Gear Bylls. (Coming soon to a Wal-Mart near you.)

More:

Bear Grylls Survival Academy

How Bear Grylls the Born Survivor roughed it - in hotels

Interview With a Bear: Grylls Talks to GearJunkie on New Clothing Line

Bear Grylls Survival School to launch in Scotland

Babes In The Bushes

Former governor still humping it down the trail.

"Yes, it's true. Hiking changed my life, and now I want to help others." That was the statement issued recently by former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, the man who disappeared one day "to go for a hike", and ended up with an Argentinian mistress named Maria Belén Chapur.

Just how that could have happened seems mysterious to outsiders, but among Appalachian Trail thru-hikers, section hikers, trail crews, and others familiar with the 2184-mile (3515 km) route, it's simply another case of "trail magic".

Most instances of this phenomenon are limited to unexpected gifts of food, cold drinks, or sometimes a shower and a place to hole up and remove ticks, but in Sanford's case, he hit the jackpot.

"We get very, very few cases anything like this," said Benton K. Shaffer, Director of the The Appalachian Trail Conservancy. "Although it's not unknown for romances to develop while hiking the trail, in many ways it's like being struck by lightning - you can't count on it."

"And," he continued, "this is the first recorded case of two people from separate continents, people who never actually met in person, getting this kind of action."

Governor Sanford was, at the time, simply out to relax on a day hike. Ms Chapur, a resident of Buenos Aires, was walking her dog down a path near the Rio de la Plata, taking the air and admiring the sunset.

Suddenly, each was intimately aware of the other, though they had never met, or even heard of each other before.

"It was a kind of telepathic spooky action at a distance," said Sanford, "I knew I had to go and find this woman, my true soulmate, so I immediately left my wife and family. Hey, wouldn't you? How often do you find a hiking buddy you know is right for you?"

Governor Sanford's wife Jenny divorced him in 2010, though he remained in office until his term died a natural death in January 2011.

Non-hikers being non-believers, his political career also died, but that hasn't stopped Sanford. He is now promoting an extension to the Appalachian Trail which would take it south through Central America and along the east coast of South America, all the way to Tierra del Fuego, the "land of fire", and possibly of romance.

As well, he has started an online hiker dating service called "Plenty of Trips", where other bad boys with tomcat tendencies can search the world for their "true lugmates". "What does the word 'vibram' make you think of?" he asks with a wink. I know what it does for me."

Sanford and Chapur are now engaged to be married, although each maintains an active account at PlentyOfTrips.com "Just in case lightning wants to strike twice."

More:

Ex-South Carolina governor to marry former mistress

El gobernador infiel de Carolina del Sur se casa con su amante argentina

Exclusive CNN Photos: Sanford engaged to Argentinean girlfriend

News Of The Wild

Superman survives cowardly attack with help from Mama Bear.

The Man of Steel, now retired from the comics, has gone to Paradise. Paradise, California that is, where he lives quietly with his third wife Lana Luster and their dog Shemp.

While he lives quietly on most days, that wasn't the case last week when he went for a stroll near his home in this normally peaceful and somewhat remote part of northern California.

Hoping to enjoy the spring sun on a short hike in the Bean Soup Flat area, about a mile from Whiskey Ridge, near Celery Mountain in the Artichoke Backcountry, the Man of Steel came upon a family of bears, one he had encountered before.

Charmed by the mother bear and her two young ones, Superman stood quietly for a few minutes, watching them tussling playfully in the dust. And then something unexpected happened. He was attacked.

Now, you've heard this before. Superman has been attacked by almost every kind of thug, two-bit dictator, and deviant criminal there is. You know how it turns out, or always has. But this time things were different.

First, the attacker was not a petty crook but a mountain lion.

Second, the attack came from behind, without a lot of inflated dialog, or even any warning at all.

And third, the Man of Steel is now 74 and getting rusty.

"I hate cats. Always have. You can't trust the bastards," said Superman, who is more widely known around the retirement community as Clark Kent, mild-mannered old crank. "Cats are trouble. We got two or three that come over from the neighbors' place and crap in our begonias. Pisses me off," he added, while thoughtfully whacking the shrubbery with his cane.

The lion jumped Mr. Kent, as we probably should be calling him, and grabbed his knapsack, ripping at it and growling loudly, possibly trying to get at the tuna sandwich and bran muffins inside. But just as everything looked hopeless, Mama Bear pulled the same trick on the cat, jumping it from behind in turn.

