Half Bench

This is a stretch of trail where half the width of the trail tread (the uphill part) is dug out of the original hillside and the outside half of the trail tread is created with the excavated material, which then gets compacted to make it walkable. (And safe, mostly.)

The finished trail tread is part original hillside and part fill, doncha see. This is a way of creating trail tread consisting of equal parts dirt and good intentions. Hard to get right. But then there are sometimes big immovable objects in the way, so what else can you do?

A half bench trail is built half on firm old ground and half on new packed fill, and is a good fit for half-fast hikers.

 

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Not Like The Olden Days

The future has arrived. (Illustration based on the work of Clifford Jago).

 

So when was the last time you used an elevator driven around by a human? By a human whose job it was to operate the thing. Never, maybe? Never? Do you even have trouble with the concept? I don't.

I remember when. Really.

I has been decades since the last time, and that was when I was in high school, which was a while back, but I do remember, and though that system was hardly ever used even then, it wasn't completely unusual when I was still young to walk into an elevator car and tell the operator which floor you wanted to end up on.

Yes, things have changed, and it's not letting up. (By the way, I was around 10 by the time we got dials on our telephones and could make our own calls without the help of the other kind of operator. I also remember life before television, which was indeed better in some ways.)

I started thinking about this sort of thing last night after seeing the beginnings of a discussion among van dwellers about what self-driving vehicles would be like. Some people thought they'd be nifty, some were afraid, and some doubted that there would ever be such a development. I disagree, with all of them.

We won't know what the future is like until we get there, and when we do get there we won't realize that that's where we were headed. Things will happen but until they do, no one really knows in detail what we'll end up with or how things will have changed.

What we do know is that things will change, and it's like elevators all over again.

First there was muscle power, then combustion engines, then electric motors, and then they eliminated the drivers. So think — when was the last time you took your own elevator to a multi-storey building? When was the last time you even owned an elevator?

Have you even heard of such a thing as owning an elevator? No. You go somewhere, get inside something, push a button, and go back to daydreaming. Then you arrive at your destination and that's it. It's even free.

How about cars then? Are electric cars far off in the future because there's no way to get electricity out where you're going? Nope. Electricity is available in more places than gasoline, let alone diesel, right now. Electricity is everywhere. High-voltage, high-amperage connections need to be installed in thousands of locations for electric vehicles to be practical, but there's no trick to that. It's only a matter of doing it powered by a feedback loop of demand and supply. It will happen.

Electric vehicles are simpler and cheaper to:

• Design
• Manufacture
• Operate
• Maintain
• Repair

That part is inevitable. So is the rest.

Electric vehicles will make self-driving vehicles possible, and machine intelligence will make them happen. We'll live in a different world by then.

Two tidal waves will sneak up and sweep us away. The electric vehicle wave will be the first.

Electric vehicles are already flowing into our lives but we hardly notice because they are still expensive, and imperfect, and rare. Look up in a few years and they'll be everywhere. See the 5th Avenue link below for a view of history. No one will be able to imagine how or why anyone put up with combustion-engine vehicles, composed of hundreds of moving parts, having a constant need to be serviced, requiring toxic and explosive fuels, and emitting even more toxins as exhaust. Just as no one now can imagine how or why people once put up with whole cities full of horse manure and flies.

Combustion-engine vehicles will first become impossible to sell, and then impossible to buy, for good reason. Electric vehicles will do everything better, cheaper, and more simply.

When machine learning becomes adequate, and after machines prove they can do the job, which they will, they will steadily take over the work of driving. Because electric vehicles are already computers on wheels, the navigation and control systems will virtually drop right in. Before long, human-driven vehicles will become impossible to sell, then impossible to buy, and then illegal because it will be recognized that it is far too dangerous to let humans remain in charge. And besides, insurance won't be available. And no one will want the expense of actually owning a vehicle. And it will be too much bother, like taking your own elevator along when you go downtown and want to get to the 37th floor. What?

This makes me wonder what all those van dwellers out there will do. Can't afford/don't want to live in an apartment, won't be able to just drive around the country and park in the woods here and there any more. Then what?

And backpackers, not to mention other rural people — what about them? It'll be hard (probably) to summon a car to drive you around when you're 50 miles out, somewhere, but mostly nowhere, and you have to get elsewhere.

It's certain that:

• Things will be radically different than they are now, and
• Things will work, even though they'll work differently than now

It's likely that:

• A lot of things will be easier than they are now
• Most things will be pre-programmed
• Life will be less spontaneous
• Epiphanies will go extinct

When everything becomes possible, everything becomes ordinary, and that "illuminating realization or discovery, often resulting in a personal feeling of elation, awe, or wonder" will be reduced to a blinking light reminding you to either put another coin in the slot or get the hell out of the car.

Nowadays, right now, it looks like we're seeing some other things fade away. Because population continues to grow, and we are all getting relatively richer in capabilities if not in actual coinage, there are more people "getting out there" and doing things. If it's not hard to get "there", and is no longer awkward and dangerous once you are there, then "there" becomes ordinary. The backcountry becomes another city park.

Need to go somewhere? Query the internet, download an app, read some blog posts, see what your Facebook "friends" think. Need stuff? Click on those handy affiliate links, peruse eBay, order shiny things from Amazon. Get news of somebody doing something? Add it to your "bucket list" and do a "me too", or formulate a plan to be faster, louder, more outrageous, and gain more followers by going crazy on YouTube. Start your own channel. Shoot for a world record — maybe the most selfies in the most dangerous places done in the least amount of time, or something.

Not like the olden days.

No, not like the olden days.

I was in my 30s before I made my first backpacking trip. You couldn't find a tent under six pounds (2.7 kg, whatever "kg" were supposed to be). My first pack weighed four pounds, 14 ounces (2.2 kg) all by itself. Boots were big and heavy and leather. Waterproof/breathable promised salvation and was still so new that it wasn't yet considered a joke. The Svea 123R, whose roots go back over a century, was the height of liquid-fueled stove technology. Frostline Kits were still being sewn in the thousands.

Not all that many people did, but if you wanted something, needed something, and it wasn't out there, you made it. You could. You figured "Why the hell not?"

