Posts

Posted on

JMT Planning – Part 3 – Fear the Gear

This post is part three of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear. If you missed my latest JMT post about what food we’re bringing you can read that here. And to learn more about our plan and the trail in general you can check out my first post here.

It’s less than two weeks before our JMT hike and I’m considering buying a new backpack. Not seriously, but like, kind of seriously. The realization that lead me down the new backpack buying rabbit hole was the discovery that my base weight for the JMT would be 13 lbs, add to that my bear canister and I’m looking at a whopping 15.5 lbs before food, water, or stove fuel. This weight, 13 lbs runs around and around my head and I start to look at where I can shave weight from my pack to get it down from 13 lbs to 12 lbs, because clearly one pound is going to be the difference between having fun on the JMT and having a terrible time. Panicked trip logic am-i-right?

Intellectually I know that most people carry much more weight on the JMT, that the average is closer to 18-20 lbs before fuel and water and that my pack weight still puts me in the “light weight backpacking” category. But deep down, I covet the idea of being called an ultralight backpacker, with a sleek 10-12 lb base weight, dancing up mountains like a majestic goat. Intellectually I know that people have been hiking the JMT, PCT, and AT with much heavier bags, wool pants, and leather boots and that they made out just fine. Finally my intellectual brain wins out of my terrified gram-counting brain and I stop looking at new backpacks. For now.

The fancy gear layout!

What’s In a Bag:
My backpacking style would best be described as ‘comfort ultralight,’ since at 13 lbs for a standard trip (a bear canister is not required for the majority of the trips I take, but on the JMT and sections of the PCT it’s mandatory*), I fall just outside of the ultralight classification which is generally sub 12lbs. This means that I have chosen to minimize my gear, remove duplicate items, and buy or make lighter gear where time and/or money permit, but I still have all the comforts of a standard backpacking set up. I still have a stove, a freestanding tent, a pillow, and an inflatable sleeping pad – all items which true ultralight backpackers eschew, but I have chosen to bring for my own sanity and comfort. Click this link for a detailed breakdown of my gear: lighterpack.com.

*Why is a bear canister mandatory? Because people are garbage. Or rather, people have a lot of garbage, and food, and items that smell like food, which they bring into the backcountry and then don’t know how to store properly – which in this case means out of the reach of bears. Years of people leaving their food in places where the bears and other critters can get it it has taught these animals that people mean food, food that is much more delicious and easier to get than foraging for berries or hunting. As a result bears and humans have had an increasing number of interactions. So in areas where these interactions are most common the Forest Service and several National Parks – the most notable being Yosemite – have decided that a bear canister is a mandatory piece of equipment to be carried any time you’ll be out overnight.

What Isn’t In a Bag:
The observant among you may have noticed that my bag is conspicuously absent of several items. One of the great joys in hiking with a partner, is that ability to share gear. While I carry a larger portion of the tent weight, my hiking buddy and boyfriend will be carrying our stove, pot, and fuel canister. Where I will be carrying a rechargeable battery for our various electronic items, he will be carrying a small solar panel from which we can recharge the rechargeable battery. Cool, eh?

Other things I don’t carry, and I frankly don’t recomend for those looking to keep their back weigh down are – Physical books (use the Kindle app on your phone instead), camp chairs (use a square of foam and a rock), complex cooking set up (spoon + bowl = all you need), stuff sacks for everything (your bag is a stuff sack), deodorant, makeup, hairbrush etc (just be ferral)

What’s On A Body:
When calculating one’s base weight, there are a few things that you can leave out – namely everything that’s either going to be worn on your body (clothes, shoes, etc), or carried in your hands (really, this is just trekking poles). When selecting clothing for a thru hike or even just a weekend backpacking trip, functionality, fit, and look should be considered in that order with style coming in last. For me I’ll be wearing the following:

