A number of people contacted me recently, concerned that I hadn’t updated my blog in a couple of weeks. I definitely appreciate everyone checking in on me, and please feel free to reach out id I’m on your mind or you’re wondering where I am at right now. I’m finding that utting together these posts from my phone can be very tedious. Typing on a phone keyboard doesn’t always let me express myself the way I could with a computer. I’m frequently out of cell coverage and even the hotels seem to have wifi issues half the time. So it is a real challenge to select the images I want, get them to upload successfully, write a bunch of stuff, and format it all, especially when I have a full time job.

What is my job these days anyway? Well, I usually wake up when the sun comes up around 7am. I try to pack my sleeping bag and pad before getting out of the tent. Sometimes when I’m really sleepy I’ll just open the valve and let the air out of my mattress to force myself to get up. Once out of the tent I retrieve my food from the tree I hung it in the night before. I get my stove and water and make some oatmeal and coffee/hot chocolate. Once that’s cleaned up and put away I take down my tent and pack my bag. I try to brush my teeth every morning before leaving camp too. Usually I need to filter some water but sometimes wait until I’m down the trail, especially if the campsite doesn’t have water available. A walk into the woods to poop is usually necessary at this point. I look forward to using my titanium shovel that I paid $20 for but only weighs 0.4 oz to dig a cat hole and take a squat. It’s how we do it out here (when a privy is not available), and it’s something that’s probably discussed more openly on the trail than most of us would be used to in the real world. It’s easy to take for granted the conveniences of modern plumbing. By this point I’m frequently the last one out of camp, which is fine because it means I get to be alone while hiking.

I usually hike until about 1pm and stop for lunch. A tortilla with cheese, some salami or beef jerky, nuts, peanut butter (also good on tortillas, Nature Valley crunchy granola bars, or plain from the spoon), a packet of tuna, or likely some combination of the above. Someone recently turned me on to the “Snickers Burrito”: a tortilla with peanut butter and a Snickers bar, all wrapped up.

After lunch it’s many more hours of hiking. Some people listen to music or podcasts or books on tape, but I prefer to listen to the forest and my breath, and the creaking sound my left knee makes. I usually need to stop to filter water at least once. If there’s a lot of uphill I try to get by with just a liter or two, but if I’m planning on camping at a place with no water (or an “unofficial” site) then I’ll usually fill up my 3 liter Platypus bag (water bladder) ahead of time. That will usually hold me through the remainder of the hike, dinner, and breakfast the next morning. A couple of granola bars I keep in my right waist pocket keep me going for the rest of the hike. Right now I’m usually able to get 4-5 miles in before lunch, and a another 8-10 miles after.

I usually roll into camp around 7:30pm, which gives me about an hour and a half to get all my “chores” done before bed. I have to set up my tent, inflate my mattress and get my sleeping bag out. My next task is to find a suitable location for my bear hang. The recommended method is the PCT hang (popularized on the Pacific Crest Trail) which involves throwing a line over a 25 foot high tree branch, clipping the food bag to a caribeaner and clipping the line through as well. Then everything is hoisted up as far as it will go and I tie a stick into the line as high up as I can reach. When I release it, the bag comes down, the stick goes up and gets caught in the caribeaner about halfway to the ground. Ideally the food bag (and stove and bowl and trash and toiletries and anything that might smell like food) is hanging at least 10 feet above the ground and 5 feet from anything nearby a bear might be able to climb. It’s tricky to get right, which is why I have learned to prioritize the bear hang setup before dinner. I can usually cook in the dark but finding a tree and throwing the line is best done during daylight. The odds of hitting yourself in the face with the bag of rocks also goes down (though is never zero).

Next is dinner. If I planned ahead I should have enough water but sometimes I need to go filter more water before I can cook. If I’m in a pinch for time or energy, dinner is likely to be a freeze dried meal that I can just add hot water to. I can eat it straight out of the bag and cleanup is easy – just reseal the bag. Other times I’ll boil some pasta and mix it with sauce packets (pesto or Alfredo) in my bowl, maybe throw in some cheese, powdered milk, olive oil, salami chunks, tuna fish, or dehydrated veggies. I recently found some Chicken of the Wood mushrooms that were fantastic. Ramen or dehydrated mashed potatoes also serve as a vehicle for the above accoutrements. Mostly it’s about cramming calories into my belly to make up for the several thousand I burned that day.

I almost always save a little hot water for some after dinner cocoa. While it’s a satisfying dessert, it also serves the dual purpose of cleaning any remnants of the previous meal out of my bowl. A final splash of clean hot water is usually all I need to finish cleaning up. I drink all my dishwater to avoid spreading food smell around, and because it’s extra water and food that I probably need anyway. If I have extra hot water I’ll use the last little bit to wash my hands and face after putting the dirty stove away.

By now it’s usually getting pretty dark, so I brush my teeth and pack up my food into the dry bag. I hang my toiletries, stove bowl, and food bag on my bear hang and head for my tent. Nine o’clock is hiker midnight and by the time it is dark most hikers are in bed. Early on it seemed more common to have a fire and stay up a little later but it seems lately everyone just wants to get to sleep. If I’m lucky and have cell service I might spend a bit of time catching up with people (or writing for my blog), but usually once I climb into my sleeping bag my minutes are numbered as sleep beckons. Ten hours of sleep is not uncommon; the body needs time to recover from the long march of the day, and prepare to do it all again tomorrow.