I thought hiker stink was a fable

[Silent Stroll]

I am surprised that no one here has mentioned Lotrimine. It is an anti-fungal treatment for athletes foot or jock itch. Any smelly foot can be cured in two days with Lotrimine. As for body odor that comes from our bacteria and some of us have more and different bacteria then others. It is not genetic and it is not racist. I sweat like a swimmer looks stepping out of the pool. I have washed my back pack once this year...just because. I work for a guy who reeks 10 minutes after he starts sweating. As for hikers, I smell their nasty clothing not their body odor.
As a side note. Has anyone here been to the Cabelas in Port Clinton, PA recently? I was their Friday and they have a new smell/scent program. I could smell it 500 feet from the front door and inside the store was noxious.

[Don H]

I am surprised that no one here has mentioned Lotrimine. It is an anti-fungal treatment for athletes foot or jock itch. Any smelly foot can be cured in two days with Lotrimine. As for body odor that comes from our bacteria and some of us have more and different bacteria then others. It is not genetic and it is not racist. I sweat like a swimmer looks stepping out of the pool. I have washed my back pack once this year...just because. I work for a guy who reeks 10 minutes after he starts sweating. As for hikers, I smell their nasty clothing not their body odor.
As a side note. Has anyone here been to the Cabelas in Port Clinton, PA recently? I was their Friday and they have a new smell/scent program. I could smell it 500 feet from the front door and inside the store was noxious.

Was the smell pine forest or dead moose?

[Monkeywrench]

It's your clothes and pack which stink and those are a lot harder to keep oder free.

My clothes never stunk (stank?) like that. Through the summer months I wore a pair of running shorts and the lightest synthetic running shirt I owned to hike in. In the evening as long as the weather wasn't atrocious I took a water bottle shower then washed the pair of socks I hiked in that day, and either the shirt or the shorts, using my freezer bag washing machine. Things wouldn't dry overnight but putting on a damp shirt or shorts in the morning isn't all that bad and body heat dries them quickly once hiking.

Somehow my pack never got funky. Maybe because my shirt was always reasonably clean?

[TIDE-HSV]

I am surprised that no one here has mentioned Lotrimine. It is an anti-fungal treatment for athletes foot or jock itch. Any smelly foot can be cured in two days with Lotrimine. As for body odor that comes from our bacteria and some of us have more and different bacteria then others. It is not genetic and it is not racist. I sweat like a swimmer looks stepping out of the pool. I have washed my back pack once this year...just because. I work for a guy who reeks 10 minutes after he starts sweating. As for hikers, I smell their nasty clothing not their body odor.
As a side note. Has anyone here been to the Cabelas in Port Clinton, PA recently? I was their Friday and they have a new smell/scent program. I could smell it 500 feet from the front door and inside the store was noxious.

If you doubt that it's partially genetic, Google the Type A, Type O and mosquito part. If that's genetic, then the rest can be also. It's not "racist," since there's no such thing as "race." However, ethnic groups vary greatly, as a group, in the number of sweat glands they have. Google that too. You may be surprised...

[rocketsocks]

I am surprised that no one here has mentioned Lotrimine. It is an anti-fungal treatment for athletes foot or jock itch. Any smelly foot can be cured in two days with Lotrimine. As for body odor that comes from our bacteria and some of us have more and different bacteria then others. It is not genetic and it is not racist. I sweat like a swimmer looks stepping out of the pool. I have washed my back pack once this year...just because. I work for a guy who reeks 10 minutes after he starts sweating. As for hikers, I smell their nasty clothing not their body odor.
As a side note. Has anyone here been to the Cabelas in Port Clinton, PA recently? I was their Friday and they have a new smell/scent program. I could smell it 500 feet from the front door and inside the store was noxious.

So I woke up...and still stink!

Silent stroll, like your name suggests...I too stroll, amble, walk, even tho my handle may suggest otherwise. I'm no runner, and don't know a thing about racist, I assume they stink as well, what with all the racin they do.

Now people that eat certain foods will emit odors of those ethnic foods...example; garlic, curry's, peanut butters and jellys...you can think what you like...but my nose knows.

[rocketsocks]

No threads on stink would be complete with out Dr. Zappa's take...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l56BvNtEbdc

[Dogwood]

For all the UL people you can stop reading here: I carry a water bag with shower head on it on every over night hike It has a dual purpose--holds all the water I need at a shelter or campsite and i hang it from a tree and bathe under the shower head each day.

You could probably make some hiking do re mi by renting it out at shelters!

[Semodex]

I've smelled it SO BAD at shelters from human funk as well as the OOOdor I was giving off that my eyes burned and I was temporally blinded.

I've seen animals, like dogs, after having enjoyed sniffing another dog's excrement get too close to a funky smelling long distance hiker, and literally run away from the smell. If only those dogs spoke English.

LOL (literally)....thank you for a good laugh this morning!

[Semodex]

It turns out the the O type secretes a pheromone mosquitoes home in on. Type "A" secrets no such pheromone, so we're invisible to mosquitoes until they smell the CO2 in our breath or feel our body warmth. So long as I keep my wife around (although she has to wear all-covering clothes and a net hood), I'm safe. I only get bitten if I remain in one place for a while, like working on a car or the like. Then, I have to take precautions also. OK, time to turn in. Be interesting to see if we get responses...

Type b here, husband is type o. He always gets bit before i do. I may have one bite to his ten, and he can actually feel them bite. I don't even notice until i start to itch. Kinda interesting that my girls are both type B, but get bit more than i do...wonder if they got some of the O pheromones from daddy without the blood type (if that could even be possible).

