The outdoors wasn’t always that welcoming.

“You don’t see a lot of people (on trail) that look like you,” says Jo-Ann, a Black woman. “But you have to push through the negativity to get to the good stuff. And I’m at the good stuff now.”

Jo-Ann’s story is familiar for many people whose skin color, ethnic background, gender identity, or sexual orientation put them in a minority in the outdoors. They may feel relief and joy in the outdoors, but getting to that happy place isn’t always easy.

Part of it is feeling alone in the outdoors, that others don’t look like you, or that because you stand out you may not feel safe.

The lack of diversity in the outdoors is well-documented, but what isn’t so widely cataloged are the challenges faced by people who are underrepresented in the outdoors, or the feelings they have on trail, in retail stores, or when viewing ads that have few or no people who look like them.

Those feelings and perceptions have been documented by Merrell, the outdoor shoe and apparel company, in its recently released “Inclusivity in the Outdoors” report, which surveyed people in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in 2020 and 2022. The survey defined the outdoors as anywhere a person can experience the weather and the natural world—animals, plants, or landscapes.

Overall, the 2022 survey reinforced that people view their time in the outdoors positively. 64% said they feel relaxed when outside, 59% said they feel happy, 55% said they feel calm, and 41% said they feel thankful.

But the survey also found that 19% of respondents reported experiencing discrimination in the outdoors. The survey found that percentages in almost all categories increased from 2020 to 2022.

In addition, 53% of survey respondents noted they have felt afraid when outdoors and 15% noted feeling alert.

The Black Experience

44% of Black survey respondents said they felt thankful when outside; 21% said they experienced discrimination when outdoors; and 23% said they experienced discrimination while shopping.

11% said they feel cautious, 4 percentage points higher than white survey respondents.

The story of Black Americans and the outdoors is one of segregation and painful reminders. Many national parks and outdoor spaces were segregated until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Confederate statues, a reminder of the South’s slave years, still greet visitors to some public spaces.

And the National Health Foundation reports that among Blacks in the United States there is still a perceived threat of violence from generational trauma due to decades of lynching that usually took place in forests, giving people of color negative feelings about outdoor spaces.

Jo-Ann grew up in a family that didn’t camp, and discovered the outdoors through her husband. Her first experience was a backpacking, canoeing, and camping trip in Maine, and she was hooked.

There were disappointments along the way. People assumed Jo-Ann couldn’t reach summits because they weren’t used to seeing people of color on the trail. Hikers would talk to her husband, a white man, but bypass her.

But she also found in the mountains a camaraderie of hikers. “The harder the trail, the better the people,” Jo-Ann says.

And Jo-Ann has a message for other hikers: “Everyone take a hard look when they see people of color on trail. Help out, not discourage.”

The LGBTQ+ Community

25% of respondents said they want to spend time outdoors.

40% said they felt comfortable in the outdoors; 56% percent said they felt relaxed; and 52% said they were happy.

50% of LGBTQ+ respondents in 2022 indicated a higher likelihood to be afraid of men than the overall total (50% vs. 33%).

LGBTQ+ respondents also reported experiencing discrimination when shopping for clothing, footwear, or gear in a retail store.

The survey results show that the LGBTQ+ community feels 9 percentage points more unwelcome in the outdoors than the overall total.

Perry Cohen grew up in New Hampshire hiking, biking, and skiing, and found comfort in the outdoors when he was uncertain about his gender identity. He transitioned to male in his late 30s, and shortly afterward founded The Venture Out Project, which helps members of the LGBTQ+ community feel emotionally and physically safe in the outdoors.

At first Perry focused on teaching outdoors skills, then he realized he was creating an outdoors community for people, and began focusing more on that.

“So when we first started out, there had to be a peak or there had to be something. And I think we still very much try to do that, but we’ve realized that the real goal is creating this community and this bond and people feeling like part of something,” Perry told huckberry.com.

Women’s Safety Concerns Rise

56% of women said they were afraid when outdoors.

16% said they were alert.

41% said in 2022 that they were afraid of men in the outdoors, an increase of 16 percentage points from the 2020 study.

Katie Kommer, an outdoors adventurer and freelance writer, says that when she started running and hiking she hardly worried about personal safety, figuring that people she met on trail would generally have the same good intentions that she does.

“However, over the past couple of years I’ve gotten a lot more cautious,” she says. “When backpacking alone, I never tell anyone on the trail where I’m planning to camp no matter how good their intentions seem. I also always carry a personal safety alarm whenever I am outside.”

And after Eliza Fletcher was abducted during her morning run in Memphis, Tennessee, in September 2022, and later found dead, Katie says her trail running group talked about personal safety measures to ensure they could run without fear.

“I do my best to always tell someone my plans, have my location sharing on with my best friend, and carry an alarm,” Katie says. “I also have a personal rule that if it’s dark enough to have my headlamp on, my headphones are out. Finally, I don’t stick to a normal running ‘routine’ and am constantly mixing up my routes so I’m not in the same place week after week.”

The result is that she feels “pretty safe” outdoors.

Still, she experiences harassment she doesn’t consider dangerous, but that is frustrating.

“During the summer if I’m running on the road in shorts and a sports bra, catcalls are quite frequent,” Katie says. “It’s also very common to receive a patronizing ‘why are you out here all by yourself’ from older gentlemen while I’m trail running, hiking, or backpacking. While none of this directly attacks my personal safety, it does make me feel less welcome in the outdoors.”

Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous Peoples spent the most time outdoors among respondent: 36% compared with 27% for all other respondents. Indigenous Peoples’ responses about how they felt in the outdoors was also higher than other respondents’ answers: 46% indicated they felt alive, 54% said they felt thankful when outside, and 65% noted the outdoors “just makes me feel better.” The survey noted that Indigenous Peoples’ long connection to nature probably accounted for those feelings.

But the survey found a downside in Indigenous Peoples’ outdoor participation: 21% of Indigenous respondents vs. 15% of white respondents said they experienced discriminatory treatment when outside.

22% of Indigenous respondents also said they experienced discrimination when shopping for outdoor gear in a retail store.

Jaylyn Gough, an avid climber, hiker, mountain biker, and landscape photographer, founded Native Women’s Wilderness out of frustration fueled by the lack women of color, especially Indigenous women, represented in outdoor industries. She wants Native Women’s Wilderness to be a platform for Native voices, a place to express the love and passion for the wild, and to provide education about ancestral lands.

The Hispanic/Latin American Community

46% of Hispanic/Latin American people said they felt alive when outside.

13% felt cautious.

28% of Hispanic/Latin American respondents said they were discriminated against in the outdoors.

Pedro Altagracia, an advisory board member with Latino Outdoors, went to great lengths to find nature after moving from New York City to New Hampshire, and experienced exclusion in the management of outdoor recreation spaces.

Now he advocates for inclusive and equitable access to the outdoors, the value and impact of nature on marginalized communities, and why diversity, equity, and inclusion are important in nature.

He is the director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Easterseals NH, VT, and ME, and is on the board of trustees for The Nature Conservancy of New Hampshire.

The Asian Community

21% of Asian respondents said they were discriminated against in the outdoors.

Don Nguyen, whose parents were Vietnam War refugees, co-founded Climbers of Color after disappointing experiences guiding for large outfitters.

“I got burned by the leadership and culture,” he says on the Climbers of Color website. “It’s hard to be the token POC in an all white company in 2016, in a white dominated sport. … I looked for clubs, groups, any resources to help myself and help others through hard steps like that.”

He didn’t find any, and thought there was nothing he could do to change the narrative in the sport he loves.

Then, he decided, “If not me, who, if not now, when. Believing the fact that small groups of motivated, skilled people, changed the course of history, Climbers of Color was founded.”

What Merrell Is Doing

“We know our responsibility is to do more than build great shoes and boots that enable our consumers to revel in the power of the outside,” Christopher Hufnagel, Global Brand president for Merrell, says in the survey’s introduction. “We also believe we have to be a catalyst for change in the outdoors and help make the outside more welcoming, safer, and more inclusive for all—a place where everyone feels they belong.