Nike Pro 5″ Women’s Compression Shorts – Synthetic compressions shorts are great because they’re quick to dry, don’t ride up or down, and greatly reduce the likelihood of painful chafe. They also accentuate your sexy hiker legs. True story.
Old Navy Go-Dry Mesh Running Tee – T-shirts over tank tops reduce the chance of pack rub and sunburn on your shoulders, and a nice light color won’t absorb heat from the sun. I also don’t feel the need to break the bank buying a fancy trekking shirt from a company like Patagonia since they’re typically made of the same material as cheaper shirts. Personal fit and synthetic material are the biggest concerns.
Exoficcio Give-N-Go Bikini Brief – Under-doodles are actually a big consideration. Again personal fit and synthetic are the biggest concerns. You really don’t want to be dealing with a wedgie all day when you’re trying to hike 15 miles over rough terrain.
Bra – I bought just a cheap Target yoga bra that’s cute, fast drying, and fits. Again, I don’t really see the need to shell out $60 for a bra from an outdoor retailer when I can find something that works just as well for $14 and has lasted me years.
Altra Lone Peak 3.5’s – I love these shoes, and they’re incredibly popular with the trail running and thru hiking community. Even if they look weirdly like clown shoes. However, your shoes are probably the most important piece of gear you’ll buy. Blisters, crammed toes, and poor fit can ruin or possibly end your hike. It’s worth finding what works for you.
Injinji Run Midweight Mini-Crew Socks – Look, toe socks are pretty universally ugly. They just are. BUT! They prevent blisters like a dream, and come in a variety of thicknesses – I opt for the mini-crew in midweight because they’re not too thick (which leads to blisters) and they are tall enough that I don’t have to worry about them slipping into my shoes.
Black Diamond Distance Cork Z-Poles – Sadly, BD stopped making these (lame, I know because the cord was awesome). But they have similar models. These are great because they fold up small, and unlike the carbon fiber models, I’m not afraid of snapping them.
Oiselle Runner Trucker Hat – Light weight, folds up, covers well, good ventilation, has a cool pic from a female artist on it. What else could you need?
Polarized Sunglasses – Cheap, ship from amazon so they’re easy to replace, polarized, come in lots of different colors. Cheap (this one is worth mentioning twice since mine always get destroyed after a season).

If you have specific questions about gear (or just want to say ‘hi’) feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll try and get back to you before we head out on our trip.

Posted on

JMT Planning – Part 2 – Snackums!

This post is part two of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear. If you missed my first JMT post about our plan and the trail in general you can read that here.

The Terrifying Crisis That is Backpacking Food:
Have you ever tried to plan out 10 days of food, with the knowledge that once you’re on the trail there will be no opportunities to change it? Have you ever tried to do this three weeks in advance, knowing that you’ll be drastically increasing your daily caloric expenditure? What about doing it with no access to refrigeration, with weight being a massive concern, and the only kind of cooking available to you will be to add boiled water to things?

10 days of food – minus motivation cookies – is this enough, too much? Who knows? Certainly not me.

Have you? Because I have, and it’s crazy stressful!

Picture this: I am standing in my kitchen surrounded by a multiple scales, innumerable plastic bags, and piles of the most calorically dense food that I can find. I’m portioning, weighing, and bagging my food before I dump it into one of two bags. The first bag will go on my back and will (hopefully) get me through the first 10 days of our trip. The second bag will be mailed to Vermillion Valley Resort, our one and only resupply point for our hike and should (again, hopefully) contain enough food for the remaining seven days of our hike.

The ten day bag looks massive sitting in front of my washing machine. I hoist it up using the food scale and it reads 15.5 lbs. “Fuck! How is it still so light?!” I exclaim to Keith who is in the process of portioning trail mix into little baggies and counting ounces out loud like some sort of M&M drug dealer. I do some quick mental math to add in the food I’ll have to cook right before we leave, and come up to just shy of 17 lbs of food for 10 days. The general rule of thumb is 2 lbs of food per person per day. I’m short almost 3 lbs and at this point I just say “fuck it.” My well-fed American body can do with a few less calories. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine. But then again, everything about this trip is new to me so maybe I’m 100% wrong. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

There are few hard and fast rules when it comes to backpacking, and a large portion of the advice out there is “see what works for you” which, I think we can all agree, isn’t really advice at all. But the general thought is that you should pick food that doesn’t spoil, has at least 100 calories/oz, requires minimal to no cooking, isn’t heavy, and is full of fat and carbs, with protein being a secondary concern.

So what does that actually mean I’ll be eating.
Well we can break it down into three categories: breakfasts, snacks, and dinners.

Breakfast: Simplicity is key when packing for days and days on the trail, so I stuck with a three meals for breakfast that I know I like, and can rotate between.
– Mountain House Breakfast Scramble – this is one of the best freeze-dried foods I’ve ever had, so Keith and I bought it in bulk online and repackaged it into two-person servings.
– KIND Chocolate granola, freeze-dried strawberries, and powdered milk aka trail cereal!
– Luna Bars and whatever snacks I feel like eating that morning
– * Most breakfasts will be accompanied by coffee or hot chocolate

Snacks: I rarely stop for a real lunch on the trail, preferring to snack 2-3 times during the day at convenient rest stops. Snacks also make up the biggest diversity and calories in my food.
– Potato Chips or Trader Joe’s baked Cheetos knock offs – chips have between 130 and 160 calories per ounce, are full of fats, sodium, and carbs, and are delicious. They’re a backpacker superfood.
– Home made beef jerky – because we’re classy like that. Get on our level!
– Trail mix – and by trail mix I mean 80% chocolate items with a few handfuls of nuts and dried fruit in there to give it the illusion of “mix.”
– Rice Krispies – because duh, they’re delicious
– More chocolate – because you can never have too much
– Motivation cookies – these look similar to regular cookies, except I save them for when I’m having a low moment.
– Various bars that I’ll admittedly save until the last 2-3 days before our resupply when I’ve eaten all the good food from my bag.

