Return of the Bony Ass

There are a bunch of cute little sayings out here on trail. "You carry your fears" or "hike your own hike." These phrases can be offered as sympathetic advice or as pithy retorts. If someone directly contradicts your idea or plan with their superior opinion, "hike your own hike" means "go fuck yourself."

(coffee at "sunrise" at McAfee knob)

"You carry your fears" exposes where you think your hike might go wrong. Why is your pack too heavy? Food? Water? Clothes? That's probably what you're afraid of being short on, and it's worth examining if that fear is rooted in reality or your own fiction.

I had a great idea for getting in and out of town without lugging all of my possessions through a Chinese buffet then grocery store, so obviously I was afraid of nothing. Here was the plan. Leave my pack and poles at a shelter with trusted companions, and hitch in and out of town, lickety split. Brilliant.

However, if you hitchhike without your pack it takes way longer to get picked up. Ten times longer. Especially if you are a dirty adult man with a beard and two big bags of groceries. Like a guy who walked to the grocery store but refuses to walk home. Like an irregular hitchhiker. Not a through hiker. A much less sympathetic character for the fine people of the volunteer state. "The trail teaches" is one of my favorites. Sometimes you gotta look the part to get the job.

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PT 1

There is one crossover skill between backpacking and golf. I've come up empty trying to think of more. It's the ability to read a slope. Useful in putting and setting up a tent. Pitching my tent on even terrain is ideal, but as we know from my previous post, ideal conditions are unrealistic expectations.

I want you to know my tent rocks. Durston tents regularly snag industry awards. My X Mid 2 is palatial and barely cracks 2 pounds, but pitching this tent requires precision. There's a learning curve for getting crisp lines, and the orientation of the rain fly is not the shape I get to occupy as the occupant. I'd rather show you with a screenshot from the Durston site than attempt to describe this nylon feat of geometry.

Outside:

Inside:

This makes righting the slope of the internal compartment harder than it seems and this is only a problem because sleeping on a hard left or right slope sucks.

Once the tent is staked in, sleeping on a bad slope is like realizing you have to pee once you're tucked in bed. You can absolutely lie there and try to convince yourself it's fine and you're all set. Sleep might even rescue you, but only momentarily. You were wrong and now you deal, shuffling and squirming inside your cell, searching for an acceptable plane. You, your bag, and your pad are all affected. If you move or adjust in the night, you're in scrambles. Yes, scrambles. Shambles too.

God forbid you didn't notice a root or rock and now it's lodged in your back.

The emotional tolls of poor slope literacy are also similar. I'm consumed with regret when I whiff on reading a green and push or pull a putt off line. I think "I've done this before, but I was careless and impatient," wishing I could take it all back, see the true path and set the right course. Now I live with the consequences of my own execution.

I was staring at a site a couple weeks ago and it hit me. I've done this before. I did my best Tiger Woods impression and got low to the ground for a proper scan. This whole bit kills with the old guys out here. Now I know what I'm up against when I'm scouting a brownish greenish patch in the Virginia backcountry, with 15 minutes to sundown.

(the trail isn't always rolling meadows and ridge walks, sometimes you gotta scramble)

(see?)

Getting a slope read dead on feels like you can see the matrix. Like you manifested the truth. It was in you all along and all you had to do was let it out. The trail teaches that it is, in fact, in you. But it takes presence of mind to get it right. Learn from your miscalculations, use the laboratory at your disposal and at least start getting it right more often than wrong. Otherwise, sleep weird on your arm and curse Dan Durston's name, knowing full well it's all your fault.

Or if there are no flat spots, say to hell with it and sleep in the shelter. Don't make things harder than they need to be.

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PT 2

Hiker hunger has arrived. I eat like never before. What is hiker hunger? It's the knowledge that anything in front of you will be consumed. It's your body's natural reaction to busting up and down hills for hundreds of miles with one whole day off every 2-3 weeks.

I touched on the food carry conundrum before. More miles makes you hungrier. If you want to maintain weight and strength, that means eating more food. Eating more means carrying more means more impact on joints (and attitude).

Here's a sample daily diet on trail that gets me about 3000 calories:

2 protein instant oatmeals with granola and peanut butter

Protein bar

Poptarts

Tuna packet in a tortilla

Peanut butter and trail mix in a tortilla

Honeybun

Snickers bar

Dinner I dehydrated at home / ramen / freeze dried hiker meal

Big spoonful of peanut butter

Mini slim Jim

I supplement with dehydrated fruit, various protein products (okay, mostly slim jims), olive oil, and cheese (which keeps in a dark food bag for 3 days). This cast of side characters plays a vital role in getting fats, vitamins, and minerals into the black hole that is my stomach. I ate a grocery store salad today, so I'm set on greens for May.

Creativity is a welcome mealtime guest. One of the best things I've eaten on trail was a nicoisse garden salad wrap. Tuna in a tortilla, olive oil drizzle, a mini salt packet, cashews, and the wild onions, bulbs diced, on a bed of the onion leaves. Magnificent and delicious.

I was told that I'll begin eating combinations of foods that would earn strange looks in civilized society. I'll let you know when things get gross but nutritious.

But that's only the input. The output? I'm burning 4,000 to 6,000 calories a day (depending on pack weight, distance, and terrain). I've lost about five pounds. My quads and calves are looking high performance, but any rear end padding is long gone. I swear I had buns six months ago. So how have I not wasted away? I'll tell ya.

Keeping weight on means when you go into town, you really go to town. I'm talking burly BBQ combo platters with full sugar sweet tea and two beers. That's the dream scenario. I'm downright amped for McDonalds and pull up to a counter seat at a Waffle House with glee, true glee. Sometimes you get into "town" and it's whatever hefty sum of calories you can assemble at the only gas station for miles. I arrive at these mountain outposts hungry as hell, and just as happy with my pile of Nabisco and Frito lay products as I am at the BBQ joint. Okay, maybe not quite as happy because Three Little Pigs in Daleville, VA was mind meltingly good. I went back the next night for seconds.

I ate lunch with a wise elder named Gone Walkin who hiked the AT in 1975. They packed out CANS of food and damn loaves of bread. No svelte tuna packs, electrolyte powders, or protein bars. That's barely conceivable for me. Gratitude is the best salve for any wound you're nursing or lingering bitterness. I just wish it worked on blisters.

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Progress: 730 miles down. On 4/24, things changed. I woke up and my legs just knew what to do. I cranked out my first 20 mile day. I woke up on the 25th with 800 calories to my name and 10 miles to go before I had a chance to hitch into town. I scampered in, resupplied, and got out. I'm averaging about 15 miles a day. I want to be perfectly clear, this is still whooping my butt and brain, but I'm getting better at both the walking and logistics. I better damn well be! I've been doing this for 68 days!

Virginia is stunning. Next post we're going to play a game where you guess Virginia or Costa Rica, and it's going to be way harder than you think.

Updates on Gear: Got new shoes since I wore out my La Sportivas. These Topos have a wider toe box which is great because my feet have swollen. They have resolved my inter-toe blisters, but I have new ones since I broke these kicks in by hiking 100 miles in 6 days.

At this point I'm just chasing my blisters around my feet.

I'm going to have to buy all new shoes when I'm done. I started a size 10 and have smashed my feet into 11.5s. They won't return to their pre-trail size or shape. Shoe game clean slate.

Reader request: Critter pics, sent in by Kelly of Buffalo, New York. Great time to ask, since I've gone through the Grayson Highlands and spent some time with the wild ponies.

WARNING ⚠️: AFTER THE ANIMAL PICS IS A PHOTO OF MY LATEST RASH