“This first-of-its-kind study measuring perceptions and experiences in the outdoors is a critical component of our work and will help guide our efforts moving forward. For us, the outdoors is everything, and we hope we can be a small part in making it a better place for everyone.”

Recognizing that advertising does not fairly represent people who venture outdoors, Merrell says it will go beyond gender and skin tone to include all sizes, abilities, cultures, gender identities, and ages. The company says it will create diversity and inclusion benchmarks by auditing current marketing materials and setting goals for improvement.

Merrell says that rather than relying on traditional portrayals of nature like camping and hiking in its marketing, it will show other outdoor experiences that marginalized communities relate to. Those images will include backyards and front yards, playgrounds, city parks, and children walking to school.

It also will build accountability to create a culture that fosters innovative ideas and cultural relevance while ensuring representation across marketing, products, and sales. Anti-racist and inclusive education will also continue within Merrell’s workforce.

The company began the Merrell Hiking Club in the United States and Canada with the goal of ensuring women were able to safely and confidently experience the power of being outdoors.

In 2020 Merrell partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters to increase opportunities for youth who may not have adequate access to nature, natural parks, or public trails.

Merrell also expects its partnership with the National Recreation and Park Association to bring park-improvement projects to life in communities hit hardest by park-funding inequities.

How the Survey Was Done

Two quantitative 20-minute surveys in 2020 and 2022 gathered responses from 2,000 people in the United States (800), Canada (600) and the United Kingdom (600). Respondents represented diverse backgrounds, including differences in age, gender, childhood income, current socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity. Participants who identified as Black, African American, Caribbean, Black-North American, Black mixed heritage, or biracial are referred to as Black. Participants who identified as Asian, Pacific Islander, East Asian (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean), Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Malaysian, Filipino, Vietnamese, or Asian mixed heritage or biracial are referred to as Asian.

Some Resources

This list is by no means complete. If you know of a group you would like included email [email protected].

Refugee Women’s Network Hiking Group

Women’s Hiking Crew & Adventures

Latinxhikers

Black Girls Trekkin’

Hiking For Her

Queer Nature

Brown Folks Fishing

Outdoor Asian

Diversify Outdoors

Outdoors Empowered Network

Outdoor Afro

Justice Outside

Big City Mountaineers

Black Outside

This story was reported using data from Merrell’s “Inclusivity in the Outdoors” survey, and by talking with people from the backgrounds noted in the report. I emailed many outdoor groups and people in those groups, but after receiving only two responses drew on additional information from groups’ websites. If you would like share your personal experiences for this story email [email protected].

Feature photo by Katie Kommer

The post The Outdoors Brings Us Joy. But Does Everyone Feel Welcome? appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

So why do I carry one?

I do it for the bears.

For the bears on the bad end of encounters with humans, the ones trapped and relocated, or in the worst cases, killed.

For the bears that have learned how to get into hikers’ food stashes, even when the food is hung at a seemingly unreachable level.

Does that last one sound far-fetched? Consider this:

This summer the Appalachian Trail Conservancy recommended that AT hikers carry bear cans because bear hangs just aren’t cutting it.

“Black bears along multiple sections of the Appalachian Trail have become increasingly adept at defeating traditional food hangs, where a hiker stores their food over a tree branch using a rope and storage bag,” says Hawk Metheny, ATC Vice President of Regional and Trail Operations. “By using a bear-resistant container, hikers are minimizing their chances of a negative bear encounter on the trail and helping prevent more bears from becoming habituated to humans as a source of food.”

It’s not just on the Appalachian Trail.

Backpackers in California’s Desolation Wilderness are now required to store food in bear-resistant canisters because the US Forest Service, which oversees the wilderness in Northern California, says bear hangs are no longer effective.

“Backpackers at Lake Aloha, Gilmore Lake, and other popular camping areas in Desolation Wilderness have lost as many as ten ‘bear hangs’ a night to bears in recent years,” the Forest Service says.

I’ve never had a bear go after my food in nearly 50 years of backpacking, although I have done a lot of poor bear hangs. Call it luck, but luck doesn’t last forever.

On one trip I heard a bear rumble like a freight train through a backcountry campground at night while, lacking any good trees to hang my food, my food bag was locked in the privy. Admittedly not my best move.

Another time I set up in a shelter where a sleeping bag and gear were laid out, but no hiker. He showed up close to midnight after a night in town, and thanked me for being in the shelter so a bear wouldn’t get his food.

I’ve read endless debates about food storage, and shuddered at boasts by people who say they sleep with food in their tent. Why would a tent protect them when bears in Connecticut, where I live, have broken into houses—some of them with people inside—looking for food?

Jim Fetig, a trail maintainer for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and a Leave No Trace Master Educator, told me several years ago about a bear that ripped apart a tent to get at food inside. Later, the same bear tore up an empty tent looking for food, although the hiker had properly stored their food away from their tent.

“The bear was doing what people taught it to do,” Fetig says. “As I always tell campers, you never know what happened before you got there.”

In New England, where I hike, the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Green Mountain Club have placed bear boxes in most of the backcountry camping sites they maintain. The AMC reports that the boxes are effective at reducing bear-human encounters.

Still, the boxes aren’t foolproof. A bear broke into a bear box at the AMC’s 13 Falls Tentsite in the White Mountains recently after the box’s latch failed. (See the havoc wreaked in the above photo.) The AMC is checking all its backcountry food storage containers to ensure there won’t be a repeat.

And the AMC encourages backcountry hikers to carry bear cans if they won’t be camping at club-maintained sites.

The GMC, which maintains the AT and Long Trail in Vermont, stepped up placing bear boxes at backcountry sites in 2019 after game wardens shot and killed a bear that ransacked tents, followed hikers, and charged a hiker on the LT/AT in Southern Vermont.

Along the Pacific Crest Trail bear canisters are required in parts of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Inyo, Sierra and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forests, and in all of Yosemite, Desolation Wilderness, and Lassen Volcanic National Parks. The Pacific Crest Trail Association strongly recommends that thru-hikers carry a bear can for their entire hike.

Unfortunately, even carrying a bear can is no guarantee that your food will be safe.

Clear plastic canisters such as the BearVault—the one I carry—have been banned in the Eastern High Peaks Wilderness of the Adirondacks in New York because bears have learned to open them. A bear named Yellow-Yellow was the first to be seen opening the BearVault, but other bears seemed to be catching on.

Similar bear behavior hasn’t been seen outside the Adirondacks, and the BearVault is approved for use in black bear country by SierraWild.gov and in grizzly country by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. Both groups list approved bear-resistant products on their websites.

Many hikers carry an Ursack, which is lighter and easier to fit in a backpack than a bear can. The downside? An Ursack can keep your food safe, but it won’t stop a bear from stomping on it and crushing everything inside.

And it’s important to check with the regulations where you’ll be hiking. Some areas such as the Adirondacks and the Desolation Wilderness require hard-sided bear cans and do not accept Ursacks.

So what’s my takeaway on storing food in the backcountry? It’s this: No bear hang or food storage is perfect, and keeping food in your tent is definitely courting trouble. But using a canister is the best way to ensure that the next bear you see isn’t the one tearing into your food stash.

I’d like to wrap this up with a final anecdote.

Several years ago I was camping on the AT at Speck Pond in Southern Maine. The caretaker stopped by the shelter for a brief riff on campsite rules, which included: prepare and eat food at the cook site away from the shelter and tent platforms, and store food in the bear box, because bears are frequent visitors.

I fell asleep that night to the sounds of my shelter mate munching away on a bedtime snack. I wonder if his luck ever ran out.

Thanks to Matthew Paille for the photo of the bear damage at 13 Falls Tentsite.

The post Why I Carry a Bear Can. And You Should Too appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

I caught up with Mr. Buddha for an interview:

When did you start thru-hiking and why?