[gizzy bear]

i have type P (pinot grigio) and i don't get bit as often as others

[turtle fast]

Was doing laundry with my wife and another hiker in the Shenadoah NP and a camping family came by to do a load. The little boy with them said to mom....what is that smell cat pee? The mom asks my wife "Are you hikers?" "Yes" responds my wife. The mom turns back to the little boy and says "no, its the hikers that smell...its not cat pee!".

[Silent Stroll]

So I woke up...and still stink!

Silent stroll, like your name suggests...I too stroll, amble, walk, even tho my handle may suggest otherwise. I'm no runner, and don't know a thing about racist, I assume they stink as well, what with all the racin they do.

Now people that eat certain foods will emit odors of those ethnic foods...example; garlic, curry's, peanut butters and jellys...you can think what you like...but my nose knows.

When I said not genetic or racist I meant not plainly hereditary and not connected to your birth culture.
I am a mosquito magnet so maybe I am type O blood.
Genetic was a poor choice of word because everything about us seems to fall into that bucket.

[rocketsocks]

When I said not genetic or racist I meant not plainly hereditary and not connected to your birth culture.
I am a mosquito magnet so maybe I am type O blood.
Genetic was a poor choice of word because everything about us seems to fall into that bucket.

Oh .............

[TIDE-HSV]

When I said not genetic or racist I meant not plainly hereditary and not connected to your birth culture.
I am a mosquito magnet so maybe I am type O blood.
Genetic was a poor choice of word because everything about us seems to fall into that bucket.

Why on earth would hair and eye color, height, not to mention quite a number of genetic disease be heritable and this one characteristic not be? I'm surprised you can't see the fallacy. FWIW, one of my stepsons who had the strong odor was O/C about cleanliness - numerous showers a day + deodorant. Didn't matter. At the end of the day, his clothes still had a high odor. It's anecdotal, but I dated a girl once who was from a totally different ethnic group. She brought up the difference in our body odors, not I. (I would never have.) She attributed it to having roughly twice the number of epocrine sweat glands (she was a biologist). (That was not the whole story.) Diet also heavily influences body odor. Also, there can be huge differences between individuals in any ethnic group. By and large, however, the distribution of density of epocrine glands has been long known. Persons of African descent have the most with Caucasian in second. East Asians have the least of all, with Koreans sometimes almost completely lacking them. It almost mimics the distribution of wet and dry ear wax, with the overwhelming majority of blacks and Caucasians having wet ear wax and Asian having dry ear wax...

[Rolls Kanardly]

i have type P (pinot grigio) and i don't get bit as often as others

I was thinking that maybe the skeeters got together and decided that this hiker had the good stuff in his veins and that maybe they should be careful so maybe the hiker would not notice.
Rolls Kanardly

[gizzy bear]

1. I was thinking that maybe the skeeters got together and decided that this hiker had the good stuff in his veins and that maybe they should be careful so maybe the hiker would not notice.

Rolls Kanardly

woo-hoo!!! drunk skeeters !

[da fungo]

Persons of African descent have the most with Caucasian in second. East Asians have the least of all, with Koreans sometimes almost completely lacking them. It almost mimics the distribution of wet and dry ear wax, with the overwhelming majority of blacks and Caucasians having wet ear wax and Asian having dry ear wax...

So, who's going to start the thread discussing ear wax and its impact on thru-hiking?

I can see where a good pre-hike ear canal irrigation might shave a couple of grams off your trail weight. And if us old timers were to also trim the hair from our noses and ears, it boggles the mind the amount of weight we might save!

[leaftye]

I am surprised that no one here has mentioned Lotrimine. It is an anti-fungal treatment for athletes foot or jock itch. Any smelly foot can be cured in two days with Lotrimine. As for body odor that comes from our bacteria and some of us have more and different bacteria then others.

Some of it comes from bacteria. Lotrimin is a good idea for the fungal reasons. Staying dry is better, but of course that's often not an option if we're going to put miles of trail behind us.

[TIDE-HSV]

So, who's going to start the thread discussing ear wax and its impact on thru-hiking?

I can see where a good pre-hike ear canal irrigation might shave a couple of grams off your trail weight. And if us old timers were to also trim the hair from our noses and ears, it boggles the mind the amount of weight we might save!

LOL! A gram in each ear and you won't be hearing much of anything...

[TIDE-HSV]

Type b here, husband is type o. He always gets bit before i do. I may have one bite to his ten, and he can actually feel them bite. I don't even notice until i start to itch. Kinda interesting that my girls are both type B, but get bit more than i do...wonder if they got some of the O pheromones from daddy without the blood type (if that could even be possible).

IDK. From what I've read, people with O secrete a pheromone that type A people don't. My assumption would be that types B and AB would not secrete it also. In the controlled studies that have been done, when people from both A and O are confined in the presence of mosquitoes, they head straight to the Os. However they also operate off CO2 in your breath and body heat. As I think I said above, If I'm outside and stationary, working on a car or whatnot, they'll eventually find me. Also, If one gets in the house, the same thing will eventually happen. I also don't feel their bites and react only on a minimal basis, but my wife's bites swell and really look nasty. In the summer, she runs through a lot of Adolph's meat tenderizer poultices, which is good for all bites, especially for bee stings and biting midges. The active ingredient breaks down the protein in the venom. Check that, I just remembered that she said that Adolph's no longer has papain (papaya extract), so she'll have to switch to another...