Dinner: Dinners are where we really put some effort in. We dehydrated veggies (a lot of which went moldy in our first batch – live and learn eh?), bough bulk freeze-dried meat to supplement our lacking protein sources, and developed/made up eight unique-ish recipes. The store WinCo Foods aka “prepper heaven” proved to be invaluable for buying bulk foods. Do you need pounds and pounds of fake mac and cheese sauce powder? If so, Winco Foods is the store for you! Here is what we’ll be eating:
– Green Chili Chicken chili – Recipe Courtesy of Anna and Derrick, thanks kids!
– Mac and Cheese with sausage
– Bean and Cheese Burritos
– Chicken Teriyaki
– Chicken Fajitas
– Pasta with ground beef
– Cheesy potatoes with sausage
– Chicken tortilla soup
– Something else I can’t remember that probably has potatoes or something

7 days of food…. I hope! Minus the four dinners that Keith will be carrying. Sorry babe, I gave you more food to carry than me.

You’ll probably have noticed a pattern in that list, which is to say most meals start with a carb (either rice, potatoes, or refried beans), add in some flavoring (cheese powder, taco seasoning, teriyaki seasoning) and finish with whatever protein sounds like it fits the best (we bought freeze-dried chicken crumbles, sausage, and ground beef in bulk).

This bag has seven days of food. The bear canister next to that bag is supposed to hold all that food, clearly that’s a lie.

Resupplying – Or How I paid $50 just to mail myself food:
The final step of this entire process will be getting ourselves our food on the trail. The JMT goes through a very remote portion of the Sierra Nevada range so the only two options for a mid-point resupply are Muir Trail Ranch (generally thought to be for uppity jerks who can pay an exorbitant amount just to avoid hiking a few extra miles), or Vermillion Valley Resort commonly known as VVR (for the less wealthy among us who are totally willing to save $80 by hiking a few extra miles).

The plan will be to start the hike with 10 days of food each, resupply once at VVR, and then hike the remaining seven days into Yosemite Valley without starving, killing each other, or being eaten by bears. This is why I’m packing lots of chocolate people, chocolate solves all issues, except for being eaten by bears.

Look for part 3 on the blog in the next few days where we’ll be discussing gear!

Posted on

JMT Planning – Part 1 – Where Y’All Goin’?

This post is part three of a three-part series that I’m putting out in the weeks before our trip detailing the trail, our food/resupply strategy, and our gear.

As some of you know, Keith and I will be hiking the John Muir Trail (JMT) this year, and for those of you who didn’t know, now you do. Lucky you. While I’ve been speaking to people about this a handful of similar questions have been coming up mostly regarding our schedule and planning process, our gear, and what our food and resupply strategy is. So I’ll be posting three articles in the weeks before our trip in an attempt to answer your questions and just generally clarify what is required to spend three weeks in the middle of nowhere.

The first thing you need to know, dear reader is that the John Muir Trail is a 211 mile hiking and equestrian trail that runs from the summit of Mount Whitney to Yosemite Valley (plus 9ish miles to get to/from the top of Whitney). The typical season for hiking the JMT is late June through mid September, and people usually complete the trail in about two to four weeks.

The second thing you need to know is that getting a permit for the JMT (especially if you want to do the entire trail and aren’t psyched about skipping sections) is really a pain in the ass. This is largely because of the trail’s increasing popularity. This year a record-breaking snow year compounded the problem by reducing the JMT window even further as Yosemite valley wasn’t even open until late June.

The permit system for the JMT opens 24 weeks or 168 days in advance of when you actually want to go. So while everybody was thinking about cute scarfs, and wearing knee-high boots and all the other fun stuff you do in January, Keith and I were frantically trying to get permits for a trail we wouldn’t even hike for close to half a year!

A rough map of the JMT.

Some people wait years to get the right permit for the JMT, only content to hike it south bound from the northern terminus at Happy Isles in the heart of Yosemite. Other people who don’t have time for that kind of shit, rig together a crazy permit like some sort of Frankenstien’s monster of trail systems and just say fuck it.

I’m going to let you guess what group Keith and I fall into.

Lots of ups and downs on this trail.

