ANALYSIS: How to Have a Rich and Meaningful Life

Here's what I know for sure: the entire lyrical database of the Coheed and Cambria discography, how to build an equalized rock climbing anchor, and the secret to living a rich and meaningful life. I didn't know I already knew the meaning of life until my friend Josh pointed it out to me last month; I'm a pretty happy guy so I guess I've had it all figured out this whole time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1. Laughter: a rich and meaningful life needs joy and silliness. Refuse to harden your heart. Be an easy laugh. Laugh at your farts. Laugh at Johnny Knoxville getting hit in the nut sack. Laugh as your friend tells a story about a coworker stealing another coworker's pickle recipe and selling it as their own (#picklegate). Life is absurd, man. Take the barbed wire off of your heart and approach it with joyous whimsy.
2. Adventure: give your life some color. Pick a human-powered activity that's moderately hard for you, go to some destination, and sleep outside. Bikepack. Backpack. Climb to a big ledge on a 5.6 multipitch route. Sleep there. Make coffee. See the sunrise and go home. Now you have a story to tell.
3. Doing good: we are not made for ourselves alone. Make other people laugh. Take someone who never thought they could go on an adventure on an adventure. Organize a block party. Know your city council member. Replace people's tail lights for free. Raise a child. Plant a garden. You can't save the world but you can't neglect it either. 

Your mileage may vary. That's cool too. 

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5 Rules for Car Camping

car camping at the Cowell boulders, Arkansas (photo by Josh)

There is a certain kind of freedom that comes with sleeping in (or near) your adventure vehicle, be it a Sprinter van, Toyota Tacoma, or Honda Civic. Ask any American what's the best part about America and they'll likely respond, "freedom." But hardly anybody really thinks about what that actually means. 

Most people think about freedom negatively: freedom from things. But you can't do whatever you want. The way I explain it to my students is this: your right to bear arms, freedom of speech, and other civil liberties are like swinging your arms around. You are free from restraint to swing your arms around all you want. But when you start windmill throat-punching your neighbor, we have a problem. You're not free to do that. We also explore civil rights as a more positivistic understanding of freedom. These are freedoms to do or for things -- equal rights and equal protection and all that stuff. 

What's this got to do with with car camping? Well, there's rules for that too. Some are freedoms to do things that you may not be able to while participating in other forms of camping, like backpacking (rule #1). Others are restrictions (rule #2). But enough about political philosophy, let's talk about car camping.

Jamie hogging all the shade while car camping at Shelf Road, CO

1. Bring it!

When it comes to camp stuff carrying capacity, nothing beats car camping. A giant Yeti cooler? Yes. Extra pots and pans? Bring it. A giant bin of rock climbing gear? Even better. 

Before a recent car camping weekend, my wife asked me if we could bring a mixing bowl for scrambled eggs. I was dumbfounded. I've never brought a mixing bowl camping before. Befuddled, I stared at her considering if we should or not. Lovingly (but in a way that still felt like Ja Morant posterizing Malik Beasley in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs), she said, "it's not like we don't have space, right?" Of course we have space, we're car camping.

2. But leave your guitar at home.

Don't be that guy. (It's almost always a guy.) Unless somebody specifically asked you to be the Guitar Guy (and almost certainly nobody did), don't. 

gravel camp 2022 at Lost Creek, Tennessee (photo by Reid)

3. Share

This is Humanity 101 stuff. I don't want to get too in the political philosophy weeds again, but imagine camping with Ayn Rand. You'd blow your head off. "Hey Ayn, can I use this headlamp for a sec?" "Only if you adequately compensate me for its battery use you freeloading, second-handing, collectivist swine." I just gave myself nightmares. But collective property and planned mutual giving are what make camping (and equitable societies) work. Read G.A. Cohen's brilliant little book, Why Not Socialism? The whole first chapter is about camping!

