Story Break
Short Trips
OK, Mr. Boone, Dan’l sir, lets us get started here, if you dont mind. Your still in your bunny slippers and you havent ever stepped into the woods yet. Hiking let alone backpacking is over the horizon yet like a dream thats only penciled you in.
They call you tenderfoot because without them slippers you cant even make it out to your car and back. But neither can I come to think of it, I never did any barefoot and theres no reason for it as far as I can tell, but thats the term for it and it fits, so your a tenderfoot.
Now your first step with or without slippers is to decide if you want to do it, hiking or backpacking. Lets say you know deep inside your one of us and you say yes. Your talking to yourself now of course but we’ll overlook that for the moment and just give you a big welcome aboard and a howdy pardner handshake.
Now get dressed. Were not fancy but we got some standards, so make sure you got on a pair of pants at least. Lets try making a cup of coffee first. Or whatever suits you. You need a stove with fuel, a pot and a cup of some kind, and water. Keep it simple.
Your First Trip
Make your first trip real short. Go out the back door into the yard. A concrete patio is a good place to set up, a driveway, a flat rock, anything that wont burn. If this trip looks too scary, tie a string to the back door and the other end to your pants. Thats another reason to wear pants. So you can find your way back home again. Tie the string onto a belt loop. Allay those fears.
Now your out in the boonies so to speak. Lets say your out there so far you cant even hear the TV set any more. You got no running water (no hoses allowed now!!!) and your on your own, except maybe the cat came along for its own amusement. This is your first survival mission, to make a cup of coffee before the wildlife gets you, and then hightail it back again with all your fingers and toes, no charred spots on your hide, still wearing those pants. The cat can stand in for a pack of wolves. Stay up close to the house if you start feeling scared or dizzy. If you have been out before and you can navigate OK, then head for the back fence and make it an expedition. Never turn your back on the wolves. You dont know for sure what there thinking.
Lay everything out, take it easy, and dont set yourself on fire.
When you get back home again, take stock. What did you forget to take? Did you get things done in the right order? Does it work to lay everything out first and then rig it all up, or should you pull things out as you need them? Have trouble losing things? Like your matches? Spill all your fuel? Whatever. Evaluate. How did it go with the wolves? Are they still amused?
Once you survive this you have some confidence. If you still feel partly ignorant your right on track. The ignorant part of you will get smarter, and the smart end of you will welcome some company. Those two parts of you will eventually run together and become one competent person and things will improve, as long as you dont kill yourself first, so take care. If you have more than two parts, then have a conference, negotiate. Dont let anyone walk out, you need to hold all of them together or it wont work.
Ignorance is natural, nothing to be ashamed of. Everybodys pretty near 100 per cent ignorant about everything, but its curable in spots, you just keep at it. Not stupidity. You never know when or how a stupid person is going to spook and charge around, so give him a wide berth and go around, and dont join there ranks or your done for.
Now you got this far, you have proved your not stupid, and if you got in here by mistake somehow, you have our best wishes and just turn around, please. And leave right now, OK? The exit is right behind you.
Next, Your Foray Into The Neighborhood
Got a small park or a school playground nearby? Shoot for that. Take your stove, your fuel, etc. Take a friend, take your girlfriend or boyfriend, or your husband or wife, or one of your kids, somebody. Thats your cover. You need it these days. Single guys especially. Your gonna look like a suspicious weirdo now, no getting around it, because you are one. In the park playing with some gizmo, setting fires, doing unauthorized things, you need cover. Take someone. Look harmless. Have a alibi.
Do your thing, practice with the stove, learn your way into it. This is your second short step, one more easy step from home. Keep on keeping it simple. Heat some water, make some soup. Try it on a weekend, in the afternoon when people are relaxed and its nice out. Maintain your cover. Playing a genial idiot usually works, especially alongside your normal looking companion.
Now, again review the experience once its over. Did you set the park on fire? Did the police come by for a little talk? How many fire trucks were there? Still having difficulty boiling water? If your confused, then go back home and do some figuring – is this really for you? Your call, but it gets harder from here, a little at a time, sure, but it does get harder. Its a gentle slope uphill all the way. Start over with step one if needed but take it easy. Never forget to wear pants. A bunny suit is OK in your back yard, but you have to keep the pants on, and no bunny suits at the park. Bunny suits at home only, please, indoors if you can.
Advance To The Bush
Now your going to stay out over night like a real camper. This is your first giant step. Everybody has some place they can go, a real campground, a place down by the river, a safe empty lot that your friend owns. Somewhere. This is one more step up. Your significant otherwise will likely peel off at about this stage, but one of your kids might tag along, if you got one, to look after you (but limit yourself to one at a time). Assuming you know how to work a tent, take that, a sleeping bag, a little food, and your cook kit. Sleep out overnight and make breakfast the next morning.
One small giant step into backpacker kind.
This trip will teach you self-reliance, endurance, patience, how to fend off stray pets (and maybe other stuff, depending on where you end up), how to blend in (if you camped somewhere sketchy).
If you pay for a campsite your probably safest. Otherwise, practice your genial idiot act if you end up where you might not have full rights to, and dont blame me. Your an adult and you need to make your own decisions. Your life. We have to use what we got, but a real campground is best – your legal, people expect you to be camping there, and maybe you can learn some from watching out the corner of your eye.
