When was the last time you set your tooshie down on a porcelain toilet and thought “this is the life”? Not just this is great in that you are getting (or about to get) gastronomic relief, but, rather, this is fantastic!–all I had to do was drop my drawers and sit down, not dig a hole and hope my aim was good enough to not land in my pants and hit the aforementioned hole, no balancing on the balls of your feet required, no leg cramps to throw your rhythm off, no swatting of bugs from your face or watching over your shoulder to make sure no one is about to get an eyeful. Just pure love of the toilet you’re sitting on, the cool refreshing feel of the porcelain coursing through your nether regions and the joy of a flush to take all that you expel away without any mess or having to cover up the hole. You also can expect a hot shower to wash all the last 4-5 days of sweat, smells and grime off of your body. This is the life!
Hiking gives you an appreciation of what we take for granted every day of our normal lives. When you are deprived of the accepted conveniences of modern life for 5-7 days while in the back country and can anticipate a town day coming up, you actually get excited about bathrooms and laundromats. A restaurant that serves a fat juicy hamburger and fries will cause you to even put sex on the backburner (especially if your partner has the same 5-7 days of filth on them). In simplest terms, hiking makes you appreciate the front country but frees you up from the stress of modern living.
Imagine living life in pursuit of the basics. Your day consists of eating, walking, and making sure you have a safe place to sleep at night—that’s it! Eat, walk, and sleep. Imagine not having a cell phone attached to you (I know this is a nightmare scenario to approximately 99.99999% of people under 25 but once they actually have to be in constant contact with work and fend for themselves they might appreciate the freedom from technology), no constant exposure to news trying to whip up a fear frenzy, no constant threat of job stability, no arm pit odor fear, no white teeth anxiety (or any other consumer installed fears), just eat, walk, sleep, and be amazed at the beauty of nature. Now, if you’re really lucky, you get to share that with a like-minded partner.
I am extremely fortunate to have such a partner. It is especially rare to find a mature woman (yes, I have a cougar in my life—she is a full 8 months older than me and always will be!) in her 50’s that is willing to accept the hardships of the back country and see that the simple life, joy of freedom, and spectacular vistas far outweigh any perceived inconveniences. Initially, I introduced my Bunny Tracks to backpacking, but over the years she has taken the lead in equipment research and has replaced most of our gear (sound familiar men? When you get married, all of your stuff slowly gets thrown away, moved to the basement or garage until you are down to one remaining item that you started with—in my case, it’s my long underwear; all other gear I started with now sits in the upstairs closet pining for another trip outside).
It’s romantic to say we are living like our prehistoric ancestors, but this is pure fantasy. How many cave men had walking sticks with built in shock absorbers (they used sticks); water filters (they could drink water straight from the source without worry of anything other than a little bear shit in the water—tastes similar to berries squeezed into a pitcher of water); light weight tents made from Cuban Fiber (they slept under the stars, rock over hangs, or trees); alcohol stoves for cooking on (they actually built fires if they were advanced enough); lightweight down sleeping quilts and inflatable sleeping pads (they carried hides if they were lucky enough to have them or made friends with bears to sleep on and hoped they weren’t horny); dehydrated food or town stops for resupply (they ate what they gathered or killed—my wife recently tried termites and said they were minty, I passed until such time that a termite would represent a life or death scenario for me); lighters (they had to create fire using friction or flint and steel unless a member of the tribe could shit fire and they didn’t have Thai restaurants to provide an assist); head lamps (they stayed by the fire or set the least liked member of the group’s hair on fire and sent them ahead—this is why I keep my hair short because I know my standing in any group setting); cameras to record every moment (they had to just rely on memory); blogs to share the experience (cave walls with whatever they could use to paint pictures). Other than these few minor differences, it’s just like living in primitive times—cave man grunting sounds here!
The last major reason (for me at any rate) is that it is very satisfying to think that you are carrying everything you need to survive for a week on your back. If you don’t have it, you go without. Hopefully, it’s not life or death (it’s not!). As long as you have food, water, and protection from the elements, you’re golden, Pony Boy. The more you backpack, the more you discover what you can go without. We recently spent 2 weeks on the Wonderland Trail and Pam said that was too long without a shower, but after 5 days, it doesn’t really matter—words of wisdom for all you ladies out there. After every trip, we decide what equipment needs have changed; what should we have taken, what could we have done without. Most often, it’s what we can do without. There’s joy in deprivation (we try telling Pam’s kids this as we take away financial support—there’s definitely joy in providing deprivation).
Not to be overlooked, even though I have alluded to it, is just total immersion in nature. We have seen things far from roads and cities that the average person just doesn’t get to see. Granted, there are rural towns that have more wildlife in them, but nothing beats the thrill of walking down a trail and having a bear pop out a few feet in front of you (it definitely allows you the opportunity to test your bowel control to the fullest). Or to hear munching outside of your tent to open it up and see 3 moose eating a few feet away. Or to yell at the person in the tent next to you that it’s too early to get up yet they keep shuffling their gear until you open up your tent to discover a porcupine in camp.
And the beauty! To be in a valley with glaciers towering for thousands of feet all around you. To walk in tree groves so old and huge that it hurts your neck to try to look up to the tops of the trees. The smell of virgin pine forests. To lie on your back and see the starry sky at night from the bottom of the Grand Canyon with zero light pollution. To hear glaciers move and see the rocks tumble from them. To run across people you’ve never met before and be instant friends because of shared interests. Even though we may hit the backcountry for solitude, it can easily be shared.
