The Hike That Must Not Be Repeated: Part 4 - Finding The Sheeter

There is one thing in this world that Paul and I are in total agreement about: the lust for some kind of lightweight energy food that our bodies could totally transform into enough power to climb mountains and not leave any waste. For me, this is a larger dream than it is for Paul, as I am one of those people that take a magazine with me to the bathroom...and not to use for toilet paper. On trips like this one, I constantly found myself in need of 'the facilities' when none were available. I know, some of you are thinking, hey, you're a guy, you're in the woods, what's the big deal? Just try sitting with your bare butt on an old log for 15 minutes, while you watch spiders crawling about and listen for strange sounds of a large furry animal sneaking up behind.

Thus it was, that I'd keep my eye on the map for the next available outhouse coming up on the trail as we were hiking. This day, we had just figured out that there was no way we could make it to the top of Standing Indian Mountain, and about 4pm in the afternoon, decided to turn around and hike back a couple of miles and find a good spot right around dark...soon we were dead tired and wearing our headlamps, hoping there was something flat we could pitch tents on, and me especially hoping that I wasn't going to have to find an old log to sit on after dark...I could feel it coming and knew pretty soon, it was going to be any old log, not something special. I was smart about one thing: most backpackers use special lightweight toilet paper for camping. It's expensive and you don't get very much, but it packs well...me? I bring a whole roll of the best regular toilet paper I can find. I will never run out of that again...ever.

All of this was a source of endless amusement for Paul..and you can now be assured that we are a couple of old guys, when how long it takes to poop becomes a competition.

You must now be getting close to understanding what 'trail crazy' is when two guys hike for days on end, talking about food, politics, the people you just met, where the next water supply is, and how long before we find another outhouse. 

Sitting in your chair in front of your phone or computer, it might be difficult to understand how funny it was, but after hiking all day and finding that somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to put up a sign for the sleeping shelter and then misspelled 'shelter'....had us laughing for a long time...