Some new names....

[Jack Tarlin]

As some of you know, I've been away for 6 months. Am very glad to be back, and it's great to see the site doing so well---really amazing to see that we now have over 1500 members, which certainly makes us the most popular page of this sort that I know of.

First off, welcome to the new folks! This especially applies to those of you actively planning or preparing a long hike on the A.T., which is primarily what this site is all about. Our main purpose here is to exchange useful information, and there are a lot of folks here with all sorts of experience. The 2 best things about Whiteblaze are that you'll hear all sorts of voices and perspectives on all sorts of things; there isn't one voice or final spokesman telling you what to think, what to write, how to hike, what is expected of you on your hike, etc. It's important to remember that something like 7000 folks have thru-hiked, and no 2 have done it exactly the same way. Whiteblaze is a special place because you'll get information from all sorts of folks with all sorts of viewpoints, and YOUR viewpoint will be respected as well.

The second thing that's important is that there are a lot of folks here who've hiked recently, and while there is much to learn from folks who hiked years ago, the Trail has changed quite a bit in recent years. Thru-hikers have changed, gear has changed, facilities have changed, even the physical trail itself has changed. Happily, when you post to Whiteblaze, you be sure that the information you're getting is up-to-date, and comes from people who have firsthand knowledge of the contemporary Trail. In fact, there are folks on this site who just got off the Trail days ago!

I hope that in the days and weeks to come, we hear from more of the new folks. Don't by shy----when you're planning your first long backpacking trip, there are NO dumb questions, but there sure seem to be a lot of folks reluctant to pose ANY questions. Don't let the planning stage of your trip intimidate you; we all went thru this once. Remember, EVERY thru-hiker was once a day-tripper, sectioner, weekender, shortimer just as every thru-hiker, when their trip ends, will AGAIN be a day-tripper, sectioner, weekender, short-timer.

So once again, it's great to see we've so many members and so many new ones. Hope to be hearing from more of you soon.

[karensioux]

OK, I am new and I have a dumb question..........let's say it's raining really hard. How do you put up your tent and fly without it getting soaked and how do you pack it up in the morning if it is still raining..........I know it will get wet but are then any tricks to help me with this???
K
Oh, this site ROCKS! I have learned sooooo much. Thanks

[Blue Jay]

Very good question, practice setting your tent up as fast as possible. Once you get fairly fast, start doing it blind folded. If the tent has a fly, practice setting it up with the fly drapped over any mesh parts. If there is a shelter nearby, partially erect the tent in a shelter or under the overhang and carry it to your site. Once you set the thing up a few hundred times you're sooo fast not much water gets inside.

As for taking it down, pack everything but the tent, inside the tent if possible. Then take the tent down and attach it on the outside of your pack.

[Youngblood]

Originally posted by karensioux
OK, I am new and I have a dumb question..........let's say it's raining really hard. How do you put up your tent and fly without it getting soaked and how do you pack it up in the morning if it is still raining..........I know it will get wet but are then any tricks to help me with this???
K
Oh, this site ROCKS! I have learned sooooo much. Thanks

That is one senerio where most conventional tents have a serious drawback; we are talking double wall tents where the rain fly has to be put on AFTER the inter tent is installed onto the tent poles. PACK A SMALL KITCHEN SPONGE! I would advise this for any tent with bathtub floors. The dry sponge weighs very little and works wonders for those times when it gets wet inside... and it will get wet at times for one reason or another. That is one reason why shelters fill up so fast in rainy weather, people don't want to mess with setting up and taking down these tents in the rain. It is even worse when it comes to taking down the tent in the rain because then you don't get to mop out the water that gets in, you just have to pack it up and carry the extra weight and deal with it later.

Setting up or packing up in the rain is easier for tarp users and people that have tents that don't leave the insides temporarily exposed-- like single wall tents. But be aware: there is no 'perfect' shelter. All of them have their strengths and their weaknesses. You just have to understand this and learn to live within their capabilities. When it is buggy or cold, you will like your double walled tent and the tarp users and single wall tent users will be at a disadvantage.

