Tips that'll get you out on trails

NORTH JERSEY — When 48-year-old Kinnelon native Sam Mann first decided to go backpacking about four years ago, he was searching for a pursuit that would not only bring him back to nature, but kick-start his ambition to lose a few pounds.

He’d done some hiking with the Boy Scouts as a kid and occasionally took part in the odd "beer and buddies" overnighter, but this trip, which would have him meet up with a "through-hiker" friend making the trek from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail, would be much different.

They convened at the Delaware Water Gap, he said, and over the next three days, the New York City insurance company worker walked 40 miles with 45 pounds on his back through the best terrain that New Jersey has to offer.

He learned about packs and boots and bears, and how through-hikers mail supplies ahead of themselves from post office to post office. He jammed on the trail with a small guitar, and slept on fire towers that provided spectacular views of the starlight.

"It was the experience of a lifetime," he said. "It was great exercise. And the fatigue, the challenge, the aloneness, the ability to think quietly, the rhythm, the body awareness ... It was really amazing."

Mann hasn’t hit the trail since that Appalachian adventure, but he does plan to get there soon. For a generation that grew up before cable and iPads and smartphones, it’s important, he said.

"[When we were kids], we had a bike, and we had the woods," he said. "Now that I’m an adult, I’m stuck in the rat race, but I felt that it was about getting back to the egg — that kind of thing. Back to a simpler time."

Backpacking, he’s found, is just what the doctor ordered.


Why backpacking?

Although the idea of forging out into the wilderness might not thrill everyone, in reality, there are a number of things that draw people to backpacking, said Russell Rayot, manager of Campmor in Paramus.

Some want to be pretend they’re Daniel Boone, cutting a new trail through the unexplored forest, while others, like Mann, just want to get away from the city for a few days. Rayot is more competitive, and enjoys putting an edge on each of his hikes, always pressing for a faster time or a new peak. His wife, however, enjoys the birdwatching aspect, and carries a small book with her to identify each species.

"We’re doing it together, but it’s for a different reason," he said.

One thing is certain: stepping out on a trailhead with a pack and little else is more daring than sitting at a private site with a car right next to you.

"You’re going out to explore on your own," he said. "It’s more of an adventure."

What to bring, what to leave

Prospective backpackers, Rayot said, first must have a decent pack. Either an internal or external frame is fine, but a bookbag-type that loads up the shoulders and doesn’t have a waist strap will cause soreness and "hotspots" – patches where the skin is rubbed raw by friction – that can lead to blisters.

A good three-season tent will suffice for most trips, and sleeping bags are rated according to temperature and material, each of which has its up and downs: a heavier bag will probably be warmer, but it adds extra weight to your pack. One made of down feathers instead of synthetic fibers will be lighter, but it’s also more expensive and holds no heat when it’s wet.

But, Rayot said, new backpackers can find a good mix without breaking the bank — or their back.

"The lighter [the pack] is, the more enjoyable it is," he said.

One pro-tip: Always lay in a sleeping bag before you buy it. It’s like picking a mattress — there’s no other way to see how it feels.

A sleeping pad, which goes under the bag and separates the camper from the ground, is equally important; although kids can often sleep on yoga mats and be comfortable, Rayot said, adults need more restorative rest when hiking. If you’re going to splurge on a certain thing, this is it.

"Getting a good night’s rest is key, and if you [sleep well] you’ll probably have a better attitude towards the camping," he said.

Bladders or bottles can be used to carry water on short trips, and a water filter, which cleans out the harmful bacteria often found in U.S. waterways, allows hikers to drink from nearly any river.

Rayot noted that a first-timer should only be going a mile or two into the woods to see if their equipment – and their body – works as intended. To ensure the latter, he recommended "training hikes" with a partially weighted pack to get used to the feel of weight on one’s back

"The more you prepare, the more you’re going to enjoy your trip," he said. "Try to find a local area where you’re trying everything out, so you can get out if you find it’s too heavy. You’ll be away from civilization, but not so far out that you’re stuck."

One thing that can stay home? The extra clothes. One pair of pants, one shirt, and one pair of socks is enough.

"Most people are bringing two or three changes of clothes like they’re going on vacation, but in reality, they’re probably never going to use that," he said.

Also, cotton kills, he said, and clothes should be made of something that will wick moisture away from the skin, like wool or some type of synthetic. That means no jeans, sweatpants, or regular t-shirts.


Eating on the trail

The days of awful camp food are long gone, Rayot said, and now, hikers’ dinners are limited only by a person’s imagination.

Hard cheeses and pepperoni work, as does the old standby of Ramen noodles, and macaroni and cheese can be a filling lunch or dinner.

A plethora of freeze-dried meals also await, and store shelves are lined with just-add-water mixes such as Cajun chicken and rice, fettuccini alfredo, and mocha mousse pie. Some inventive Boy Scouts have mixed their hot chocolate with their oatmeal to create a warm, chocolatey cereal blend, and Rayot has even brought a Cornish hen and cooked it on a rotisserie over an open fire.

"It’s what you prefer," he said. "You can do a lot out there for two or three days."

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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'Turning off' on Mount Marcy's slopes

The world is too much with us; late and soon / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers / Little we see in Nature that is ours." - Wordsworth

For the first few thousand years of humanity’s existence, life was really all about living long enough to live some more.

It wasn’t about "finding one’s calling," or searching the self-help aisle in the local brick-and-mortar bookstore in search of some book that will finally, finally be able to tell us what’s "missing."

