​Note 2: In many cases, I couldn't find the exact items we used. Imagine the products in these links, then trace back to the iterations that would have been available 20-40 years prior. In most cases, everything was heavier, "ultralight" wasn't really a thing yet, materials like silicone, merino wool, and UV-blocking quick-dry fabrics weren't readily available, and roughly half of our gear was military issue from some prior decade, and/or from an Army/Navy Store. ​

After visiting Mission Wolf, my family and I drove to the trailhead for the Blue Lake Trail in Colorado. We drove through Gunnison County and saw some lovely mesas, a memory that would be surprisingly important for me several years later.

Dad arranged with a local friend to go meet him at the end of the trail, drop off Dad’s car there, and then drive him back to where my Mom, my brother, and I had set up camp. Most of our gear was plundered from my Dad’s decades-old storage from his days at National Outdoor Leadership School, and his subsequent group and solo wilderness adventures. Among the heirloom gear I used were my gigantic external frame backpack (imagine this, only blaze orange with a packed tent, sleeping mat, and bedroll strapped to the back), my thick woolen socks, navy blue silk liner socks, our musty old tent, and my flannel sleeping bag. My sweater in this picture is one of my Dad’s from the 70s or 80s, so old that it was mostly made of pilling and hope, and my cargo pants are probably from Old Navy. 

My comboot bats (I’m lysdexic, okay?) were issued to me in Civil Air Patrol circa 1998. We got a lot of Air Force surplus uniforms, often a season or more after they were no longer current for the enlisted folks. (No one told me until much later that anything I was issued, I had to return when I left service. By that point I'm pretty sure everyone in my squadron had forgotten, if they ever minded in the first place. I left on 9/12/2001. Ask me about it sometime. Maybe... in the comments?)

​I genuinely loved those boots. I was really torn up the day that I realized that my feet had expanded too much to wear them anymore. Few people understand just how physically transformative an MFA in Theatre can be, from your toes to your crown. When I got issued my boots, they did indeed look like this:

​
After just 6 months of not shining them because I had no inspections to pass, they looked like this: 

I had a couple of party tricks I used to do in these boots, including Irish Step Dancing (they're a lot heavier than they look, okay?) and, if I really wanted to show off, I could dance en pointe in them. Give me some actual toe shoes and I'll probably bust an ankle, but I figured out how to do it in these. I also got a reputation for wearing them to weddings, even if I was in the wedding party. Ah, good times. If I can scare up a pic of me wearing these as Maid of Honor in my friend's wedding, I will do precisely that. 

Shoes, man. I never thought I was the kind of girl who cared about shoes, but then these old things... **sigh** so many delightful memories. 

My brother, also pictured here, is of course from outer space, in the way of all younger siblings. 

He's wearing a hoodie (which we still called "sweatshirts" back then. I know. We're dinosaurs). He's also sporting those oh-so-popular convertible cargo pants, which he discovered (to my amusement) that he only actually used the zip-off feature once and could well have just packed a pair of shorts. But I digress. He is also wearing a pair of my dad's old wool hiking socks, and some manner of hiking boot. He completes the classy "Mickey Mouse" look with some stylish black leggings. This, more than anything, is proof that we didn't do anything more to prepare for this picture than hug, smile, and stand still. #NoFilter #WhatIsAFilter. I am, of course, wearing the same boots pictured above, almost certainly not these cargo pants (but they're Climate Pledge Friendly!), and the aforementioned pill-and-stitching sweater. And the outfit wouldn't be complete unless we were wearing matching black long underwear. Just give us some white gloves and we could be Micky Mouse twins!

(I’ll get to the wolves by the end of the story, I promise.)

After our first day of hiking, all of us except one were sore and exhausted. When talking it over around the campfire that night, we discovered (to everyone’s surprise) that at that particular snapshot moment of our lives, I was the strongest hiker in our party. My Dad had better muscles and more experienced hiking technique (I hadn’t known before this trip that walking up steep hills took technique, but more on that in a bit). However, Dad needed double hip replacement surgery and hadn’t gotten around to it yet, so the amount that he could carry was more limited than his usual. My brother would soon outstrip us all in musculature (and height, for that matter), but he hadn’t grown quite big enough yet. Mom was very pleasant and accommodating, but she really only came along to humor the rest of us. Her physique was and is more delicate and birdlike, which left me to be the packhorse of the group. 

