Farewell Advice

I tried calling up various stores to get someone to tell me a few last tidbits of advice before I set out on my backpacking adventure in a week, but the only people I could manage to get ahold of really knew nothing about backpacking, just the products they sold.

So I decided to resort to the friend circle, asking around if anybody knew of an "expert backpacker" that I could talk to for an hour or so. Wouldn't you know, a friend from Penn State (Mt. Alto Campus) had a friend who is on the Outdoorsman Team at their school (you know the guys you see on ESPN chopping down huge trees in just a couple of minutes? Yeah that is him).

He gave me his phone number, and before I knew it Ethan Wall was telling me all about how he was going to be creating trails in the Allegheny Forest and leading backpacking trips all summer as an internship.

He talked for about an hour regarding himself before he paused finally, realizing that the whole point of the conversation was to help me out.

Here are the main points that Wall told me to keep in mind when backpacking. "Nothing else is really going to matter to you out there...," he started:

A.) You aren't even going to be thinking about girls. Something about the wild brings out the survival man in you, and sex is going to be the last thing on your mind. ("Thanks person I have known for an hour...")

B.) Breakfast should be nothing more than a cup of hot tea, coffee and some granola, you can't weigh yourself down. Lunch is on the go, no time for stopping if you want to get a lot done, so trail mix and nuts it is. Dinner is the only time you should be sitting down to eat. That's when you'll pull out your freeze dried feast and dig in. Don't let them fool you though, that shit doesn't feed two if your a man. ("I hope I'm 'man' enough to eat it all..."

C.)Clean your damn water. Two things will ruin your trip, well three, your feet, water and head. We'll talk about the other two later. You need a water purifier, or tablets. Pop those suckers in there and you are good to go. Drink a lot though.

D.) Now for the other two. Your feet need to be taken care of. Do you have hiking shoes? Good. Break those puppies in. Clothes too, clothes can be bad. DO NOT WEAR COTTON! That will hold all its weight in water. Wear that Under-Armour stuff. Feels nice. Keep the scabs off of your feet and change socks frequently. Keep your head in the game too. Don't get all wimpy half-way through. Nobody likes a wimp. ("Good thing I'm going alone..."

E.) Last, bring a notepad. Anything that you think of that you are going to need for next time, write down.

With that, Wall hung up the phone abruptly after saying that he needed to run to practice. His grizzly attitude really got me excited and nervous for this trip both at the same time.

My next post will be discussing the thoughts of others on solo travel, hope that some of the 'wise' words of Ethan Wall touched you guys as well.

Best Travels,
Matthew