My first thru-hike was the John Muir Trail, late summer of 1995. I had just finished a summer job at a summer camp in Colorado, and still had several weeks before college fall semester. I decided to hitchhike from Estes Park, Colorado, to Yosemite Valley, California. It took three days to bum three rides out to California. In my early teenage years, I picked up a couple of books that introduced me to the vagabond lifestyle. “A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf” by John Muir and “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac are fundamental inspiration points in my early life. I also read “The PCT Hikers Handbook” by Ray Jardine prior to hiking the JMT.

What brought you back to the CDT this year?

The CDT is one of my favorite long-distance thru-hikes in North America. I’ve been fortunate to hike it thrice now. Because of my repeat offender status, I was eager to take alternate routes off the CDT.

You did it a little differently this time. What alternatives did you take?

My route in 2021 had me trekking across Teton Crest, Gros Ventre Wilderness, part of the High Route across Wind River Range, Red Canyon near Lander, Wyoming, Killpecker Sand Dunes in Western Great Divide Basin, Red Desert on the Wyoming-Colorado border, Flat Top Wilderness, and finally Four Pass Loop before reconnecting to the CDT near Twin Lakes.  I also hiked Nolan’s 14 High Route in Colorado, which connects 14 14,000-foot mountains in Colorado’s Sawatch Range. To date, Nolan’s 14 is one of my top five favorite North America high routes. 

“Nolan’s 14 is one of my top five favorite North America high routes.”

Lil Buddha

What is your best wildlife interaction story?

On the Great Divide Trail, I inadvertently got in between two very large male grizzly bears fighting. The fight happened so quickly that I had no time to react or get out of the way. At one point they were less than 10 feet away from me. Luckily, the bruins were engrossed in warfare and didn’t even acknowledge my presence. That night I hung my food a half mile from my campsite. I slept maybe two hours. 

How does it feel to win Outsider of the Year? Do you get recognized on the street? 

It means more: Earthlings get to read horrendous haikus about walking in nature—Lil’ Buddha, moi, señor Kiatoukaysy, haiku masta, Father Haus Buddha aka “Outsidiest Outsiders of the Year”

What would you like this younger generation of thru-hikers to know? What should we all be more mindful of out on the trails?

I’ll quote my trail dad Dharma here: “Don’t kid yourself—you’re just another fool stumbling around out in the woods.” I think that’s the best advice I’ve ever received or could pass on.

“Don’t kid yourself—you’re just another fool stumbling around out in the woods”

Dharma

What is next?

Hayduke Trail, spring of 2022! 

The post Lil Buddha, an Outsider of the Year appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

In the late 1940s, a literature professor named Joseph Campbell working in the fields of comparative mythology and comparative religion took a look at the world’s collective myths and identified some common narrative threads. He codified his observations in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a work positing that every myth across the planet’s varied cultures is linked to deeply held human impulses, explaining why they are all so similar. According to Campbell, most of the stories you’ve read—going back to Gilgamesh and beyond into the unlettered mists of the past—follow this ingrained human pattern. Campbell called it the monomyth. And because you can’t study mythology for a living and keep a name as dry as that, he also called it the Hero’s Journey.

The book made a big splash, especially with storyteller types. And so whether you know it or not (or even if you agree with it or not; not everyone does) most of the entertainment you’ve consumed since 1949—books, movies, TV, podcasts, etc—is built on Campbell’s mythological common ground.

The Lord of the Rings is a Hero’s Journey in perhaps the purist pop-culture rendering (Star Wars is famously a close second). LOTR was written before The Hero with a Thousand Faces, but all the same mythological story beats and structure are there. Indeed Tolkien—a professor of medieval literature and a translator of both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf—very much meant the story to read as mythology, or at least proto-mythology. Ever wonder why LOTR is hard to scan sometimes? That’s why. It’s supposed to be a little dry and weighty. This knowledge is cold comfort when you are struggling through page ten of The Silmarillion, but now at least you can turn to people at cocktail parties and say, “Hey, did you know that the Lord of the Rings stuff is supposed to be kinda boring*?”

What is an outdoor adventure if not a Campbellian journey, a leaving of hearth and home, an enduring of the elements, a goal striven for? Thus the inescapable reality that any group of hikers of a sufficiently nerdy mindset will find themselves choosing a Fellowship character that best defines them. I wish I was an Aragorn, but the sad reality is I’m a perpetual Gimli ^†. In any case, I dare you to take a walk on the Appalachian Trail without bumping into someone calling themselves Proudfoot (Proudfeet!).

But for all the Tolkien obsession in the outdoor community, very little attention is paid to the final third of Campbell’s monomyth—or Tolkien’s saga—the return.

Ah, the return—the crossing of the threshold from the wild and back to the hearth. The leaving behind of trees and mountains and the re-embracing of regular life with all the not-very-great things contained therein. Roads and strip malls. $60 brunches. Having to choose between more than one shirt. Not being able to pee whenever the mood strikes you. The inescapable reality that Law and Order SVU has been on the air for 23 seasons. Everything on TikTok, with the extremely notable exception of cat collaboration videos ^‡. Those are, in fact, very great and they make the world a better place.

Strong reasons why adventurers have a hard time adjusting to home. Strong reasons to wish a dragon invasion upon the Shire—all those silly hobbits with no trail dust on their fuzzy feet. All those silly humans shit-posting on Nextdoor and chasing Instagram likes and obsessing over digital watches. It’s enough to give anyone taking the finishing steps of an adventure the creeping heebies.

I call it return anxiety because having a fancy name for it makes me feel like a smarty pants.

Many observers have concluded that return anxiety happens because our technology and the pace of our culture have outraced our evolution. In the wild, life is hard but simple. In the world, living is easy but complex. To put it another way, we have ice-age brains and ice-age bodies living in a society that, for our sins, contains the extremely un-ice-age Mark Zuckerberg.

I think this take is absolutely true and also incomplete because return anxiety shows up in mythology all the time and the ancient sources are pretty clear on the general lack of smartphones^§ .

Consider this passage from Campbell’s book:

“The first problem of the returning hero is to accept as real, after an experience of the soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities, and noisy obscenities of life. Why re-enter such a world? Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of transcendental bliss? As dreams that were momentous by night may seem simply silly in the light of day, so the poet and the prophet can discover themselves playing the idiot before a jury of sober eyes.”

Yes, our first-world society is an emotionally and spiritually—if not physically—difficult place to live, and our brains turn into cottage cheese trying to cope with it. But adventurers have been dealing with this since there were adventures to be had. If we lived in a world perfectly attuned to our needs—a society where everyone was valued, where bigotry and intolerance didn’t exist, where computer printers just worked like they were supposed to, where root beer floats were free and everybody who wanted abs could have abs and nobody’s tattoos had spelling errors—I believe that adventurers would still face return anxiety.

I believe this because any adventure worthy of the name has fundamentally changed the adventurer—and with change comes work—both in understanding and embracing that change and in determining how the changed self now fits back into society.

Nobody wants to do it, least of all many of the mythological figures. It’s hard and messy work, being a human in society on this planet. And it’s no wonder that upon reaching the end of a long adventure many choose to simply keep going, be it by embracing #vanlife or turning around and walking in the direction from which they just came.

This impulse is understandable but, I fear, ultimately flawed. The monomyth is quite clear: the changed adventurer has a debt to society. The debt springs from a boon gifted to the adventurer. Sometimes the boon is the change wrought on the adventurer herself, sometimes it is an actual gift that also functions as a metaphor. Either way, the adventurer has a responsibility to share the boon with her home. This responsibility is tied either to human nature or a storytelling trope so deeply embedded within us that there’s no real difference between the two. We ignore such powerful impulses—such ubiquitous mythological conventions—at our own peril. The return is not just about oneself. It is, at least in part, about what you owe the people around you.

What exactly is owed by the returning adventurer is devilishly hard to pin down, and of course, depends upon the adventurer, the nature of the change, the nature of the boon, and the nature of home. Making the determination is part of the adventurer’s work. Merry and Pippin utilized their newfound bravery and warrior skills to cleanse the Shire of Saruman’s brigands. Samwise uses the gifts he received from Galadriel to heal the Shire once the final battle was won^‖. Frodo mines his trauma to become a writer, in the fine tradition of writers everywhere. But the book he finishes is for Bilbo and Sam, not for himself.