Youngblood

[Matt Pincham]

Hmm a sponge...nice YoungBlood. Never even crossed my mind.
That's another tick on my gear list. And 50 cents spent :D
PS I'm probably getting a single skin tent (Mountain Hardwear Waypoint 2...for me and the girlfriend) but might take one of those large mosquito nets to sleep in...if it's feasible...I'll have to check that one out.

Hey Jack,

Thanks for the encouragement to us planners. I'm never shy of asking questions...must've asked about a dozen already! This site has transformed me from an absolute novice into somebody who knows quite a bit about Hiking...I hope. Saving all my hard earned pennies now and hitting the trail around Feb 20th 2004 with a bit of luck (I know it'll be freezing but it's a date I've got in my head). Have you just finished a hike of your own? Sorry if I'm missing the picture, haven't been posting on here for too long.

Matt

[Skyline]

I carry a few of those re-useable Shop Towels in a Ziploc (the ones I have are blue, come on a roll like paper towels, sold at Wally World). They make great sopper-uppers inside the tent for the floor or any condensation on the walls (I have a single-wall tent). They can be wrung out and reused, and they dry out VERY quickly once the rain stops. A few in a resupply maildrop or a bunch in a bounce box will be much appreciated.

[icemanat95]

Baltimore Jack has been out on the trail every year since 1995, becoming a bit of a trail legend in his own right. Definitely one of the better sources of trail info today, and that without a lot of attitude and other B.S.

[karensioux]

great ideas everybody...thanks so much. I like the sponge idea too. Practice makes almost perfect huh??? Or at least almost dry!
Ksue

[The Weasel]

It's raining. Really hard. It's a bloody monsoon. How do you set your shelter up so it's not wet inside?

After about a thousand nights 'under fabric' in the last 10 years (a lot of which were pretty damn wet ones, since I'm from Michigan, where they invented swamps) including 3 months on the AT, I've learned that there are two simple answers

(1) You don't.

(2) As Rusty used to (and still probably does) say, "It don't matter."

First of all, even the most extremely obsessive-compulsive "dry freak" has to realize a few things: Your tent is going to get wet inside, even if it's (as I use) a fast-up hammock or (as I also use) a simple siltarp. The ground will be wet (so much for dry shelters) and rain or damp will blow somewhat inside even the best set Hennessey Hammock. Plus, when it's raining, the humidity is about 100% (duh!) and condensation means that it's going to "rain inside" in most tents/shelters/whatever. So try as you want, you simply cannot, consistently, set up your shelter and not have some of the weather "come inside."

Beyond that, if it's raining, YOU are wet. If you're one of the ones who uses (I don't) raingear, it comes in the tent/shelter etc wet. Your clothes are wet. Your shoes/boots/sandals are wet. Your skin is wet. Your pack and/or its cover is/are wet. So if you were really, really, really lucky and set up your tent w/o a drop of rain coming inside, you'll bring a lot of "wet" in with you. In other words, Murphy's Law follows you along the whole White Blazed Rut.

That's where Rusty's Reproof to Murphy's Law ("Even if everything that can go wrong does go wrong, it don't matter") comes in. So what? You will have some somewhat dry clothes, if you're really cold. Your sleeping bag will be mostly dry and the rest will dry out in a few days or so, and it will keep you warm in the meanwhile, even if it's down. Let the rain drain to a corner (if you have a floor), use your bandana to bail some of it, and remember, you can't whip Ma Nature. All you'll do is keep reminding yourself, "I'm wet. Oh, woe is me!"

Yeah, you can carry a lot of sponges or cool towels or whatever. They weigh something. Do without. Wet is wet. Yeah, it's an irritant sometimes. Live with it. Tomorrow (or a few days from now) you will get dry. Or else you'll come to town and find a laundrymat where you can dry everything. Until the next day. Learn to like wet. Or bring prozac.

The Weasel

[sdoownek]

Originally posted by The Weasel
Wet is wet. Yeah, it's an irritant sometimes. Live with it.