I have always been more muscular than the other girls in my age group, a condition assisted in no small part by my habit of climbing trees, rocks, buildings… really anything climbable within arm’s reach. I had started rock climbing at camp, and my Dad was also training me, using not only his considerable knowledge from NOLS, but also his skills as an arborist (the harness or “tree saddle” that he spent decades in for work was part of why he needed his hip replacements). My brother and I had already started Tae Kwon Do by this point, which also helped both of us build our musculature and develop confidence in our bodies, and more spatial awareness to boot. Lastly, since joining Civil Air Patrol, PT was a regular aspect of promotion requirements, so even though when I run laps, I look and sound rather like a wounded rhinoceros, I made it a point of pride that I could do all of the other elements of PT better than anyone else in our squadron. Yes, even the chin-ups. Ah, the days before my fibromyalgia got bad enough to diagnose, a decade or two before my C-section, when I could and would lift anything and anyone. Now it’s ultralight or nuthin, folks, but back then I was a beast.

So every evening we would unpack what we needed, set up the tent and bedrolls, and use Dad’s rather elaborate camp kitchen (elaborate next to mine anyway. I don’t cook very well, but I can sure dump a cup of boiling water over some dehydrated calories like a CHAMP). My Dad's camp kitchen, even during long hikes like this one, included a campfire pot, with other dishes and utensils like tongs and a spatula nestled inside, a kettle AND a coffee percolator, sometimes even a cast-iron dutch oven so he could make his famous peach cobbler. On top of all this, he would pack at least one if not two collapsible camping sinks for doing dishes, and (I thought this part was hilarious) he would bring a tiny dish scraper that he had trimmed down, and a tiny scrap of a dish scrubber that he had cut out. "For weight," he would tell me, oblivious to the side-eye I was giving the cast iron dutch oven, "and to keep the size down." 

In the mornings I would usually wake up before everyone else by a couple of hours -- the moonrise was so bright, it looked like sunrise to this city girl -- so I got into the habit of hanging out by the nearest water source, usually within sight or at least shouting distance of the tent, and I would pump water through our old behemoth of a water filter, into everyone’s Nalgenes and a few extra bowls and cups. Then I would gather it all up in a precarious balancing act, wander my halting way back to the campfire, and start on boiling water for everyone’s breakfast.

This routine is key in the wolfie part of the story. No, really.

As sounds and smells of food and coffee filled the camp, the family would slowly wake up and join me around the campfire, and we would eat. Then we would pack up the tent, roll up the sleeping bags or stuff the newer ones into their stuff bags (stuff bags! Genius!) and pack away the camp kitchen and the uncooked food. We always ate the cooked leftovers even if we were full, because it beat having to pack it up. My brother was growing, anyway, so all one really had to do was add it to his bowl when he wasn’t looking, or hesitate over our next bite and wait for him to say “you going to eat that?”

Then came the best part. We took the heaviest items, like food, dishes, tent poles, the water filter, and so on, and put as much of it as could fit into my pack. (Although I'm pretty sure I put my foot down and told my dad "if you seriously want to bring a cast iron pot we're probably only going to use once, you get to carry it.") Everyone carried at least one Nalgene of their own water, and we all carried our own bedrolls, but anything else was fair game. We filled my pack to bursting, then distributed the rest to everyone else. Light but bulky items we put toward the top of each pack, or lashed to the shockingly exposed lower areas of the external frames. The heavier and/or more dense items were placed closest to that hiker’s center of gravity, which tends to be near the lumbar region on women, and somewhere around and below the scapula on men and pubescent boys. Water is tricky, since it needs to be easily accessible, so even though it was often the most dense equipment that we carried, we either put it in the side pockets of our packs, or strapped it messenger-bag-style across our midsections.