Yep, we’re the second group. So we’ll be departing from Horseshoe Meadows and heading over Cottonwood Pass, adding 17 miles and two days to our JMT hike because ain’t nobody got time to wait until the fates of the Eastern Sierra Permit System or the Yosemite nordic gods to shine down upon us in 1 to a billion years time. The plan is to cover roughly 237 miles in 17 days, with one zero (no hiking day) at Vermillion Valley Resort where we’ll pick up our resupply of food and bug spray and sunscreen, because the JMT is actually so remote that there are only a few options to get more food on the trail, and all of them involve mailing yourself a box of snacks. We’ll finish in Yosemite Valley on September 9th or 10th.

So why, you might ask, would a reasonably sane person such as yourself want to deal with the headaches of the permit system just to get the chance to hike for more than 200 miles in the middle of nowhere, where you can’t even stop into a CVS to pick up snacks?!?! To which I would say: clearly you don’t know me, because if you did you would never use the phrase ‘reasonably sane’ and my name in the same sentence, especially not where hiking and snacks are concerned. Also, because the JMT is known to traverse some of the most beautiful terrain in the Sierra Nevada range – which some people (mostly Keith) argue is the best mountain range in the lower 48. If you need more evidence, take a peek at these images that I blatantly stole from the internet:

 

 

It’s gosh darn majestic y’all!

Keep an eye out for my next two posts on the JMT where I’ll be talking about gear, and our food.

 

Posted on

You cannot lose, you also cannot win – Silver Moccasin Trail Part 2

It’s almost 6pm and I’m totally fucking over it. I’m over this hike, I’m over the thigh chafe that’s forced me to hike in my thermal tights, and I’m certainly over the fact that this last climb to Chantry Flats is easily three times longer than I remembered it being.

And now, with everything that I’m over, I’ve suddenly entered into some sort of race with a dad and his crew of chubby children. “Push, push, push” he tells his brood as they miserably huff and puff their way to towards the parking lot, on what I can only assume is some sort of twisted family-bonding-bootcamp-fiesta which I do not understand. As he glances back at his winded family I can see the smugness in his eyes as they start to pull away from me. It’s a perverse sort of smugness that every female runner, hiker, cyclist, athlete of literally any persuasion has seen and instantly recognizes. It’s the smug look of a man who is deeply insecure about his masculinity, and desperately needs to demonstrate this by refusing to let you pass him.

For the male readers out there, it goes something like this. You (the lady) are running along, minding your own business when you start to overtake the runner in front of you, for the purposes of this post, we’ll call him Trent. Suddenly, upon realizing that you’re in fact, the host to lady-parts, Trent has to suddenly pick up the pace for 100 yards until he becomes fatigued and then slows down. Fuckin’ Trent. This whole charade – you approach, he accelerates, he then slows to a near walk, – will repeat itself, sometimes for miles! Trent the Insecure Runner Bro will continue to do his little insecurity dance until you either stop and let him get far enough ahead that you don’t have to deal with him, or pull the trigger and pass him like the god damn champion that you are.

I stop.

This weekend I have done enough. I have tried enough. And I do not need to prove it to anybody outside of myself. Certainly not a Trent.

In fact everything I’ve ever done outside is completely irrelevant to everybody, except me. I’ve never had to sprint for first place, I’ve never held a record, an FKT, or a first ascent. Everything I’ve ever done outdoors has likely been done before, done faster, done in better style, done with substantially less swearing – by some pro athlete, or some spectacular weekend warrior. And beyond that, my weekend long distance hiking and running pursuits are almost completely at odds with my day-job self. Very few people I interact with on a daily basis understand the what of my weekend adventures, and I’d venture to guess that almost none of them can begin to understand the why of any of this insane garbage I voluntarily – no – willingly put my body through. They say that if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. But the truth is that if it doesn’t kill you, it just makes you that much crazier the next time, and that much harder to relate to.

Most of my weekend adventures start with me sitting alone in a parking lot full of strangers, and end in roughly the same manner, except now those same strangers are giving me some crazy side-eye because I probably look vaguely homeless. Lord knows I’m certainly dirty and smelly enough to raise some concerns.

And this is exactly what awaits me as I finally, finally crest the hill into the Chantry Flats parking lot. Dude-bro-dad Trent is standing there with his miserable looking family, dozens of other clean LA locals are standing around with their small bottles of water and even smaller dogs, and a church group of Korean hikers has just loaded up and pulled out of the parking lot. And me? I don’t do anything. No one is there to congratulate me on one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Most people don’t even want to make eye contact with the dirty sunburned woman looking for her friends car. I simply load my gear into the back of Mac’s too-nice feeling BMW and send up a silent prayer that hiker stink comes out of a leather car interior.

Because this crazy idea that started more than a year ago with a line on a map, and ended in a friends car. The idea to hike 53 miles over an entire mountain range in just two days, climbing more than 10,000 feet of vertical, descending more than 14,000 feet into the deepest and most tree-chocked canyons of the San Gabriel Wilderness, the idea to cover an entire trail from start to finish as fast as I could, just to see if I could. The idea that stopped being really fun around mile 46, became really painful around mile 48 when I was running down the trail as black flies swarmed my legs, and then became some sort of transcendent type 2 style of suffer-fest joy around mile 50. That stupid idea that I managed to wrangle one other crazy person into (hi Mac, you’re a bad ass!) might just be the highlight of 2017.