After only a few seconds of growling and hissing, accompanied by some flying fur and a good bit of mauling, the bear managed to pull the cat off Mr. Kent and kick its butt, sending the cat yowling back into the bushes where it belongs.

In gratitude Mr. Kent shared his lunch with the bear, and played pat-a-cake with one of her cubs until the mother began to grow apprehensive about all the inter-species attention her little one was getting.

At that point she abruptly rounded up both cubs and returned to her home in a large rainbow-colored shoe on the verge of Unicorn Lake in the Lollipop Forest, and huffily slammed the door behind her.

Superman suffered only minor injuries, as you probably guessed.

More:

Paradise Post story: Man claims attack by lion, saved by a bear

Paradise Post followup: No lion, bear blood found on Biggs backpack

An Interview With Jerome

Sometimes it's more complicated than that.

Our guest today has been dead for 5300 years, but this has only enhanced his fame, if not his fortune. Even in our modern era of credit default swaps, toxic assets, identity theft, and hedge funds, banks still, for some reason, are skittish about dealing with the deceased.

For his sake, we can only hope this will change soon. Maybe by next week.

So, on to our guest.

Q: Sir, you are known to the world as both Ötzi the Iceman and Frozen Fritz. What do you prefer to be called?

A: Well, when I alive, my mother call me lots of name. I say "Anything you want meine Mutter, but not so much late for the dinner, ja?" Then she hit me with the stick once. But I always like the Jerome. Call me Jerome.

Q: All right then, Jerome it is then. Jerome the Iceman.

A: No. Name is Jerome. Jerome, or I kill you with rock. No joke on the name.

Q: Well Jerome, sir, from recent genetic studies of your mummified corpse, it appears that you may have had brown eyes and abundant facial hair.

A: Ja. This is true. My people have the hair.

Q: Scientists have also determined that you had type O blood. Is this true as well?

A: I don't know. When they find me in ice I am dry already. From blood I don't know, but whenever I kill the deer I have the drink. Blood. Good. Keep the body young, nicht wahr?

Q: Tell you what. I'll try it next time I bring down a deer.

A: Ja. You do that. Is good for the hair. Keep it from fall out.

Q: So, apart from you being lactose intolerant and having parents from Sardinia, what was the best part of living along the neolithic Austrian/Italian border that wouldn't even exist for another 5000 years or so?

A: Well, I think I say my backpack. I make it from the skin and the stick. We have plenty sticks then but your scientist people get all excited pretty much on that one somehow. Scientist never see stick before, maybe.

Like, I quote to you: "The picture that emerges from my analysis of Ötzi's possessions is of a mature, highly skilled hunter. His kit provided, with minimal weight, all the necessary tools for hunting, butchering and bringing back meat, skins, antlers or horn on his lightweight pack frame."

Pretty good for a dead guy, no? Meine Mutter is all the time calling me Dummkopf. She might be proud of me now maybe, if not also dead.

Q: Well, you may not know this, but these days we have a trend called "Ultralight Backpacking", based on a lot of the principles found in your gear. Have you heard about it and if so, what do you think?

A: Ja. I have the light pack. Is good. I carry moss around and some few rocks. That is all I have to eat. Once I have the elk liver but I eat it right away, so there is not so much to carry. Know what I'm saying? No shopping. No money. Nobody has the car, not even used one. We eat dirt sometimes, from the hunger.

Q: Sounds like life was tough, but with your light gear you must have been able to travel long distances in comfort. How was it?

A: Always hungry, me. I steal some tubers and a piece dried rabbit. Then they come after. Long chase. Way long, up the mountains. All over me for piece of stupid meat. Shoot me full of arrows, they. Then I die and the ice get me. Not fun. You are idiot. Go away or I kill you. I am Jerome. You are fool. Go away fool. Leave me dead.

More.

Scientific American: Iceman's Genome Furnishes Clues to His Ailments and Ancestry

The Humanities Program: Ötzi the Iceman

Guns And Bearses

Leading an extraordinary life.

Barton C. Hubris seems ordinary.

So ordinary that you could walk right past him on any street anywhere and never notice him. He's that kind of ordinary.

Yet, Barton C. Hubris is not ordinary. He pokes bears for a living.

It started back home in Bupkis, Idaho, around his fourteenth birthday. His present that year, from his proud parents, was his first pencil, and he had no idea what to do with it.