I don’t know what boons you receive on your adventures. But I wonder if thinking of how to share your boon, rather than existing in a perpetual state of mourning for your finished adventure, might not be a better way to approach return anxiety. What I receive from my time in the woods, and I don’t think I’m alone here, is often a sense of relief—like a spring released, a knot untied. My adventures bring me Wendell Berry’s Peace of Wild Things. Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese.

And so I have begun to think of my returns from the wild as opportunities to carry the sense of peace I find there forward into the so-called real world for as long as possible. This is what I feel I owe. Not to grasp at serenity with a clawed fist and so to watch it stream through my fingers, but to extend it open-handed to those around me. I try to hold the peace of wild things not as a balm for my all-too-often irritated psyche but as a way to better the lives of anyone who comes into contact with me.

I’m not very good at it. Possibly I never will be. But as in meditation, the point is not to be good at it. The point is to try. To try to remember that as I return from an adventure, it isn’t just about me and how I feel, but what has been given to me, and what I can give in return. That owing implies society, and society means we are not alone. To remember that each step in the woods changes me, that the change is the point and not a byproduct of an escape that should not—cannot—will not—continue indefinitely.

All adventures end. This is what allows new ones to begin.

FOOTNOTES

*I’m a lot of fun at cocktail parties.

†Perpetual Gimli. Not the name of a designer watch, but probably should be.

‡You’re welcome.

§“What’s up ya’ll? Just rolled back into Ithaca, took a little longer to get home than I thought, LOL. Here are some pics from my trip! **Shots of Odysseus blinding the cyclops set to “Can we skip to the good part? Whooooooaaaaaaaooaaaoaoaaaaaa”**

^‖ Don’t know what I’m talking about? Hello, you’ve only watched the movies! Again, I’m a lot of fun at cocktail parties. In this series of sub-footnotes, I will elucidate the differences between the book and film versions of Lord of the Rings and discuss the relative merits of each. To start with, hobbits are…(1/796)

The post Adventure’s End appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

I am aware that my version of my ideal body is a result of years of filter-fed media and edited internet photos. I am praised when I’m at my most fit, thin, and probably a few pounds underweight. I know that this is not realistic, and I also know that I benefit from thin privilege. I’ve struggled with body-image issues for as long as I can remember, which is where a lot of these thoughts stem from.

Despite understanding my own body image issues, I stood in front of a full-length mirror when I returned home, turning from side to side, smoothing a hand over my flat stomach and staring in awe at the gap in my thighs. I was lean and muscular, and I felt immense relief at finally achieving my own ridiculously high expectations.

This body I was so proud of was achieved by hiking an average of 22 miles per day for 23 days in a row. These included days when altitude-induced nausea meant I couldn’t choke down more than 1,000 calories over the course of a full day, or when I was so exhausted from lack of nutrition and challenging terrain that I nearly passed out at the top of a pass.

But damn, I looked good when I got off the trail.

In just over three weeks, I’d whipped myself into shape. A secret part of me saw the trail as a type of fitness boot camp: 23 days of really hard work to achieve the fitness and physique that would have taken six months of healthy eating and exercise in the real world.

Therein lies the crux of post-thru-hike body image, at least for me. Most people will be at their most fit coming off a thru-hike. When else are you going to be dedicated the majority of your waking hours to hiking up and over mountains, carrying a fully loaded pack? In the abstract, exercising for 12 hours a day for an extended period of time is insane. The only instance when this makes sense is a long-distance backpacking trip or thru-hike, and at some point, those come to an end.

When the hike ends, your physical output greatly diminishes. It doesn’t have to come to a screeching halt, but most people will be exercising a fraction of the amount they do on a thru-hike. When your fitness comes from extreme output, anything less than that will feel subpar, and yes, your body will change.

I told myself I’d do everything in my power to stay as close to my post-hike fitness as possible. And for a while, I did. I went to yoga, ran, hiked, and climbed. I had worked hard to get fit on the trail, and I didn’t want it to “go to waste.” I felt attractive and fit and proud of my physique, something I’d struggled with for the prior year or so.

But a thru-hike isn’t real life, and that amount of time dedicated to working out isn’t realistic for my life and lifestyle. I started working my film set jobs that had me away from home for a month or more at a time, eating catered food and working 14-hour days that left no time for exercising. My job is outdoors and physical, but it doesn’t have the same impact as running and yoga each day. It wasn’t long before I saw my hard-won appearance backslide, and with it, my confidence.

For most of us, the bodies we achieve by hiking for weeks or months at a time aren’t realistic to maintain. But getting into that kind of shape and then losing it can be mentally challenging, especially if you’re a person (like me) who’s already prone to body-image issues.

My body is strong right now, just in different ways. It can carry me through full days outdoors in the middle of the Montana winter, and I know I’ll be able to peakbag winter 4,000-footers back in New Hampshire in a few weeks. But when I look in the mirror, I see my current body superimposed over my post-thru-hike body, and I flinch.

I also understand that my “ideal body” isn’t realistic. Social media and personal feedback have influenced me to believe there is only one way for my body to be attractive, and that’s a personal battle I’m working on. Still, the idea needles at me: it would only take a few weeks of thru-hiking to get back to that fitness. I look ahead on my calendar to see where I can squeeze in a trip. I tell myself it’s because I want to take a work break and get my mind straight on another solo trip, but isn’t there part of me who wants that quick, brutal, whip-myself-into-shape fitness plan?

I’d have body-image issues with or without the influence of thru-hiking’s peak fitness. But the contrast becomes more stark when I have those comparisons, along with the knowledge that I’d only need a few hundred miles of backpacking to get back to where I want to be. Getting rid of these thoughts and mindsets takes a lot of work, and I’m definitely not there. But understanding is the first step, and accepting that I don’t always look like I just finished hiking 500 miles is a good place to start.

The post Thru-Hiking and My Unrealistic Body Image Expectations appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

1) How real is the experience on Naked and Afraid?

When you’re butt-ass naked in the African bush at night and realize that a lion could maul you to death at any moment, and spiders the size of your hand are crawling around you, it doesn’t get much more real than that. 

2) How did thru-hiking help prepare you for the episode?

I’d have to say mental fortitude. Naked and Afraid, like hiking, is much more of a mental challenge than it is a physical one. Staying in a positive frame of mind is paramount when attempting either, I think. 

3) Was any part of the experience similar to being on a long-distance trail?

Dealing with copious amounts of cold rain reminded me a lot of hiking the Appalachian Trail. Specifically, the 100-Mile Wilderness in mid-October when temperatures were in the low 40s. 

4) What surprised you the most about being out there? 

There were a few things that surprised me. The first was sleep deprivation. I knew I wasn’t going to get much sleep out there but I got maybe three or four hours a night if I was lucky. Second, how much rain we got. I had researched it before going in and the monthly average for that region was like 4.8 inches. We got probably double that. I found out later on day nine alone we got something like 4.3 inches.

5) What was the biggest challenge?

Time management. Sitting on the couch and watching the show it seems like people are always just lounging around. We spent so much time collecting wood just to boil water. The second water was cool enough to drink we’d chug it, go fill it up again, and start the process over. Literally, all day long until bedtime we had a fire going and water boiling. That doesn’t leave much time to collect more firewood, find food, build a better shelter, or make animal traps. That being said, knowing what I know now would make a huge difference if I ever did a second challenge. 

6) What did you find you were most well-equipped to deal with?

Probably making fire. My one item was a Ferro rod so I practiced making a fire in the rain over and over before heading out. That or my feet conditioning. I trained for hours every other day for months walking barefoot on different types of rocks. However, there wasn’t really any stopping the acacia thorns and devils thorn. It was like walking on nails.

7) Do you think it was a fair portrayal (in the final episode) of what it was like out there?

