“Guessing everyone will want to bring their own poop shovel,” Kristen commented.
I scanned the Excel spreadsheet. Tarps, cook stove, First Aid kit, Kula cloth, Shee-wee…
Words and phrases I’d never heard filled my eyes and ears last week as I geared up for my very first backpacking trip.
“I have -literally- nothing,” I said. “But I can bring food!”
Never underestimate a project manager in the kitchen.
The group decided it was best to keep our hike short if we had full packs, and do longer day hikes once we’d set up camp. With my experience level somewhere between, “I’m still not entirely sure how to recognize poison ivy” and “I read Wild,” I was grateful for the modest expectations. Not to mention the other four women had enough outdoor prowess to vote me off the island the minute I asked who was bringing hair spray.
If there’s one thing a native New Jerseysian can tell you about moving to Oregon, it’s this:
Buckle up. No, really. Really really.
Back east, I was one of the more outdoorsy people I knew. Day hiking, road cycling and the occasional marathon were my jam. By moving to Bend, Oregon in June, I quickly dropped several thousand notches. I had to trade my heels for headlamps if I wanted to survive.
Jules: Before and After Oregon. (Pssst, that’s not soup in that bowl.)
Nevertheless, backpacking was on my bucket list, and I’d be damned if I was going to let poop shovels throw me off course. I wanted tents, campfires and starlit skies, and I wanted them stat.
“Oh man, we should have consulted beforehand; this is way too much food,” Kristen said as I unloaded our provisions at our campsite, three and a half hours east of Bend.
“Don’t you worry,” I assured her. “Uncle Jesse and I can eat our weight in tubers.”
We didn’t have much time to explore before nightfall, but drank in the scenery (and the whiskey) before avocado quesadillas and the full moon took center stage.
Around 9 o’clock, long before I felt any urge to sleep, we called it a night. I tried to stay perfectly still in my borrowed sleeping bag, lest the swish-swish-swish of the “certified 18 below” fabric wake my tent mate. The temperature plummeted, my teeth rattled and my bladder screamed. And what is up with this inflatable pillow? My neck was at an exact 90 degree angle; I could see my blue toes perfectly.
Eventually I gave up.
ZZZZZZZZIPPPPPPPP. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Erin. “I have to pee.” Uncle Jesse caused a commotion trying to follow me in the dark, and after burying my toilet paper in a “carry out bag,” I put on every item of clothing I’d brought. Eventually I managed a few hours of fitful sleep.
By 9 o’clock the next morning, after some blood (and almost tear) shed, I was ready to call it quits, along with two of the other women.
Uncle Jesse, after thinking dogs twice his size liked sharing their food.
“If you’re leaving, I think I’ll go with you,” I said, trying to sound as calm as possible. Get me the f*@& out of here!!!!!! “I’m just a little cold.”
“I don’t think we can have both dogs in the car,” the getaway car driver gently explained.
I decided to stick it out, and within a couple of hours, the two remaining campers and I hit the trails and all seemed right again.
In fact, when I zipped up my sleeping bag for the second, and final, night, I thought, “I could get used to this.”
It wasn’t until the next afternoon that we found out a cougar had been roaming our camp.
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Are you more of a backpacker or a back-to-Netflix-and-running-water type? Also, is a poop shovel just a regular shovel with an R.E.I. logo? Discuss.
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