Silver Lake to Bear Creek Ridge
https://open.spotify.com/track/51ndwDACfzlvfOYnwp4ryn?si=hhmj8vh1TtKDydiv2AfF1w
4:00 AM I woke up with a start.
There was howling and then a series of barking. The howling was coming from my left, it felt right next to the water I was camped 100 ft away from… the barking from the hills up on the right in the distance.
My mind immediately went to wolves. What do you do if wolves surround your tent?
Then the howling happened again and the barking and I realised the size of the animals were smaller. Coyotes maybe? I peaked out the back of my tent, not daring to open up the fly. Is it better to stay in the tent? Or to get out and get loud? Have Coyotes every attacked a human?
I turned in my inReach and sent a text to Ryan. At least there would be a record if something bad happened to me.
Gradually the barking stopped and I didn’t hear howling again. They are dogs… would I act dominate like I do with the dogs at the dog park when they get too feisty? I played out a lot of scenarios and hoped maybe somehow the good-dog-juju from being Britta Bean and Keiko’s humans could possibly save me.
Then, I faded off to sleep… so clearly my intuition knew I was safe.
I woke up again around 7AM. That was the longest stretch of sleep I got last night. Silver lake is at 10K elevation and I think I struggle to sleep well at elevation. Also my heel was hurting me so much so that I took an Aleve to help. I should have packed a sleeping aid. I’ve seen a lot of hikers with marijuana and now I’m curious if it’s to help them fall asleep at night.
I got up and packed quickly. Although my tent site was pretty choice being next to the lake… it had a fatal flaw.
There was absolutely no where I could take a wilderness poo without being in the middle of the valley for all to see. Plus the dirt wasn’t deep enough I could dig a hole at least 6-8 inches. Underneath the dirt was rocks…
So I packed up quickly so I could hike out of the valley and into some privacy so I could do my morning poo.
The wilderness poo.
Try as I might I am still not a pro at it. I find myself periodically completing one that is textbook perfect and giving myself a high five.
It’s still awkward and takes some practise.
Because I think backcountry education is good to know … I’m going to detail it to you 🙂 if you are squeamish you might want to skip this post and go to the next day.
First, you need to know when you are going to poo before you have to. Even at my fastest prep it has still taken me 8-10 minutes and nothing is worse when you have to immediately poo and can’t.
Once you are ready to prepare, you need to find a spot.
It needs to be at least a 100 ft from any water source or trail and I’ll throw I campsite. Basically you don’t want your poo to contaminate drinking water or your fellow hiker’s experience.
Then, you need to be able to dig a hole that is deep and large enough for your poo. Deep is 6-8 inches (basically your hand depth) and large is up to what kind of movement you think you will have. Nothing is worse than trying to enlarge a hole after you have used it, so it’s good to go bigger than you think you need.
After you have your spot and your hole … it’s ready to use.
If you are looking to do a wilderness poo and you see someone has pre-dug a hole … the rule is, “don’t be a jerk and steal it.”
For me, I have four bags with me.
One ziplock has my hand sanitizer and my trowel. This big ziplock holds two other ones a ziplock for new toilet paper and a ziplock for used toilet paper. Yeah. You have to pack out your toilet paper (even the biodegradable kind). Toilet paper doesn’t get digested by the critters in the soil as quickly as your poo does. There is a whole movement of people who are trying to eliminate toilet paper in the wilderness all together ( look up backcountry bidet). The last ziplock is my baby wipes. I like to use the opportunity to make sure everything is triple clean. Those need to get packed out too.
So basically you poo over the hole (https://thetrek.co/five-ways-poop-woods-illustration/) Then, you clean yourself making sure to collect the toilet paper. If there are mosquitos…
You figure that out. Then, you use a stick (“NOT YOUR TROWEL!” my friend Josh is adamant about saying) or something to make sure everything is in the hole. Then you rebury it, with the objective to make it seem like you weren’t even there. If you’d like to go the extra step, you’ll try to leave a rock on top or sticks in a x pattern over it so some unsuspecting person behind you doesn’t re-dig in the same spot for their own wilderness poo.