The terrain was beautiful, and I’m sure that I will disclose more of what adventures occurred on that trip across many future posts, but let’s face it: you’re ready to hear about the wolves, aren’t you?

One rather chilly morning towards the end of our journey, after pumping water and returning to the campfire to eat freeze-dried granola, I huddled in my Crazy Creek with my sleeping bag around my shoulders and stared off into the distance. Then my head snapped up as I heard the sound of running feet. I expected a deer, but I was stunned — or rather, I should have been stunned — to see two or three majestic wolves in varying shades of silver and black appear from the treeline across the campfire from where I sat, and they ran straight past me less than eight feet away. I experienced a surreal calm when I slowly turned my head to watch them, then turned back as more of them appeared through the nearby treeline. They followed each other through the woods and clearings with a pace that suggested they were late clocking into work, and disappeared just as suddenly over a nearby slope in the side of the mountain. 

​I looked around me. No one was awake. I looked back over my shoulder, then peered into the treeline to make sure that I was, in fact, alone and that they weren’t, in fact, interested in turning back and making me and my breakfast into their breakfast.

Then I shook off my stupor and finished my granola. What else was there to do? Apparently I had gotten out of the habit of trying to read and write in the mornings, lacking enough light to read by. This was before the days of smartphones, and it was not as though one could pump water or eat granola out of a bag while doing much of anything else. That’s some of the charm of going backpacking, I find. Multitasking while “roughing it” is neither efficient nor necessary, so every basic task that takes care of our human biological needs is all-consuming, simple, and meditative.

This lack of a handy journal (or camera, or smartphone) is probably the reason why I forgot to tell my family when they woke up that I had seen a pack of wolves run through our campsite. By the time they woke up, I was probably thinking of something along the lines of "It's cold. I want coffee. But I would have to get out of my sleeping bag and my comfy chair to make coffee. But it's cold. Ugh, decisions, decisions." It sounded like a tall tale to my mind anyway. "Hey, good morning! A pack of wolves ran through our camp like an hour ago. Anyway, want some coffee?" Sheesh, what kind of wildlife story is that? 

A much more common kind than I knew, actually. It would certainly not be my last surreal, I-can’t-believe-no-one-else-is-seeing-this-wildlife moment. The next wolf story doesn’t involve me actually seeing the wolves, nor even seeing the bear, though I have good reason to believe that they were all fairly close to me at the time. But on that next trip, which was my first solo backpacking trip, I did see another large, dangerous animal when I was all alone, and unlike the wolves, this beastie was VERY interested in me.

​To Be Continued... 

Wow, that's a mouthful.

Yes, darlings, my husband of 13 years and I have decided on an amicable divorce. So here's a little rumor control and a few ways for you to help, if you feel so inclined.

We know that not everyone is in the position to donate, or to bid on the auction items, but we still want you to feel included as we celebrate the past and cheer forward our future. As always, you can help me in my goal of being a full-time digital nomad every time you like, share, and comment on my blog posts. The more money I can make this way, the easier it will be for The Wild Scamp, aka my 5yo kiddo, to spend at least half of each year with me, homeschooling and forest-schooling our way around the country and around the world.

Even an amicable, uncontested divorce with joint custody and the parents staying friends is, well, a PAIN. The kiddo and I need new passports, I would like to get a tiny little teardrop trailer home, I need a new laptop so I can do the "digital" part of being a "digital nomad," and in the meantime, the beloved ex and I both have credit card debt, objects to relocate, fees and fix-er-ups to manage, and all that boring grown-up stuff. 

The beloved ex, known as @Malthol on most of your favorite social media (medias? mediums? malapropisms?), is staying in Texas and fixing up the house so that 1) it stays standing and 2) it's ready to sell if/when selling becomes a good idea. Malthol is good at staying in one place. I, your friend FibroHiker, am not. As you can imagine, many of our reasons for considering divorce come down to some simple differences of this kind. We're still best friends, and we have some fun and cool ideas about how to co-parent across long distances, which I think my nerds in the audience will heartily approve. These include, but are not limited to, regular vidchats with distant family members, and soon, our own Minecraft server and family date nights! The family that slays together stays together!