And for all of that, none of this matters. I love that in crazy made-up outdoor adventures there is no real way to win, or to succeed (beyond the obvious one: getting home safe), and because you cannot win, you also cannot really fail. Literally, nobody gives a fuck. No one is watching. Everybody is too busy gazing at their own navels to give a fuck about yours. So why not try to do something amazing, just for you?

But what do I know? I’m just some crazy girl who hikes through the wilderness.

 

Posted on

Sorry I Crashed Your Wedding – Silver Moccasin Trail Part 1

Bright eyes flashed in the forest near me and I immediately froze. Which, side note, is definitely the wrong thing to do for pretty much any predator that you’ll find in North America. Realizing this, I started to get loud and big, waving my arms above me as I shouted “I’m a big scary animal” into the darkness. I mean, it’s not like the animal knew what I was saying anyway. Don’t judge.

Nothing.

Just some big round eyes staring back at me.

Oh god! I thought. Is that what mountain lions do? Is he sizing me up? Staring me down? Am I going to get mother-fucking eaten?!!

I turned and grabbed the largest thing that I could find, a sizable pine-cone, and lobbed it with all my strength into the forest, sending the creature in question bounding into the darkness with the speed and grace of a…. deer.

I had almost shit myself because a heard of deer were grazing in the field I was hiking through. Well. I guess that’s what I get for night hiking.

I started talking loudly to myself as I plodded through the dark on my way to camp. A late start to avoid, what turned out to be nonexistent, icy snow conditions meant that I would be night-hiking to reach my intended campground. Chilao Campground rested just past the halfway mark of the Silver Moccasin Trail, a 53 mile trail that crosses the entire Angeles National Forest from north to south. Mac and I had started on opposite sides of the trail, her on Friday me on Saturday morning, with the plan to reconvene at work on Monday morning. But at the moment I was just past the halfway point, it was well after 10pm, and I was crashing hard, coming down off the adrenaline high upon seeing the killer forest deer 20 minutes earlier.

Just make it to Chilao I thought. Hike hike hike. Just make it to Chilao. Hike hike hike.

At moments like this, there is really only one course of action. You get on your phone, and you blast the soundtrack to Hamilton.

I am Alexander Hamilton!

That’s right scary forest deer! I am Alexander Hamilton and I’m not going to let you eat me!

Fuck you bears and cougars! I’m Alexander Hamilton and I’m not throwing away my shot!

And so it was, deranged singing, headlamp beam swinging through the underbrush, profuse swearing, and trekking poles flailing that I stumbled into Bandito Group Campground. I checked the map. Nothing was supposed to be here, and yet here was a massive campground. A massive campground that was blasting Flo Rida’s 2008 classic song “Apple Bottom Jeans.” A massive campground that was blasting Flo Rida’s 2008 classic song “Apple Bottom Jeans” full of 100-odd people milling around in the dark.

To the adrenaline-tweaking night-hiker this can only mean one thing: water.

My initial plan was to approach the closest group huddled around a campfire, eloquently explain my situation – that I was thru hiking and had run out of water – and calmly ask them if they could spare a liter or two.

What actually happened was that I approached the closest group huddled around a campfire, not getting close enough to the firelight for them to actually see me, and with the awkwardness of a pre-teen at a school dance, asked if they had any water.

Silence.

“I’m hiking” I added somewhat lamely, as if that would completely clarify why a strange woman was asking for water, 50 miles from the closest metropolitan area.

Silence. And then.

“There is some water on those tables, near the bridal party.”

Sweet hallelujah! Oh lawd jesus I am saved! With the power of water I can do anything, I can hike all night! Wait… did she say bridal party?

And that, good readers, is how I accidentally on purpose crashed my first wedding.

Approaching the table like some skittish feral animal I scoped out the surrounding environment. Electric candles and discarded cans of PBR littered the picnic tables, drunk humans roved in loose packs all around me, bonfires illuminated the night, and literally not a single person seemed to register my presence. Filling my bottles with dirt-caked hands I only drew attention from one man, who seemed not to register the fact that I was toting a backpack, covered in dirt, and wearing an outfit that could best be described as a “dirtbag-hiker chic.” He grinned stupidly as his eyes roved from my feet, up my body, and finally resting on my face. Which, really should have alerted him to the fact that most wedding guests don’t wear headlamps and trucker hats, but what can I say, enough alcohol and you’ll start to think that boning a garbage can is a good idea. It was at this point in the evening that I retreated into the forest, set up my ground cloth on the outskirts of the revelers and was lulled to sleep by the sweet sweet melody of Shawty feat. T-Pain.