But being a naturally clever boy, Barton quickly realized the pencil had a point on one end, so he tried it on the cat.

The results could have scarred a lesser boy for life, but not Barton. He was a Hubris after all. And had plenty of time in the hospital to recover.

Now 44, Barton Hubris calls himself the world's first and one and only Poky Man, and he's still using a pencil.

Technically, he's a statistical wildlife biologist. Even has a Ph.D. in counting critters. But after all that education, Dr. Barton Hubris still felt he had no mission in life. Until one fateful day.

He was doing some August backpacking in the Grunge Range, northeast of Seattle along the Canada border, and, out of habit as much as anything, was taking notes. Without warning he was attacked by a grizzly. Nobody had even seen a grizzly in these parts for decades, and suddenly a huge and angry one was all up in his face.

Although carrying a sidearm, a habit he'd picked up while living in a frat house, Dr. Hubris had no time to even reach for it. His only weapon, if you can call it that, was his pencil. He poked.

It worked.

The bear turned. And ran away, wheezing and whimpering.

Hubris was stunned, by the effectiveness of his pencil, and the bear breath. Mostly the breath. But he was alive.

Later, after sifting through forgotten research papers in obscure libraries, he found hints. Hints that bears are severely allergic to pencil lead. Even more so than bullet lead. In fact, grizzlies can eat bullets like popcorn, and munch the people who shoot them for dessert.

But wave a pencil around and ninety-nine times out of a hundred even the biggest and ugliest bear will just turn tail and scram.

Dr. Hubris and colleagues have analyzed 269 incidents of close-quarter bear-human conflict between 1883 and 2009. The findings are sobering. "Once a bear charges, the odds of a successful outcome is seven times less likely, regardless of whether or not you have a firearm," he said. "But if you have a pencil, and know how to use it, you're almost perfectly safe."

Dr. Hubris has plenty of field work to back him up.

Armed with a pencil and a few cans of sardines as bait, Dr. Hubris has so far personally prodded, poked, or wiggled his trusty 2B at well over two dozen charging bears, though he's found that an HB works just as well, and doesn't wear down so fast. Plus, once the bears run away you can eat the sardines yourself.

But, he added, "bears are not at all the same. Avoid them if possible. And sometimes the best defense is running away. But if you can't, if you are cornered, if there's nowhere to go, don't hesitate to whip out your note pad and start with the pencil. And if that doesn't scare off the bear, aim for the nose."

Good advice.

But don't try this on the cat.

More: Guns are not fail-safe protection against bears.

Wheedle Music

Dear Tifany:

I hope this helps clear things up. I mean now that I got acquitted and all. The judge was really a pretty nice guy and all, but he scared me. I got scared a lot while all this was going on. You get scared in court. I never been to court before. It aint like the TV shows. I didn't know. I guess you know that, since you was there too some a the time.

I really miss you. I hope we can talk sometime. After a while. I won't come around no more, for a while, I guess. I better not. I mean just so you know. Sure, there's that restraining order you got and all, I know that, I aint that dumb no matter what people say, and I respect you. You need your space. You always did, but I still want to come by some time. After this all settles down, maybe, and you take down the electrical fence.

I guess I'm lucky I know Chris. He's a pretty good lawyer for around here. I guess it pays to keep your high school friends after high school and all, and he aint chargin much. I'm gonna fix his car and do some carpentry and stuff, and we'll see. Which is pretty good for a verdict of Not Guilty Of Burglary, which I truly believe, I know you think otherwise.

I just got excited is all, comin back from my trip. I wish you'd a been there like the old days but I guess that it may be some things don't always work out the way you want. Even without the police keeping a eye on me so I stay away from your place I spose you wouldn't go backpacking with a guy who got drunk and wrecked his car so much but you know all about that I guess.

Without the car and all it makes it hard to go out backpacking, which is funny when you think of it, havin to walk to the trail, and then go backpacking, and then when that's over, you have to walk back to town from the trail and all, but I wanted to surprise you, because that's how I found the mink, walking home. He was kind of flat from the log truck and all but in real good shape overall, with some shampoo and a little water and some care is all it needed, it would of made a nice fur for you, though I thought it was a marten I guess I was wrong there, huh?

I know how you like your furs.