Consider a recent weekend riding bikes and car camping in the Appalachian woods. Betwixt the six goofy men who attended "Gravel Camp 2022," more than 84 beers (and Twisted Ice Teas) were brought, shared, and consumed. Open-source. Fair game. My PBRs are your Rolling Rocks and so on. I think I speak for everyone when I say that a highlight of the trip was Luke joyfully sharing out of the goodness of his heart a dozen donuts DIY-made in his JetBoil camp stove. 

car camping at Lost Creek, Tennessee (photo by Leah)

4. You still have to LNT

Pooping responsibly doesn't end just because you're sleeping in a Sprinter Van. 

If you packed it in with your vehicle, pack it out with your vehicle. This includes but is not limited to: beer cans, food wrappers, and the forty-year old, hand-me-down, Coleman two-burner camp stove your dad gave you that exploded in a massive ball of flames in the back of your truck while cooking beans at the mouth of Diablo Canyon, New Mexico. 

Josh making breakfast in Diablo Canyon, NM

5. Enjoy it!

This blog wholeheartedly endorses all forms of camping. Whether bivying mid-route on a multipitch climb or casual car camping at a local state park, sleeping outside is food for the soul. Car camping is fun and relatively easy. The amenities to suffering ratio weighs heavily in favor of comfort. And as long as we don't have an affordable cross-country rail system in this country, then your car is an incredible conduit to some of America's most amazing spaces. Get out there and enjoy it. 

my feet (please don't sell) at San Isabel National Forest, Salida, CO

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How to Have a Microadventure

Lookout Mountain, Georgia

There are over three billion public land and marine acres in the United States. These are managed by a patchwork quilt of over 15,000 national, state, and local agencies and nongovernmental organizations. The overwhelming majority of these lands can be enjoyed by you and me. That’s amazing. 

Each of us owns our public lands, yet no single person can claim them as their own. It is this beautiful, (mostly) successful experiment in socialism that nobody knows about. At least 188 million acres of public lands are national forests, which operate under the multiple-use concept. This means you can basically do whatever you want out there so long as you preserve it for the next person. It’s that small “d” democratic spirit that Woody Guthrie sang about that makes our public lands so great.

The bicycle is a manifestation of that same spirit. The Nineteenth Amendment, which extended the democratic principle to women was ratified, in large part, because of the bicycle. According to Susan B. Anthony, the bicycle "did more to emancipate women than anything else in the world."  Google it. Bikes do not require a license or permit; anyone can ride one. Bicycling is possible for all ages, race and ethnicities, genders, and is generally accessible to all socioeconomic statuses. (Adaptive bicycles for riders with disabilities sadly remain a different story.) If you have a bike, you have cheap, clean, and healthy access to the world.

The bike is the people’s vehicle.

Public lands belong to the people. 

Together they foster a democratic spirit of adventure – the microadventure. Adventures, Alastair Humphreys says, for "normal people with real lives." Here's how to plan your own bicycle-powered microadventure. 

Pull up a map of your city. Print it off. Throw a dart at any of the green or brown areas and I bet you can ride your bike to it. There is a good chance you can sleep there as well. That is a microadventure. Don’t have a color printer or dartboard? Check out the Protected Areas Database from the United States Geological Survey. It is a national inventory of the United States' protected lands (and marine areas). 

One in every 3.5 acres of land in the United States is federally owned (i.e., you and me) but don't sleep on state parks and state forests (also owned by you and me) and benevolent private land managers. Chances are, wherever you live, there is someplace you can adventure to. 

Once you find a destination, you need a route. This, to me, is the fun part. I love maps. My wife estimates 90% of my non-work-related computer time is spent looking at maps. Several resources are available for planning the best possible route. I prefer unpaved adventures so I use gravelmap.com, mtbproject.com, and ridewithgps.com 

This particular route starts in Chattanooga and connects gravel, singletrack, and roads to Cloudland Canyon State Park on the Georgia side of Lookout Mountain. The route begins on trails managed by the Lookout Mountain Conservancy, the National Park Service, Georgia state parks, and various private landowners like Covenant College and Lula Lake Land Trust. That's a lot of bureaucratic cooperation in one overnight bikepacking trip. And it works! How neat is that? 