Or, die with it, if it's 3:30 in the afternoon, 34* with a forcasted low of 10*, and you're already wet and hypothermic.

At that point, staying dry becomes a little more important.

[The Weasel]

Originally posted by sdoownek
Or, die with it, if it's 3:30 in the afternoon, 34* with a forcasted low of 10*, and you're already wet and hypothermic.

At that point, staying dry becomes a little more important.

Well, if "you're already wet and hypothermic" then "staying dry" isn't really possible. And being wet isn't going to get your tent up any dryer. Like I say (or steal from Rusty, but then that's my sorta real name too), "it don't matter." Whatever you try, that dang tent is doing to be damp-to-wet (one assumes you did your best to seam seal those allegedly "taped" seams).

So it's 34, going to 10, and you're wet. Dear, me! What DO you Do? Well, as I've taught a couple hundred people over the years, You do the smart thing, which is about what I said before: You get out of direct wind into your mostly (but not completely) dry tent/shelter, youget into whatever you have that's mostly dry, you get inside your mostly dry sleeping bag, you eat some carbs to keep body temp up and you minimize stress by either (a) taking that prozac and/or (b) realizing that you're just gonna be in a damp tent.

The Weasel

[sdoownek]

All of which is a great departure from your theme, intended or not, of "wet is good!"

[The Weasel]

Dear friend Sdownek ---

Let us not start a flame on this; I am making a point that many - I have no interest if it is "most" or "all" but I am confident that it is "many" of those who do significant long treks (let's say, 2 weeks at a time or more) realize that no amount of gear can (or, to some of us, should) beat Ma Nature, and that, in most cases, it's simply not even warranted. "Wet" is neither good, nor bad, very frankly, any more than "dry" is; there have been days along the ridges of NC and VA that I've been so damn hot and dry I prayed for rain...and days - my favorite was watching the rain (and, yeah, being damp) at Overmountain Shelter, as it rolled over the ridge into the valley below. About all I can say is, "wet is wet." And, to be redundant, that no amount of effort within anything approaching reason (especially in a thru hike) is going to allow someone to pitch a tent in the rain and keep it dry inside. It just ain't going to happen.

That being the case, the trick is to realize how to live with it, under either the somewhat pessimistic approach to live of "what can't be cured must be endured" or the more Zen-like approach of, "It don't matter," in the sense that "this is now, this is life, and life beats hell out of most alternatives." (As someone who has, in fact, been clinically dead, trust me on this...it's true!)

So once you realize, "I can either obsess the hell out of myself, and hate that stinking lousy ugly nasty rotten cold wet water or I can learn to live with it, continue to function, stay safe and even enjoy life, despite being damp or even somewhat wet," then you have a choice, and you aren't dependent on how much gear you can bring (would a battery operated wet/dry vac help? sure! how much did you say that weighed?), but that you ARE dependent on your frame of mind, and whether you can learn to thrive on adverse conditions.

No, "wet is good" is not my theme, here. But worrying about wet to the point where if you ARE wet then you HAVE to be unhappy, well...

It don't matter.

The Weasel

[smokymtnsteve]

Originally posted by The Weasel
(As someone who has, in fact, been clinically dead, trust me on this...it's true!)

The Weasel

some of us who are already dead ...know things that the ones still living don't....:banana

[sdoownek]

Originally posted by The Weasel
Let us not start a flame on this; I am making a point that many - I have no interest if it is "most" or "all" but I am confident that it is "many" of those who

flame?
over being wet?
what?

Whatever. I'm going outside. It's raining.

[Blue Jay]

I'll take the "wet is good" philosphy. The colors are brighter, the smells stronger, you see more animals, you don't have to worry about water as the trail is a stream. As Weasel has clearly said there are ways to stay warm. Yes, you have to be aware of hypothermia, but we evolved getting wet long before GoreTex or raincoats. When you read the journals it sounds like thruhikers are dying out there. If you just decide to change your perceptions about rain, hiking is soooo much better.

