Most Common Questions Non-hikers Ask Thru-hikers

hey y'all dixie here i don't know how everybody in the rest of the world is doing but here in alabama we're just trying not to melt anyway today i would like to address the top 10 questions that backpackers and through hackers are most commonly asked by folks of the non-hacking variety chances are if you've been backpacking for any amount of time you know the answers to these questions and you'll likely find them comical that anybody would even ask this but i try to remember that all of us before we ever learn a certain skill or get into a hobby probably ask some sort of silly questions including backpacking so today i want to answer these questions and that way you've got a video to share with anybody who is maybe shown a little bit of interest in getting in the backpacking world and might have the same questions to find out what the most commonly asked questions were although i had a pretty good idea because i've been asked these myself i took a poll on facebook just created a post asking what y'all have been asked by folks who don't backpack and that probably think you're crazy for getting out and doing it yourself and this is what y'all came back with so in the order from the least most asked common question to the most common question let's get started the first question is what do you do out there or don't you get bored or any variety of that same idea that's like what what exactly goes on when you're out there backpacking i suppose it depends on the individual but for me i don't get bored because nature is kind of like you know 3d tv there's all sorts of stuff going on with butterflies flying and pollinators all sorts of critters that you can encounter out there and i love capturing that stuff there's all sorts of stuff going on if you just take the time to kind of look around and pay attention all sorts of bugs and animals i mean fires in themselves we call that hiker television watching a waterfall or even just clouds go by at a beautiful view in day to day life we're probably over stimulated with all the electronics and screens and just everything else that we've got going on in our lives so to just kind of slow things down and be entertained by nature i think that that's important because that's really the root of where we come from now with that said if you are on a six-month backpacking trip or some sort of extended trip like that you might find things feeling a little monotonous over time you know if every day you're doing the same thing waking up in the morning walking for miles and miles and then going to sleep at night so some of the ways that people will try to spruce things up a little bit or try to feel more connected to civilization is maybe listen to audio books or some music but if you're doing stuff like that out on trail be sure to be respectful of others and if you're wearing earbuds leave one out so you can still hear what's going on around you especially like rattlesnakes rattling and things like that the next most frequently asked question is how do you do laundry and shower so hygiene is definitely a concern of folks who are not familiar with the idea of backpacking and rightly so i mean it's not normal in our society to be just stinky and not bathed for days on end but the truth is if you're going out backpacking that's likely what you're gonna do and then once you get home you're gonna really appreciate that shower now there are some things that you can do to kind of spruce yourself up a little bit while you're out on trail including what we call trail laundry and that's really where you're just rinsing out your clothes and getting the salts and a little bit of the grime out of them until you can get to town and do proper laundry in a washing machine also you can do things like use baby powder in your hair to kind of take some of the oils out of it you can use baby wipes to help kind of freshen up the essential areas i'm a big fan of baby wipes and definitely use them out on each stretch of trail you can also go for a swim that can be really refreshing on a hot day especially if you find something like a waterfall but it usually doesn't last very long until you're feeling pretty grody and stinky again one of the mottos of backpackers and probably especially through hikers is embrace the stink i mean it's pretty bad but after a few days you'll probably find yourself getting used to your scent the next one is one that i have certainly been asked a lot probably because i'm a female and that is but you do go with a group right and then i proceed to say no i'm pretty much a solo backpacker and folks just lose their minds i know it seems foreign to a lot of people that an individual would just want to go somewhere alone especially in the middle of nowhere in the woods but the truth is if you're out on a high traffic trail and prime hiking season for whatever area you're in you're probably going to run into other people who are out there enjoying the same things and a lot of people who go out in the wilderness like to enjoy some alone time and just get away from people so yes it makes sense that they would want to go on a solo trip as long as you're taking the best safety precautions that you can you're informing people of where you're going when you're going what your plan is when they should expect you to return you've also got the 10 essentials of hiking and especially if you've got something like a personal locator beacon with an sos button in case you should find yourself in trouble then even if you go out into the wilderness completely solo and don't see anybody else you're probably going to be all right going on a solo trip is something you can certainly work up to