Along around 2000, some ideas began circulating and some new technologies became available. Silicone-coated nylon was one of them. It promoted huge changes. People went nuts, and internetted everything. Sudden experts appeared everywhere. You know the saying, "When the seeker is ready the guru appears." Like that. Everybody had ideas for what you could do with simple, ordinary materials, some ingenuity, and time. It seemed like you could make anything you needed, if you could imagine it, like stoves from used pop cans.

Odd little web sites popped up everywhere. Every week or so plans for some previously impossible thing, mostly things you had never even thought about at all, got published, and then right after that, someone else published their own directions for making an improved version that cost nothing and weighed less.

Gone now, most of it. Lots of ideas have been incorporated into commercial products, most of which are OK, some of which are OK+, and some of which are not anything but still cost money. The watch-phrase is "Buy it and try it", and never be happy any more, because if you set a world record for Fastest Known Time run-walking the Pacific Crest Trail, then someone else will do better next week and you'll be just another random, washed-up loser again. And if you buy the lightest, most experimental, trickiest whatchamacallit today, then tomorrow, if it hasn't fallen apart already, it will be replaced with the Super Double Plus Good Most Trickiest Thing-A-Ma-Bob Ever, and not only will you be a loser once again but you'll be out all that money and people will keep laughing because you're so lame and carry 0.75 grams more than they do.

So maybe when things were harder and slower and backpacking was something you did because it was interesting and not a competitive sport, maybe in a way it was sort of better as well, no?

 

Some web sites of the Ancients

Ray Garlington

Risk's UltraLight Hiking

Just Jeff's Hiking Page

Penny Wood Stove

Zen Stoves

Frostline Kits

Thru-Hiker Projects

Thru-Hiker Articles

Sgt. Rock's Hiking HQ

Gearskin

Homemade Outdoor Gear

Wings: The home-made stove archives

Rainmaker and Brawny

 

Other relevant stuff

The future of photography is code

5th Avenue, 1900 Vs. 1913

Epiphany

Svea 123

Ride transit to the trails with Trailhead Direct

 

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Comments? Send email to sosayseff@nullabigmail.com

See if that helps.

Definitions: Denier

Denier is a measurement of fuzz weight.

It is roughly a pennyweight, depending on the weight of your penny and the heft of your fuzz. How about that?

Fine, maybe, but we can go deeper.

First off, "denier" was the name of a French coin created by Charlemagne (the old French king dude guy) in the Early Middle Ages, which, compared to now, were pretty early and long, long ago, timewise.

People liked the idea of coins so much that they stole it for other European money systems. Charlemagne though was not an original thinker — he got his idea from the earlier Roman "denarius", which was worth roughly a day's wages.

In today's money a denarius would buy around 20 dollars of stuff. Back in Roman times the basic unit of stuffness was bread and the Roman denarius was about 20 dollars worth of bread. They were big eaters in the olden days.

But back to Charlemagne, also known as "Carolus Magnus", or "Charles the Great". He was a great guy in those days, in the sense that if he told someone to pinch your head off, it was as good as done. So Charlemagne's ideas were potent, and his coinage inspired the Arab and Yugoslavian coins called "dinars". Italians called theirs the "denaro". The Spanish? "Dinero". The Portuguese, "dinheiro". Even the Republic of Macedonia has its own version, the "denar".

Ah, yes then, the British. Now we come to the British. The British were a little different. Sometimes they are. In many ways.

The British equivalent of the denier was the "penny", though the British persisted in using the letter "d" to represent it, as you might expect from them. It took 240 pennies to make one British pound, which used to be a lump of silver weighing a pound.

Are ya still with us? Fine then. We'll eventually get back to fuzz, so hang in there if you have nothing else to do.

Then the British, instead of carrying around big lumps of silver, they, the folk of the green isles, learned to fashion each lump of silver into 240 "sterlings" beginning about the year 775 (or possibly 774 ½ — no one knows for sure anymore).

"Sterlings", in case you were wondering, were silver coins based on those used by the Saxons, some early German refugees who had skipped westward across the North Sea in search of greener pastures. Some of these Saxons later got bent through various accidents and wars and things and became angled, or "Angles", which, due to interbreeding, which was common even then, is where we got the Angled Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons of today, who are now best known for the things they do involving tea.

If one of these guys had to pay off a really big gambling debt he did it in pounds of sterlings. Since they were lazy just like us, they later shortened this to "pounds sterling", and then, getting even lazier, to "pounds". And now they've gone decimal and things have gone totally to hell, though decimal numbers are easier for pocket calculators to figure out.

The original silver penny though, that was introduced by King Offa of Mercia in middle England way back when. He copied Charlemagne's denier and his coin contained about what we would call 1.5 grams of silver, to make it worth something. That amount of silver equaled a fair bit of fuzz back in the day.

So fuzz already, you may wonder, eh? Shetland cows are the cutely-kinky furry ones, with the bangs and the bushy coats and all. Also from the British Isles.

The story we're sticking with here is that intrepid knitters, during silver shortages, were able to make do by fashioning penny coins from cow fuzz, and getting them just good enough to pass as currency. King Offa's wife Cynethryth may have kicked off this trend. Let's call her "Cynthia" and avoid a bunch of lisping, which is hard to do without the guidance of a professional tutor. Cynthia it is, then.

This particular Cynthia was a wicked mad knitter, she. The weight of her fuzz coins, if she used dense fuzz, was about the same as the silver ones, which was handy, and after the conversion of the world to the metric system (except for Liberia, Myanmar, and the United Arfing States), the pennyweight became standardized at one gram. Handy.

OK for weight, but since fuzz no longer comes in tight, hefty wads and most of us have trouble running out and grabbing a cow whenever we need cash, how much is that in yarn then? We use yarn now, you know. To measure our fuzz. It is said to be a more civilized way.

Well, that would be for your 9000 meter length of yarn. (That rounds up to an even 5.59234073 miles, by the way.)

So now one denier is no longer a coin but a number representing a piece of fiber (or thread, or yarn) 9000 meters long and weighing one gram. A U.S. nickel coin is about five grams. One slim yarn there, folks.

Not tough enough all by itself to make backpacks from.

Some fabrics used in backpacks are woven from 500 to 1000 denier yarns, which means they're pretty heavy, which they need to be, to make durable-enough packs for use by clueless idiots. Stands to reason. Get your fabric heavy enough and it's even bullet proof, though everyday stuff is not 500 to 1000 denier, but around maybe 50 to 100 denier.

