Everything's Gonna Be OK

it’s a life of few conveniences out here.  carrying your whole life on your back is not so efficient.  i put my tent up every night just to take it down in the morning, and then i do it all over the next day.  the water that i drink doesn’t come from the tap.  it comes from springs and creeks that we hike to, filter, and lug water from.  our thermostat is the firewood we gather.  there are no restaurants out here.  i cook my dinner every night over my alcohol stove.  i don’t drive or ride a bicycle; i walk.  on good days, i can motor three miles per hour, but when the trail leads through creeks and over peaks, i roll along between one to two miles per hour. 

 

in the midst of all this stone-age speed inefficiency, i found a drive-thru window.  but before i divulge my secret to wilderness ease, i digress.  i am not officially sure when the term “tree-hugger” came into the lexicon, but apparently, it’s so 40 years ago (first use is referenced from 1965).  i propose an addition of two new categories, the “tree-kisser” and the “tree-snuggler”, and i’ll tell you why. 

 

water stops aren’t quick.  i take off my pack, grab my water bottle, unpack my bag, pull out my camelbak water bladder, unhook my water filter, and plug in the in-put and output hoses.  after all that, it still takes three to four minutes to filter and fill my liter water bottle.  then i empty that into my water bladder and start over.  i generally filter three liters at a time.  -not world record breaking speed-

 

what’s quicker is grabbing snow off of rocks and tree limbs and munching that as you walk.  but, i prefer cutting out one more step and kissing the snow right off of the tree boughs.  (you don’t have to fill up bottles or even unscrew your water bottle cap and it comes in extra handy when your water bottles are frozen.)  i just find a limb that’s right below eye level and lean in for the open mouth smooch-er-o.  her kiss is cold as ice and a majority ends up in my beard.  i have even heard that the energy it takes to melt a mouth full of snow isn’t worth the gulp or two of water.  while this would seem even less efficient, it cools down my core, which is often overheating under two jackets.  not stopping to take off two jackets while hiking is a check in the efficient category.  so.  i am an ice water from the drive-thru window ordering tree kisser. 

 

setting up my tent every night is just as slow as filling up on water.  i lay down my ground cloth, unfold my tent, pound in the front two stakes, adjust my trekking pole (which substitutes as my tent poles), pound in the vestibule stake, stake out the back cords, pull everything taut and then set up my bed.  sure there is a warmth advantage to sleeping in a tent.  it also keeps the winds at bay and the critters out of your toothpaste bag, but the main reason for a tent is to keep the dew from settling on your down sleeping bag.  for the life of me, i will never know where the moisture comes from, but nothing deflates the loft and the warmth of a sleeping bag like a night of wet sleeping.

 

cowboy camping is the age-old, time saving answer.  no tent, not stakes, no poles; just rolling your sleeping bag out under the stars and drifting off to sleep studying constellations through sleepy eyelids.  the only problem is that the time you save from not setting up your tent is paid back the next afternoon when you spread out your sleeping bag to dry in the afternoon sunshine.  i have had my sleeping bag soak through and frost over after a night of cowboy camping out in an open field.  i have theories…  tree limbs trap heat just like clouds and warm air makes for less condensation.  or maybe the tree’s pine needles could act just like your tent walls and keep the dew from settling on down.  regardless, after nights of experiments, there is conclusive data to prove the closer to the tree the drier i’ve been.  stuff sacks under the branch’s far reaches wake up dripping wet. it’s the little things.  kissing snow from tree branches and snuggling close cowboy camped under a tree.  those wilderness conveniences that make life out here a little more bearable.   

 

and i know what you guys are thinking…  sharp pine tree needles are too sharp for kissing and tree trunks have splinters.  but, i am officially a tree kissin’ - tree snugglin’ continental divide thru-hiker (who has hugged a tree in that classic “this is how big the redwoods are” picture but would prefer not to be limited to that.) 

 

kevin slowboat blackwell.  cdt 09.

 

ps.  i’m sorry for the length of this note.  i know it’s inefficient and slow.  if i thought that hugging, kissing, or snuggling a tree would help, trust me, i would.

 

pss.  this note was typed from a real-estate office/internet cafe? in mimbres, NM.  150 hiking miles from the border of mexico. 

 

psss.  the two days of hiking from snow lake to doc campbells were the most spectacular of New Mexico.  imagine the sheer rock walls of zion national park plus the hoodoos of bryce canyon national park plus a wide- open tree-lined southern holler and you would have the gila wilderness.  oh.  plus you get hot springs to sit in on your way through the canyon.  lovely days for sure.   

 

pssss.  the irony of me writing a note about hiking efficiency is not lost.  do not worry, i’m still the slowboat.  the slower you go and the more you get lost, the more you see.  if i’m an expert on anything, it’s that.