starting with day hikes and then maybe an overnight trip just a mile from your car and then you work up from there i honestly think that even if you're the type of person who hates being alone getting out in nature and spending some alone time out there is probably good for you the next question is the one that probably makes me giggle the most and that is how do you carry six months worth of food so obviously this is one that's directed at a through hacker which is somebody who's going from point a to point b over a very long trail like the appalachian trail for example where you start at springer mountain georgia and go to mount katahdin in maine all in one go and so folks will probably assume that you don't get off trail at all to go into town and resupply but you actually do i would say on that particular trail every three to seven days at most you're usually coming to either civilization or a road that will lead you to civilization and you can either shuttle or hitchhike to get there resupply on your food shower laundry etc and then get back out on trail also many times kind of associated with this question folks might instead of assuming that you carry all of your food they assume that you don't carry any food or maybe that you supplement your food with foraging and squirrels and i don't know what folks have against squirrels but it's always squirrels it's never like so do you kill a deer out there and eat it or rabbits or do you go fishing it's always the eat squirrels i even had a fella suggest to me that i should carry with me on my through hike of the appalachian trail a rat trap and hook it to a tree so i could catch squirrels and clean them and cook them so i just want to explain that backpacking especially something like a long distance trip like a through hike and something like survivalism setting up some sort of base camp or bush crafting those are two totally different things when you're on a through hike you don't have time to stop and catch animals and skin them out and cook them and do all of that because you have to do so many miles per day now with that said there are folks who might take a fishing rod with them and go fishing and supplement their food with that probably less people doing that than you would think though i've done that before on my trips but it was a very particular area where i heard that there was good fish in i did forage some on the appalachian trail and found some berries ramps mushrooms just different things that i could eat along the way just to have something fresh but i've never heard of a backpacker that solely has their meal based on what they find in the woods because they really couldn't keep up the amount of calories they need to make those miles and midway down the list of the most frequently asked questions by people who do not hack is do you carry a gun now i understand that if you don't live in the united states this question probably seems absolutely absurd to you but things are different in different countries and different cultures and even sometimes in different regions in different countries like this question is probably more asked by people who live in rural areas or down here in the south in fact i think that this was the most common question i was asked when i was preparing to do my through hike of the appalachian trail now personally i do not carry a firearm while i'm backpacking but there are some people who do carry with them on backpacking trips i'm going to go out on a limb though and say that through hikers so people who are on long distance backpacking trips i would say like 98 to 99 percent of people do not carry a firearm with them and if they start with one then typically they send them home i've done an entire video on this topic in fact i've done two entire videos on this topic so if you want to learn more about that and why people do or do not then you can check out those videos next up is so where do you sleep at night do you like sleep outside if you are going out on a backpacking trip you're likely sleeping in some sort of backpacking shelter like a tent or a hammock there are also different options like bivvies and tarps and some people just cowboy camp out on the ground but i think that folks often have a hard time understanding that when somebody's going out on a backpacking trip that they're not carrying like a 10 pound 10 person you know ginormous camping tent with them in the world of backpacking there's been a lot of good technology that's allowed folks to really minimize the weight of their pack and there are many good backpacking tents that weigh under three pounds for folks who have never been camping let alone backpacking i think they have a hard time trying to understand why somebody would want to sleep outside at night but if you think about it as a society and in the history of man it's a relatively new thing for us to live in such highfalutin homes and and such wonderful shelters you know it was more common to be in something that was kind of like being outside more so than being inside like we think of it nowadays now this one always gets me what do you do when it rains and the most simple answer is you get wet there's some pretty lightweight rain gear out there whether it's a rain jacket and pants a rain kilt a poncho some people even hack with lightweight umbrellas but the truth is if you're walking long enough in a slow soaking rain and rain gear you're probably going to end up wet anyway whether it's from the rain itself or from the sweat underneath your rain gear so we just do the best that we can and yes it can be problematic when you're wanting to stop and set up camp and it's pouring rain and you got to pull things out of your pack but you