[The Weasel]

Had to laugh at Blue Jay's comment about the journals and "thru hikers dying out there." I'd just reread mine, in the part where I had a total three day "swim" from Davenport Gap north. Wow, did I whine about being wet. 'Course, I was either sitting inside my tarp, mostly dry, sorta, or inside a shelter, mostly dry, sorta, with not much else to do than whimper to my teddy bear (don't ask).

I think my point (I'm assuming I have one) is that journals are sometimes not a "newspaper" but a friend you talk to to vent frustrations, rather than perfect facts, and also that sometimes the "complaints" are really a perverse kind of happiness: Ask most thru hikers at the end of the day, and what you'll hear is, "Too hot." "Too cold." "Too wet." "Too tired. "Horrible climb." "Hate rice." "Water's too far." Now, ask me if I loved it? Oh, yeah. Big time.

Setting up a tent in the rain is about the same as cooking in the dark, or walking up those bloody (yeah, one of 'em even NAMED that) Georgia hills, or any of the other parts of a thru hike. You just do it, and learn not to worry about it a lot. It's a part of life.

The (not "a", but "The") Weasel

[MOWGLI]

One thing that I have always found amusing is that you rarely find a thru-hiker talking about the more miserable moments of the hike. I can recall many times when I was just plain miserable. Cold, wet, hot, sweat, chafed, bitten, exhausted, sore. Yet, when someone who hasn't hiked asks me about the experience - I tend to focus on the more glorious moments. Sunrises, sunsets, loons, moose, bears, the scream of a bobcat, butterflies, laughter with fellow hikers...

You get the point.

[icemanat95]

Living in the backcountry under normal (less than ideal) conditions is a matter of understanding conditions and limitations and managing your risks accordingly. You KNOW that you are going to get wet, you know at times you will get cold, you know that at other times you will be hot and dry and chaffed and blistered and achy. You know that it is likely that sooner or later you will get caught on top of a ridge when a thunderstorm blows in. If you are out there enough over the years, sooner or later, you will find yourself in a situation that COULD kill you if you make the wrong move. The trick is having the experience to not make the wrong moves, and when you do make the wrong move, to know how to recognize it and avoid the long death spiral down a poor decision branch. There are very few backcountry deaths that result from a single bad decision. Most often that one bad decision leads to another, and another and another as mental function is degraded by conditions and events. Very often there are multiple opportunities to step off this course, but people get too wrapped up in ego or pride or despair to take the actions needed to survive.

Blue Jay will accuse me of being alarmist. Perhaps I am. I want people to be aware of the real risks and take steps to learn how to manage them. The more you know, the better prepared you are, the LESS you need to occupy your mind with the forms of preparation. When awareness of risk becomes second nature, you don't need to concentrate on it until a real threat is upon you, and the better prepared you are, the less you need to worry about coping with a risk or threat, because you KNOW what to do, you know how to do it, and you known that you can do it because you've practiced it before. Preparation is freedom.

Being wet and cold also won't necessarily kill you. Hypothermia will kill you if you fail to recognize and treat it. You just need to learn to recognize and treat hypothermia. I've been there and done that. I've been hypothermic and treated people with hypothermia, both are no fun at all. The biggest risk of being hypothermic is as the condition progresses, mental function drops to the levels of a 5 year old. You lose the judgement to save yourself, so you need to do something before things get that bad.

As The Weasel says, the most important thing about being wet in the backcountry is that you learn to accept it. Once you accept that you will be wet, you can learn to deal with it. When you understand your own, physical, mental and spiritual limitations and abilities, you can better understand exactly what you need to do to manage the risks and stresses.

Long before there was Goretex, long before coated nylon, silnylon, rubber slickers or even oilskins, people lived and thrived in the backcountry, under conditions that would make the average thru-hiker CRINGE. So being without high-tech raincoats and shelters is NOT a death sentence, it is a challenge and a risk to have NO shelter and no warmth though.