 

If you’d like an article about hiking the Silver Moccasin Trail that’s actually informative, check out the piece I wrote for RootsRated.

Posted on

Alone in the Desert

I’m walking by myself in the desert. Walk walk walk. The trail in front of me climbs gently, but relentlessly and I wait to rest until I reach the top of the climb. Around another corner, that must be the top I think, but it not. It’s not the top this time, nor the next time, nor the next. After a while I forget that I’m climbing. Maybe I’ll climb this hill forever I think. Maybe this is what hell is like, I think. Climbing an endless, unrelenting hill in the desert sun.

But it’s not so bad.

The sand is soft beneath my feet, and it’s not too hot yet. Maybe not hell, I think, maybe more like purgatory. It’s not so bad, out here all alone. Alone, but not lonely.

I look at the footsteps of those who have come before me. This trail is rarely traveled and so I can distinctly make out the two people who were here before me. Their footprints overlap, but it’s obvious to me that these people were as much strangers to each other as they are to me. You learn to pick up on these things when you spend lots of time hiking alone in the desert, or the mountains, or anywhere really.

A man in hiking boots, a woman in running shoes, Hoka’s I think. The woman was wearing Hoka’s. I fixate on her footprints as I climb and climb and climb up the hill. I wonder who this woman is, this trail runner, long distance hiker, invisible woman. She feels like a sister to me, this woman I’ll never meet. And now I don’t feel so alone out here, in this endless desert, under the biggest sky I’ve ever seen. Alone, but not lonely.

Unwanted, thoughts of my real life creep into my head and my mind spirals to everything that was left unfinished on my desk. All the people who want some little piece of my time, my energy, some little piece of me. I push the thoughts away, deep down where they can’t bother me anymore and I focus on the footprints of my desert sister.

Suddenly, I’m at a road crossing and a man in a white SUV driving too fast on the dirt road shoots past me. He has on big black Oakley sunglasses and looks angry in his big white car. I scurry away into the desert, further away from the road and the trailhead and the people. I didn’t come out here to be near other people.

For the next two days I’ll only see one other person on this trail. A man, covered in dust, with too big of a backpack going in the opposite direction of me. We smile, but neither of us slow down, we don’t stop to talk, that’s not why we’re out here.

I follow my desert sister’s footprints out onto a big plane that stretches out in every direction and falls away into the enormous blue sky. Out here I can only hear the wind, and the dry brush. The sun overhead is brilliant white and so powerful. But it’s not too hot today. And in between the breaths of wind it’s so so quiet. I’m all alone out here, just me and the desert wind, and my sister’s footprints. Alone, but not lonely, for the quiet is my home.

Posted on

In Short, I’m Lying to You

I wake up and scroll through Instagram, through an endless stream of beautiful pictures, places, people, food, fun, smiles, laughter, all captured in a tiny frame on my phone. I barely notice anymore who these pictures are from. Occasionally I double tap my approval on a picture. Do I even know this person? Does it matter? I open up my camera roll and I add my picture to the digital stack. I crank the saturation, add a vignette, up the warmth, gotta get those likes. It matters, doesn’t it? To finish it all off I type out a cheery phrase, detail where the photo was taken, some quippy remark that I’m certain nobody will ever read. Nobody ever does, that’s not the point. Gotta get those likes.

My photo says: adventure is so fun. It says: look at this effortless beauty. My phone says: travel is easy and carefree and I’m out there living my best life, just look at this photo, it’s proof. And you believe it. Don’t you?

Photo posted, I ease my body out of bed, my left knee is stiff and doesn’t straighten all the way, a holdover from two ACL surgeries during college that flares up after hours of walking. My feet pad onto the tile floor of the bathroom. The cool tiles feel soothing on the bottom of my swollen feet. Nobody tells you that when you walk all day your feet swell up and they’re hard to put into your cute flats for work on Monday. Nobody ever told me that after hiking through the wilderness for hours and hours on end that my skinny jeans would dig into my calves and ankles that are still puffy as many as three days after I’ve come home. Nobody tells you that. I won’t tell you that.

I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody how truly, remarkably, terrible adventure can be. How much chafe was endured just to get that fucking photo that get’s all those little likes. Because when you write it down like that, adventure doesn’t sound fun. And in many ways it isn’t fun. Pushing yourself outdoors, traveling cross country, seeing new things, climbing big hills, walking all the miles for all the hours until it’s dark and I climb into my little tent alone in the dark. It’s not fun. But it does bring me joy. It brings me more joy than almost anything in my life ever has.

But, nobody ever tells you that either.