I think the production crew did a great job. I was a little worried before I saw the episode because I had heard horror stories of other TV shows doing people dirty by creating drama that wasn’t there or something but this crew was awesome. I really think they did a great job given the amount of time they had to work with.

*How can people follow you?

I’m on all the socials as Reptarhikes. YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.

*How can people watch/rent/buy your movie The AT Experience?

Just Google The AT Experience; it should be the first link that pops up.

The post Naked and Afraid with Reptar appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

Despite the huge gap in our shared experiences, I know one thing for certain. Within minutes of our hero inventing and successfully using the bow to kill a giant sloth, some other ancient person wandered by and opined–loudly–that the newfangled bow and arrow system was detracting from the elegance and simplicity of the throwing spear.  The bow, the argument almost certainly went, isn’t as ideologically pure as the spear or–even better!–the rock tied to the end of a club. Don’t we go sloth hunting to get away from all the innovations that have been complicating our life for the last few years? Fire? Clothes? Drums, for Gog’s sake? Sure, this new bow thing is more effective and safer–cause you don’t have to get within swiping distance of the sloth–but a real hunter shouldn’t need to rely on such gadgets. And what happens when we become too reliant on the bow, huh? What if we forget how to use spears?

Perhaps you see where I’m going with this. In my capacity as an outdoor journalist, I occasionally write or publish gear reviews about electronics–messaging devices, cameras, rechargeable headlamps, and so on. Inevitably somebody chimes in with some variation of “I go backpacking to get away from technology.” Is this huffy commenter inevitably a middle-aged white guy who clearly hasn’t actually read the article? Look, you said it, not me. I wouldn’t make generalizations like that.

He is though.

And so I’ve written this letter to you, Internet Commenter Guy, in the hopes that you will read it and ponder it in your heart. Hopefully before commenting, but I realize that may be too much to ask.

I Go Backpacking to Get Away from Technology

Let’s start with the use of the word technology here. You keep using that word, and I don’t think it means what you think it means. That 3-layer waterproof breathable rain jacket? Technology. Your titanium cooking pot? Technology. Your freeze-dried meal? Technology (Incan technology!). So unless you like to go backpacking barefoot and naked and freeze your nibbly bits off while fighting pikas barehanded for the last of the season’s huckleberries, I’d cool it on the blanket statements about technology. Oh yeah, and no backpack either because–well, technology.

What do you call backpacking when instead of a backpack you just have to hold all the huckleberries in your hands while shielding your private parts from the prying eyes of judgmental marmots?

This isn’t a joke, I’m honestly asking.

Perhaps what you really mean instead of technology is electronics–and that takes us to my next point.

I Go Backpacking to Get Away from Electronics

Cool story, bro. Do you leave your watch at home? Did you drive your car to the trailhead? Are you bringing a camera? Maybe it’s a film camera. If so, make sure you take out the battery that allows the light meter to work. Also, don’t bring a headlamp.

Maybe you are super-hardcore and you rode your bike to the trailhead and you aren’t bringing a camera and you always know what time it is and how long it is until sunset and you always get your tent set up before dark and when you have to pee in the middle of the night you stumble around blindly and stab yourself on tree branches as God and John Muir clearly intended.

Or maybe what you really mean is you backpack to escape the connectivity that certain electronics allow or foster.

I Go Backpacking To Escape the Connectivity that Certain Electronics Allow or Foster

OK, now we can talk. I do that as well. Like most modern Americans, I use my phone a lot, both for work and recreation. I relish the chance to step away from the overstimulation, media saturation, and blue light blasted into the back of my skull that is my day-to-day life. But I also recognize that my phone is an incredibly powerful backcountry multipurpose tool that provides me with navigation, emergency communication, photography, journaling, and–yes–sometimes even entertainment.

Do I watch movies on my phone in my tent? Do I turn my phone on at every summit to check for service? Do I post to Instagram or Facebook from my campsite? I do not. Some people do. And yes, I find those uses of technology in the backcountry aesthetically distasteful. But I don’t say that to people either online or in real life because aesthetically distasteful isn’t the same thing as dangerous, and by and large, those choices don’t affect me at all. And chances are some people find my uses of electronics aesthetically distasteful as well, and I appreciate it when they don’t say so and just let me live my life.

I’ve found a middle path that works for me. I use certain electronic tools (like satellite messengers) to stay connected to a certain extent in order to ease the anxiety that my family feels when I disappear into the woods for weeks at a time. I use other electronic tools (like my phone) because it’s essentially five tools in one, and I like the ethos of bringing less to do more even if the less that I bring is battery-powered. And I use my Kindle Paperwhite because unlike a paperback it holds thousands of books, is waterproof, and I don’t have to use my headlamp battery to read it. I think that’s astounding. It also weighs less than most books.

Everyone has their own path, and as long as that path doesn’t hurt or inconvenience other human beings, or detract from their enjoyment of the wilderness (i.e., Bluetooth speakers!) it’s all good, baby.

That Isn’t Real Backpacking (i.e., You are Missing the Point)

Look, this could be an entirely separate essay (and in fact, it is). All I’ll say is this: Who made you the arbiter of the hallowed Point? How about less gatekeeping and more being excited that our fellow humans are exploring the outdoors with us in a lot of different and cool ways? We could apply this to all kinds of concepts–crowds in national parks, E-bikes, mountain bikers vs. hikers, FKT attempts, on and on and on.

We don’t own our playgrounds–as much as we like to think we do. How other people use them is utterly beyond our scope–aside from obvious stuff like Leave No Trace ethics, fire safety, and noise. If it’s causing trash, making a lot of noise, or is unsafe to the point that it’s endangering others, you are allowed to be grumpy about it. (But first, try doing some friendly outdoor ethics education!)

If it’s not doing any of those things, I’m sorry to say you really have no trekking pole to lean on. So maybe cool it in the comments section and just, I dunno, take a hike or something. No, I really mean it. Get outside and go for a walk in the woods. And if you want to listen to an audiobook while you do it, I won’t judge you.

As long as you are using earbuds.

The post Yes, Real Backpackers Use Electronics (An Open Letter to Internet Commenter Guy) appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

My experience on the Colorado Trail was different from other hikers I ran into. I ended up hiking it quickly (23 days, no zeros), and because of this, I met few people along the way who were hiking the same pace. While there were plenty of people on the trail, my experience was quite solitary, and I’d go days at a time barely seeing anyone else. I loved feeling independent, but it also got a bit lonely. At the very end I wound up hiking with two youths for the final 76 miles from Silverton to Durango (Cyprian and Zinnia are welcome in Heisenberg’s house any time) and it was a great way to end the hike.

Overall this was a fantastic thru-hike, and was some of the most incredible backpacking I’ve ever done. Here are the most common questions I’ve received about the Colorado Trail, answered in my usual rambling style.

1) Why did you choose the Colorado Trail?

I chose the Colorado Trail because it didn’t require a ton of planning (no permits, easy navigation with FarOut, well-spaced resupply), it was a perfect distance to do in a month, and I’ve wanted to do it since I saw Jeff set the record on it this year.

2) Were the storms bad? How did you deal with them?

The storms were horrific and I dealt with them by crying. Seriously, though. The lightning was 100% the hardest, scariest, and worst part of the trail. People in town said they’d never seen a monsoon season so bad, and it really impacted my hike. I managed to get good miles in despite the storms, but it meant setting a 3:30 a.m. alarm and being on the trail by 4 a.m. to get over passes by 12. The storms would roll in around 11 or 12, and sometimes they would last quite literally all day and into the night. It created a ton of anxiety around the elevation profile, my speed, and prevented me from taking breaks because I was so worried about the weather coming in. On two separate nights, lightning set fire to trees near my tent, and there was a smoking crater in the ground. I’ve never experienced anything like those storms. For that reason, July was kind of a scary time to hike the CT (my hike was July 8 to July 31). You can avoid some of this by going later in the season.

3) Collegiate East or West?