Except for the glaring little detail of how it was acquired from indigenous people, America’s public lands are among my favorite things about this urine-soaked hellhole. But the sordid history of land acquisition in the United States is not to be forgotten. There is one other map tool worth exploring when planning your microadventure: native-lands.ca  

Here you can discover what Native Americans or First Nations the land originally and rightfully belonged to. You can read about the territories and treaties and histories as well as visit the tribe's official pages. I suspect some readers will find this exercise performative SJW virtue signaling. Whatever. Native Land Digital tells indigenous histories on indigenous people's own terms and challenges non-indigenous people to learn about the lands we live on. As a social studies teacher and outdoor recreator, I think that matters. You might not. We all reserve the right to be wrong about everything and about this you would be. 

Cloudland Canyon State Park

Microadventures are democratic in the sense that they open up adventure to "normal" people. There is of course a degree of privilege -- the body you inhabit, the equipment you own, or the land you're on -- and the goal ought to be broadening the sense in which every person really can enjoy human-powered outdoor recreation and adventure. I think that bikes and public lands are a great place to start. 

If you live in Chattanooga and have a bike and sleeping bag, you can start here. The route is a mix of gravel, singletrack, and road. With a little bit of walking or guts, even the vintage, rigid, 26" mountain bike gathering dust in your parents' garage can do it. The entire route is on Cherokee and Yuchi land. Stay the night. Make some coffee. Reverse it back home or find one of the scenic highways to bomb back down to the valley. See you out there. 

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5 Beginner Backpacking Tips and Tricks

My first backpacking trip was a disaster. I was in eleventh grade, clad in cotton blue jeans and a flannel shirt and equipped with gear from the local sporting goods and army surplus stores. Russ and I hiked around Torreya State Park in uncharacteristic sub-freezing temperatures, even for the "mountains of Florida." I slipped and fell in a creek. Russ had diarrhea in his pants. And we both had so much fun that we fell in love with backpacking.

That year, Russ and I spent a lot of time at the local outdoor store, Trail & Ski, pestering the employees with questions and ultimately not spending any of our money. I'm sure it was annoying but they were kind enough to take us under their wings and point us in the right direction. Whenever a student asks me about starting out backpacking, I get all stoked for them. Maybe, hopefully, those folks at Trail & Ski felt a similar level of excitement when Russ and I walked into their store all those years ago. 

Doing something new can be daunting, so I asked some folks what advice they'd give to somebody trying to get into backpacking. This "panel of experts" includes thru-hikers, weekend warriors, and backpacking and wilderness therapy guides. They all started somewhere and one of them started with me that winter in Torreya State Park. 

1. On backpacking with a budget...

Many of the experts agree: keep it cheap. Madi suggests, "Thrifting your starter gear--don't buy new!" She's right. Outdoor consignment shops rule. 

A) They're cheap and have good stuff. 

B) They usually have nice knowledgeable staff who can be very helpful and not intimidating. 

My favorite is in Leadville, Colorado. And if you're in Chattanooga, visit Four Bridges Outfitters. But not every town has a cool outdoor-oriented consignment shop. Russ and I bought a tent and other stuff from the Army Surplus. I think we used it once before graduating to a tarp. Not an ultra-lite sil-nylon tarp, mind you. I mean an actual brown tarp from Home Depot. 

Russ added, "Remember the crap we had when we started? I ordered a backpack from eBay. And those clunky headlamps from army surplus!" We scrounged things from all over the place. Nowadays you can hit up Mountain Project and other online forums for all kinds of used, cheap gear. Keep it cheap! Especially when you're starting. 

