Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Life of a Thru-Hiker

There are three types of hiker out here on the trail: Day-hikers, Section-hikers (those hiking more than a weekend but not the whole trail), and Thru-hikers (those trying to hike the whole trail, myself included). A joke I hears at a hiker feed tells about these three types perfectly.

"There is a peanut M&M on the trail.
A day-hiker walking down the trail steps over it without noticing the M&M.
A section-hiker walks up to it, Stops, looks around, then picks it up and eats it, and then continues walking. A Thru-hiker smells the M&M from 20-yards away, comes running out of the woods with his pack still on, drops to the ground, eats the M&M, then starts digging in the dirt just in case there are some more M&M's that got buried."

This joke kind of says it all about hikers, intensity and humor, are all that separates the different types. Some of the pictures will help explain a little better.

At an all you can pizza restaurant (best idea ever!!!) they found a vending machine that sold temporary tattoos. Boy tattoos, snakes flames and daggers; and girls tattoos, Cupcakes unicorns and rainbows. These hikers bought the girly tattoos and gave themselves tramp stamps.
 In case you can't tell, that's a turtle shell. It was on the table in a mountaintop shelter. Most of us were to tired to get the joke at the time.
Some hiker outside of a motel after a hitch into town.
 We came upon a river one afternoon around lunch time. Lunch became a 2 hour event complete with river bathing.
 Some hikers and gear strecthed out in a motel room.
 Pesky and Duck soup outside of a walmart where we resupplied in Marion VA
Hiker Hygiene. Legs and Houdini cleaning their ears while we all do laundry.

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