I didn’t grow up in the woods. Infact, I had very few, very limited encounters with the wild other than in my grandparent’s back yard. But there has been a lot of growing up for me to do in the back country. You see, when I started thru-hiking and being a citizen of the wilderness I was but a child. Like all children I had my outlandish fears of regular occurances, usually based off of mishearing or misunderstanding adults advice.
My fear of snakes lives with me probably more strongly in civilization, therefore has no place being listed as a fear of the wild.
Getting cold. Not just “turn up the thermostat” cold, but cold cold. Chilblains, purple nodules on the outside of your skin from cold wet wind. Frost nip, followed shortly by frostbite, black skin, connected death. Getting cold in the back country will eat your lunch. Literally. All the callories you can carry can be swallowed up by the cold in no time at all.
Imiginario Scenario : Finishing up a 20some mile day coming out of the high Sierra. Two or three miles from camp, a thousand feet below freezing altitude it begins to rain. With big winds too. There are no trees around in these upper saddles so continuing hiking in search of cover is a must. Everything gets wet, the $20 pack cover covers the pack but doesn’t offer any help against the driving rain. Bones are wet as a protected flat spot is found. The expensive, brand new brand pack doesn’t like your tent to be near the top or the bottom. Yard sale. What little private property from the precipitation may have existed is now splayed out in full frontal to the elements while the tent poles and rain fly are tended to. Everything soaks up the moisture, better than Brawny. Home is erected, but not before a full interior wash. No caloric intake in four hours and now even the bic lighter is too wet to ignite the stove. Down looses it’s loft and as the night cools off so do you. Getting wet in the woods is the best way to get cold. Get wet in the woods, get dead in the woods.
Wet feet. A sub fear of wet and or cold, but still a fear of it’s own. Every hiker has a certain degree of this fear, some more than others. You can see the fear written in their footprints as they skirt around puddles. My fear of water and it’s evil nature were vicariously realized through Stoker’s misfortune on the Appalachian Trail. Just a little bit of water in his boots and his feet began to rot under the skin. Trenchfoot, cold water emersion, frostbite from water. Frostslurp? I switched to sandals to battle foot wet head on, years later I would end up buying a waterproof backpack to battle the wet in a different way.
On this hike I have my waterproof backpack, but under the burden of sometimes 50lbs and a lot of the time ice and snow I choose not to wear sandals. Foot wet became a real fear of mine once again, stepping around mud puddles and opting for the convenient downed tree instead of plodding through straight through a river. See my fear of foot wet and wet shoe all over my tracks. Fortunately, the first 600 miles was scarce on water. Unfortunately the first 600 miles of trail ran out a couplenof weeks ago and so did the dry feet.
Real life scenario : (around mile 730)
It’s snowy out. Haven’t walked on or even seen trail in 80+ miles. Light trail runners are very breathable, breathability easily allows snow to melt through to your feet. Wet feet walking in white white snow. It is snowy everywhere but also 60 degrees and no clouds anywhere, the bottom of the snow is melting down to the creeks and rivers. Frozen feet and fields of snow cups, cold hard walking. You climb a thousand feet up, ignoring the snow covered switchbacks in desperate search of warmer feet. A saddle appears, a drop of elevation, a sharp turn and deflating sound of running water. A ford and no way around. Ski down the snow bank into knee deep water. It’s been warm so the water momentarilly warms the feet, by the middle of the ford the water begins freezing them. Powerful water, a stressful waste deep crossing, then your shins begin to break the thin ice on the other side. You climb out of the nearly freezing water onto the nearly melting snow bank and begin another climb. The melting snow sticks to your wet shoes and you hope for a climb to regain feeling in your feet. Repeat. Repeat. Frozen footedly you plod up and over the pass before the end of the day and camp ad close and as soon as you can. The elevation near the passes is well above 10,000′ and the temperature falls well below 20. The sun wakes you up to find totally glazed over shoes. Bang them together and it sounds like ice blocks fighting. You wait for the sun to warm and shoes to thaw. At 9AM it’s still very frozen shoes but you can now get your feet into them atleast. Wet feet from camp and hundreds more miles with frozen or wet shoes ahead.
Frozen shoes in the morning will make anyone wish for a button to push to instantly be back home. In the last seven days I would have pushed that button four times. Now, sitting in the sun in the town of Mammath with my first dry shoes in over a week I think it might not have been that bad. It might have been fun, it might have been enjoyable, whatever it was it wasn’t bad enough to push any button. My feet have survived the freezing wet so far, maybe even thrived in it.
Ive grown up and gotten over my wet feet fear. I know they’re going to be wet less than one mile into the hike tomorrow, I know they will be purple and doughy, I know they will hurt. But I know I’ll climb Donehugh pass and fall down into Yosemite, climb half dome and not have any button to push or any reason to push it. The trick to this trail is just getting out of town before you end up back home.
Growing up
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