For the uninitiated, the Colorado Trail has one major split. After Twin Lakes, you can take the original CT on Collegiate East, or you can take the “high route” on Collegiate West. Collegiate East is a bit shorter and stays lower, but it’s definitely not easy. Collegiate West is known to be more epic, with miles above treeline and a rugged, remote feel. I took Collegiate West, and it was incredible. I heard that most people opted for West, but it’s a good idea to look at the forecast before heading out for 80 miles with a ton of exposure.

4) Where did you resupply? Any place you wish you’d shipped a box?

I resupplied five times, and they were very evenly spaced. I think my longest stretch between resupplies was just over 100 miles. I did have major stomach issues above 11,000 feet, and I’d recommend bringing a variety of foods because you don’t know what your altitude issues will be with eating. Some days I could only choke down a handful of gummy bears. My favorite foods ended up being cold-soaked ramen and gas station muffins. I didn’t bring a stove.

I only resupplied on trail (didn’t send any boxes), which meant I was stuck with a gas station and git shop resupply. If I had planned better, I would have sent two boxes: one to Monarch Pass and one to Lake City. My first resupply was Breckenridge at 104, but I heard most people hitched from Kenosha Pass around mile 77 for their first stop. Here’s what I did:

1. Mile 104 – Breckenridge: Breck is a big town with a ton of options. I went to a large grocery store. The town itself was expensive, but the grocery store was reasonable. Handy shuttle in and out of town, too.
2. Mile 177 – Twin Lakes: This is the last stop before entering either Collegiate East or West. I took Collegiate West, which meant about 80 miles to my next resupply. I actually got a ride to Salida from Twin Lakes, though Twin Lakes has a general store right near the trail. Salida was about 30 minutes away and had a Walmart.
3. Mile 250 – Monarch Pass: This pass has a gift shop / general store. It’s about 5 miles from the official end of the Collegiate West alternate. I would send a resupply box here. They have an OK selection, but it’s so freaking expensive. I stayed at the Butterfly Hostel down the hill, and they had a stocked hiker box that I definitely foraged out of to get me through the next 100 miles.
4. Mile 357 – Lake City: I would send a resupply box to a hostel or motel. The town was packed, I had a terrible time finding things, and I ended up having a total meltdown and buying some sweaty cheese and a few muffins from a gas station before hitching back to the trail.
5. Mile 412 – Silverton: This town has a great grocery store with a hiker box. The town (again) is expensive as hell, but you won’t be short on food.

Jeff and Andrew put together this full resupply guide here.

5) How much money did you spend?

This was an expensive trail. I ended up spending around $1,400, not including the flight to Denver and two tanks of gas to get home. For a 486-mile trail, that seems pricey, right? Granted, I didn’t skimp in towns. If I wanted a hotel room, I got one. If I wanted three appetizers, a meal, and dessert, I got it. Still … the trail towns are touristy, and mountain towns in general are pricey. You can do this trail much cheaper by staying in hostels, splitting rooms, and sending boxes ahead of time, but Colorado is not a low-budget state.

6) How did your gear work? Link to your gear list?

My gear was great. My base weight was 10 pounds, and I never carried more than 20 or so. I feel like I’ve really dialed in my system, and I barely had anything I didn’t use and rarely wished I had anything I didn’t. I used a 40L LiteAF pack (the Cat Pack. To know it is to love it), the Gossamer Gear One trekking pole tent (spacious and easy to pitch, but not super waterproof), Gossamer Gear poles (didn’t break them!), a 20-degree Therm-a-Rest sleeping bag, which seemed excessive closer to Denver, but I was glad to have at the higher elevations, and a Sea to Summit sleeping pad, which was heavier than the NeoAir, but takes 10 breaths instead of 30 to inflate. I did wish I had a town dress, and camp shoes, but that was it. I’ll probably end up writing a gear review of my system because #AffiliateLinks, but that’s the overall gist of it.

Here’s my full Colorado Trail gear list!

7) Did you train?

No!!!! I started the trail in quite average shape, but I think I’ve done enough distance stuff over the course of the past 5 years that my body fell into the rhythm of hiking all day pretty fast. My hips were sore for the first 100 miles or so, but I never had any knee pain, back pain, or injury-type foot pain. At the end of long days my feet were definitely sore, but I was able to hike around 20 miles per day right away. It helps that the CT is really well graded. There’s a lot of climbing and descending, but none of it feels super steep, and the trail is very smooth and ergonomic. No matter what shape you’re in, you’ll be fine. In worse shape? Hike fewer miles. Feeling strong? Hike more. Just plan your food and timing to allow your own fitness to dictate the mileage without pressure.

8) What was your average daily mileage and schedule?

I averaged about 23 miles on the full days, and around 16 miles for half days (when I went in and out of town). My shortest day was a 10-mile day into Silverton, and my longest day was 28 miles at the end of the trail. If I wasn’t worried about weather, I’d wake up on my own around 5:30 a.m. and be hiking by around 6 a.m. If bad weather was coming in, I’d try to be hiking by 4 a.m. (ew!) and done by early afternoon. My full hiking days were around 10-11 hours, and I didn’t really take breaks. If my tent was wet, I’d stop late morning for 30 minutes to dry it out, and otherwise just 5 minutes here and there to rest my feet or filter water. I’d usually finish fairly early in the day and relax and read a book! I would set vague goals each day, usually aligned with when I wanted to get to town and what made the most sense for that segment. I’d try to meet that goal, if not exceed it each day, but I didn’t really put too much pressure on myself. I just did what felt right.

9) What are you the most proud of?

I had a lot of mental health issues on the trail. I was Going Through Stuff at home, and even though I tried to run away and do a thru-hike instead of dealing with it, the stress and anxiety of my personal life followed me to the trail, and I dealt with some of the worst anxiety of my life out there. I was very much alone for most of the hike, and had a lot of time to do the anxiety death spiral in my head. That said, I’m the most proud of pushing through it. There were a few days (especially in Collegiate West) when my anxiety was so bad I’d be hyperventilating, doubled over on my trekking poles, and unable to keep moving. But I always kept going, even if I was openly bawling while trying to climb a 13,000-foot pass. I’ve never encountered such mental health challenges in the backcountry, and I’m really proud that I pushed through it, especially alone.

10) Overall, did it meet, exceed, or fall short of expectations?

It exceeded my expectations. There were times I would gain a pass or come into view of another valley and be stopped dead in my tracks. The terrain is incredible—my only other experience in Colorado has been around the Front Range, and this trail just blew me away.

Personally, my physical abilities also exceeded my expectations. I wasn’t super fit coming into this, but still hiked the trail (plus two 14ers) in 23 days and never felt like I was pushing myself too hard. Mentally I did terribly, but still got through the rough patches. Overall it was an amazing experience and I’m very happy about it.

The post Maggie’s Colorado Trail Q & A appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

I started my walk in Denver and ambled southwest across the Rockies, following the Colorado Trail all the way to Durango some 500 trail miles away. On my back, I carried a pack, a tent, and a sleeping bag. In my intestines, I carried exactly zero parasites. But, by the time I left Colorado a month later, this was no longer the case.

***

After a lifetime of camping and backpacking, I’m familiar with the ailments that crop up after spending extended periods of time in the woods. One common distress is what happens when food eaten by hand (like granola bars or trail mix) meets a lack of soap and infrequent handwashing. Hikers of a poetic mindset sometimes refer to this as Ass to Mouth Disease. AMD can also occur in non-hikers: people with poor hygiene, parents of young children, or anyone who even thinks about swimming in a water park wave pool.

There are other ways to trouble your digestion, of course. Often, there are nasty little bugs already living in the food we eat. The toxins released by these organisms send our bodies into full-on flush-the-system mode, and I think we all know what that looks and feels like.

Once, I found myself squatting on an exposed cliff in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with my pants down around my ankles, holding on to a shrub several feet shorter than I was. This shrub was the tallest plant in sight, making me the tallest object in sight. Normally not a problem unless you happen to be in a thunderstorm, which I was.