Thread count is another thing entirely, in case you were wondering about that. Thread count is a measure of how coarse or fine a fabric is, measured by counting the number of threads contained in one square inch of fabric, regardless of each thread's weight. (Did you notice how we just fell right back off the metric system? And landed back in the English system? Didja? We did.)

Fine quality bed sheets for example start at a thread count of 180 and go up to 250 or more threads per square inch.

So if Romans measured stuff in units of bread, then how did the British measure value in their society? (Since we seem to be stuck with them.)

Well John Heywood, a 16th century British poet once said "I shall geat a fart of a dead man as soone as a farthyng of him."

A farthing was ¼ penny, so that means a penny was worth four farts.

Who was it said that Roman civilization was the degenerate one then?

Yeeg, the British.

Definitions: Cistern

Also known as: Water tank, pool, reservoir, storage tank.

A cistern is a water quality protecting catchment for runoff on heavily used trails.

A cistern will sit off to one side of the trail and quietly wait for water to come along, sometimes remaining perfectly still for months and months and months. You probably won't even notice it.

Then, faster than the eye can see, it will snap up any water that comes near it without even seeming to move.

Looking twice won't help.

It's actually that fast.

You won't even see a blur.

And, once a cistern eats all the water in its vicinity, it keeps that water in its pouch.

Water that a cistern keeps can't run downhill and get muddy and drain into a nearby stream and mess it up, so a cistern does that, and also serves as a swimming pool for bugs and a hangout for frogs, salamanders, and slime.

If you put your ear down real close to a cistern you might be able to hear all those things humming, because they like to sing, but they have really small voices, so get your ear close.

And look out because some of the stuff down there likes to bite off ears.

But judging by your looks, maybe you already know that.

The way to find out for sure is to look in a mirror and if you have only one ear or no ears at all then you've tried this already, so you can skip the listening thing. You probably can't hear that well anymore, anyhow.

Bye.

10 Essential Myths — First Aid

Number five: Getting a bit wound up.

Of all the things you could take backpacking with you that are not needed to do the backpacking, first-aid supplies come at the top of the list.

First-aid supplies don't help you get up in the morning. They don't feed you. They aren't fun to play with. (Although if you're stuck in your tent waiting out a week of rain, you might see what you can do.)

First-aid supplies won't make you smarter, won't let you hiker farther, won't help you take better photos, but they might save your life.

They might.

If you're the sort of dildo who sets himself on fire every day or so. If you're the sort of doofus who falls off mountains pretty regularly. If you're the sort of whiz-bang, coonskin-hat-wearing ding-dong howling random incompetent who shouldn't even be allowed to know that there is such an implement as a knife.

If even one of those descriptions fits you, then maybe you're lucky to still be here. If so, then the rest of us aren't. Sad but true.

This is where first-aid supplies can come in handy. For us as well as you, because someone coming back from getting water at the spring, seeing his tent flapping in the breeze and mistaking it for an attacking gryphon (or, really, any mythological creature) and then bombarding it with fist-sized stones isn't all that safe to be around.

At the very least we might want to tape down your arms and legs, put extra tape over your mouth, and decide tomorrow morning whether to peel it off or just leave you here.

So I guess first-aid supplies have some use after all.

Possibly. Though mostly they are things you carry around unused for years and years and, if you do turn up with a small cut or scrape, you find that all the bandage adhesive has dried out and any disinfectants or ointments have evaporated in their bottles leaving behind only a gummy residue, so you do without nevertheless. Such is life as we live it.

We more normal people.

You there, back at yesterday's camp, still bound up in tape, rolling on the ground struggling to free yourself, no. We don't think about you all that much now that we've gotten rid of you. We feel safe. Cozy. Relaxed, come to think of it, and we no longer worry about what you'll do next.

So maybe first-aid supplies are OK then.

And if you do get free and come galumphing after us, bounding gaily down the trail, well, we shall at the first opportunity turn once again to our handy first-aid kit in search of more weaponry.

Insect repellent is now considered part of first-aid. A good stiff spritz of it might at least slow you down. Probably worth a shot.

There's that tape, as long as it lasts, and if we hog-tied you once we can do it again.

Rubber gloves, if we have them, can power a slingshot, all the better (combined with a handful of pebbles) to zing you with.

Aside from the odd poking, prodding, or nipping implement, most of the other stuff in a first-aid kit wouldn't be that helpful, but all we really need is to distract you for a while, and slow you down so's we can scram outta your vicinity and make a clean getaway, so maybe, as long as someone made the mistake of inviting you to come on our trip, having a few first-aid supplies close to hand might not be a totally bad thing after all. A necessary evil.

Unlike you. The other kind of evil.

10 Essential Myths — Ilumination

Number four: Peek a boo. I see you!

Have you ever been out camping? At all?

Probably, right? Or else you wouldn't be reading this, nut cruncher that you are.

You can take it.

You've been there. All alone in the dark. Sleeping peacefully after a day of backpacking.

And then you have to take a whiz.

Which is something you can't do inside your tent, no matter how little you actually want to get out of your sleeping bag, put on your shoes, and go stumbling around in the dark.

Which is why you need illumination.

Illumination (a flashlight, headlamp, or whatever) will help you get out there, do your business, and get you back to bed, where you belong. Without too much chance of you wandering off and getting entirely lost, or of going over a cliff. Both of these are real bummers, as those who can speak from experience will tell you.

Illumination will help you get out there, do your business, and get back to your bed, but it will not prevent you from having to get up in the first place, which would be even better. Much, much better. Makes you wonder why we're getting fancier lights all the time, but no one has figured out a way to stay in bed and blow off all that wandering around in the dark.

And there's another thing. The eyes.

Take a decent light with you when you leave the safety of your tent, shine it around here and there to get your bearings, and you can just about bet on finding a lot of eyes out there, looking back.

All those eyes — so very many of them — all turned your way.

They're waiting for you.

Waiting for you to step away from the security of your zipped-up tent and take a few steps into the woods. Just a few steps, that's all. That's enough. Just a few steps.

You are, after all, a stranger here, and don't know your way around, which is why you have that headlamp on your noggin, that flashlight in your hand. Either of which will show you a few things though not much — mostly the eyes.