Since there's a kiddo in the mix, I'd like to take a moment and tug gently on your heartstrings. Anything that makes our finances better will directly improve The Wild Scamp's quality of life. We have a few ways to do that. There will be online auction items, or you can donate directly by clicking or scanning the image below: 

As always, there's no need to spend money you don't have (please don't go into debt to get us out of debt. Nope nope.) We appreciate your kind words, your likes, your comments, and your sharing this to your own audiences. Also, the Wednesday night event will be livestreamed, and the auction will have an online component. I will share auction items on my various media. 

There are also stretch goals that involve explosives. Yes, literal explosives. Yes, I have pyrotechnical experience and also, yes, there will be at least one active or retired firefighter on premises whenever I light stuff on fire. I'm nuts, kids, not stupid. Safety first. First we make sure we're very, very safe, and THEN we let loose maniacal laughter as we explode things and watch them burn. If you're VERRRRRRY good, I'll even make the fire burn pretty colors for you. 

I love you all. Stay safe, stay awesome. Wear detachable bear bells so that if a mountain lion thinks you're a cat toy, you can throw the bell and hope the critter is smart enough to chase it, but too dense to try to teach you to play "fetch." 
​
-FibroHiker

When my family went to Colorado to do a backpacking trip together, I was a teenager and my younger brother was just starting to sprout up from kid to gangly youth.

My dad, who spent a LOT of time at NOLS and even got certified as an instructor with them at one point, loves to teach outdoors skills and exciting new experiences. Going to Mission Wolf while we were in Colorado was his idea, and it was well worth the long drive out of our way.

Mission Wolf rescued wolves that were either born in captivity or otherwise had become captured by or too comfortable around humans. A wolf that is too used to humans can be dangerous, for the wolf as well as the people. The biggest danger is that, if released back into the wild, the wolf will approach humans and the humans will freak out and shoot the wolf.

The kindest thing, the nice folks at Mission Wolf believed, was to find a way to let the wolves live out the rest of their lives as wolves. By following that mission, they learned a lot about what does and does not work for most wolves. We got a fascinating tour during which the director told us lots of stories about the different wolves that we saw, the ways that he had learned to make them more comfortable, and arrangements with local farmers and ranchers to provide fresh meat on the bone for the wolves to eat.

​Then we got to meet the Ambassador wolves. When one of the full-blooded wolves shows particular patience and comfort around humans, Mission Wolf would train it to see if it might make a good Ambassador. The Ambassador Wolves traveled in a hollowed-out school bus adapted to their needs, and went all over the country to visit people at the special talks the director gave.

The two Ambassador wolves were both home when we arrived, and my brother and I got to meet them. The director had my mom and dad come into the enclosure with us, but he suggested that only us kids tried to say hello.

I went first. The director told me to go out a little ways from the gate and sit in a clearing. The wolves, Raven and Magpie, scruffy in their summer coats, perked up and showed a little interest. The director side-coached me in calm, gentle tones, to hold still, relax, not call or coax, and just wait patiently for them to make the first move. (Having used this technique to try to meet my friends' pets sometimes, I also chose to focus in the distance and watch the wolves with my peripheral vision instead of staring at them).

As my brother stood watching with my parents, Magpie decided to come see me up close. The director had prepared us for what she would probably do: she sniffed me first, particularly my face, and then tried to lick my teeth.

I let her. I know that sounds weird, but that's what the director said he does with them, and it sounded like it made them more comfortable. You know what's particularly funny about this, (aside from how it looks, which is of course hilarious)? She didn't have dog breath. The director pointed it out, asked me if her breath smelled, and I realized that it didn't. He said this was because of the shelter letting the wolves eat their meat off the bone. They don't just eat the meat, they also crunch the long bones to get to the marrow inside, and the splintering bones clean the wolves' teeth as they go!