If you have the physical resources, some folks choose to continue walking to keep their muscles generating heat, but for that decision to work you need to have sufficient ready fuel and sufficient insulation to hold enough body heat to keep the individual warm until adequate shelter is reached. But that approach won't work for everyone. If you are already knackered and cold, and do not have the capacity to keep moving indefinitely, you MUST seek shelter and warmth. That's what I mean about understanding one's own capacities.

As far as hiking in the rain is concerned, I differ slightly with Blue Jay, but only slightly. Rain unlocks a lot of the life in the world. But while it is raining, living things tend to hide a bit, they seek shelter and warmth themselves in the rain. Likewise, rain is a hunter's friend to some extent, because it hides their scent. It grounds scent compounds quickly, stripping them right out of the air, preventing prey animals from smelling them. The rain washes scent down to the ground where it filters into the ground and gradually dissappears. All scent does this. This is something hunters and hunting supply companies have studied exhaustively. To understand scent and how it works, to control it, neutralize it and take the massive Olafactory advantage deer and other animals have over human beings. So rain and snow actually deaden scent for the short term, But once the rain stops knocking the scent compounds out of the air, everything POPS with life, and then SCENT!!! Especially spruces and balsams, moss and soil, rotting leaves and flowers.

If you are going to spend significant amounts of time in the backcountry, you need to learn to accept all of this and deal with it.

[The Weasel]

In such a totally practical manner that it's beautiful, Iceman is incredibly correct: All of these adverse conditions have been with humankind from the beginning; as he aptly says, the trick is to realize that, and to know what - if anything - one can do, or must do, to 'make it'. I hope you'll all forgive a tale...

I've know that for a couple decades, but I really, really, really realized it in a 36 hour period that was one of my most wonderful on the Trail. I'd had rain every blasted day for 6 in a row, and hadn't dried fully out, when I got into a total downpour 5 miles from Overmountain Gap. I finally came to the gap, and read what I had never known before, the National Park Service marker, at the top of the saddle where the "Overmountain Trail" crosses the AT to descend down into North Carolina. It was a pouring monsoon, but I read the marker, and remembered some of my history...funny that "The Patriot" was hitting the theaters just then, and that I would finally see it when I got to Damascus. I hiked down to the wondrous "Overmountain Shelter," and was alone for the next day and a half, as I waited out what I thought was horribly cold, wet weather.

The "Overmountain Men" were hundreds of pioneers living on the west ridge of the Appalachians, called into militia service in September 1780. In truly horrible conditions, they walked and rode over 250 miles, across the Appalachians and down into the lowlands of NC, where they harried and then beat the holy **** out of the best army that the Royal Army had ever fielded at the Battle of King's Mountain. To get there, they marched through wet, freezing temperature, in poor clothing and with cold food - grits, some meat - only until they could descend from the hills. And then they won the battle that forced Cornwallis back into Yorktown. But for them, Prince Charles and his sorry family might actually matter; these men won it all.

So as I sat, alone and chilled, in OM Shelter, I watched those clouds roll over the ridge, and down into the valley below. I am not exaggerating to say that I felt I could even sense those men going down, and many - not all - coming back. Cold, wet, but knowing how to accept the conditions God gave them while not letting those conditions still their destiny. That rain, that damping cold, those clouds lifted my spirit so fully that, since, I have never felt concern about weather, whether harsh or kind; I do what is needful to care for myself, and accept the rest as part of the beauty of the free and good life those men and their families gave me. And, in a different way, it warmed me and warms me still. It's part of why I go into the woods...the chill and the damp, or the wind and the sun, all let me feel a little of what they and so many others have felt. The Clarks, the Rogers. The Coulters and the Pikes. The Cadillacs and the Joliets. The DeSotos and the Serras.

So it doesn't matter exactly how you set up a tent and stay dry. You do your best. What DOES matter, though, is that you do just that: Your best, but realizing that perfection is not what matters, but accepting the beauty of moments that the homebound, the willing shut ins, will never understand. You're wet. You're cold. And yet you're safe, and you're safe because of your own strength and, in some small way, your own courage. That is why we're out there.