But more importantly, having that light on your person, shining it around, left, right, up, down. Well, that's a bright beacon signaling. Signaling that the big-city doofus is up, in the dark, defenseless, and also signaling exactly where your doofus self is located.

Ever think of that?

You will now.

10 Essential Myths — Insulation

Number three, a big one.

So you've decided to go backpacking, and you've decided to wear clothes while you do that.

Congrats. Now what?

Easy.

Take extra.

Mom told you this, but maybe you weren't listening. Well, get smart then and listen up once.

The Classic 10 Essentials have "Extra Clothing" right there on the list. What part of extra clothing is giving you cognitive constipation? Eh?

You know the meanings of

• Clothing, and
• Extra clothing.

Done.

So take it. Or not. It's up to you if you want to lie there uncomfortable all night, or even croak out a horrible plaintive call for help while you shiver yourself to death. Really. And don't phone me. I'm at home where it's warm and predictable and where I have plenty of cat toys to amuse myself with. (It's a hobby_, OK?)

But if you do decide to go backpacking, and to take some extras along, and go with the New Age bumfuzzle of saying "Insulation" when you mean "Extra Clothing", then you'll have to think about it.

Like what your goal is.

Want to stay warm? Then maybe taking extra is good. Though staying home is always safer.

Want to come home alive? Then maybe taking extra is good. Unless you take too much and that thing back there is able to catch you because you can't run so fast all loaded down like that.

Want to stay comfy? Then maybe taking extra is good. If you have someone else to carry it for you. Otherwise, it's a whole lot like work, don't you think?

Want to be annoying and whiny? Then maybe winging it is good, with no preparation whatsoever, and you get to die from it too. (They call that a toofer.)

As the high lords of backpacking say, "Conditions can abruptly turn wet, windy or chilly in the backcountry, so it's smart to carry an additional layer of clothing in case something unexpected prolongs your exposure to the elements." Can't beat that as an example of conventional advice, but there's more...

"Ask this question: 'What is needed to survive the worst conditions that could be realistically encountered on this trip?'"

Well, this is where "accepted wisdom" goes off the rails, crashes, and explodes.

It's hard to imagine anything much worse than being out there, farting contentedly after supper, and then looking up and realizing that you have about six seconds to tune your thoughts to the fact that the Earth is about to be hit by a giant flaming space rock. Headed for your tent.

In this case, you can tear up that little card listing the 10 Essentials because, really, they aren't. You should know this by now because we've been over some of the other items already. But maybe you're slow. Who can say? You never know what hikers are thinking, or even if they are thinking, so (fair warning here, folks) I'm not worrying about what you'd do. Expect the worst and prepare for it, or accept that no matter what happens, you're screwed.

Just to rub in how blindingly pointless this all is, have a couple definitions dealing with today's subject.

Hat: An undead thing worn on the head, in the sense that it can't be a live animal (or plant), and a dead one would be spooky, so it's something else, not living, not dead. Undead.

The simplest kind of hat is a bag worn over the head, such as a knit hat, which in some circles is called a tuque (or stocking cap), and is also fine when used for robbing banks.

This style of hat is good if you like to sleep late or bump into things, because it covers the eyes. It is possible to roll up the hat's bottom edge to uncover the eyes, but then the eyes get cold, so what's the point? Better to stay indoors in cold weather, as noted above.

Other hats have more complicated parts, but they're too hard to figure out, so let's stop here.

Wind Chill: (Also known as the Wind Chill Factor) A favorite dramatic device of poofy-haired TV weatherpersons, largely used to scare the stupid.

Here's what wind chill really is: How it feels to stand in a cold breeze.

Standing in a cold breeze makes you feel colder than you would if you had enough clothes on, or weren't stupid enough to stand in a cold breeze. Other than that wind chill is simply an amusing idea.

The reverse of wind chill, which we can use for an interesting example from the other end of the thermodynamic spectrum, is something that doesn't have a name, but we can call it, oh, say, scalding. That sounds good as far as it goes, but in fact it would be much more impressive (befuddlingly frighteningly impressive even) if we called it not just scalding but dynamically interactive superhot scald flow.

Just between you and me, what we're talking about for this exercise is pouring boiling hot water onto your hand.

Now, in case you are one of those brainless dumb-bunnies, please don't actually go and do this. Not right now. Give it about a week, so no one can trace where you got the idea, then have at it if you really need to. If you were to actually do this (which you shouldn't want to unless you are very, very stupid), well then you would get a big owie on your hand. The big owie you got from pouring hot water on yourself would be even bigger than the owie you got by simply sticking the same hand into a pot of hot water at the same temperature as the other hot water. (Don't do this either, OK?)

It's a bigger owie when the water flows because flowing water can run more heat past your hand.

You can probably understand that.

If not, then try harder.

Hint: because your hand soaks up more heat from more water.

Now getting back to wind chill, let's see if you can follow this. So what happens is that you get the opposite effect by standing in a cold wind with your nubbins hanging out. Standing around on a cold day with exposed nubbins will make you feel cold, but if the wind is blowing, then the air in that wind can make off with more of your body heat the way a crazed monkey can make off with your wallet a lot better if it's running away than just standing there, masturbating, and chewing on the wallet.

If you find a monkey standing there and chewing on your wallet, probably the best thing to do would be to grab the wallet, remove the valuable things, give back the wallet, and be on your way as quickly as possible, avoiding emotional involvement if you can, and before the monkey's relatives show up and begin sending out wedding invitations and putting up decorations. (Which might happen if you have the masturbating kind of monkey.)

You can do this if the monkey is preoccupied with its own nubbin thingy (or whatever they are called in polite society) and standing there, than if it is running away like crazy, which, unfortunately, crazy monkeys tend to do. But you might get lucky.

Not in that sense but in the sense of encountering a stationary masturbating monkey that won't nip off a finger and give you rabies besides while you engage in a brief tug-of-war to get your wallet back. All of this is in fact germane, though you might not think so at first (it becomes clearer on re-reading).

Confusion is what the poofy-haired weatherpersons are all about anyway, and it's completely possible that none of them really know what they're talking about. At all. In fact, it's likely. And if they do really know anything, they're trying to make it confusing. But it's not.

The thing about wind chill is that the temperature is exactly the same with wind chill and without wind chill. The only difference is that when the wind is blowing, even a little, you feel colder. Most people don't know this, but then again that isn't too surprising because you know what most people are like.