Magpie was lovely and affectionate, even sniffing me so thoroughly that she almost tumbled me over on my side. Once Magpie had vetted me, Raven trotted up and gave me a few tentative sniffs and kisses too. The director said that I could touch them, too, but said not to pat them on their heads or back. Instead, he had me hold up my arms, elbows at my sides, and touch their chests, shoulders, and the underside of their jaw as they licked my face. It turns out that most dogs and cats prefer this method too.

​My brother was eager for his chance to go next. He almost startled them away with how excited he was to trade places with me and go sit in the clearing. Magpie and Raven obliged, and he even went back for a second round of kisses after his turn.

People say that animals can smell fear, and this is very true. Humans can smell it too, sometimes, though we aren't usually attuned to thinking with our noses. It's very hard to act calm enough to convince an animal if you aren't ACTUALLY calm. I believe this is why the director showed us all around the Mission Wolf compound first; he got us used to the sights and sounds of the wolves, explained what they do and how they do it, and told us stories about the wolves and their interactions with humans.

To act calm enough to keep an animal from smelling fear, you have to start with your thoughts. Wolves don't want to hurt you. They can actually be insultingly indifferent to you, if you REALLY think of yourself as deserving their attention, whether as a meal or a playmate. They're practical creatures, you're another predator but not one of them, so they don't need you, they don't want you, and they'd mostly rather that you got on with your business and let them get on with theirs.

So get on with your business. If you don't have any business and you're just hanging out to see and maybe meet a wolf, MAKE some business for yourself. Sit on the ground and count leaves on a distant tree. Make yourself a tiara out of vines. Repair your pack, write in your journal, doodle your ideas, think about your toes and your fingers, your heart and your brain.

The same thing works with bees. If you're busy and they're busy, no problem. If you get really close to them and stare at them with all your might, or try to swat or stomp them, then they have a reason to deal with you, and they only have one way to do that. Don't get stung, get back to business. If I feel like what I'm doing might be too much motion for them, I make it my business to stare at something in the distance and do a quick body-scan meditation with some nice slow breaths. I try to relax my face and my shoulders, my abs, my butt, my legs and my feet. I check my posture and roll my shoulders back on a slow, deep breath, then I use my peripheral vision to look for the animal or bee again and see where they are, while keeping my eyes fixed forward at a distant object or soft-focused so I can turn my head slowly without really looking at anything.
​
I ended up having a really good reason to know all of these things when I met some more wolves on the trail later that week in Colorado.

Most of the camping and hiking blogs I’ve seen assume that readers will have to deal with wet and/or cold climates, but rarely do I see any that take the hot and dry extremes into account as well.  I often have to make some substantial adjustments based on the assumptions in these blogs, ideas like “chocolate is a great backpacking food” or “there’s no such thing as the wrong weather for hiking!” Er, well, chocolate is great, as long as you can be sure that it won’t melt and get all sticky and gross. As for “no such thing as bad weather,” those stories assume that you can always put on more or better clothing. They don’t seem aware that there really are times when you have to hide indoors, like summers here in Texas where it can be 108 degrees for weeks or even months on end. 

Sorry. 

‘Round here, y’all, I don’t pack chocolate unless I can pack an ice chest too (hot cocoa is different: hot cocoa don’t melt). And if we see someone gearing up for a hike out here and we know the weather is about to turn, we darn well chase after them and ask if they’re from out of town. 

It’s tragic when carrying too much water can kill you just as fast as not carrying enough, but that’s the reality: it can KILL you, especially if your body is not used to sweating this hard and carrying heavy loads in the heat. You can get mixed signals from your body about the temperature and your fitness to keep hiking right up until the minute you pass out. 

Yep, I usually batten down the hatches and try to tough out the summer indoors, even though seeing sunny days outside doesn’t suggest “lie low” to the hindbrain the same way as clouds and chills do. And when I do go camping for longer than one or two overnights, I go far enough out of town that I can find some decent terrain, because that’s where you get water sources. And for this little invalid, water sources are the key to making hiking survivable when I can’t carry more than a day or two worth of water. 