Two hours earlier, a stranger at the Mount Washington visitor center had offered to buy me lunch, and I gratefully accepted. The random kindness of strangers is one of the nicer things about long-distance backpacking. Two bowls of clam chowder later, I was back on the trail, and the trouble started shortly thereafter.

A quick image filtered through my nausea-addled brain. Two men in dark suits, dark shades, no-nonsense ties, lurking on the stoop of my parents’ house. They ring the doorbell, and my mother opens the door, immediate and terrible understanding blossoms across her face.

“Your son is dead,” the first one says.

“Struck by lightning,” says the second. Mom gasps and presses a hand to her mouth.

“At least it was quick,” she says, weeping.

“Not really,” says the first. Mom looks up at this. The second man takes off his glasses, inspects them, wipes away some imaginary smear, and replaces them on his narrow face.

“It appears as though he was literally shitting his brains out when it happened,” he says. The first man nods. “We found his brains, along with most of his internal organs, and every single thing he has ever eaten in his entire life heaped into a steaming pile next to his charred corpse.”

At this, Mom collapses into a quivering heap.

Mourning ensues. 

The funeral is closed-casket.

That image was the only thing that gave me the strength to halt, if only for a moment, the incredible mass evacuation that my digestive system was undergoing. I staggered, pinch-cheeked and bowlegged, down to marginally safer ground and once there uncorked, so to speak. As I hunched, bare-cheeked to the storm and to any passing tourist who happened to be trekking up to the top of Mount Washington, I gave serious reconsideration to the wisdom of accepting free clam chowder from a stranger on a mountain located over 100 miles from the nearest living clam.

All of which is to say that when I started having some issues in Colorado, I didn’t immediately think I had an intestinal parasite. Lots of things can happen to your stomach in the woods, but, by the time my hike was over, and I was monopolizing the chemical toilet on the bus from Durango back to Denver, I was beginning to suspect the truth.

***

Spend enough time in the company of outdoors enthusiasts, and you eventually build up a lexicon of ailments, horror stories, and embarrassing biological happenings.

Lyme disease, spread by deer ticks in the eastern woods of the United States, is particularly nasty and causes severe nervous system damage if left untreated. The tricky thing about Lyme is that its early symptoms include fatigue, aches, swollen joints, and shortness of breath. If you’ve ever been backpacking, you’ll recognize this list. It’s the same exact symptoms that occur when walking up and down mountains with a pack on your back. You can see the problem. Often has the long-distance hiker quietly contemplated an impending hospital stay simply because he was tired at the end of a 20-mile day.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s usually the people who don’t even know what Lyme disease is, and certainly aren’t spending hours a day worried about it, who end up contracting it. Deer ticks can be real jerks that way.

Giardia lamblia often comes up in the same backpacker horror stories as Lyme. Although not as damaging in the long term, Giardia is a more creative bug. Lyme seems to be content with hanging out locally. Giardia, by contrast, is much more cosmopolitan―a real world traveler. It achieves this by choosing as its preferred host organism an animal scientifically proven to be 20 times more of a jerk than the deer tick: those always entertaining monkeys, Homo sapiens.

Oh boy, does Giardia love us.

Scientists find it in every major human population on the planet. Some health organizations estimate that Giardia lamblia exists in 30 percent of the undeveloped world, and that it lives in anywhere from 3 to 7 percent of the population of the United States. It was first formally described in Europe in 1681, and it’s been around for a lot longer than that. Giardia was hanging out with human beings before it was cool, know what I mean? Looking at you, syphilis.

To Giardia, the intestines of a human being are a turnkey property, fully furnished and move-in ready. After taking up residence, Giardia wastes no time making itself at home—reproducing asexually, forming organisms called cysts, and flushing itself out of your digestive system in the favored way of creepy crawlies everywhere—spectacular and highly pressured diarrhea.

Once out in the wild, the cysts are resilient and quasi-indestructible. Cold doesn’t bother them. Neither does heat. Chemical treatments such as chlorine and iodine are mostly effective but mostly are not always. If left to their own devices, the cysts can remain dormant but viable for up to three months, waiting on someone to ingest them, and then the whole explosive process starts all over again.

And that’s the life cycle of the Giardia lamblia organism in human beings. But as much as it loves us, Giardia will make do with less lucrative properties. Cats and dogs work just fine for it. So do birds and cattle, sheep and rats. Beavers are a very common vector, which is why in North America Giardiasis (the set of symptoms caused by the Giardia organism) is commonly called Beaver Fever. Beavers spread Giardia easily because they spend a lot of time swimming around in beavery lake water. You can imagine where beavers use the bathroom.

Most people in the developed world don’t have to worry about Giardia lamblia causing all kinds of merry hell in their intestines because most people have the incredible luxury of drinking water that is free of rat diarrhea, and, with very few exceptions, they refrain from eating the feces of the family pet. However, should you happen to be backpacking through the wilderness of North America, chances are you will find yourself, at some point, drinking water that a beaver has shat in. It’s simply statistically likely. No human feels very good about this, but, short of hauling trailers full of bottled water around behind you any time you go camping, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Nobody knows for sure how the beavers feel about it. Possibly, they think of it as karma for centuries of being used as hats.

***

Giardia has a variable gestation period, so it’s hard to know precisely where and when I contracted it. Somewhere along the 500-mile path in Colorado, I saw a sparkling, pristine-looking font of mountain water, stopped to fill my bottle, treated the water with fancy chemicals, and drank deeply. Let me reiterate: I chemically treated my water.

I’ve spent decades in the woods and mountains: backpacking, hiking, paddling, mountain biking, and climbing. By the time I got to Colorado, I had already completed a solo hike of the Appalachian Trail. I treated my water with chemicals on that hike as well, using a ubiquitous product aimed specifically at backpackers and other outdoor enthusiasts—Aquamira. On the bottle this product clearly states that it is effective against Giardia. But, and here is the really important part, not always. Maybe there was a cyst hiding in the lip of my water bottle that didn’t get fully exposed to the chemicals. It only takes one (though it usually takes more). Maybe I lost track of time and didn’t allow the chemicals the full 20 minutes they needed to kill the organism. Maybe one of the cysts was just especially tough.

Who knows? At some point, spending extended time in the outdoors always becomes about risk management as opposed to risk avoidance. With water, you choose your source carefully, try to find something flowing, don’t drink anything near human or livestock habitation, chemically treat it, filter it, or boil it, and hope for the best. Sometimes, you draw the short straw. Shit, as they say, happens. Sometimes it happens a lot.

***

By the time my wife, Rachael, picked me up from the airport, I was in rough shape and determined to ignore it.

The symptoms of Giardiasis are inspiring in their breadth and variety. As I said, this is a creative bug. There’s diarrhea, of course: pretty predictable. But constant diarrhea is boring, so the Giardia organism likes to toss in occasional bouts of constipation just to liven things up. Then, it sprinkles in some sharp, throbbing cramps. All very well, but my personal favorite symptom on a cross-country plane journey has to be the constant and odiferous flatulence. Had there been an air marshal on that flight, I’m sure I would have been arrested and removed from the plane. We were all lucky that the caustic atmosphere I produced didn’t disintegrate the rubber seals around the windows. On the other hand, we were flying Spirit, so maybe that’s just the experience the other passengers were expecting.

But why stop there? Like an overachieving high school senior giving up an hour a week at a soup kitchen, Giardia seems determined to be as well-rounded as possible.

So, burps. Really sulfurous, burning burps. Burps from the ulcerated stomach of the devil himself. Like the flatulence, the belches occurred on a more or less constant basis. At the height of my symptoms, I was producing more poisonous gasses than a tire fire in the parking lot of a West Virginia coal plant.

This is the state in which my wife found me leaning on my luggage at the airport. It didn’t take her long to realize I was ill; it was an hourlong car ride back to our house. I can’t even hide Christmas presents from my wife—trying to act like my internal organs weren’t dissolving while sharing a closed environment was a futile exercise.

“It’s possible I picked up a bug in Colorado,” I belched.