No. It was simpler. Gather food. Build a fire. Make a shelter. Have a family, and hope they live long enough to help you gather more food. They’re modest goals by today’s standards — so modest, in fact, that many of us feel we’re now entitled to them just because we’re alive.

It wasn’t always so, hard as that may be to believe in this world of blazing rapid-fire advertisements and pinging push notifications that bombard the iPhones, tablets, and televisions that haunt us every waking moment.

But it’s remarkable how fast that all melts away the second you strap a pack to your back and step out onto a trailhead. Within hours, you’re back to the basics — build a fire, find some water, set up a shelter — and most of your thoughts revolve around your next step.

You don’t quite sleep through the night when you’re out there, either. It’s as if your subconscious opens that long-shut eye, the one we all closed years ago after barricading ourselves behind high gates and sheetrock walls, and you become aware of every rustling leaf in the darkness. The water you filter from the stream tastes different, also — not quite so "pure." Or maybe it’s more pure, because it doesn’t have all of the chlorine we load into it, and its flavor is that of the rocks it glides over, the moss it flows through, and the fish that swim in it. You taste the earth, instead of the chemicals we’ve created from the elements we’ve found.

You realize that fire is actually pretty important. We don’t pay much attention to that, even though figuring out the cheapest, easiest way to boil water has been civilization’s primary goal since the Industrial Revolution. Nah. We ignore the groan of the baseboard or the hushed whisper of the stove’s burners until they stop working, at which point we panic.

But when it’s actually cold out, and you’re missing that aforementioned sheetrock shell, doing something as simple as pulling wood out of the ground and dragging it somewhere to burn becomes a matter of utmost consequence.

And then there’s the hike up the mountain itself, the one whose summit sits, quite literally, a mile higher than home. Taken as one gigantic mass, it’s intimidating as hell, but if you never look past the next headlamp-lit step, it becomes beatable… although you won’t ever concentrate harder on each and every footfall as you will when you’re on a slanted rock face in the alpine zone of New York’s highest precipice.

You might think this is all just some hippie-ish Romantic treatise about turning away from the modern world to "get in touch with the earth." Maybe it is. But I cannot help but feel that totally disconnecting from this information-overloaded system is necessary every so often, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t find strange comfort in seeing "Searching for Service" pasted across my cell phone screen for three straight days. (The Adirondacks, it appears, are one of the few remaining white spots on Verizon’s red invasion map.)

And that’s fine with me. Especially because after gazing out at the expansive views offered by the craggy 5,343-foot dome of Mount Marcy, coming back down to sea level to sit in a house and look at Facebook is more than a little bit of a letdown.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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Adirondacks, Backpacking, Camping, Hiking, Mount Marcy, New York State

Farewell and adieu to winter...for now

There was something primeval about it from the second we stepped out on the trail.

The snowpack was thick — 12 inches or more in some spots — and without snowshoes it was an exhausting task just to hike the mile into the forest where we intended to camp.

Just as we reached our spot it started snowing again, and it continued as we clipped together our tents and gathered the wet, green wood that would barely suffice for a fire. All night it fell, stacking up on the shoulders of the four figures who sipped whiskey and spoke gently about the struggling flames as the Catskills rose around us. The cloud-covered sky obscured the stars and blurred the horizon, reducing our entire world to a football field’s worth of white, barren moonscape that lay around us. By morning, another two inches had fallen.

People always look at me like I’m slightly crazy when I say I’m going backpacking in January. Maybe they’re right.

"You know it’s winter, right?" they ask.

Oh yes. Well aware.

But I love it. And now, in late March, I’m probably one of the very few in North Jersey who isn’t all that excited for spring. Sounds crazy, I know, especially considering that there was once a time in my life when I could hardly wait for that first warm breath of 60 degree air to flow up from the south.

There were even years that I’d convinced myself that I got some kind of seasonal depression from the long, silent nights, and that my future was destined to be in a more southerly latitude as a result.

That’s all changed as I’ve aged, of course. I still enjoy the spring, and certain things like the blooming of the forsythia or that first night game of the baseball season can’t be replicated. But there’s a lot about winter that I love now, perhaps nothing more than the peace of mind it gives me.

This world is a loud one (maybe too loud for me), and to walk in the middle of a humid August night is to walk amongst the cacophony of nature’s whispers. Birds and bugs sound their mating calls, and the woods are constantly moving with a kind of nervous energy that can be found when animals know they only have so much time. Nothing is quiet, nothing is still.

Walk in the winter, however, and the earth is more restrained. The trees are voiceless except for the wind threading through their branches, and that thick blanket of night sky is never as clear as it is when the temperature drops to 15 degrees. The clatter of deer hooves on concrete carries for a mile, every smell — from the rustic scent of burning wood to the harsh bite of cigarette smoke — is amplified, and the starlight from the constellations is never so sharp.

In other words, if summer is your friend who never shuts up, winter is the one that only speaks when it needs to. It hardens us, shows us every six months that nothing is eternal and warmth never lasts. They’re good, if not sobering, lessons to learn.

Right now, even though errant snowstorms keep finding their way into the foothills of the Appalachians, it’s clear that my season is ending. The nights are cold but the wind is warm, the ice on the lakes has melted, and it’s time to again bid my frigid friend a fond farewell.

It’ll be back, though. Sooner or later.

I’ll be ready.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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