That’s right, minimalist backpacking includes knowing my limits, and I’d rather use the amount of weight I’m able to carry by carrying a day or two of water, instead of carrying so much stuff that I pass out before I can get to the next water source. Some ultralight hikers use hydration bladders for carrying water, but me, I can’t live without my Nalgenes. You can’t re-hydrate astronaut food in a water bladder, but you can pour boiling water into a Nalgene all you want – and I do. I wrap my Nalgenes in my sleeping bag and/or extra clothes to keep the water hot while it cooks my ramen or whatever I happen to be eating. I carry two 48 oz HDPE Nalgenes, full to the brim, as well as one or two empty collapsible water bottles if I have space. These extra water vessels help when gathering water and hanging out at a water source to filter or treat your water, hydrate, and cook, which I highly recommend. One of the tricks to surviving the high temperatures is to stay close to the few water sources when you find them. I usually camp out nearby so that I can cook dinner and breakfast, and have plenty of time to drink lots and lots of water. This is also a good time to boil water, sanitize your water bottles and dishes, and do any laundry that you deem necessary. It’s better to hike out from your campsite  well-hydrated than to carry lots of unnecessary stuff. 

That’s also why I eventually ditched the water pump. It was taking up too much weight and time. Now I focus almost exclusively on boiling my water with my jetboil (or treating it with potable aqua tablets, or lighter yet, aquatabs. But I try to use those resources sparingly – light though they are, I’m always wary about using up something that I can’t refill quickly). If the water is silty, I strain it through a bandana or one of my sweat-absorbing hankies before treating it, but that’s about it.  I have seen a lot of ultralight hikers recommend the Sawyer Squeeze, but I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. I do, however, carry a LifeStraw for emergencies (and for those times when I’m so relieved to see a water source that I can’t wait for reasonable activities like boiling or treating the water before I take a drink). Group camping is different. In addition to being able to share resources so no one has to carry too much, the cost/benefit analysis starts to work in favor of larger gravity-fed water filters and similar. [I will cover group camping in more depth in another post].

As for clothing, Cover. Your. Head. And not just the brim of a hat: cover your whole head, even if the part over your pate is just netting. You can get skin cancer on your noggin, don’t forget, and hair isn’t always enough to protect you (especially if you part your hair or if it parts naturally in hot weather. Or if you’re bald, of course, but I bet if that’s the case then you’re used to the perils of too little sun protection.)

I prefer hats that can fold up, and for best results I love my stylish straw sunhat. These are also great for travel. And yes, when I’m not worried about matching my travel outfits, I get just about everything in blaze orange, preferably with reflective strips. What can I say? I’m from Texas. And I’ve been shot at by hunters off-season while wearing blaze orange, so my sense of what’s safe and what isn’t might be a little skewed. 

I don’t worry too much about clothing that is marketed as UPF.  Plain old coverage is fine for my purposes, though in this weather I definitely pony up for the nicer lightweight long-sleeve safari shirts with side vents. I layer these with a shelf-bra workout top with reflective strips, because there are times when the idea of even the lightest, driest long-sleeve shirt can make you want to dig a den and hibernate until winter. 

Personally, I also prefer to hike in cargo pants regardless of the weather. I also wear ultralight desert combat boots or similar to cover my ankles (mine have vents near the sole to help with the heat). A lot of the damage hikers sustain is on their exposed skin, and I know the shorts-lovers will never convince the trousers-lovers and vice versa. The combat boots are a must, though, especially for solo hikers like me. Not only can they prevent most snake bites and provide much-needed ankle support, but if you do twist your ankle or sustain a similar injury, you’ll be able to hike back out sooner if you can cinch your boots tight around the afflicted area to give it more support.* ​

That brings me to the one thing on this list that I usually wouldn’t bring on an ultralight hike: chemically-activated cold packs. I only carry one or two when I’m going out for more than an overnight hike, and I don’t waste them on injuries. They only last a couple of hours at best, so I keep them in reserve in case I stop sweating, feel dizzy, throw up, or any of the other signs of Heat Exhaustion and Heat Stroke (these links aren’t products, they’re CDC recommendations. READ THEM). Again, if you’re going solo backpacking, make sure that you’re current on your first aid training. And remember that if you pack it in, you have to pack it out. If you’re not willing to carry a bag of heavy, used-up chemicals in your trash when you hike home, don’t bring the cold packs. 

