When you are out for several days, some level of deprivation,(not depravity), is to be expected. What one thing do you miss the most when you are on the trail for several days? My number one is ice cubes. What's yours?
When you are out for several days, some level of deprivation,(not depravity), is to be expected. What one thing do you miss the most when you are on the trail for several days? My number one is ice cubes. What's yours?
milk. more specifically half and half(nido is good, but it aint the real deal)
Sleep........
Pain is a by-product of a good time.
Indoor plumbing and electricity.....you definately get somewhat of a sense of what it must of feel like when the rural farmers got electricity for the first time from the REA (Rural Electrification Admn.) projects of the 1930's when you get back home.
A shower
It takes me less than one day of hiking to become totally grungy and stinky. I can't even stand myself after two days. On top of the sweat and B.O.are the bodily function smells. Not to belabor it, but the tp on the trail doesn't seem to work as well as it does at home! lol
Hot showers. Sure, you can shower along the trail, but it's not the same as having endless, instant hot water in your home shower.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.
I'll lump a shower and laundry into "running water." I love cooking on the trail, not having electricity and other comforts we take for granted. Frankly, I'm glad my kids go solidly without TV for a week at a time and me too! But the shower and laundry (both items smell until, um, cleansed) those are what get to me the most. In second place is a mattress. I like my z-rest fine enough but there's nothing like the 'ole pillowtop
2,000 miler. Still keepin' on keepin' on.
The biggest thing I miss on my backpacking trips are my old backpacking buddies from the 1980's. I often sit by my tent at the end of a day and pretend I see my old friends coming up the trail to talk and reminisce.
Diet Coke
Trail angels, take note
A shower (it's the first thing I do when I get back to civilization).
My wife (the second thing).
"Hiking is as close to God as you can get without going to Church." - BobbyJo Sargent aka milkman Sometimes it's nice to take a long walk in THE FOG.
Posting to WB, BPL, hiking blogs, etc umpteen times each day. Like my hiker porn. I think I'll start a 900 # hiker chat line. Categories: trails, UL, hiking singles, hiking calendar models live talk, GPS tracking services, beta and trail weather updates, speed hiking, mice population stats at AT shelters, Groupons at buffets near a trail, etc.
A sentiment that is no doubt shared by all of us with too many miles under our boots. Let's offer a wistful toast to all our companions who now hike under the trees that bear the golden apples of the Hesperides:
"In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,
By crystal streams, that murmur thro' the meads:
But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;
The path conducts you to your journey's end.”
This said, he led them up the mountain's brow,
And shews them all the shining fields below.
They wind the hill, and thro'
the blissful meadows go.(Virgil, Æneid, 6.642)
As we remember them under the trees they left behind:
My laughter is o'er; my step loses its lightness;
Sweet countryside measures steal soft on mine ear.
I can only brood on the past and its brightness,
While those I have mourned once again gather near.
From every dark nook they press forward to meet me,
And wisfully scanning the broad leafy dome,
I find other faces fond bending to greet me:
The ash grove, the ash grove alone is my home!
(I remember the step-grandfather I never met, who hiked off in 1940, never to return; the uncle who first took me into the woods half a century ago; the young man in whose company I first hiked above treeline, and who was cut down in a plane crash a few weeks afterward; another young man to whom I taught trail cooking, whose ashes lie amidst the ruins of the Twin Towers; and numerous other companions with whom I lost touch, but who could hardly still be hiking today. Remember to save me a spot, guys!)
I always know where I am. I'm right here.
Perishable foods and running water in that order.
All of the above, including goats milk and coconut milk. Nido is my trail favorite but I have to admit if powdered skim is all I can get it's in the bag. About the only milk I wont drink is buttermilk. My Dad could drink it straight out of the carton but that's one hereditary trait that didn't carry over.
"Hiking is as close to God as you can get without going to Church." - BobbyJo Sargent aka milkman Sometimes it's nice to take a long walk in THE FOG.
"I was beginning to appreciate that the central feature of life on the Appalachian Trail is deprivation, that the whole point of the experience was to remove yourself so thoroughly from the conveniences of everyday life that the most ordinary things - processed cheese, a can of pop gorgeously beaded with condensation - fill you with wonder and gratitude. It is an intoxicating experience to taste Coca-cola as if for the first time and to be conveyed to the very brink of orgasm by white bread. Makes all the discomfort worthwhile, if you ask me."
- Bill Bryson, describing their arrival at Neel Gap on page 55 of A Walk in the Woods.We have his answer!