“You should go to the doctor tomorrow,” she said. She had just kissed me with an enthusiastic “I haven’t seen you in a month” kind of kiss, and now, as she rolled the windows down and stuck her head out into the fresh night air, I suspected she was regretting it.

“I think I’ll just wait a few days and see if it clears up on its own,” I said, clutching my stomach and squeezing my hindquarters together as tightly as possible.

***

Over the next few days, Rachael continued to encourage me to seek medical help, and I continued to refuse, insisting that my symptoms would clear up given some rest. This line of thinking objectively made no sense. It made no sense then, and it makes no sense now, as Rachael, to her credit, has only pointed out every couple of weeks for the last few years.

I have no defense for my idiocy other than to say that, according to WebMD, exhaustion, loss of clear thinking, and irritability are yet more bonus symptoms of Giardiasis. I have no idea if this is medically accurate, but I do know that after walking 500 miles in a month and carrying a parasitic hitchhiker for an unknown length of time along that distance, I was definitely experiencing all three. The day after arriving home, I fell asleep standing up in the shower and only woke up when the hot water ran out. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

I picked pointless fights. I napped a lot. I oozed unspeakable things from every orifice. I stumbled from room to room, woozy, forgetting what I was searching for. Things kept getting worse.

And then we went to the beach with my in-laws.

The trip had been planned for over a year, the beach house booked, the plane tickets purchased. We left for Florida only a few days after I arrived home from Colorado, flying down on a budget airline. They lost my luggage and found it at the Florida airport a week after I was already home, two weeks after it vanished on a direct flight. Only the most valuable things had been stolen, but the thief was careful to make sure my clothes remained folded, so that was nice.

Every romantic partner has a breaking point. My wife, more saintly than most, reached hers about three days into sharing a beach house with her parents and a husband who, when he wasn’t napping, spent his time belching, farting, groaning, aching, moaning, curling up on the toilet, picking fights, vomiting popcorn shrimp into a shared beach house bathroom, and tossing and turning all night long (did I mention the anxiety and racing heart, particularly at night? Bonus symptoms!).

Words were had. I was told that my symptoms were not getting better. I was told that I had had a chance to get better and blew it by being stubborn and idiotic. I was told to keep my mouth shut, to paste a smile upon my face, and to join the family at the beach at any and all times I wasn’t sequestered in the bathroom. I was told to book a doctor’s appointment for the day we returned home. I was told that, although our marriage would remain intact regardless, any and all future marital bliss was absolutely dependent upon all of these conditions being met.

Something in her tone of voice finally made it sink in. I needed medical help. I made a doctor’s appointment and tottered out to the beach to play bocce ball.

I smiled as I did it. I just made sure to stand downwind.

***

“Guess what? I have Giardiosis!” I announced merrily after getting my lab results some weeks later. “The Doc says with the antibiotic he prescribed it should clear up in a few weeks.”

We won’t speak of the noxious plane ride home or the difficulty of obtaining a stool sample while suffering from alternating constipation and diarrhea. We won’t speak of the fact that yet another bonus symptom of Giardia is lactose intolerance, therefore ruining ice cream for me. And we certainly won’t speak of the fact that I had to explain Giardia lamblia to a northern Ohio doctor and insist upon lab tests. He kept saying I had “a little case of traveler’s stomach.”

Turns out I’m not the only idiot in this story.

Rachael looked up from her corner of our tiny apartment, where she had retreated in a vain attempt to breathe air that I hadn’t befouled. She fixed me with an even gaze, then looked back down at her paperwork.

“If you had gone to the doctor when I first asked you to, you’d already be better,” she said. “But your bullheadedness and masculine stubbornness is what I love about you, you sexy specimen of a man! Now go get well so I can ravage you!”

My memory is pretty hazy but I’m pretty sure that’s how it went down.

***

At the pharmacy, the tech found my order, bagged it, and started running my card.

“Did you know this medicine reacts violently with alcohol?” he asked. “Did the doctor tell you that when he prescribed it?”

“Nooooo,” I said, thinking it was really time to get a new doctor.

“Yeah. You can’t even use mouthwash. And especially no drinking. No wine, no beer, no liquor.” He eyed me for a second and then, making what I felt to be an entirely unfair judgment, asked, “Is that going to be a problem for you?”

“No!” I said, maybe a little bit defensively. “Does this medicine have any other symptoms?”

“Yeah,” he said. He finished running my card and handed it back to me then slid my cure across the counter.

“Diarrhea.”

This story originally appeared in Offbeat Magazine in 2018

The post Beaver Fever appeared first on Backpacking Routes.

I was on a training run recently when a fairly new piece of gear started to fall apart at the seams.  As frustrating as it was to watch new gear literally unravel in my hand, the company had a solid replacement policy. Part of that replacement process had me submitting photos of the clothing and the manufacturing number to help determine where the manufacturing error came from.

This replacement process ensured the consumer was taken care of and that the distributors could track the product to its source. I wanted to know more. The gear was listed as Vietnam-produced, and I was able to track down the production location pretty quickly.

What I found bothered me to my core. 

There were reports of sexual harassment and discrimination on the worker front, physical abuse from supervisors, and years of illegally trafficking in child labor.  Reports of “recruiters” buying children from impoverished areas to work in factories appear as regular a practice for this company as feeding the children drugs to keep them focused on their tasks for longer.

The company never responded after I inquired about the ethicacy of its operation, and while I was appalled at the findings, part of me wondered if it was in some degree my fault. We live in the information age—the world is literally at our fingertips, so shouldn’t we be taking more responsibility for where we buy our products? While I don’t bear personal witness to these practices, it’s my money that bought the product that perpetuates those practices. The very ethos of a conscious consumer dictates that I now have to carry some of the responsibility for investing in this company by shopping with them. 

My mind began spiraling as I considered whether it was fair to pin the blame on consumers. The argument that consumers should bear that blame has picked up steam in the past decade, but that’s not the complete story. Ethicacy is a major player in the discussion of what makes a product “good,” but it’s not the only matter to consider.  Take this triage for example:

1. Sustainability: A measure of the impact the product’s resource extraction, manufacturing, and distribution has on the external world.
2. Quality: A measure of how well the product performs its given task (i.e., the comfort and durability of a pair of running shoes).
3. Ethicacy: The “heart tax,” or the degree to which the product’s creation has negatively impacted the lives of other human beings.

These three elements work in conjunction with one another just as any other triage scenario would. Say for instance that you desired maximum ethicacy for a jacket, so you learn how to make clothing. You integrate sustainable materials like hemp or wool, and while that new sweater will keep you warm it’s highly unlikely that it will perform like the outdoor companies’ micro-spinning specialized fibers to both save weight, trap heat, and keep out the rain.  

+ Sustainability | + Ethicacy | – Quality

This example can be flipped, where the top-of-the-line equipment excels in quality, but acquiring the materials for manufacturing is just as messy as the outsourcing of labor necessary to keep it affordable. The resource extraction often lacks sustainable practices in these scenarios, and the ethicacy of their production is commonly hidden by separating the consumers from the manufacturers via a well-marketed, culturally rich distribution company (think of this as “name brands”). The only possibly redeeming components to these products are that their quality can be enough where they don’t need to be replaced as often, compared to more ethically produced alternatives.

– Sustainability | – Ethicacy | + Quality   |OR|   ∅ Sustainability | – Ethicacy | ++ Quality

While the outdoor community is rich with people who care about the places they explore and the people who interact with those places, it can feel exhausting navigating “right” and “wrong” when it comes to conscious consumerism. I don’t hold any definitive answers, but it does seem that our need for quality, sustainably sourced and ethically produced products needs to be balanced so we can enjoy outdoor spaces with quality gear without helping perpetuate cruel working environments and unsustainable sourcing. 

My hope is that cottage-industry gear companies—already seeing a growth in popularity—will help establish that balance in the outdoor space, so new products can fill all three elements of the triage.

Related

Outdoor Gear Made in the US

Outdoor Gear Sustainability Roundups

The post Where Did Your Gear Come From? Triaging Ethical Consumerism in the Outdoor Community appeared first on Backpacking Routes.