Human poo is such a pollutant, I am positive that the rangers spend most of their time trying to plan for management of it. That’s why in more popular outdoors destinations they make designated toilets (that have to be flown out or more horrific to think about, manually carried out… and when I see a ranger I always thank them). There is a fun Instagram account I like to follow and tag periodically @backcountrybathrooms
So when I get to a camp site, I typically set up the tent and then go find a hole digging spot. Then in the morning I grab my ziplock collection and head off to do my business.
This camp site I couldn’t really do that because it was so exposed. There were camp sites all above me that all had view of the lake … and I was camped as close to the lake as I’m allowed to.
So basically if they tried, they wouldn’t have been able to avoid seeing me … and I didn’t want them to watch me take a wilderness poo (there are a lot of steps and time I’m in an awkward and compromising position).
I hiked quickly and got out of the valley to find a place that was more sheltered. I found a good spot and having already missed the first tip (have a hole ready before you need it)… the experience left a lot to be desired.
I finished, hand sanitized and then set out to repack my bag well and eat breakfast.
As I was looking for a spot, I stumbled on a poor man in the middle of his morning WP.
Awkward.
I think opposite benefit with wildlife, one of the downsides of hiking alone is that you are a lot quieter than a group and risk sneaking up on other hikers.
I backtracked quietly trying not to make my presence known and decided to go a different direction.
Eventually I found a spot to do breakfast and plan my day.
I was about 16 miles to MTR. I could push and make it in a single day, but I was already three days ahead of schedule.
I set out for my day.
While hiking I was thinking about how much I enjoy metaphors and how they are difficult to share with others. I was a decent doodler, but I would love if I could learn how to animate. I wondered if there were classes I could take online or on the side.
Something I’m learning with this blog and trying to write every day, is that it’s good for me to make space to create. Brene Brown has a quote that unused creativity matistxizes. Maybe that’s where some of my anxiety has been coming from. Perhaps that’s something I should look into for my return to the default world.
I eventually hiked to a spot where I saw and heard some of the most amazing waterfalls. The water was cascading off of huge slabs of rock and it was fantastic to watch. I couldn’t stop taking photos and stopping. Eventually I made my way down to a stream I needed to cross.
My heel pain has mostly subsided with activity. I was thankful and ended up thinking how amazing my body has been to listening to me. A lot of thoughts came around that which made me do an entire voice memo about about much I appreciated my body. Maybe I’ll transcribe that later.
I stopped for lunch and got to a place that the Guthooks app a user commented, “this was horrible, not sure why this isn’t called a pass.”
Quickly I figured out what they were saying.
Switchback hell.
According to the map. 52 of them.
Switchbacks help keep the trail less steep (instead of going straight up), but the trade off is you have to zig zag across the same area for a long time.
Around switchback 34, I made a side comment to myself it was like a year of my life… then a game struck me.
Whatever number the switchback was, I would use the correlating year of my life and think about memories from that year.
34, 33, 32…
It began to help pass the time and around switchbacks 15-10 I was remembering some memories that I hadn’t thought about since that time.
I had trouble around 4,3,2 and 1 but at that time I was at the top.
When I got to the top two men were resting the shade.
“You doing the JMT?”
“Hoping to :-)”
“That’s impressive.”
I was waiting to hear the, “aren’t you concerned with safety” line that I’ve heard most men say when they talk to me. However this time it surprised me.
“Lots of solo ladies this year on the trail. Pretty bad ass. I had to bring my son to feel comfortable because I don’t have the will that you ladies seem to have. Hats off.”
“Thanks. Anything I should be prepping for ahead?”
His son piped in.
“Bear and evolution are nothing to worry about if you are this far. Muir is slushy try to do it in the morning. Mather and Glen are a slog.”
We chatted for a tiny bit and then I left them to find a campsite.
Eventually I found an area I was sure was a camp site and started to scramble downwards. It had amazing views of the valley and was secluded. I’d have to set up on rocks. As I got down, I noticed there was a woman washing her hair and my heart dropped. I had to share the site. I clicked my poles so it was obvious I was coming up and the woman looked up.
“Larissa?”
“Marilyn!”
We laughed that we ran into each other again and I decided to camp the night there.
Larissa’s JMT Journal 