2. On starting small...

According to Vance, "Not every backpacking trip has to be a weeklong instagrammable jaunt in Glacier National Park... Explore [your] local natural areas." Microadventures are amazing. Russ encourages you to start even smaller. "Backyard camping! I camped in my backyard a million times with all my gear." 

It's true. Senior year, Russ and I both dual-enrolled at the local community college instead of "high school." Every morning I'd go to Russ' house and find him asleep in his backyard in his Hennesy Hammock. These nanoadventures are great for dialing in your system and, if you're new to it, sleeping outside.

3. On thinking ahead...

When you sleep outside, you live outside. Sounds obvious enough but you might be surprised how many things you forget or never even think about when it comes to the logistics of living outside days or weeks at a time. Leah's practical advice: "First, line your pack with a large (30 gallon?) trash bag- especially if the temps will be cold at night. You’ll never have to worry about a wet sleeping bag or jammies from rain, river crossings, etc." 

When you live outside, you poop and pee outside. Sounds obvious enough but you might be surprised how important pooping and peeing properly is to wilderness spaces. Consider these resources and remember, to Leave No Trace. When it comes to wiping, Leah adds, "If you are taking toilet paper, take baby wipes instead. You and your nether regions will be living a life of luxury after long days of dirt and sweat." 

For what it's worth, my two cents in this whole thing is this: Pringles. Pringles are a great, salty snack. The Pringles can is a great, tubular, sealed container for packing out discarded baby wipes and other waste. Make a little duct tape hinge so you don't lose the lid. You can store your toilet paper tube in the bottle slot of your backpack. Do not mix your Pringles and discarded baby wipes! Sounds obvious enough, but you never know. 

4.  On ounce-counting and other ultra-light things...

Maybe you've been backpacking before. You borrowed some gear and you're in love with it. Or maybe you've also got a fat wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket. There's an entire universe of backpacking gear you can buy. Most attempt to be light. Some are designed to be "ultra-lite" (UL). I got sucked into the ultra-lite world pretty quickly as a young gun and there are plenty of ways to do it on a budget (DIY and UL share a big middle part of a Venn Diagram). But being ultra-light and a backpacking guide didn't mix well so I started dabbling in both worlds. 

Reid suggests figuring out "if you camp to hike or hike to camp." This goes a long way in determining what you pack, how you travel, and what your overall goals are. Some people enjoy going far, fast. Others enjoy getting there when they get there and relaxing while they are there. 

Reid continues, "If you’re hiking to camp, you may decide to spend precious ounces on a larger tent, a thicker sleeping pad, or things like sleep clothes, camp shoes, a camp chair, etc. If you’re camping to hike, you may prioritize UL gear, nicer trekking poles, and have all of your food in a fancy spreadsheet that ranks items based on calories per ounce of weight." 

Maybe you already know what you're into. Maybe you don't. That's fine. If you're just starting it might take some trips to figure it all out, which leads us to our next bit of advice...

Vance and I on Mt. Shavano, CO

5. On just going for it and having fun... 

 I really loved what Vance had to say so I leave them here without comment.  

"There are no rules or right ways for an experience outdoors, so make the most of what you’ve got around you. Not every backpacking trip has to be a weeklong instagrammable jaunt in Glacier National Park while wearing your Arc’teryx gear (although both of those are super rad). Explore the local natural areas right in your backyard, flaunt your janky consignment or hand-me-down gear, and revel in a bounty of homemade trail mix and Vienna sausages. As long as you’re outside, being responsible, and having fun, you’re doing it right. Do what you can, where you’re at, with what you’ve got, while you’ve got it!" 

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Not My Words: How to Dress While Riding a Bike

source: instagram

I enjoy an IPA (though increasingly less so) and I like riding my bike long distances (if camping is involved) but dang, that meme goes hard. This month's "Not My Words" is short and sweet from Grant Petersen's Just Ride. Based on Goodreads reviews, it is either an angry polemic against the influence of racing on the bike industry or as a delightful curmudgeon's reflection on the simplicity of riding a bicycle. 