 

Posted on

Your Adventure Doesn’t Need to be Sexy

 

Look at this fucking shit! You could go see this! For real!

I recently told my boyfriend that I harbor a secret fantasy. One in which every young person I see driving a Sprinter van, or a Ford econo-line is a total dirtbag, living out of said van and traveling the world, and that I’m incredibly envious of these fictional people that I’ve created in my mind. He was kind enough to burst my bubble and inform me that no, these people are probably just working delievery jobs and that not every 20-something is living the #vanlife and traveling the country. But it sometimes feels that way, doesn’t it? How many times do we check into social media only to see beautiful images of professional athletes in remote countries, or that one friend who just #wokeuplikethis to a stunning view of the Grand Canyon? Isn’t everybody traveling to some remote place without me?

The answer is simple: no.

And it’s probably for the exact same reason you’re not quitting your job, traveling the world and giving the proverbial middle finger to this capitalist quagmire that we’ve told ourselves is so important. It’s because they have debt, jobs, and responsibilities that they have to attend to. And besides, who has time for a real adventure like that! I mean, doesn’t every true adventure require quitting your job, or at least getting a job where you get paid to be a talented athlete and travel?

Again, the answer is a simple: no. Actually, it’s longer than that. It’s a fuck no, and I’m going to tell you why.

The internet is full of the best and worst versions of humanity, but what people tend to really fixate on is the best. Instagram and Pintrest are especially good at propping up every beautiful person who is #livingthedream in their #vanlife with their #adventuredog. These people are aspirational sure, but they’re also not real, or at least, they’re not honest. In the same way that the abs on whichever actress is on the cover of Glamour this week are not real, nor are they an honest representation of what that woman looks like. Those images are nothing more than the best snapshot of an event, with some heavy-handed photoshopping or filtering done before you get to see it.

The problem with these social media adventurers is that it gives us the impression that you have to chose between an epic adventure and an average life. That small adventures aren’t worth it, and that you as a “regular human” can’t attain them. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Your choice isn’t between climbing Everest and watching Netflix at home. Your choice isn’t between quitting your job for six months to hike through the Amazon, and sitting in a cubicle working forever. Your choice is as simple as choosing to go home and watch Netflix, versus hiking up a local trail and spending the night camping. It’s not all or nothing. It’s something attainable or nothing.

These small, everyday adventures are just as valuable as grand expeditions for one simple reason: you’ll actually do them. And better yet, you can do these small adventures and still be home to watch your kids soccer game. Yes, they will require some sacrifice, typically in the means of time, money, or energy, but if a small investment is enough to put you off of trying something new, then have fun beating level 12,456 of Candy Crush, we’ll be sure to put your high score on your tombstone.

Still reading? Cool.

Think about the time you have that isn’t already dedicated. The time before and after work, the weekends, the moments you spend watching TV or playing garbage games on your phone. What could you be doing with these moments instead? What could you accomplish if you forced yourself to do something new every weekend, or every day on your way home?

And look, I hear you life is complicated and hard and it takes planning and maybe you don’t have every weekend free, maybe you’re a mom with kids and you can’t get away that frequently. But just because you can’t get away every weekend doesn’t mean that you should never try.

Change is scary, trying something new is scary, stepping outside of your routine is scary. But you know what is also scary? The idea that you’re on this planet for a very short time, and that your ultimate goal should be to conform as strictly as possible. That’s a crazy fucked up idea! When was the last time you even looked around at how beautiful, how insanely incredible this planet is?

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the fact that you live on a planet that has elephants, and ice cream, and pizza, and freaky fish with lights on their heads, and also giraffes, and balloon animals, and flowers that smell good, and fruit that smells like ass but somehow still tastes good, and blue skies and fuzzy slippers, and grass that just grows out of the fucking earth like a giant green carpet, and you’re telling me you’re fucking bored? That you’re “too busy” for adventure?

Well fuck that.

 

 

Posted on

A Motionless Purgatory

This was one of those rare days where I was powering uphill away from Keith. Normally, I’m the one in the back, slowly working my way up the hill as I watch Keith’s butt stride away from me. My method has always been: move slow, rest infrequently. My body is slow to warm up, and quick to cool down, meaning that a 15 minute rest doesn’t equal recovery, it means I now have to spend another mile getting my body warmed up again. Beyond the inner workings of my cardiovascular system, this hiking method works for me. I get bored really easily and I detest sitting still.

But, today was one of those rare days, and so I waited patiently for Keith, slowed my pace and stuck with my buddy as he has done countless times for me. Actually, what really happened is that I took the lead, put on the soundtrack to Hamilton and proceeded to have my own Broadway show as I danced and sang my way up the trail. Nothing slows you down quite so much as attempting to belt out show-tunes at 7,000ft. I think it’s fair to say that I’m an absolute joy to hike with.