just have to try to find a routine that works best for you whether that's kind of waiting until the rain dies down or trying to find a more wooded area so some of the rain is being intercepted by leaves and then kind of hide your pack under your bush while you're pulling your stuff out to set up camp i try to make a note especially on a rainy looking day to keep my shelter in an easily accessible area that way i can open up my pack take that out real quick and then throw everything inside and finish kind of setting up and getting comfortable once i'm out of the rain as far as the pack itself and the contents within there are things that you can do to more or less waterproof it like using a waterproof pack a pack liner stuff sacks that are weatherproof and even ziploc bags but if you're an optimist then you might look at getting rained on as a free shower almost everybody gets asked this next one and that is aren't you afraid of blank and in the blank you can fill in anything that that individual is personally afraid of like lions and tigers and bears oh my but in all actuality especially here in the united states mountain lions bears snakes and some of those other animals are things that you should be concerned about and know the proper precautions to take when you're hiking in the areas where they live and also being afraid of the dark is not an abnormal thing for adults especially when they get out in the woods and there are ways that you can work through that maybe that's starting off with a friend so that you're not alone and maybe you'll even share the same tense so you're right in there together or carry extra batteries so you can leave your headlamp on all night long but anything that you find personally fearful for you it's really a good exercise to try to work through some of that because facing things that you're afraid of will probably help you grow more than you realize and stepping outside of the box and doing something outside of your comfort zone that might be a little bit scary is probably one of the best ways that i know of to boost confidence and now we're getting down to the nitty gritty in more than one way because the second most frequently asked question is where do you go to the bathroom because this is a function that most animals do daily then it's definitely something to consider when you're going out on a backpacking trip some of the folks who shared with me said that they've even been asked questions like well how far apart are the bathrooms spaced or how do you manage to hold going to the bathroom for your whole backpacking trip because people don't even fathom that you can just go to the bathroom outside because anywhere well at least not too close to a water source can be a bathroom and somebody else said that they tell folks who asked them this question that they don't go to the bathroom because there are none out there sometimes on backpacking trails though you will come across privys or if you're going through an area that has a state park or something like that there may be a toilet set up but for the most part you're just left to your own devices and most of the time people just pee on the ground you know just kind of get off trail so one you're not getting seen by everybody but two so that nobody sits down in your pee because i have done that before and then if you're going number two you want to make sure that you're away from any water sources the trail or camping areas and you dig a hole six inches deep do your business and then cover it up and we call that a cat hole and when you're sitting there digging the hole you will definitely understand why it's called that especially if it's a sandy gravelly area because i feel like a cat in a litter box almost every time i go number two in the wilderness and finally the most commonly asked question is why like why would you want to go do that don't you know that they make cars and one guy said that his wife asked him every time he goes backpacking you know you have a perfectly good home why would you want to go live like a homeless person and the only thing that i can say is sometimes i ask myself this while i'm out backpacking but i feel like spending time in nature and backpacking is such a gratifying experience especially in hindsight because once you get home you so much more appreciate the simple things in life like a warm meal a toilet that flushes a comfortable bed not having to not having to sleep outside in bad weather and just you know all around the comforts of society and also spending time in nature has shown to help with depression and anxiety so i think there are a lot of reasons that people do enjoy getting out there and a lot of times i think that folks are like i'm never probably really gonna love this but i'll give it a try and then it becomes almost like an addiction but i can certainly think of worse things to be addicted to than nature and backpacking so with that i hope that some of y'all who have been referred to this video today have gotten some of these questions answered and maybe understand why your crazy friends enjoy getting out and spending time in the wilderness like the animals that they are thank you all so much for watching and if you enjoyed this video today don't forget to subscribe before you go and we will see you all next time no

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 66,180

Rating: 4.94628 out of 5

Keywords: travel, hiking, backpacking, thru-hiking, nature, squirrels, Appalachian trail, pacific crest trail, continental divide trail, cdt, pct, at, long distance backpacking, trail, rivers, outdoors, gear, tent, backpack, backcountry

Id: CtU1t9tKsn8

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020