​One neat, lightweight, high-tech item that you don’t need to keep in reserve is a microfiber cooling towel. You only need one per person, and you can use and re-use it throughout your whole trip. It’s lightweight and worth the water consumption, I promise (and I know it’s gross, but sometimes this is a necessary consideration: the water doesn’t need to be filtered, or even clean, in order for the cooling effect to function. Be prepared, though: it’s polyester and it WILL smell if you sweat on it or use gross water.) 

You may have noticed that up to this point I haven’t mentioned sunblock. YES, you should bring sunblock and apply it whenever it occurs to you, yes, you should try different brands and bring a kind that you like (I have to use baby sunblock or powdered sunblock, darn my sensitive skin).​

​Now, let’s talk about ticks! Ticks are the main reason I specifically recommend the deep-woods versions of bug spray, although both ticks and chiggers are why I tell you to spray it where your clothing cinches up tight around your ankles and waist. Ticks are also why I say that every first aid kit should include tweezers. (They’re good for splinter removal too, of course, if you don’t want to carry a special splinter tool.) And yes, I do recommend bringing the fancy eyebrow tweezers with the tilted flat edge and the sharp point. When you make camp every night, check yourself all over for ticks. The only way to do a truly effective tick-check involves stripping down to what my favorite author, artist, and blogger Ursula Vernon calls “the least-sexy form of nudity,” and running your hands over every inch of your skin. This is where buddy-hiking can come in handy, as long as your buddy is over 18 and therefore you are not scarring children and/or being a perv. Don’t be a perv. If you find a suspicious hanger-on, (the tick, not the perv. Though the tweezers can come in handy there too, I suppose), DO NOT PULL IT OUT WITH YOUR FINGERS. The point of the flat tweezers is to try and get the whole tick, preferably alive. Its head will be buried VERY firmly in your skin, and the head will come apart from the body much more easily than you think. Use your flat tweezers, don’t clamp them too tight, and pull gently in a straight line to try to get the tick’s head out with the body. Then you save the tick so it can be tested for Lyme disease and other vector-borne illnesses when you get back to civilization. I was originally taught to preserve the tick by sticking it to a small piece of medical tape and folding the tape over, but that method kills the tick. Now I use an empty pill canister on the off-chance that I can keep the tick alive until I reach a doctor. (I usually store my daily meds in pill canisters of this kind because even my favorite travel pill case doesn’t close tightly enough for backpacking purposes. I’m hard on my equipment.)

Questions? Concerns? Comments? Feel free to comment below or use this website's Contact Form. And as my 5-year-old is always saying (usually when I'm eating and he isn't), "Sharing Is Caring!" The more you share this post, the better I will be able to provide for my adorable little terror, known as The Wild Scamp. One of my soon-to-come blog posts will be about taking The Wild Scamp on some of his first camping trips and hikes -- and all of the products that we got ahead, as well as the ones we wished that we had. 

Stay safe, leave a travel plan with a friend (with maps! MAPS, DARNIT!) and give your body a chance to acclimate to moving around in the heat before you decide what you can and can't carry in this blistering weather. 

All my best,
-FibroHiker

*Note: DO NOT DO THIS unless you have received the necessary first-aid training to know how to diagnose and treat your own ankle injuries. And definitely do not try walking on a sprained ankle until you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. A sprain can be worse than a break, and walking on it too soon can mean your injury lasts years, even decades. Ration your resources so you can give yourself extra days of rest, keep your leg elevated, and for heaven’s sake call, whistle, and smoke-signal for someone to come out and help you. That’s right, I said it. Ask for help. Call for help. Don’t move unless you’re 100% sure that help isn’t coming, and even then, wait as long as you possibly can. Don’t make me come lecture you if you have to have your leg amputated because you wouldn’t ask for help. And YES, that’s a real thing that can really happen. The amputation and the lecture, both.