"In its need for special clothing, bicycle riding is less like scuba diving and more like a pickup basketball game." -- Grant Petersen, Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike (2012)

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This is How God Wants You to Poop (Outside)

I updated THIS chart from LNT to be theologically accurate.

Let’s talk about poop. Pooping is this totally normal thing that we do. I’m no scientist but my understanding is that after we eat food, it turns to moosh in our bodies as the healthy bits (or unhealthy bits) go into our bones and muscles and stuff. The leftover moosh builds up until we can’t take it anymore and we push it out our buttholes. We all do it. You might be doing it right now. 

Working as a backpacking guide in Colorado, I literally got paid to talk about poop. Taking a group of thirteen teenagers on a multi-day trip in the woods means they’re going to poop. It was my job to teach them how to do it responsibly. The normal range for daily pooping is from three times a day to once every three days. So let’s say the average person poops once a day. Thirteen teenagers plus four adults backpacking for five nights equals 85 poops, give or take. 

*insert Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park clip*

Nobody likes to talk about poop or pooping because of another science thingy: the psychological impulse of disgust. Once the thing — the poop — has been removed from our bodies it is other. It’s set apart and its set a part-ness makes it foul and icky. Unclean. This makes sense. Human communities are living things that must necessarily make boundaries between clean and unclean. This is good and practical. For example, you shouldn’t eat egg salad made on the back of a toilet in a truck stop bathroom. The impulse of separating clean and unclean is an ancient one. 

(SIDEBAR: This desire for purity is a good one. The danger comes when we start making distinctions between “clean” and “unclean” people. Please don’t do this. In the Gospels, we repeatedly see Jesus blurring the boundaries between clean and unclean through his table fellowship with tax collectors and prostitutes. Please do that.)

One of my favorite weird biblical texts is an obscure commandment made in Deuteronomy 23:12-14. Here, God sets the regulations for the proper method for disposing of the Israelites’ poop during a military campaign. 

"You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go. With your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God travels along with your camp, to save you and to hand over your enemies to you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you."

These banal and mundane requirements of hygiene cloaked in theological language make practical good sense when large numbers of men are living close together in hastily-built and ill-protected conditions. In fact, modern outdoorsy-types familiar with proper Leave No Trace principles will recognize the most widely accepted LNT practice of waste disposal: the cat hole method (LNT Principle 3). For those taking notes, here’s a side-by-side comparison: 

Two out of three ain't bad. 

Although hygiene is the most obvious objective of proper poop disposal, Gerhard von Rad, Walter Brueggemann, and J.G. McConville all assert that the real underpinning behind the ancient Near Eastern Leave No Trace method is holiness. Holiness is, after all, the proper habitat of God. According to these scholars, the rules outlined in Deuteronomy 23.12-14 are determined by the cultic and ritual assumptions of primitive peoples. The cultic ritual is a precondition for Israel’s military success. 

But I'd argue that the rationale is not entirely cultic, nor is it totally about public health. It's somewhere in between. Actually, the whole reason is rather pedestrian. Let’s take a closer look at v. 14. It reads, “Because the LORD your God travels along with your camp…” Or in Hebrew: מִתְהַלֵּךְ בְקֶרֶב מַחֲנֶךָ or “God paces/walks with your camp.” See? Pedestrian. Israel must go outside the camp, dig a hole, and bury it is because God doesn’t want to step in their poop. 

What’s truly astonishing to me is that throughout the long editorial process of compiling what would become the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Israelites felt compelled to include this in their holy scriptures. The proper disposal of one's poop is enshrined forever in the 613 mitzvot. Perhaps you find it a bit nutty to consider what this ancient text and these pre-scientific people did or thought. Perhaps you fancy yourself a modern man, you're thinking, "I don't derive my ethics from ancient narratives, I get my morality from corporations like Amazon and Netflix." Yes, you're very sophisticated. 

