My head is very noisy of late
I'm going backpacking.
I’m heading out for a backpacking trip. Not the section hike I was planning on doing this month (that would be the rest of the Long Path), because E had a scheduling conflict, but a section hike all the same. I’m going to take public transportation out to the Appalachian Trail and start walking. There’s a series of potential exit points on or near the trail in New York, so I don’t know exactly how long or far I’ll walk right now. It’s an open-ended hike. I’m going to play it by feel. If I want to come home early and laze around in Brooklyn for the rest of my time off, I will.
I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll be going very slowly—in part, because I can. There are lots of shelters or places to camp on the AT and they’re located quite a bit closer to each other than on some of the other long trails in the northeast. Also, I haven’t exactly trained for this hike; this will be my first backpacking trip of the year, so I’m expecting a little breaking-in time (my preferred alternative to “breaking-down”). Also, I will be carrying all my own gear and my own food and water for the first time since 2016, when I thru-hiked the Long Trail.
(When I backpack with E, we split our shared equipment between us, which includes a two-person sleeping bag, two-person sleeping mat, stove, tent, water filter, guidebook or map…some of these items are heavier than the solo-version, but sharing between us does mean literally sharing the load, and I generally carry a little less than E. He will hopefully be able to join for a couple days, but will need his own set of solo gear, and I’ll need to be able to carry everything myself before we meet up.)
Anyway! I’m a little nervous, but very excited all the same. On my first long hike, I noticed how noisy town was every few days when I went in to resupply, and how that mental noisiness stuck with me as I got back on trail, and it took time to walk it out. My head is very noisy of late, clammering and yapping and cluttered with junk. I am very much looking forward to some quiet time in the woods.
Reading list
Speaking of long, meaningful walks, Miles Howard (of Mind the Moss) was in the Boston Globe last week, with a lovely essay about circumnavigating the 90-mile perimeter of Boston. The Great Saunter got a shout-out, as did some other similar events around the world:
In New York, people hike the 32-mile shoreline of Manhattan Island in an event called The Great Saunter. In Berlin and London, the 66 Lakes Trail and the Capital Ring Walk allow you to orbit the respective cities by foot — through woods, wetlands, and suburban villages. And on a recent visit to Philly — a few months before my perambulation — I participated in the Walk Around Philadelphia, a twice-a-year pilgrimage around the city’s perimeter led by local artist and community organizer J.J. Tiziou.
Sign me up! (Miles Howard in the Boston Globe)
How deep does this blue hole go? At least 1,377 feet down, but that’s as far as scientific instruments can measure. (Darren Orf in Popular Mechanics)
Although more than 70 percent of Africa’s urban population of about 609 million walk daily to get where they need to go, many of those cities are not very walkable. These researchers have some suggestions for how to remedy that. (Seth Asare Okyere et al. in The Conversation)
A good use of AI? Talking to the whales. (Kathryn Hulick in ScienceNewsExplores)
A bad use of AI? Journalism. Also product reviews, because they are journalism adjacent and what this article describes is pretty unethical and bad. Putting this here (in my hiking/nature newsletter) because Outside Inc (of the illustrious Outside Magazine) was apparently a client, and previously published some of this AI content in several of its titles, including Yoga Journal, Backpacker, and Clean Eating. I just don’t know that if I were a title that had a big “gear” issue every year and wanted to be known for high quality gear reviews and recommendations…I just don’t know if I’d get into bed with a shitty pay-to-play AI product review churn machine. Plus, ick. (Outside terminated the relationship in 2023 because of the poor quality of the work, so that’s something.) (Maggie Harrison Dupré in Futurism)