Practice the tent in your yard first. Put the tent up, lay out the sleeping bag. Maybe spend the night out there once or twice. Then do it away from home.
Try To Stay Legal
Maybe you got a public park thats wooded. Maybe its a daytime-only park, with picnic tables and little loop trails but its got a brushy back lot full of trees. Got one like that here, where a guy could get familiar with the place, then ease in toward dusk, keep a low profile, and spend one night. If thats all you got, thats all you got, a first introduction to stealth camping, which is another subject however.
Litz, a friend of mine did this once, slid in under the radar, took his gear in a small pack. Plan was to stay overnight, make breakfast the next morning, just like a real backpacker, and walk out. That was the plan. The sheriff wont understand, the police wont be kindly, and the park staff will stampede from someone creeping around, and then your in trouble. A person has to be cool. Litz was, he thought. Staying close to home and keeping it simple, doing it on the cheap, being illegal but technically innocent, just this one time.
A first night out will feel funny, though some harmless fear is good for a person, being out in the woods where you never know who your neighbors are, or what they want to eat.
Meet Your Local Predators
Like your park squirrel, as Litz found out. Officer Nightstick isn’t always the biggest worry. A looming worry, true, at least in your head, but there are worse problems to be found, ones with beady black eyes and scratchy claws mounted all over. So ask yourself what squirrels eat, then ask yourself whats a word for completely crazed.
Nuts.
Litz was in the wrong territory, Squirrel Land, and mistaken for something else. Maybe the scent of supper was still on him, or maybe in that sleeping bag he looked like the worlds biggest peanut, or both. Hows a squirrel gonna react?
A squirrel could lose control and try to take a guy out, thats how. So thats how it was, man against squirrel, or vice versa, and no warning to speak of.
At dawn, there was Litz, on the ground, all wrapped up in his poofy new down bag, hiding under some friendly bush in the park, tingling with his new sense of adventure as daylight came on, thinking how he did it, made it through his first night in the woods safe and sound, without any fuss. And how all he had to do was get up, make some breakfast with his new ultralight stove, and walk out like anybody else because he was legal now, with daylight, and then heres this thing coming at him real sudden, with an appetite and an attitude. It was also headed for breakfast and Litz figured he must be it.
Dont underestimate your park squirrel, not even once. He knows his home turf. He has a hard life, scuffing all over for bites of this and that, never enough to eat. And now a miracle, theres you, the jackpot, a giant Mr. Peanut right on Mr. Squirrel’s front lawn. In this case the lucky target was a Mr. Bill Litz, about to have his opening encounter with wild life. He parted his eyelids and what was he looking at? Food lust, looking him right back in the face, thats what. Litz the nut of a lifetime and Mr. Squirrel planning to take him down, chop him up and haul him back home in pieces, no negotiating. And Litz was already horizontal.
The hand is quicker than the eye, and the squirrel is quicker than the hand. A lot quicker than me and you put together. A squirrel has sharper teeth and claws than you or me. Mr. Squirrel can twist and jump every whichway up and down trees like magic, here, there, everywhere, blink, blink, faster than you can follow.
Litz was in his poofy cocoon on the ground and nothing free but his face, which was his only weapon, arms and legs being trapped inside with the rest of him. He couldnt move, just his nose and eyebrows. Thats what he had to fight with. Him in one corner of the ring and a furry buzz saw in the other, moving out at a full gallop.
Likely This Wont Happen To You, Maybe
Likely you wont have to roll over on your belly when a squirrel leaps for you, you being like some big worm starting to hump through the brush to outrun a hungry beast. The beast on your topside, the one thats ripping into your shell to get at the nut inside. Likely you wont be hollering and clawing around in there, trying to get out, and not making it, terrorized by this demon. Knowing that somehow it might get inside with you, in this place that you thought was so warm and cozy and safe a second ago.
Likely this wont happen. You wont be bumping and rolling along the ground, getting muddy and wet with dew and thrashing around, crashing into bushes and over mossy logs, and hit the edge of a slope, the one that will roll you down into that creek where your now afraid of drowning as well, with this beast still on your back. Likely you arnt strong enough to rip the seams of your sleeping bag somehow, and get up and go wailing into the picnic area in your underwear chased by a furry demon, one thats after the big nut that hes not going to lose, not by any means whatsoever.
Well, likely not. You will avoid this embarrassment. You will be more careful. But if your gonna be a backpacker you will see lots of strange things, some of them crawling on you some of them coming at you, and you need to be prepared.
Practice!
Thats why you need practice. It gives you experience and perspective. Ease into it with short trips, one at a time, and deal with the real simple stuff first. Get used to night sounds, sleeping out, bugs, knocked-over cook pots. Learn how to handle the unexpected and your own mistakes, then get more adventurous and go farther and longer and face bigger challenges as you feel you can.
As your confidence improves, make it more complicated. Travel with a group. Plan ahead. Cook several meals a day. Clean up afterward. Stay out for two nights, or three. Learn how to camp and carry things in a pack and get around on foot rather than being dropped off at a campsite with a ride back home again. You can do it. One step at a time.
Dont worry about squirrels. They wont hurt you. Squirrels are totally harmless, aside from sitting in a tree and cheeping at you. This didnt really happen like this. It wasnt a squirrel, I threw that in because everybody knows squirrels, it was mice. Its mice you got to fear. They come in waves. And they will eat you alive.