Packing for Backpacking

Last year, everything went according to plan: we entered the backcountry, rambled around for four days, then exited the way we came. We swam in alpine lakes, scrambled up peaks, ate well, played “pigs in a blanket” over a small campfire before bed, slept deeply, surveyed the landscape, and had a great time. This year, we got foiled. We planned eight days of efficient travel on a stunning route, but instead spent four days sick, breathing heavily, and trekking slowly, eventually cutting the trip short due to unexpected group illness. Goal-oriented by nature and with a particular attachment to this trip, I had a hard time letting go of original plans and settling into our new reality. But, we made it out and back safe. We got to spend time in the mountains together. All disappointment aside, every moment in the Sierra Nevada mountain range is precious, and every experience preparing for a long trip-- even if the trip doesn’t go as planned-- is a valuable learning experience in communication and packing. 

Communication

• We planned our big-picture trip idea and determined entry and exit points via texting and emailing about nine months before our desired trip date, to be poised and ready to strike once permits opened six months in advance of our desired trip dates. Even with such suave maneuvering, someone (likely a bot) snatched up all permits for our desired dates/ locations immediately upon permits opening. So, we changed our starting point and dates, and figured out a new plan. Always be ready to pivot-- although some pivots are easier than others! 
• Group meal planning is fun! We made a spreadsheet with dates, and each person signed up for two dinners. Individuals prepared their own breakfast, lunch, and snacks. We took turns cooking the dinners we planned/ hauled. 
• Two weeks before our trip, we held a video call to finalize our route, group gear, food, and other logistics. 
• A final smattering of text exchanges the day before leaving, day of travel-- then boom! We are in the mountains hugging, stoked, and ready to roll. 

Packing
Packing needs vary, depending on individual preference, and seasonal/ locational needs. For late summer in the high Sierra ranging around 10,000 feet elevation of a heavy-snowpack late-melt high-mosquito kinda year, we packed: 

Pack

• 60-L pack
• Hiking poles
• Camera

Clothing
Day-outfit: 

• 2 quick-dry underwear (Patagonia)
• 2 quick-dry sports bras (Patagonia)
• 1 sun-shirt (Columbia)
• 1 pants (Mountain Hardwear)
• 2 ankle socks (Smartwool)
• 1 hat
• Mosquito headnet
• Bandanna
• 1 pair shoes (Altra trail-runners)
• glasses/ bag/ wipe

Night-outfit: 

• 1 underlayer top (Smartwool merino)
• 1 underlayer pants (Smartwool merino)
• 1 fleece vest (Columbia)
• 1 down jacket (Patagonia)
• 1 beanie (Smartwool)
• 1 light gloves (Patagonia)

Just in case: 

• 1 rain jacket
• 1 tarp-poncho 

Cooking

• 1 titanium 900-mL pot & lid (Snowpeak, with husband-designed insulating-cozy)
• 1 titanium ~2 L pot & lid (Snowpeak, with husband-designed insulating-cozy)
• 1 stove (my old stove is Snowpeak/ propane. New set-up from husband: Evernew titanium alcohol stove (EBY254) with DIY aluminum windshield heat-cone)
• Bear box, or bear bag (Ursack)
• Knife, spork, lighter
• Water bag/ filter
• All the food!

Sleeping

• Sleeping bag
• Sleeping pad
• Tent
• Stuff sack (for clothing by day, for pillow by night)
• Tenacious tape (repair kit)

First aid

• Chapstick
• Sunscreen (group share)
• Bandaids
• Pine pitch salve (½ oz)
• My friend Mason carried a larger 1rst-aid kit with ace-wrap, splint, gauze, tape, ibuprofen, etc.

Miscellaneous

• Toiletries (toothbrush, mini-toothpaste, melatonin, floss, 2 mL argan oil, cut-in-half baby wipes, 2 extra hair ties)
• Compass
• Hip sack (or UL day-pack)
• journal/ pen/ watercolor mini-set/ waterbrush
• Headlamp
• Mini-towel (REI)

Parting Thoughts

A few years ago, we planned a long 10-day through-hike. It got canceled last-minute due to fire. We had spent the past month dehydrating our meals and designing our trip. The night before driving up to the Sierra, our hearts sank as we watched the air quality numbers worsening-- and decided to cancel our trip. So we stayed home, celebrating our smoke-free staycation by surfing and taking small local hikes; we slowly ate all that dehydrated food spaced across various other smaller backpacking trips. 

Surprises happen. We can only try our best to prevent adversity, prepare for what we can, pivot when needed, and enjoy the journey because, as my fellow adventurer Mason reminded me as I was bemoaning this trip, “We’re here to have fun!” 

So, may your adventures be fun! May you prepare well, roam light, and feel the freedom of the wild. May you embrace the mountains’ siren call, and return again and again. May the wilderness inspire all the ways you show up in this complex beautiful world. May these adventures of Body and Spirit walk far with you, carrying you home to yourself, to Nature, and to community. Have fun! 

🌝glacial intersectionality & sturdy feet | September newsletter

 

“Send me a picture of your feet.” 

