Callous and Sore Part 1

In the dorms at college we had a centrally located window sill we called the "Altar." The "offerings" were eclectic in style, quality and variety, and I found many a treasure through the years. My favorite pair of lounge pants, held closed at the waist with a safety pin, can trace its origins to a routine stop next to the elevator.

My first pair of trail runners came to me in the spirit of "share and share alike" that penny-pinching undergrads cultivate amongst themselves. They were brand new and water tight, made with leather and highlighted with cheerful orange canvas, and I felt like Cinderella as my unusually shaped feet conformed perfectly to their luxurious contours.

For the first few years, my runners saw limited action. The only trails for miles were made of pavement, and I rarely ventured farther than the walking path along Lake Michigan. It was delightful to have dry, sturdy shoes when it snowed, and my runners put me in good stead on a summer trip to Europe. They were by no means my constant companions, but they came out of the closet frequently enough to keep them broken in. Or so I thought.

It can be a beautiful, sunny day, your pack can lay just right on your shoulders, and the food in your hip pouch just the satisfaction for your cravings. But if your feet ain't happy, ain't none of you happy! Suddenly, twenty pounds heavier on my back side and bent over forwards from the redistribution of weight, my perfectly agreeable shoes were in contention with the back of my heels. This being my first backpacking trip, I was determined to muscle through with as much enthusiasm as the rest of them. So, I ignored the hot spots forming on my heels and toes.

Girl Talk

Alright, girls, time for a trip to the "ladies room". Unf0rtunately there is no such thing on the trail, but we'll try and shake the boys for a girly conversation anyways.

No really, guys, you'll get bored like you always do. Leave us alone.

So yeah, boys have the easy life on the trial, don't they? Not only can they forsake bathing, shaving, and wearing deodorant, the entire world is their toilet. And somehow, the dirtier they get, the "manlier" they are. To top off the unfairness, they have more pockets in their packs and pants, and more muscles built in, to carry extra toiletries!

Fortunately nobody expects us to wear makeup and curl our hair on the trail, and I don't know about you, but I look super cute in a bandanna. With a little bit of planning we can be cute and fresh without, well, everything but the bathroom sink.

Let's start with basic toiletries. My pack usually includes:

-toothbrush - I found a travel sized toothbrush that comes apart and fits inside the handle. Sometimes I take just the brush part...who needs a long handle, anyways? If you can't find a half sized travel brush, you can just saw off the extra length.

-toothpaste - travel sized, free from the dentist of course!

-comb - I don't wear my hair down on the trail...too many things to snag! The comb is more than sufficient to pull it back in a pony tail or braid, and is much lighter/smaller than a brush.

-hair ties - for said pony tails and braids, and sometimes a headband to keep sweaty flyaway strands out of my eyes. A bandanna works well for this purpose too.

-chap stick (spf 15) - always in my pocket, along with my handkerchief.

-tp - you can purchase travel sized rolls of Charmin, but I usually wait until my current roll is down to about three days worth of tp and pinch it. More recently I have begun drying baby wipes. They are sturdier and more absorbent, and I end up needing fewer squares. I also store my tp in a separate plastic bag in my pants pocket, with yet another empty plastic bag for used paper. There is no reason to be up a creek without toilet paper!

Now a word about "using the facilities." There are two common methods of relieving oneself in the woods. One is to hang onto a tree, branch, rock, etc. and lean back. The other is to squat. The leaning method sounded cleaner and easier to me, but I've actually found squatting to be much more so. Aiming is not that difficult when sitting mere inches from the ground, and somehow it's easier to clean up in a sitting position. Added benefit: it's harder for your hiking buddies to see your exposed rear end if it's facing the ground! Just be sure you're not squatting in a patch of poison ivy.

Certainly that cluster of bushes just off the trail is not the fanciest place to "powder one's nose." With a bit of preparation, however, it can accommodate the female hiker with a charm of its own.

Lightweight Packing

My first trip just about killed me. I had the wrong gear, the wrong food, and the wrong shoes. I didn't eat enough on the trail, and had to wear sandals for a week before the blisters on my heals hardened. And I'd thought I was an experienced hiker!

Two weeks after that adventurous trip we all piled into Katie's living room and got the "shake down" from her father. Talk about light weight -- his base pack weighed less than my purse! I will never sew my own pack or punch holes in my sleeping pad to reduce the weight by an ounce; but I have become much better at packing what I need, and leaving behind what I don't.

Here is my base packing list:
*I will be wearing zip off pants, shirt, sports bra and synthetic undies, liner socks, hiking socks, and boots, possibly a hat
-sleeping bag (w/stuff sack for later use as pillow)
-sleeping pad
-rain jacket
-extra pants and hiking shirt
-one more layer (in case it's colder than I think it will be! Can't tell you how many times I've been glad of that extra long sleeved t-shirt or fleece)
-extra pair of socks (wear one, air one)
-toiletries (don't forget TP!)
-first aid kit and knife
-flashlight
-dinner bowl, spoon
-water bladder
-nalgene water bottle
-two bandannas

On longer trips I will take a pair of camp shoes (flip flops) to give my feet a rest. Also depending on the length and weather of the trip, I may bring sunscreen and bug repellent.