Dismissing ancient wisdom just because you have an iPhone is insane. Instead, maybe do the work of finding principles within the Law and making application in a different setting and context? It adds flexibility to a law and allows it to find meaning when the particular circumstances of a law have changed. You can see how this can be helpful not just for pooping outside but also, for example: debt and loaning on interest, which is the paradigmatic evil in the Old Testament. 

"Literalism is the lowest form of meaning."

Or you can roll your eyes all you want at these ancient “primitives.” But I bet if we had more folks think about what they did with their poop as thoroughly as the ancient Israelites, you wouldn’t wander off into the woods at Foster Falls and find a big ol’ pile of human excrement twenty-feet away from a popular sport climb. Yes, we're very sophisticated these days.  

So next time you're out in the woods and you have to take a dump, ask yourself what would ancient Israel do? God doesn’t want to step in poo and neither should you. So please, for God’s sake, leave no trace.

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Couch to FA: 5 Tips for Putting Up a First Ascent

FKA of "Whiskey Religion" near Savage Gulf, Tennessee

You don't need to be Rob Robinson or Jeep Gaskin to put up a first ascent. You don't even need to be a good climber. As you will see when you scroll through the "New Routes in Your Area" feature of Mountain Project, you just need to find a tiny chosspile in your neck of the woods you deem worthy enough to share with the world wide web. So lace up, tie in, and follow these 5 easy steps for putting up an insignificant first ascent.

1. Prep and train by eating a steady diet of pizza, ice cream, and burritos while watching plenty of Netflix to help prepare your body and mind for the physically and mentally taxing process of a first ascent. This is the little known "Couch to FA" method of route development.

2. Visit less popular, seldom climbed areas. You are more likely to find something that has never been climbed in an area where, well, not many people go to climb because it probably isn't great. Even if you don't find a first ascent you can feel like you did by cleaning all the cob webs off a route that hasn't been done in a season or two (re: everything in Suck Creek). Be prepared for the slab to be a bit mossy and for granddaddy longlegs to crawl on your finger locks.

3. Carry a spider stick.

4. Bring your friend's brother who doesn't climb but does enjoy traipsing off into the woods. They'll stumble upon some unknown chunk of rock and call you to come and look at it. Maybe when you do, you'll see a short chosspile with a lichened face and a seemingly unclimbed crack that -- if cleaned up -- may garner half a star on Mountain Project. Friend's brothers are optional but preferable to doing any bushwhacking for yourself. Let them do the grunt work so you can focus all your energy on sending the gnar.

5. After the send comes the real challenge: think of a clever route name worthy of posting online. Sure, this route may garner half of a star on Mountain Project but a clever name will attract the attention it probably doesn't deserve. The real climbers developing the real classic lines are simply too greedy or too busy to share the fruits of their labor with the online community (aside from their ambiguous instagram posts!) but you're not! The world deserves to know about your mossy 30 ft. trad route or your lowball traverse boulder problem and a good route name will get 'em there.

This post has been UPDATED with an ADDENDUM: 

6. You weren't there first. First ascents are hard and you have to be Rob Robinson or Jeep Gaskin.

5 Ways to Poop With Your Ice Ax

"The ice ax and skill in its use allow climbers to venture onto all forms of snow and ice, enjoying greater variety of mountain terrain during all seasons of the year." - Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills

The ice ax is among the most basic and essential of climbing equipment. It has helped mountaineers reach their summits since the nineteenth century and by 1889 the tool was heralded by the Italian Alpine Club as an "inseparable companion of the mountaineer."

As mountain guides working in the summer months on mostly non-technical mountains with teenagers, passer-byers often ask us why we have ice axes on our packs. Yes, it is true we are required to carry them in the early months for emergency glissading; but also, and perhaps more importantly, because they are valuable pooping posture facilitators.

