zzzzzzz......zzzzzzzz.......

[2009ThruHiker]

Ok, so if you don't count late night tirades by shelter party-goers and food seeking bears, mice, etc. I'd like to know how people sleep on the trail during the course of a thru-hike. Specifically in relation to sleep prior to their thru-hike.

[Just a Hiker]

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[TheTank]

Honestly I sleep better on the trail then anywhere else, but I have a feeling I may be a bit of an oddity in that regard.

[Blissful]

9 PM is usually hiker midnight.

I was in bed between 8-8:30 PM. A far cry from my midnight bedtimes at home. I woke up a lot on the trail also. I have back issues and had knee pain at night in the latter part of the ihke, so more discomfort trying to sleep (even with taking Aleve). But the hours helped make up for it (around 10 hrs)

[warraghiyagey]

Eyes closed.

[chiefdaddy]

I sleep like crap at home and I sleep like crap on the trail(maybe a little better due to being worn out). I am almost always first up, I just never leave first lol.

[Pacific Tortuga]

Honestly I sleep better on the trail then anywhere else, but I have a feeling I may be a bit of an oddity in that regard.

Same here but only in my tent, like so many say,"shelters suck". Going through the Smokey's, I craved to get back into my tent. I would use a shelter for a quick start but always paid for it with a very poor quality evenings rest.

[JAK]

I have always prefered to hike and sleep out of site of any other tent or tarp. I have no idea what I would have to do, or how far I would get, if I ever hike the AT. I will probably start with the IAT.

[hiker5]

I sleep like crap at home and I sleep like crap on the trail(maybe a little better due to being worn out). I am almost always first up, I just never leave first lol.

Ever been check for sleep apnea? I'm surely no expert, but that sounds like what my father used to say. He hadn't slept more that 5 or 6 hours in years. His first night with the CPAP machine, he slept for 10 hours. Within weeks he said he felt like a whole new person.

[Doctari]

I sleep better on the trail, always have when camping. Now it's even better cause on the trail I sleep in the same bed I do at home; My hammock. So there is no getting "settled in" for me, at least when it comes to bed time routine.

[Uncle Silly]

sometimes i sleep like crap, sometimes i sleep ok, sometimes i sleep great. it depends on a lot of things -- how many miles i hiked that day, over what sort of terrain; how well or poorly i ate; how much i drank as a nightcap. sometimes the shelter floor bothers me -- during this season's hike, a foot injury gave me trouble while sleeping for some reason. and sometimes i was able to ignore it and sleep through any discomfort. sometimes the phase of the moon meant that i'd wake up and be awestruck by the lighting. sometimes the mice drove me nuts. (sometimes they drove another hiker nuts and i couldn't sleep for laughing at the other hiker's reactions!)

usually if i had a night of rough sleeping, it'd be followed by a rough day, kinda like you'd expect if you didn't get enough sleep. then the next night i'd sleep better, simply because my body was more tired and needed it.

i did hike with melatonin this season. there were a couple of times i used it to good effect; and a couple of times that it wasn't terribly helpful. i remember taking it once when i knew i'd have trouble getting to sleep so early; then waking up quite often during the night. i'd probably carry it again, tho maybe not in large quantities; i haven't found the need to take it every night.

[Smile]

I found I slept OK except on the nights I took vitaminI, I got dry mouth, and drank a lot of water. Nights I didn't use it, I slept great. Needless to say, I got rid of it except for one.

Otherwise, it's so nice to fall asleep listening to the music of the woods at night. Unless you are near a shelter with a snorer! Ugh!

[Nightwalker]

Honestly I sleep better on the trail then anywhere else, but I have a feeling I may be a bit of an oddity in that regard.

Same here. And, uh, same here.

[Tipi Walter]

My problem is I get to sleep early, about 7 or 8 pm, and at 2 am I'm wide awake and ready to roll. So I stay up fiddling with stuff waiting for first light which in the dead of winter means a long-arsed night in a cold tent(a candle helps - and a book). The challenge then is to stay up late enough to put me into the next day with a good night's sleep.

[Just a Hiker]

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[Jim Adams]

I sleep best just out in the open, 2nd best under my tarp, 3rd in my tent and last in a shelter. cowboy camping out in the open is as good or sometimes better than sleeping at home in my bed.

geek

[mindi]

I slept much better on the trail than at home, with the exception of the Smokies. I couldn't sleep worth a crap in the shelters. But in my tent, I slept great most of the time. Helps having someone to cuddle up too, also ...
I only had trouble once in a while. The first week or two, I would fall asleep quickly but I'd be awake again at 3 or 4 a.m. thinking it was time to get going.
Then there were a couple of nights where I was just too cold to sleep well. I think the worst was the night of the St. Patrick's Day/Bachelorette party. It was really, really cold, and I was pretty drunk, and I had to keep getting out to pee. I was really wishing there was a female version of a pee bottle, then.

Then another night when Combat and I were camped at Burningtown Gap. We decided to take a zero because it rained the day before and we wanted to dry our stuff out. Instead, it got cold, super-windy, and everything froze. Then it snowed and the snow was blowing in the door. It was a miserable night...made for a great story, though.

Sugargrits

[Cannibal]

Like Doctari, my hammock is just as comfortable on the Trail as it is at home. Once I get used to all the noise (about 2 or 3 days) I sleep like a well behaved baby outside.

[RadioFreq]

First night camping, whether in hammock or tent, I wake up a lot.
Subsequent nights it's "Boom, Boom, out go the lights."

[saimyoji]

A small AM radio helps me when I'm having trouble sleeping. I usually tune in CoasttoCoast AM. Of course, sometimes thats the reason I can't sleep.

Those true ghost sounds recordings are freaky.