Our original plan for the weekend was to practice snow safety skills with my brand new ice axe. But as we climbed it became apparent that as much snow as we had this winter, it was going to be hard to find a slope to practice on. With poor snow conditions and a tired boyfriend we opted to set up camp and spend the day relaxing in the mountains. It was certainly a novel concept, and I’m open to trying anything once.

With the tent pitched, pads inflated, and sleeping bags unfurled we were all set. Well, Keith was all set to nap, and I was all set to LOSE MY GODDAMN MIND! WHAT THE HELL DO PEOPLE DO FOR HOURS! WHAT EVEN IS RELAXING? LIKE, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? While Keith dozed, I was in my own personal purgatory.

To most people the idea of sitting in a beautiful campsite overlooking an expansive valley would sound ideal. These are the same people who plan beach vacations, who use phrases like “time to unwind,” enjoy such “activities” as sunbathing, and that nebulous and insidious word “relaxing.” I don’t trust these people. I am not these people. I do not relax. I move. I walk. I interact with my world via passing through it. I appreciate nature and our wild spaces almost exclusively by traveling and being challenged by it.

How I passed the afternoon I can hardly recall. The pot that I had left in my food bag probably helped.

Luckily for me, Mama Nature is nothing if not a provider, willing to look after even her most fidgety children. That evening she put on the most spectacular sunset just for us.

Perched on a large rock just outside of camp Keith and I watched as the sun began to dip behind the hills and the high cirrus clouds were lit afire with the fading rays. The green pine tree-clad hills dipped to a royal purple, a distant lake glowed a shocking pink, and Catalina Island rose up from the golden waters of the Pacific Ocean like an ancient beast. As the scene dipped to black the lights in the valley below began to twinkle into life, a few at a time, and then all at once. In the dark we were the only two people on that mountain, holding court above the thousands of people below, evident only because of the lights of their homes, and cars, and parking lots.

As my butt fell asleep on that cold rock I thought about all those people down in the valleys and basins of Southern California. Did they even know we were up here? Do they look up to these mountains and feel the same pull that I do?

To me, these mountains are my home, my safe place. My heart lives in the mountains. And they have ways of teaching me things that I could not have learned myself. Without even noticing it I had sat on that rock, motionless, as I watched the sun set. I had found a way (or been forced), to relax for once and enjoy the moment, the company, and the view. I guess today was just one of those rare days.

Posted on

Backpacking – A Checklist

Backpacking is the best. It just is. You get to walk into nature with everything you need for your own survival on your back. You get to see more nature, fewer people, and most people will think you’re a crazy bad-ass for even attempting it. However, a lot of people hit a barrier when they attempt to make the transition from day hiker to backpacker, and that stumbling block all comes down to one thing: too much fucking gear.

I subscribe to a style of backpacking I’ve dubbed “comfort ultralight.” And while this may seem like a contradiction in terms, I think it’s a style of backpacking that everybody should adopt. And I’m not just saying that because it’s my personal preference. Ok, maybe I am saying that a little bit, but I have other reasons too! Promise.

I used to not be the biggest fan of backpacking, I hated lugging all that shit around, being weighed down, and seeing less stuff in more time. At a certain point backpacking just becomes slow-hiking-with-camping-thrown-in-because-you-packed-too-much-crap-and-now-you-can’t-walk-fast, and that sucks. However, if you can cut down on your setup, you’ll move more comfortably, see more and enjoy those sights more without the strain of a 50lb pack on, and once you’re home you’ll have way less garbage to unpack and wash. There are so few downsides to this style of travel it’s incredible to me that people pack any other way.

The largest outcry that random old white dudes on the internet named Trent, or Chad, or Brent or Wally have expressed with this kind of travel is safety. How can a poor little girl travel safely in the wilderness without five extra pairs of wool socks!?!?!? They exclaim. Well, Chad, I do it by ensuring that everything I do bring on the trail has a specific function in keeping me alive. I also make sure to tell people where it is I’m going, and unlike angry Facebook Brent, I have a strong predilection for bailing in sketchy situations. Besides, when stuff goes sideways, having two extra pairs of underwear isn’t going to be the X-Factor in keeping you alive.

Ultralight comfort could be summed up with the following: every piece of gear should serve at least one necessary function, be light, be durable, and have no redundancies.

So what does that actually mean? Probably not a lot, unless you already have a gear list in mind. So I’ve created a list for a typical three-season set up that is light, safe, and comfortable.

Comfort Backpacking

 

Hey guys a little housekeeping here! First off, did you know that you can subscribe to this blog? Yep, just scroll down to the bottom of the page and enter your e-mail and you’ll be automatically notified when I post (ahhh the future). Second, if you have any questions about this list post a comment on this post and I’ll make an effort to respond!