The Weasel

[karensioux]

jeez weasel.........you gave me the goose bumps with your story and I am so ready for the rain and the cold now.........I will stay safe but I am so excited about everything right now! I love this place!
k

[bunbun]

Originally posted by Blue Jay
I'll take the "wet is good" philosphy. The colors are brighter, the smells stronger, you see more animals, you don't have to worry about water as the trail is a stream. As Weasel has clearly said there are ways to stay warm. Yes, you have to be aware of hypothermia, but we evolved getting wet long before GoreTex or raincoats. When you read the journals it sounds like thruhikers are dying out there. If you just decide to change your perceptions about rain, hiking is soooo much better.

I'm not qgonna disagree with you

[bunbun]

Originally posted by Blue Jay
I'll take the "wet is good" philosphy. The colors are brighter, the smells stronger, you see more animals, you don't have to worry about water as the trail is a stream. As Weasel has clearly said there are ways to stay warm. Yes, you have to be aware of hypothermia, but we evolved getting wet long before GoreTex or raincoats. When you read the journals it sounds like thruhikers are dying out there. If you just decide to change your perceptions about rain, hiking is soooo much better.

Now - if I can try that again - without the spastic finger......
I'm not gonna quite disagree with you - but in my view, it's not a matter of good or bad - it just "is." Rain is as much a part of a long hike as eating - and being wet will happen even if it doesn't rain. In fact, when hiking, you're wet more times when it doesn't rain than when it does. The secret is to stay "warm wet" rather than "cold wet."

Long after you finish the hike, you may find, as I do, that rain is one of the many things that trigger flashbacks - sometimes to specific places on the Trail, sometimes just a general longing to be back there, and sometimes the urge to chuck it all and go hiking again - NOW.

The historical perspective? Is great. And the AT is just overflowing with history for those who are interested in it. Unfortunately, most thruhikers somehow fail to put much time or thought into that aspect of the Trail.

Another thought - be careful what you take out of journals. When we sent a copy of our journal from a trip in the Rockies to a sister-in-law, she read it and then said: "I'm sorry your trip was so terrible." And our reaction was "Terrible? It was great. We had a wonderful hike."

[MedicineMan]

I like BlueJays attitude toward rain...it is a good thing, often forcing one to slow down a bit and smell some trees.
There are tents out there with integral flys..Hilleberg makes this type as do others and the inside stays dry relatively...some of us use hammocks, for us it is easier-my fly in in an outside pocket and goes up first betwinxed the trees, then the hammock which was dry inside the pack and sil-nyl pack liner....one thing my old bones love about the hammock scene is being in standup mode for most of the setup...weird but rain is less irritating to me when standing then when bending over putting in stakes and stretching out a tent.
I suffer the weight penalty and carry an 18oz tarp but the real estate underneath is worth it, and if you had to shut off a shelter it goes a long way in achieving such.

[Blue Jay]

The Weasel (I never meant to call you a Weasel). Your words in your last post were some of the best I've ever read. Thank you.

[Kerosene]

I won't be as eloquent (or as long-winded :D ) as The Weasel, but I had a similar ephiphany while completing a 10-mile section in eastern New York (Taconic State Parkway north to Depot Hill Road) on a foggy, drizzly, 36-degree day in late March 2000. I had done a 17-mile section from Depot Hill to the Connecticut border the day before, so I knew that there would be places with up to a foot of late spring snow on the trail.

I did fine for the first few hours (saw my first wild turkeys strolling across the Trail 30 yards in front of me through the mist), but started to get tired towards the end from the prior day's hike and a week of intense meetings. As I started up the last mountain, the rain came a little harder, the temperature dropped, and the snow got a lot deeper; up to my upper thighs in some places with a crust that sometimes didn't break through.

I knew I was tiring, but I only had a few miles to go, so I pushed on, thinking about Revolutionary War soldiers trying to slog through such conditions with no warm car and clothes at the end of the journey. My pace slowed as I tired and I stopped and stood for a bit to catch my breath, admiring the dedication and sharing just a smidgen of the exhaustion that such soldiers must have endured.