The odds are that you in fact are one of them. Have a nice day, if possible, and keep one eye on the sky.

10 Essential Myths — Sun Protection

Myth #2: Sun Protection

First, I guess you could say that if the sun is dangerous, then why is Earth so close to it? Ever think about that?

Right at this moment there's a volcano in Chile that's exploding all over the place. "Calbuco", it's called, and it's got lots of people running around waving their arms in the air. Imagine what happens if the sun explodes. Worse, right? So then, why are we here?

The answer is that the sun isn't dangerous. Not that dangerous. It's useful.

The sun is good for plants and all living things. Just ask the nearest lizard. Lizards go out of their way to intercept as many solar rays as they possibly can. Doubters say that's why lizards are covered in scales but scales are just a kind of skin and you'll quickly see exactly how much protection they offer the next time you bite a lizard.

Protection? Practically none, though it pays to take your time working up from small lizards to like the alligators and so on. Some of them are cranky.

So where were we? Somewhere around debating the existence of the sun.

Since we also have eyes, I guess you could argue either side:

• Eyes are for finding the sun so you can keep away from it, or
• Eyes are for finding the sun so you can use it properly.

You might as well say the same thing about beer. I know which side of that debate I'm on. But for the moment, let's pretend that I don't count. Let's pretend that you do, and you're afraid of the sun and its UV rays, infrared rays, visible rays, magnetic storms, neutrino flux, and other stuff. What?

What then? How to cope?

Wear Clothes

First, try wearing clothes. I've found over the years, by trial and error as much as anything else, that wearing clothes makes me less visible to others — maybe to the sun too. If the sun can't pick you out of a crowd, then it can't zap you without incinerating everyone else at the same time. Since nature tends to conserve what it's got to work with, you'll probably escape the worst of it by looking like those other doofuses out there. So wear clothes.

Wear Sunglasses

Then, wear sunglasses. People seem to like other people wearing sunglasses quite a bit, especially if the sunglass-wearers are at least partly clothed, depending on who you are. Hey — don't ask me. It just works.

But they're expensive, sunglasses.

If you can't afford any real sunglasses, cut some out of cardboard. Use one of your crayons and color it all black, then punch a little hole in the center of each "lens". Walk around looking out of your holes and smile stupidly. Again — why? I don't know either, but look up Kim Kardashian. She knows how to work it, and has even made a career out of it. Plus her butt.

Are you even that smart?

Think it over.

Use Sunscreen

This can be a real pisser.

The only sunscreen that really works under all conditions is a sheet of half-inch plywood held up over your head. Or thicker, but the half-inch stuff weighs around 25 pounds (11 kg), so. Then you need handles under it to protect your fingers, and there can be problems in high winds. A gust caught my cousin Ed one day and we're still looking for him, so if you're not all that beefy, better think about it.

Your other option is to smear goop on your skin.

Again — who's the expert? Lizards. Ever see a goopy lizard?

Ah, no. Lizards are dry and dusty, generally in that order, so methinks goop is another marketing ploy. Someone out there, maybe someone wearing clothes, and odd clothes at that, someone working in a tall building covered in an unhealthy quantity of glass, wants you to go goopy for reasons unconnected to your own needs.

And they want you to pay for it. Sound suspicious?

It does to me.

What I say is (and you may quote me) — only one word — cheap.

Goop costs a bunch. Cheap stuff doesn't.

What's cheap?

Think about it. Think.

What needs sun protection for the long term? Like decades. What?

Houses.

Houses do.

And what do they put on houses?

Paint.

Try paint.

Granted, this isn't like the old days. Oil-based paint, that stuff whose aroma you could spend a whole day inhaling, is hard to get any more, but the water-based stuff is just as good, if less fun out on the back porch.

Anyhow, give yourself a good coat (brilliant white is probably best), wait a few hours, and do it again. Let dry overnight, and then get out there and make all the tracks you want.

The really cool part is, once you've got a good hard shell of paint on, you don't need clothes anymore, and you'll never get sunburned again either. For years.

And if you don't like white, there's lots of other colors. By the gallon. Check it out.

What The Pros Do

Sometimes.

Like "Carhop". He's a thru-hiker. Working his way along all of the National Scenic Trails. Solo.

So, what?

Well, he hikes at night.

Everyone knows that when the time comes and someone wants to take a rocket to the sun and not burn up, they'll have to go at night. Carhop has applied that principle to thru-hiking, which shows that some hikers are smart too.

Granted, he's got two vehicles, driving ahead a day's hike, resting, then hiking back to the first vehicle overnight, then leapfrogging past the second vehicle, and so on. And that might be a bit expensive, but compared to goopy sunscreen, it's probably cheaper in the long run.

And since it's all at night, no one can tell if you're wearing clothes. And since it's all dark, you can do other stuff, though maybe we'll have to get to that in another post.

Conclusion

Busted or not? Myth or solid gold?

A lot depends on your point of view, I guess.

If you're more like a lizard, enjoy eating bugs, are potentially poisonous, and relish scuttling from one hot rock to another, then you're in the clear.

On the other hand, if you're pasty white, or painted white (or some other designer color from the Sherwin-Williams catalog) and get a thrill from loping through the night woods, howling every now and then, well that works too.

Works for lots of us.

10 Essential Myths — Navigation

Myth #1: Navigation

You may have heard of the 10 Essentials, but how often have you used them? No, seriously — in the shower, at work, while you take a nap with the cat? Ever?

Get the drift here? essential is the key word, and if you don't need something to survive, then how essential is it, really?

Personally, I've whittled my list down to three items: beer, cigarettes, and cookies. But I don't smoke any more, so that leaves more room in my pack for beer (on hot days) or cookies (like in the winter when I need more vitamin C). In case you were wondering why I'd need more vitamin C in the winter, I mean C as in chocolate. Screw that other stuff that you get from orange juice. I consider it just another industrial chemical.

So WTF as all the kool kidz say — where are we going with this?

Hiking, Dick. Hiking. And when you go hiking you can leave out lots of stuff. It's the quickest way to ultralightness ever.

Number One on our list of things to scrutinize is Navigation. And the rule is...don't sweat it. It's cool. No matter where you go, there you are, so it's only a head game you play with yourself if you start getting into that whole goal-oriented uptight location crap.

