Fitness Review - 4/30

This week was a bit rainy, but I snuck in the walks when I could.  Not as much training with the pack.  I really have to get on some trails, for walking in a business park can only do so good.      

Day	Exercise	Distance (Miles)	Time (Min)
Sun	Walk.	1.5	30 min
Mon	Wii, Walk (with pack)	1.5	60 min
Tue	Wii	0.0	30 min
Wed	Wii, Walk(with pack)	1.5	60 min
Thu	Wii	0.0	30 min
Fri	Wii, Walk (with pack)	1.5	90 min
Sat	Wii, Walk.	2.5	75 min

Ending Weight: 207.7 lbs.  Gained back the 1.1 lbs. I lost last week.  Lucky the Easter Candy is almost gone. 

The Boy Scouts sort of had it right.

Another aspect of Personal Hygene is your clothing.  Sweat, dirt, dust, sunscreen, and bug repellent don't just collect on your body, they collect on your clothes as well.  Using a Boy Scout method (wearing the same clothes without washing) may be undesirable, it's not too far off.

The key to backpacking is getting clothing that you can wash easily.  You may wish to go hiking in jeans, but the thick cotton fabric makes them very unforgiving when washing.  The best clothing to use for this is lightweight, usually synthetic, breathable and something that dries easily.  One of the sources suggests that as soon as you make camp at the end of the day, change into "clean" clothes and wash out the clothes you are wearing.  Assuming it's not raining, that gives your clothes all evening and night to dry, and by the time you pack them, they should be dry.

When cleaning the clothes, it's sufficient to rinse them off in water.  People have been washing clothes that way for millenium, only recently have we decided that we need soap to make them truly clean.  (I won't suggest that you beat them together between rocks like cavemen, but you get the drift.)

So the Boy Scouts sort of had it right, wear the same clothes all the time.  Just take a lesson from their mothers too, wash your clothes. 

Bird Baths

Bathing poses a problem for a hiker.  The most effective way, hopping in a pond, is challenging when the water has just melted from ice or snow.  If you've got unlimited amount of fuel, you can heat up enough water to take a shower, however, that is also not practical.  So you're limited to what we called as a child "Bird Baths": heating up a pot of water and spashing it on your body. 

The key here is washing where you need to.  The key is to concentrate on areas that sweat and have skin on skin contact.  Arm pits, groin area and between toes are areas where sweat and dirt tend to congregate and begin forming rashes.  Untreated, this can lead to open sores, blistering and pain. 

So, bring a pot for boiling some water (even lukewarm is better than freezing), some biodegradable soap, a washcloth or sponge and a quick dry towel.  Find a somewhat secluded area at least 200 feet from a water source, and give yourself a quick bird bath.  

What's that smell?

Imagine walking with 40 lbs on your back for 5 or more hours in the sun while it's hot outside.  Naturally, you're going to sweat.  Now imagine doing this for 12 straight days without a decent shower.  Then imagine having your loved one pick you up to drive you home.  Only the strongest of marriages can survive such an ordeal. 

Face it, on the trail, I'm going to stink.  I'm sure I'll be sweating profusely, and deodorant is a no-no (the scent tends to attract bugs).  I'm sure I'll be slathering on the sunblock, since anything less than SPF 30 will leave me lobsterlike.  And then there's the DEET, which is used liberally by tree huggers and back to nature dwellers everywhere to keep the mosquitoes away.  (Ironic, isn't it?) 

Apparently, according to Rick and Allen, I'll get used to the "clean is a relative term" concept and won't mind it if my nasal cavities are scrubbed away by the stench.  They say that a quick dip in a stream is probably the most effective way of cleaning yourself off.  (The emphasis will be on the quick part, given that the stream started from a glacier a mile or two upstream.)  If my experience with the pond is anything, I shouldn't feel any extremities in less than a minute.  Hypothermia is your friend. 

Hand Washing

Every backpacking source that I've read have been emphatic about the importance of hand washing on the trail.  They point to the case that normal rules you use at home should be the same as on the trail (wash after using the toilet, before and after cooking, and before eating).  These are just much harder to do when there isn't a steady stream of sanitary water coming from a faucet. 

There are different ways to clean your hands, but the easiest are the hand sanitizers.  These are great for sanitizing hands before eating, for they are very effective at killing off germs and other nasties.  What they don't do is clean your hands of dirt and other crud.  For that, plain old soap and water are required.  However, soap can be unhealthy for the environment, particularly if the phosphates in the soap get into the water supply and create algae blooms.   So, I'll need to get some special soap that doesn't have any phosphates. 

When setting up a washing station in camp, the standard is to set it up 200 feet from camp, and 200 feet from a water source.  The objective is to let the water, soap and any dirt soak into the ground and allow the ground to use it as a filter.  Don't pour it on any vegetation, for it may kill it or animals may dig it up if there's something tasty in the water.  (Apparently, the animals on the mountain will find most anything tasty.) 

So, the rule seems to be, keep them clean to avoid the spread of disease.  Didn't we learn that in the 1700's? 

Day in the Pond

Since it was a nice day on Saturday, I spent much of the day cleaning out the pond in the back yard.  Our fish pond is not like one of those anteseptic, cute ponds that you see in the Martha Steward magazines.  No, our pond is au-natural, that is, trying to become a swamp by filling itself it with detritus.  So once per year, in a vain attempt to keep some water in place for the fish to swim in, I climb in and scrape out a bunch of mostly pine needles. 

Saturday was that day.  The air temperature was in the 60's, however, the water temperature was in the 40's.  I got it halfway pumped out before I had to climb in.  After losing all the feeling in my feet and having the nerves in my hands tingling because of the cold, I fished out what I could and called it a day. 

That got me to thinking, though, what about hygiene on the trail?  Skinny Dipping in glacier runoff can be seen as a sure-fire way to hypothermia.  So, I guess I'll have to do some research and share with you what I find out about keeping yourself sort of clean on the trail. 

Fitness Review - 4/23

Ended the week with a beautiful day in the Northwest.  Sunny and in the 60's, I took the opportunity to do some yard work, most notably cleaning out the pond.    

Day	Exercise	Distance (Miles)	Time (Min)
Sun	Walk.	1.5	30 min
Mon	Wii, Walk (with pack)	1.5	60 min
Tue	Wii, Walk (no pack)	3.0	90 min
Wed	Wii, Walk	1.5	60 min
Thu	Wii, Walk (with pack)	1.5	60 min
Fri	Golf	2.5	90 min
Sat	Yard Work	0.0	180 min

Ending Weight: 206.6 lbs, down another 1.1 lbs.