So sure I knew we wernt together anymore but I got excited, I forgot, and the papers your lawyer filed and all that stuff, I forgot that too, I was just excited, I didn't mean no harm when I come over to your place with the mink. Though I thought it was a marten, which would of been a real prize, as you know. I know you got one already, now you'd have another even if I did find it out on 101 in the rain, it was still lookin pretty good despite all that and just a couple of tread marks which you could a smoothed out pretty easy I think.

And there was this guy at your place. I just wanted to drop off the mink or marten and you know how to skin it and all, I know, and I thought you'd take it the right way and I would go back home and everything would be fine, but there was this strange guy at your place, see? I didn't break in or nothin I just asked if you was home and this guy gets all gnarly on me, he started it, asks me what the hell I'm doing there, and with a dead weasel besides.

Boy, what a dope, you can do better Tifany, I have to say, I know I aint the right one for you though, probly, but if you'd reconsider I think we could do better next time if we give it another try. That guy though, I don't know. Some thing wrong with him, for sure.

Gets all in my face right away. Weasel this, weasel that, I thought I had a high class marten and I wanted you to have it and he's in my face wavin his arms, and why are you carrying a weasel, dope? He says this. To me. And I'm just tryin to calm the waters and do you a favor, bring you a present and I guess I lost it about then, sure may be I was jealous, you know me, but I aint that bad. Not like him.

I just kinda tossed the mink. I didn't hit him, not with my fists, hardly, he coulda took it like a man anyway, you would think.

Guys like that, dumb as a block of wood but mean, they don't feel much of any thing, and I hope you have moved on since then, but as you know I am unaware of how you are living your life on account of this other court order and all, and to tell the truth I'm just glad I'm not in jail, and it wasn't no burglary I just got a little upset seeing that Derek guy there gettin all disrespectful so I tossed him the mink (which I thought was a marten, as noted) and meanwhile kind of hung on to the tail while doing that, and so it was the mink that hit him not me. Twice, if I counted right.

But I guess that's all over now. I just wanted you to know.

I really miss you and I will always love you, your the only one for me, Tifany and I hope some day, sooner rather than later we can get back together again even if you don't think so now.

I'll be down at the lunchette most every noon for the special and as soon as I get another car I'll be doing some more real backpacking again, may be some down by Oregon, and will quit drinking if at all possible and may go into taxidermy or something that pays good because I need to get things in my life worked out once and for all, as you are aware, but I'm working at it, so here's all my love though I know you don't want it too much, but at least all this weasel business is behind us now.

Love As Always, Jobie J.

More:

Jury acquitts Hoquiam man.

Weasel Assault

419 Xmas

Shop our holiday cattalog.

Please to co-opterate, my good Friend. I am student in Nirobia close to finish my busy studies in Universitty. So youre name had come to me as an person of Fine Repute therefore I making these offer to-you-only in private as a person.

I am needing samples for my Studies in the Graduate Department of Banking Account Numbers such as you excellent persons are aware of as being printed on your personal checks, and so.

Please to forward some - you, friends, your family and employer, etc. etc., for which I will ge grateful, the moore the better. I also grant you footnote in my distertation to be publish very soon now on paper.

And become I know of you from your write things often on the blog, upon direct receipt of such as name, sociable securnity numbers, bank name and account, date from your birth, address, etc. etc., you are also thereby sudden eligibal for free drawing of useful outdoor goods to use.

I am fellow backpacker too you see. Gleefull!

As you are aware no doubt we in Nirobia are always do the many hike. To work, to the well, to war and so on. All the time hikeing, we. And so we know the things how to make them. We have now big Store full of thes Authenttic Goods together forsale which we manufacture of heightest qualities, and you can win from it!

Send name, etc. etc., for proper identification and quickmail delivery upon wining and pretty soon you can have new sandals to hikeing in (free!)and still also be feature with honour in my distertation too as I mention previous.

i am direct son of DR. Albert Fredthe Chief Accounting Officer of a bank, to prove my safe identity for you reassurance. The financial statement of our bank is over US$130,000,000,000.00 (one hundred and thirty Dollars United States) and the current prospects of our bank is pretty good now.

Trust and Honesty. This is no doubt a pending mutual beneficiary transaction. It that will benefit both. To be sure. Kindly send me your privates as requested. May God Bless and so on.

I am expecting.

Ps, Friends too, just supply name, account, etc. etc. and win also, why not have them joinin right now OK? All can win! Upon win the drawing of Backpacking Goods, you get also fat discount of each order for life following, from our compleat catalogue with every time you wire moore cash by Western Union.