If you don't have some krypto-fascist plan on getting somewhere, then you can mellow out, and hiking actually gets close to being fun.

Let's be mellow then.

The Classic 10 Essentials List has a Map as number one. The New Age essentials list (which contains 10 or 13 items, or maybe some random number out to 11 decimal places) takes what is known as a systems approach and says that Navigation is what you want. Instead of just a Map.

'K then. Want to navigate away?

If so, you'll need a topographic map, and some other "assorted" maps, and a waterproof container to put them in, and a magnetic compass, and an (optional) altimeter and/or GPS receiver.

All so very fine, until you say again — WTF?

When I started backpacking I could get a dandy paper map for about $2.50, which was a lot of money. I thought. Then. I think it's six bucks these days.

And now, if six bucks wasn't bad enough, we're looking at a Garmin Monterra GPS for $650 green ones. Granted, it has "a brilliant 4 in. screen, 8-megapixel camera and wireless Android compatibility", and supposedly "delivers state-of-the-art navigation alongside all your favorite Android apps from Google Play", but what's wrong with a paper map and some after-supper masturbation instead of whatever pale imitation of fun that Google Play offers?

I mean, hey. The analog life was fine, so what changed then?

I'm still analog. I still have analog needs. I can amuse myself for hours by watching clouds, and if it's a clear evening with no clouds, then swatting flies and mosquitoes is more than enough to occupy me. I don't need no stinkin' Androids lurking in the background.

But maybe you think you do. Maybe.

But maybe you're a dope.

What used to be a map and a rough-hewn ability to figure out which way was approximately north is now a system. You got

• Map.
• Compass.
• Wrist altimeter.
• GPS thing.
• Calculations.
• Need for wads of cash.
• Fear of doing some thinking.

How much of this is essential? Really? Really essential?

Probably color vision couldn't hurt. I got a problem there. Those Forest Service maps with the thin red line showing the trail send me into map-shredding frenzies because I can't see the damn line. And I lived despite all that, so screw altimeters and GPS, whatever the hell that's supposed to be, and Androids, and even maps.

You got any brains at all, you know about where you are and which way is home. Got doubt nibbling at your nuts, go suck a thumb. Then stick it up in the air and that'll tell you which way the wind is blowing, if you need to know that.

Then walk.

You'll either get where you're going or not. Either is fine.

No one but you really cares anyway.

Prime Mover

Technology rids trail of pest, by Philippa Aswang.

I first met LeRoi Nildenson only a day before we began our hike of the Pathetic Crust Trail. I should have known.

Despite the trail's glowing reputation and what all the guidebooks say, it has a name that's just begging to bring on disappointment, and it did.

But I didn't expect anything as pathetic as LeRoi.

It was two weeks of hell, hiking with that man – up one side and down the other – and he was always talking about his car, or pining for his cat, or wondering what his mother would be making him for breakfast now, if only he was still at home with her. Well, soon he will be, because I finally did what I should have done in the first five minutes.

Sure, yes, I admit – it was my decision to go with LeRoi. I picked him and thought "Hey – what's the worst that could happen?" Well, the worst turned out to be LeRoi. He said his trail name was BOO-Hah!, and he was a gonzo hiker, but five minutes after I first laid eyes on him I had to start calling him Boo-Boo, and he was a bozo hiker, a trail scab, a pustule on the very idea of backpacking.

Hint to those who follow in my footsteps – don't believe every profile you read on Plenty of Tramps. I know most of you don't need to hear this, but it's too easy for even a trail-hardened woman to get carried away when you find all of the following in a fifty-word profile:

Adventurous, athletic, open-minded, new age, old fashioned, friendship, sole mate, free spirit, emotionally secure, nearly beardless, feminist, educated, intelligent, sick of the campground scene, fun loving, creative, long hikes in the moonlight, snuggling near a warm campfire, employed, tick-free.

Luckily I leased LeRoi from Plenty of Tramps rather than buying him outright, and charged it on my Amazon.com Store Card (by GE Capital Retail Bank). That gave me the leverage I needed not only to send him back, but to get a full refund within hours.

That, and the new Amazon Prime Air which went into service none too soon. It took only a little thumb-waving over my smartphone, and almost before I could hog-tie LeRoi for the trip back, there was the Amazon RotoMerch FetchDrone with its buzzing thrusters coming to return him to the warehouse.

Sooner than I imagined possible, LeRoi was hoisted up and spirited away over the treetops, never to annoy anyone again – all at no cost to me, thanks to newly-loosened FAA regulations and Amazon's liberal returns policy. He really belongs at home with Mama and his cat anyway, not with a real trail woman.

Bye-bye, Boo-Boo.

More:

Amazon Tests Drones for Same-Day Parcel Delivery, Bezos Says

May The ForceFlex Make You Glad

Going totally tubular.

Did you ever go to a music festival, and wake up in garbage?

I mean, like, surrounded by it? Like, as far as you can see?

So think about that, and then think about this too, OK? When you're out backpacking sometime, just look.

So you're there on the ground, right at eye level with it, and what is out there? Garbagy stuff, mostly.

What fell off trees, and twigs, and leaves, and random pieces of nameless whatever covering the ground, what is it?

Garbage. Tree boogers. Forest hair in the brush.

None of it won't clean itself up.

So what do you do at a music festival - you leave, right? You go home and don't mess with it. You leave the garbage for someone else, but what if that's you? Then what?

See, someone has to, so the folks at Glad (The Glad Products Company) are all smiles, because they invented disposable trashbag tents. For rock festivals and stuff. So if you're the dude (or dudette) which has to do the cleaning, and everybody's crashing in Glad ForceFlex Trash Bag Tube-Tents, then you have a field full of trash bags to chuck stuff into after the premises are evacuated.

And this will work when backpacking too, 'cause there's lots of trash out there, as was noted. You can continue leaving everything as-is and walking away, or, if you want to, with your trash bag tent, which wouldn't be that hard to make, you can do some policing of the area during said exit.

Cool.

Now, what's next? I vote for an edible sleeping pad.

Most of the inflatable ones have some kind of rubbery foam inside, so why not sponge cake? And the shell could be like a fruit leather, you know - flexible but tough. And tasty. I like grape, or apple cinnamon.

