Things Not to Bring on a Thru-Hike

Best. Summer. Ever.  As the kids say.  And it's true.

I quit my job in February and in April signed up as unpaid crew for a five day ocean sailing voyage delivering a 50' Beneteau monohull sailboat from Charleston, SC to Annapolis, MD, which I have already written about.  That was just a warm up for the next big trip, though, which was an epic three week boat delivery on a Bavaria 50' from the British Virgin Islands to Bermuda to Maine.  A week after returning to the states,  John, my wife, our new dog Milo and I hitched the DaySailer (which we finally got around to naming:  "Reservoir Dog") behind Roscoe and drove down to Port Mansfield, Texas for a five day sail northbound along the Intracoastal Waterway in an annual event called the Texas 200.  John and I sailed while Lola and Milo hung out in Austin for a few days before meeting us at the finish line with Roscoe and the boat trailer.  It wasn't a race, but rather an "endurance event."  If you finish you win.  Kinda.  So I guess we won.  Kinda.  A week after that, Lola and Milo and Roscoe and Fleetwood Mac (Roscoe's rented pop-up camper friend) and I spent five weeks road-tripping around the west, exploring...fly-fishing...national parking...camping.  We hit Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and California and then breezed through the wastelands of Nevada and Utah because it was too hot to leave the dog in the camper while we went out and did stuff.  Then we spent a little more time at a campground outside of Vail for more fishing and relaxing.

I might write about the things I haven't already covered here in detail some future time, but I just as likely won't.  To be honest, that seems like a lot of work.

Anyway, all these fun things have got me to thinking that I really enjoy doing the middle-aged guy endurance thing.  Not Red Bull crazyman type shit, but more leisurely and less-likely-to-die crazyman type shit.  My thought is that I should do at least one ridiculous thing each summer.  John, who does his own crazyman shit a lot of the time, is on-board with this thinking.  At the moment I am fixated on thru hiking the 486 mile Colorado Trail.  Thru-hiking means hiking the length of a trail in one fell swoop, completing it in one season as opposed to hiking parts of it over several years.  You camp in the backcountry every night in a tent after hiking anywhere from 10-20 miles up steep mountainsides or across hot treeless plateaus or through thick forests.  Black bears, elks, mountain lines and ferocious marmots could lunge at you any second.  Every five days or so you come to a road and hitchhike (or walk) to the nearest town and pick up a package you mailed to yourself before you started hiking (or had someone else mail during your hike) filled with resupplies of food, foot blister remedies, batteries, maps...whatever you need.  The Colorado Trail is a relatively short thru hike that takes about five weeks to complete, give or take a week, depending on the shape you are in and your motivation.  There are some real hardcore trails here in the U.S. which I cannot even imaging attempting, namely the Appalachian Trail (2180 miles), the Pacific Crest Trail (2650 miles) and the Continental Divide Trail (3100 miles, with some stretches shared with the Colorado Trail).

I texted John yesterday wondering if he would be interested.  Maybe, he said.

"Hiking, though?" he asked.  "I much prefer the sitting-on-my-ass-trimming-sails kind of endurance versus the sweaty-leg-cramping-long-ass hike kind of endurance." 

That's a good start to get him onboard.  You've got to plant the seed before anything grows.

Thru hiking would require a lot of specialized lightweight gear since you don't want to lug 50 pounds on your back and every ounce counts.  That's just great because I'm a big fan of pissing away money on single-use gear. The less useful it is over the span of my life the better.  Surely that means you are doing something interesting. (Please refer to the foul weather gear purchases for offshore sailing.)

So today I sent him a text:  Commencing a list of dumb things to carry on a thru-hike.  Item #1:  electric razor.

We've been submitting dumb ideas all day.  So much fun.  I'll relay them all here.  Many are highly offensive, so don't tell me if it is offensive because chances are I already know it's offensive.  That's what makes them  funny.

I'll highlight the things I texted in red and the things that John texted will be in blue.

His response:  Chafy chaps

My response:  Spare light bulbs.  A 25-piece socket set.

EZ Up.  Tea cart.  Bowling ball.

Encyclopedia Britannica (unabridged).  Vacuum cleaner. 5 weeks worth of firewood.  Moped.  Pewter Star Trek chess set.  Scuba Tank.

Quadriplegic.

Gallon of expired 2% milk.

Legless pony.

8 x 10 oil painting of a sad clown.

Obese autistic blind 12 year old.

Horny, gay, late-stage AIDS infected man.

Window AC unit.

Screamapillar.  Rabid monkey.

36 foot pole.  Comically over-sized genitalia.

Does the pole break down into manageably-sized sections?

Of course not.  And it is really hot.

Well then we shouldn't bring that, either.

Reservoir Dog's mast.

Urine samples.  Vengeful Voodoo priestess.  Comcast cable box.  Breakfast Club soundtrack on cassette tape.  A hobo.

And that's where we stand for the moment.  

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I really need to go to the store and get some groceries.  That's one of the things I need to do today, but I'm starving and it's always a bad idea to go grocery shopping when you are hungry.  I make bad choices under those conditions.  I could make something that's delicious but that will take time.  I really don't even want to bother pouring a bowl of cereal because that will involve opening two cabinets, one refrigerator and a drawer, not to mention the two dishes that will need to be cleaned afterward.  

Three minutes later:  

Here is what I settled on:  Go to the fridge, pull out a loaf of white bread (not usually in there, but bread consumption has been slow lately so I placed it here to retard molding...this is a good thing, because it keeps me from having to open a cabinet) and a bottle of French dressing.  Remove a slice of bread from the bag, place it on the counter, re-clasp the bag, coat one half of the top side of the slice of bread with the French dressing. Fold bread in half.  Begin to eat while transferring the bread and dressing back to the fridge. 

No dishes dirtied and only one door needed opening.  An efficient model for fueling up.  It tastes pretty good, too.  A little mayonaissey, a little sweet, a little starchy.   I'm certainly feeling better with some shiny new calories in me.   I am thinking that now I will only make good choices, so it is finally safe to go grocery shopping

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