"The ice ax, an inherently simple tool, has many uses," says Freedom of the Hills but what it does not include in its bountiful purposes is taking a dump. The ice ax is perfectly -- though inadvertently -- designed for disposing human waste according to Leave No Trace's cathole method.

First, we must reevaluate the anatomy of the ice ax. The adze is more than adequate for chopping through hard ground and digging a 6-8 inch cathole while the pick or the spike help stabilize the practitioner and find solid ground no matter what angle terrain they find themselves in. If you are one to carry toilet paper with you, the shaft is an excellent toilet paper dispenser. Just make sure you pack it out.

Here are five ways your ice ax can enhance your high country pooping experience.

1. The Standard AKA "The Tug and Poop": This is the "standard route" of using the ice ax as a toiletry tool. Dig your cat hole with the adze, turn the ax around and thrust the pick into the ground. Grab and squat with your pooper over the hole and let it rip.

"welcome to my woods."

2. The Harley Davidson: This method is perhaps the most effective but only below tree line. After preparing your poo receptacle, simply wrap your ax around a sturdy, stable tree and hold on like you're on a fat hog and let her ride.

"hey girl, where yo aspen?"

3. The Jackhammer: Soft ground? Jab the spike into the ground and grab the head (pick and adze) like a jackhammer and pound that poop out.

"mmm, corn!"

4. The Throne: Feeling frisky? Situate your ax like the jackhammer but instead of grabbing on, plant your posterior on the pick and adze and let it drop 60 to 70 cm to its target. It is very, very important that you aim well and sit far enough back that you don't crap on your shaft.

"Robin, you look like a woodland nymph when pooping." - Jamie

5. The Dangleberry: Feeling even friskier? Dig your cathole and dangle over the target area from a select and sturdy tree branch.

Note: select your branch carefully

Special thanks to the lovely ladies of Wilderness Expeditions, Robin and Jamie, for modeling.

Dirtbag Tips: Compact Car Camping

(via instagram)

Kyle has a Ford Ranger. Russ has a Grand Cherokee. Eli has a Subaru. Paul has a wooly mammoth aka Chevy Tahoe. 

And I have a Honda Civic. 

The Civic isn't exactly the dirtbag car of choice. While gas mileage is a definite plus, I've slept on love seats with more snooze space than the backseat of my car. 

So when we've got the hankering to put our fingers on stone and our friends can't make the trip and primitive camping isn't an option -- what are us compact car guys and girls supposed to do? If buying a small pick-up truck is not a financial option and you don't have chronic back problems, keep reading. 

Sleeping situations are notably limited. I know I'm stating the obvious but if you don't know, now you know. The way I see it, there are two options:

1. "The Snuggle" or "Ball Method" - in this method the camper sleeps horizontally in the back seat "snuggled up" with legs tucked moderately towards the chest to ensure the whole body fits between the frame of the vehicle. Side sleepers will find this option preferable.

(backseat sleeping on a cold night in Sand Rock, AL)

PROS: sleeping on a flat surface; who doesn't like to get into a toasty little snuggle ball?
CONS: must sleep on your side; middle seat belt buckles probing you the entire night; who can stay scrunched up for that long?

2. "The Dentist Chair Method" - in this method the camper sleeps in one of the two front pilot seats, fully reclined, resembling a dentist chair. Back sleepers will find this option preferable.

PROS: sleeps two uncomfortably; easy access to ignition in case of axe murderer.
CONS: sleeps too uncomfortably; even fully reclined the chair still sleeps at an angle. 

There's also this thing: the inflatable car bed. Someone posted this on my facebook wall a while back and I'm not internet savvy enough to know if it actually exists in the realm of real world retail. And even if it was, the bed is still as short as the space between car doors, so I'm not sure how practical it would be. Still, cool idea.  