This would be the ultimate in multiple use and gradual weight reduction since you eat it up as you get used to sleeping on the ground, and your pack weight drops accordingly, day by day.

And what about bug netting? Toilet paper works, it is breathable.

Hang it over the tent's open end to keep out the bugs, and there it is in your face the next morning when you need it the most. Handy, right?

Speaking of screening, you probably have an old backpacking stove that hasn't been used in years sitting in a corner of the garage, and the white gas in it is all gelled. At this point you think "Toss or not?" Sure thing on the stove, it's toast, but you can still use the fuel, which is good for two different things.

See how we're all multiple use today?

Take this old gummy gelled fuel and rub it on any exposed skin areas you may have. There's a little-known fact here, that this stuff makes great sunscreen. True. Then when you get to lunch, scrape it off again, plunk that residue in your little alcohol stove, and cook. A reasonable amount of hair or peeled skin in it won't hurt - the smoke makes skeeters back way off, though it does attract some flies, and the occasional grizzly. It's like Sterno with a fur coat. (The fuel, not the bears. Bears are like fur coats with an appetite.)

Now, upping it a notch, some people use quilts instead of sleeping bags, but this is still single use, right? And wrapping up in either one to keep warm in camp is still kinda single use, so what can you do with a sleeping bag (or quilt) that's rad?

This one is easy, so easy, for everybody that's done a lot of seam sealing, and has all these half-squeezed tubes of the stuff - just dilute it and paint it on your sleeping bag (or quilt). Make sure you have enough before you start, so as to cover it all.

So when this is now dry, glue on a valve from an old air mattress and you have a sleeping-bag (or quilt) pack raft. It still works to sleep in, and now it's also got a vapor barrier, so it's warmer too, and when you get to a lake or a river you don't have to hike around any longer. Instead, you inflate your bag (or quilt) do some paddling, and if that makes you tired, you've already got everything out, so you can go right to sleep. Repels rain too.

No ideas yet on a second use for a pack. So far it's just a hole with some dead things at the bottom, where it's all dark, but maybe an idea will come along.

More:

EAT

Disposable Trashbag Tents Are the Cleverest Way To Keep Camping Clean

Like A Fresh Spring Breeze

No more sleeping on bags of dog breath.

On news of the Windcatcher project on Kickstarter (which looks promising), I started wondering what other aspects of backpacking might benefit from the clever use of basic physical principles.

If you haven't heard about it yet, Windcatcher is an inflatable mattress that you don't have to get intimate with to inflate - and it works without even a pump.

You sort of blow in the general direction of a megaphone-shaped thing, and the force of your breath pulls in non-breathed air that's just hanging around waiting for something interesting to happen.

Because of the Bernoulli principle.

Because of the Bernoulli principle, a moving fluid, like air, even though it is moving with great force, has lower pressure than the same fluid that is sitting on its butt watching The Simpsons, or taking a nap or something, so the latter, suddenly finding itself surround by a lot of high pressure, gets pushed in as well.

Once the high-pressure stuff mixes with the low-pressure stuff inside a bag, then quick like a bunny you seal them in. You don't care if some of the air is upset about any of this, as long as they don't keep you awake at night with too much fighting. But on the other hand, they are in a bag, so you can sit on them if they don't behave. Which is kind of the point.

Or you can lie down and have a nap. Napping improves a lot of situations.

This whole area is a new twist on the conservation of energy thing.

The law of conservation of energy states that if you leave things alone, pretty much nothing happens (why would it?), but if you start messing around, fussing, and raising a ruckus, some other part of the universe may get irritated and come over to tangle with you to compensate and restore a sense of disorder.

If you are an inventor you can get rich poking at odd and peculiar parts of the universe.

And if you are a lucky inventor, you will be dead and forgotten before anything super-massively large, nasty, and possibly radioactive comes over to do a little annihilatin' on your behind because you woke it up.

So it is with Windcatcher. It might work.

But what about the rest of backpacking? What tricks could we use, based on simple, universal laws of nature?

I know I'd really like it if I didn't have to carry an alarm clock.

Imagine how nice it would be if the simple act of going to bed and sleeping somehow guaranteed that after a few hours the sun would rise by itself, make everything bright, and wake me up?

Sure, it is nice to have that alarm clock, and be up early when everything is still dark and quiet, but why can't the sun manage things on its own? Why do I have to get up first to stimulate everything and start the day rolling?

OK later, it's time to eat. Now get this idea. How about a basic stove fuel that could be ignited and then would burn on its own?

Sure, we have all kinds of stove fuels -- solids, liquids, and even gases these days -- but why do I have to get them started by rubbing sticks together? And then keep the flame going by continuous stick rubbing until my meal is done?

I mean, humans have been doing this stick-rubbing thing for around 200,000 years, as best as anyone can tell. And we're still at it?

Imagine a simple device, like a small, short stick of some kind, with a bit of flammable material on one end.

First you start this thing burning (by briefly rubbing sticks or whatever), and then you use this new invention thing to light your stove -- and then, once the stove is lit it keeps on burning all on its own?

Surely this would be an invention worthy of a Norman Einstein. At least.

And finally, something to use with maps.

Maps are fine things, and dandy too, but it can be a challenge to tell if you pointed your map in the right direction. Often there are prominent landmarks that give you a clue, but not always, so you need help.

Maybe there is something about the alignment of warts on a frog's back or the shape of clouds that is a clue to which direction is South. I can tell you from personal experience that dropping a handful of dried grass to see where the wind takes it does not always orient me correctly.

But I have noticed that a lot of the same stars are around every night. At least it looks that way to me.

These stars sort of move together across the sky like they are spokes in a giant wheel. Maybe there is an astrologer out there with a little free time to work on this problem.

I can envisage carrying a little pocket device which, once aligned with the stars on even a single clear night, always points in the direction of this celestial wheel's axis.

If I had one of these, then aligning my map to True South would be a no-brainer. I like no-brainers. Some of my best friends are no-brainers. Life is a whole bunch easier when you don't have to think.

Agree? No?

Well, one thing is certain. We'll see what happens next.

Unless we're unlucky and something super-massively large, nasty, and possibly radioactive comes over to do a little annihilatin' because of that Windcatcher project.

I hope not. I have some hiking to do.

As soon as I can figure out which is South.