My most profound thanks to you, Sir or Madam.

Mr. Oswald Aptona Mnbamo, M.A., Department of the Studies, Nirobia.

Frikinzero

 Frikinzero:  Outdoor cartoons by Doug. 

I sign my work "Frikinzero". I am a freelance artist.  Go > 

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More:

Frikoutdoors complete set on Webshots

Frikinzero's Channel - YouTube

FRIKINZERO art at Facebook

My Early Years As A Geezer

Backpacking while young.

Standing in glacier breath, 1980

While cleaning things out I came across a few color slides I'd set aside when I threw out decades of photos a few weeks ago. Today I almost thossed them without remembering that I'd wanted to hang on a bit.

Some others saved today were the only existing photos of my mother, who died in 1998. They have to go to my sister. If I can remember not to discard them without thinking.

So, the first photo here is from one of my earliest trips. You parked on a gravel road, trudged up a trail for a while, then got to an overlook on the south end of a lake. If ambitious, as I was back then, you hiked down to the lake and then around one side of it and got to a flat.

If you were still ambitious you could hike up a slope and eventually stand right on the snout of Columbia Glacier, which I did.

It's surprising and always disheartening how dirty glaciers are, which I discovered that day.

But worse than that, it was freezing. There was a howling wind coming down off the glacier, so, while there was plenty of clean water coming from under it, and plenty of room to camp (and even grass) it was simply too cold to try.

Before descending back to the lake I stood on a rock and used the camera's timer to grab a shot of myself. Cotton flannel shirt, jeans, oiled leather boots. The hair is flapping and so are the pants legs.

Sunburn, July 1981

By the next summer I was fully experienced. A veteran. The long July 4th weekend was warm and sunny. I went out, and up. I hit snow at 5000 feet (1525 m). The sunlight bouncing off it was blinding, but I had sunglasses. And it was calm, and hot carrying a five-pound (2.5 kg) pack (empty weight) of 4000 cubic inches' (66 L) volume, stuffed to the gills with all sorts of essentials.

So of course I took my shirt off. But was OK. I had lots of sunscreen.

Funny though. It didn't seem to work.

I got a sunburn that was especially intense on the chest-side of my shoulder straps. So intense that it took a full year for the marks to fade.

When I got home I stood inside the back door of the little house I was living in and made a couple of shots. For the second one (shown), I pressed my fingers into my belly to leave an image.

This is what I normally do to gauge degree of doneness, since my color vision isn't good. The longer the prints stay, the redder I know the skin is. Judge for yourself. I scanned the slide today and can't vouch for color accuracy. Even so, I can tell how bad the sunburn was, even 30 years later.

And I kinda still remember how it felt, too.

The other thing is, I always thought I was seriously ugly. But it wan't nothin' compared to now, judging by these.

The older you get, the more you know, and somehow knowledge has a way of making you uglier.

Least that's how it worked at my house.

.

Of will, of nimbleness.

I don't know him, but it might be a good thing if I did.

I think I first heard of Nimblewill Nomad (the trail name of M. J. Eberhart), by stumbling over information on his packable wood burning stove, the "Little Dandy".

Whether he'd be glad to know me is a question not worth bothering about. I would be glad to know him. Anyone and everyone could learn from him, and that's the important part.

I've found that my local library has a copy of one of his books, "Ten Million Steps: The Nimblewill Nomad's epic 10-month trek from the Florida Keys to Quebec". I plan to read it soon. Maybe that's where I heard of him first, in some publication or other, mentioning this trip. The guy who made the 4400 mile hike from the Florida keys to Cape Gaspe, Quebec, along what is now known as the Eastern Continental Trail.

Hey. He's for real. As are most if not all long-distance hikers.

What's a boy do after spending 30 years as an optometrist? Make up for it. By, for example, hiking the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the width of the United States from Cape Hatteras to San Diego, the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail (from St. Louis to Cape Disappointment, Washington, and later, back again). And this year he's planning to hike the Pacific Crest Trail to wrap things up.

This 2008 hike will get him recognized as a triple-crowner, one who has completed the Appalachian, Continental Divide and Pacific Crest trails, but he hardly deserves any special recognition for that because he's already far exceeded what even most triple-crowners achieve.

One day, in another lifetime, maybe I can do some of this too.

References:
Nimblewill Nomad web site
Little Dandy Stove
Little Dandy Stove
Ten Million Steps