Let's be real, the nature of car sleeping is never glamorous. Just look at this gem of a picture, snapped around 1am after the rain chased us from our comfortable slumber on the beach. 

Russ and I sleep Dentist Chair Style while Kyle does the Ball Method (and other things).

The reality of a situation that requires you to even consider sleeping inside your car as opposed to a tent or hammock or crash pad or even picnic table is that you're getting 4 hours of sleep, tops. Most likely in a Wal Mart parking lot somewhere in a city you don't even know the name of. Which probably means you're headed somewhere special and great, so suck it up. 

Dirtbag Tips: Gas Station Cuisine

(via instagram)

Friday, after I finished all my graduate assistant work, I hastily loaded up my car with my crash pad, puffy, and sleeping bag, and then made the drive to Sand Rock, Alabama. I've been eyeing Jaws -- a classic, V-Easy, but extremely highball boulder problem put up sometime back in the seventies -- more for its daunting, picturesque height and history than its V grade. 

Road trips, weekend or weeklong, often require culinary imagination. Especially on spur of the moment getaways like mine to Sand Rock. 

If you are one of those types to make eggplant parmesan in the backcountry, avert your eyes. Read no further. What I am about to say has nothing to do with you. This recipe is for those of us who roll into the last possible gas station before the trailhead and walk out with a bag of Cheesy Puffs, half a dozen powdered donuts, a Big Gulp and call it "dinner." 

Gas station cuisine is an art. Anyone can scrounge up needed calories with a Snickers bar. If you really want to make something good, you have to shop resourcefully, considering flavor profiles, and economically, you are, after all, a dirtbag. I've eaten many delicious things from convenience stores but this one takes the cake: Crunchy Jalapeno Mac n' Cheese with Beef.

Ingredients: 

(1) cup of instant microwaveable mac n' cheese (velveeta is preferable)
(1/3) regular flavor Slim Jim cut into bite size pieces
(1) bag of jalapeno cheddar Cheetos

First, pour contents of mac n' cheese cup into your stove top cookware. Follow directions on cup, attributing for a stove instead of a microwave.

While you bring this to a boil, cut the Slim Jim into bits. If you're working from the trunk of your car, your copy of Dixie Cragger's Atlas makes for a great cutting board. 

When these are prepared, mix and stir the macaroni and cheese with the Slim Jim bits and add the cheddar jalapeno Cheetos to the top as a garnish. 

Devour. 

It's worth mentioning, that if you make this meal or likely any other gas station delicacy and post it to the internet for all your friends to see, there will be backlash. Exhibit A:

"gag." - @bethanyjulia
"How are you alive?" - @brookslokey
"Gross, what is happening here?" - @kaitlynmeanspure
"This is disgusting." - @anniebjones 
"#fattymcbutterpants" - @ladyforstall
"'I want to marry him now, so I can make him eat better.' - anonymous girl about @chettarcheese." - @jessebaker

While this last reply is backhandedly flattering, all of these responses are indicative of a general populace unappreciative of what it is we -- climber dudes (and dudettes), surf bums, mountain bike bros, backpackers, trail runners and all other baggers of the dirt -- do on our weekends. They don't understand. And how could they? It's like the person who has never tasted Waffle House after 2:00 A.M. It just tastes better.

In any other circumstance Crunchy Jalapeno Mac n' Cheese with Beef would be neither good nor good for you. But on top of a mountain? It satisfies the hunger in the most euphoric of ways. 

Or maybe I really am disgusting. Maybe I am the only person who thinks driving four hours and cooking out of my trunk and sleeping scrunched up in a Honda Civic in order to climb a classic southeastern boulder problem is fun. 

But I don't think I am. 

I know there are more of us out there who eat like a ten year old at a slumber party because our bodies and our wallets can't afford not to. 

Eating like this means we're about to do something rad and something we love. 

So eat! For, "we were given appetites not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great."