More:

Windcatcher: Inflates in seconds with NO power or pumping

Commentia

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More:

Evil Blog Comment Spammer just exposed his template through some error and the whole thing showed up in my comments.

Sasquatch Poo Found Interesting In Texas

Maybe the dog did it.

Dr Moira Ketchup, Chair of the Department of Hospitality Science and Genetics at T-Bone University in Lizard, Texas, and author of several books including "Non-Intelligent Design: Just do it!", has today emitted a press release on her 5-year long DNA study of an odd-looking lump discovered one summer day in June, 2007.

Our study has utilized next generation sequencing to obtain 3 whole nuclear genomes from samples that my dog found while playing in the field out back. I'm guessing Sasquatch for sure.

The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mitochondrial DNA is mostly identical to modern Homo sapiens, plus something very close to dog hair.

But Sasquatch nuclear DNA represents a novel, unknown hominid thing related to Homo sapiens and other monkey-like species, sort of like my inlaws but somewhat cruder.

This indicates that a previously unknown hominid may still be on the loose, at least in Texas, and might like playing with dogs. We still don't know for sure.

Our best guess (soon to be made into a movie by the guy down the street who knows video) is that the DNA belongs to a true North American Sasquatch.

This would be a hybrid resulting from immigrant Sasquatch males fooling around with female Homo sapiens, possibly some of the ones living in the trailer park across the street from me.

Besides the lump of unknown stuff her dog brought home, there were also several curious artifacts: some rusty buckles, two dirty, worn-out socks, discarded ramen noodle wrappers, and what is most surprising, a fire ring containing ash and charred sticks.

We don't see many people around here, so it couldn't just be some backpackers camped out behind the fence. From what I know backpackers aren't that highly evolved and don't have the use of fire, let alone knowing how to cook ramen, so the material has to have been deposited by Sasquatch.

You might not believe this, but Sasquatch even uses toilet paper. And yes, we have definitive proof resting in the cold storage locker in the cafeteria.

Stay tuned, folks. This could be big.

More:

Melba Ketchum announces Bigfoot DNA results. Without the data.

DNA expert's view of the Ketchum Bigfoot DNA claim

Virtually Hiking

Make mine to go.

Time to bring backpacking into the digital era.

Sure, once upon a time there was Pocketmail. Nice enough for its day, but a lot like sending a postcard to Aunt Millie. If the batteries hadn't died. And you could find a phone booth.

Fussy. Technically Limited. Uncertain results.

Well, we're beyond that now.

We've had cell phones for a good while, and there's no surprise anymore about all phones having cameras. Even art school grads from Texas can hit the PCT, leave one pocket free for an iProduct, and carry along the equivalent of a film studio in less than 120 grams.

A wedding photographer took his phone to Italy, along with a $1.99 app. With only that he published a travel book.

OK, that's where we are. Where do we go?

Good you asked.

You've heard of Patagon.com, the world's biggest online seller of everything hiker-related? Sure you have.

Everyone has by now.

Well, they've shipped you replacement sole lugs and bags of trail nibbles for quite a while, undercutting just about everyone and revolutionizing the business via easy clicks and free shipping. We've all got rooms full of their stuff and can't imagine how life on the trail could be better.

Well, once again they're way ahead of us.

Patagon.com has just introduced the Treadle. It's a sort of tablet computer, but way beyond the iPhone or iPad, let alone the long-defunct Pocketmail. And at $199.99, it's pretty cheap.

Amazing, really. It's like Star-Trek's holodeck with a replicator attachment built in.

Here's how it goes.

After buying a Treadle device from Patagon.com, just use your credit or debit card to pay for any section of any hiking trail you fancy. This is automagically downloaded to your device, and after that you can use it anywhere, anytime it's convenient for you.

While waiting for a bus. During your lunch break. Mowing the lawn. Walking down a long corridor to another stupid meeting. In that garbage-strewn park next to the tracks, the only place you had available for walking. Until now.

It's your call, and it's cheap.

Pull down the goggles, punch "play", and in an instant you're stomping through the La Garita Wilderness between Lake City and Salida, with or without the commentary on landmarks and history. You get a full-color 3-D experience and even hear the crunch of your boots as you pass through fragrant forests.

Time to stop for the night? Easy.

Just sit down and enjoy one of Patagon.com's tasty full Sens-O-Ramen freeze-dried meals ($1.99 each, 12-second download), then pop into your choice of shelters for a good night's sleep.

Myself, I prefer the ultralight single-wall Shires model from TorporTent. You know - the one with the round Hobbit-windows. (Also $1.99) But you can get just about anything from Patagon.com's vast catalog. And with any decent signal at all, the download is almost instantaneous.

Be up with the sun the next morning, have a hot shower, and hop instantly from the Continental Divide Trail to your favorite section of the Appalachian Trail, then somewhere else again. Like over to Maggie's Riffle. (One of my favorite places.)

It's easy, quick, and way cheaper than buying real equipment you have to store and maintain. No rude and tedious airline travel. No actual bugs unless you add the Li'l Nippers Pak. (True, only $0.99, but most of us pass on that one.)

Keep your credit card up to date, stay within the Patagon.com Terms of Service, and you should be OK. Though a few customers have reported seeing their Treadles wiped and their accounts closed without warning.

If you're lucky, and this does happen to you (probably not, but just sayin'), you're home in your living room, and fully dressed at the time.

Unlike Aksel Bjorklund, who found himself no longer in the woods but suddenly surrounded by traffic, in his underwear, vacantly gazing at the sky and making chewing motions with his (now empty) mouth.

Mr Bjorklund, who insists he did nothing other than to stop for lunch at a particularly fetching overlook along the Te Araroa Trail, suddenly had his account yanked by Patagon.com, which replied to his query only with:

...We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies.

Please know that any attempt to open a new account will meet with the same action...

Mr Bjorklund did know a famous blogger who publicized the incident, and shortly thereafter, due to a high level of viral negativity, the account was suddenly re-established, again without explanation or notice.

But a bit later neighbors saw Mr Bjorklund removed from his home by what appeared to be police, and he hasn't been seen since.

On the other hand, most of us will never have any problem at all with one of Patagon.com's Treadles, our downloaded apps, or SWAT teams.

Accidentally get a bowl of rabid mice instead of beef stew? Just delete them. What could be more convenient?

That's what we really like. Convenience.

For $199.99, it's a deal.

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