A text from my sister surprises me near the end of a long day of back-to-back patients. I’m tired, and texts like this simply elicit thoughts of spam. I text back, “?” 

“Oh I’m curious about your toe spacing, since you’re often barefoot.” 

It’s her. That’s her voice. I snap a photo and blitz it over. I can imagine her grunting on the other side. 

“We have sturdy feet,” she shoots over a picture of her own, “Yours remind me of Ma’s.” 

As we shift from the Fire Element heat and fanfare of summer into the contemplative Metal Element clarification of autumn, we rest into the in-between space of Earth Element late-summer or long-summer (chang xia 長夏), where the days feel like they lengthen as they noticeably shorten, it gets hotter before it starts cooling (here in so-Cal), and we bite into the two apples of Autumn Equinox (秋分) on 9/22, and the Moon Festival (中秋節) on 9/29. 

My big sturdy feet with well-spaced toes tromp around above glaciers and glissade down mountain passes, tromping back and forth between America and Taiwan, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and intersectional places of thinking, feeling, and being. The Lunar New Year (新年) and Moon Festival are the two biggest Chinese festivals of the year, coinciding with the first full moon of the New Year, and the full moon that falls in the middle of the lunar calendar. 

I feel both childlike delight and aching loneliness during these holidays. Living in California again, as I have for almost a decade now, I am divorced from the familiar traditions of families gathering, friends celebrating, fireworks, incense, ancestral offerings, and more. I feel adrift, anchored only by memories and phone calls. Reweaving the quilt of my indigenous ancestry within the urbane oceanic fabric of my modern life here in Ventura on the edge of the Pacific with various other cultural orphans, we cocreate. I spearhead grassroots community ecstatic dance, the “Tea Talks” podcast series, a new Moon Lab, my clinic and retreats… 

I am an idea-machine with finite energy but boundless vision. I know what deep connection feels like: laughing uncontrollably glissading down a snowy mountain pass paralleling my old friend, in as full control of the situation as we can be, left hand sturdy on ice ax head, right hand leveraging ice ax handle into snow, flipping onto our bellies when we start rolling too fast, self-arresting by jabbing ice ax head deep into snow, where it holds. 

A mountain seems stable, but rocks are always moving, changing, shifting. Snow. Ice. Fire. Sun. Floods. Flowers. Changes loom, happen, make themselves known with scree fields, avalanches, and whole swathes of trees broken at the same level. Eyes moving across a landscape as I tromp, I stop. Close. Take a breath. Open. 

Cultural traditions seem like mountains, steady and unchanging. But, lightning on the high crags. Rain. Hail. Sleet. Snow. Sky. Sun. Changes always happening. Active verb. Present tense. Usually small, sometimes an avalanche. 

Walking between-with-through the intersectional landscapes of first-generation American citizenship, Chinese medicine practice, and more− I cup my hands to my mouth, sipping the fresh glacial melt of rock-water from mountains and sky: unchanging change. I am open yet deeply rooted. All that came before passes through me onwards into all that comes ahead. My only prayer: Let this be beautiful.

Glacial melt, up and over the pass. Eastern Sierra, CA

Coming up

• Equinox Ecstatic Dance at Bodhi Salt in Ventura, CA. Free for members, sliding scale $15-30 for public. Next dance Sept. 22 with community-DJ Nohemi Ramos!
• Elemental Creativity at Green Gulch Farm in nor-Cal— art, movement, and meditation with Zen Monk Fu Schroeder, Art Monk Abbess Suiko McCall, and me! Nov. 29 - Dec. 3
• Ojai Herbal Symposium! Nov. 11-12 in Ojai, CA and online. Offering 12 CEUs for acupuncturists! (Pending CAB approval)
• The Five Elements of Yoga & Chinese Medicine retreat at Esalen with Paula Wild and me, Dec. 11 - 15

Recommendations

• New Nurtured Herbalist | Tea Talks Roundtable podcast interview with Camille Freeman & Erika Galentin
• Plant Stories with Richo Cech, interviewed by Thomas Dick and me!
• I am delighted to find the podcast of fellow intersectional author & human Joanne Lee Molinaro− who wrote The Korean Vegan (yum)
• I often miss the wilderness for weeks after backpacking trips; I often have trouble reintegrating back into ordinary reality. Listening to this book-on-tape while doing the dishes and folding laundry, life feels a bit more manageable: The High Sierra: A Love Story by Kim Stanley Robinson

❤️ Unchanging change,

Jiling Lin, L.Ac. 林基玲

acupuncture . herbs . yoga

JILINGLIN.COM

INSTAGRAM

FACEBOOK

Book your acupuncture appointment here

BOOK NOW

If someone forwarded you this email & you loved it, then subscribe here!

SUBSCRIBE

ACU-WAITLIST │ Having trouble booking an appointment? Get on my waitlist here. I will only message if spaces open (maximum once a week). If necessary, please remember to reschedule your appointments at least 48 hours in advance, to prevent being charged for the full rate of your appointment. This allows others the opportunity to receive treatment. Thank you!