My husband and I eat and sleep together on the trail, so we usually split the food, stove, and tent.

The rule is one luxury item, i.e., something you don't need. It can be your harmonica, a travel pillow, a coffee press, small journal, etc. I actually bring two luxury items, but my camera and my Bible are both smaller than average, and I use both of them.

Many packing lists include a rain cover for your pack, but I prefer to put my stuff in plastic bags. Not only does it keep them dry, but I don't have to fish for my toiletries one by one in the bottom of the pack. And it's cheaper. :)

And that's the essentials! I'm always looking for ways to condense my packing list. If it doesn't get used, it doesn't go anymore. Best of all is when an item has multiple uses (the stuff sack/pillow, or the ever useful spork). Unfortunately, there's not much left for me to cut out. Reducing from here means buying expensive lightweight equipment. Hmmm. Time to start saving!
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Backpacking: a brief history

Perhaps it is because I now live in Alabama, or perhaps the western parks are such large stomping grounds to begin with, but it seems to me the Black Hills are largely under rated as a tourist destination. In this part of the country, one is hard put to find someone who can locate this mountainous intersection with badlands and prairie on a map, let alone share in my favorable recollections. It was here in the Black Hills I learned to love the great outdoors.

Our family moved away from Rapid City, SD when I was only three and a half, but I still have vivid memories of picking wild raspberries on a mountain pass, chopping our Christmas tree in the forest, making friends with a rattle snake on a picnic, and watching the mountain goats on a trip to Mount Rushmore. Looking back, I don't know what possessed my parents to take their infant son and toddling daughter on primitive camping trips to Horse Thief Campground. How could they have guessed I would grow to love sleeping in a tent and gazing at the starry sky through my father's telescope? Certainly by the time their third screaming child put a temporary end to car camping, they had one disappointed daughter who would have to make do with her backyard.

Daniel Boone was the man of my childhood dreams. What could be better than me, my pack, and years worth of unexplored woodlands? I wasted some time wishing I had been a man two hundred years ago, and spent much more time pretending I was a pioneer woman living a hundred and fifty years ago. But my favorite was the day I loaded up an ancient rucksack with my brother's Boy Scout tin mess set and the pink and white striped picnic sheet, and explored the wilderness of the Walker Family Homestead. Great Oak Woods in the front yard, Mudhole Hill, Thistle Grassland, and Tornado Drain around to the side, and finally Snake Shed Pass and Cypress Swamp Campground in the backyard were dutifully traversed by this intrepid adventurer. And at the "day's end" I snuggled up in my sheet/fence lean-to, sipping water from my canteen and cooking soggy saltine "cram" on my skillet.

The backyard was not big enough to explore more than once a childhood. The best times of all were the annual church family camping trips to Fall Creek Falls State Park. Every fall for seven years my family huddled in the lodge sipping hot chocolate by the fire until it was time to crawl into our woefully uninsulated sleeping bags for a sleepless night. And I, I took my chocolate to go, bundled up in sweatshirt and flannel shirt, and spent my days blissfully lost in the woods with my companions, Katie and Monica whenever possible. We canoed on the streams, we hiked to the falls, we blazed paths through the woods and built forts along the creek bed. Cold and rain were but part of the adventure, and were as much anticipated in the following 51 weeks as the smell of campfire smoke and the sound of crunching leaves deep in the forest.

When my family moved to the flat prairie lands of Illinois during my 16th year, my love of the outdoors took an urban detour. Attending college in downtown Chicago, I fed my lust for the outdoors with picnics in Lincoln Park, football on Oak Street Beach, ice skating in Millennium Park, and circuitous walks through anywhere and everywhere downtown. The scope for exploration is infinite in a city so large and ever-changing, but I missed the rain on the leaves, the fresh air, and above all, the stars. After graduation, it didn't take me long to leave the city behind.



In January of 2007 I was given the opportunity to move back to Alabama and live with my childhood hiking buddy, Katie. In March, her boyfriend's roommate suggested an activity I would never have thought possible for a girl like me: backpacking. Katie's father supplied the gear, Andrew provided the trip details, and in a whirlwind weekend my childhood dreams had come true--it was me, my pack, and the woods!

The woods have taken on a different aura since that first trip. They are bigger, more beautiful, and so much more exciting than I had ever imagined in this modern age. Daniel Boone may have explored the woods first, but there are still outdoor adventures to be had, and it's my intention to find them! And if I get to use prepackaged food and a comfy sleeping pad along the way, well, booYAH Daniel Boon! I bet my pack is lighter than your gun!