Toothpaste Dots

Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips by Mike Clelland is a list of 153 tips and tricks for ultralight backpackers, with a few of paragraphs and line drawings explaining each tip, readable in any order. Some ideas, such as #116 “Liberate yourself from toilet paper”, I am not not quite ready to adopt…

Number #54, “Make your own toothpaste dots” however, is one I like. Take some toothpaste, preferably one of creamy consistency rather than the gel kind, and squeeze out a few thin lines on a fruit leather sheet of your food dehydrator.

Dehydrate on low heat until most of the moisture is gone, and use a sharp knife to divide into 1/4″ “toothpaste dots”. Measure out how many you need for your trip, and store in a small 2″x3″ zip bag. No need to pack a travel-size tube of toothpaste at 0.85 ounces (24 grams), and easier to use than tooth powder.

To use, put one or two dots in your mouth with a swig of water, crunch and mix thoroughly, and start brushing. Of course, your toothbrush will have most of the handle broken off, or holes drilled in strategic patterns, to save weight.

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Boxes

Eighteen boxes, ready to be filled during month of May for mail-drops along The Trail.

I may have over-estimated required size of box at 12″x16″x6″. During previous trip 24 years ago the box size chosen worked well, and I seem to remember the stacks did not take up that much space, but regrettably I did not record box dimensions at that time. In an ideal world I would have put together enough trail meals to fill one box and use that to estimate necessary box size.

In 1988 I planned 20 boxes for 2000 miles, and this year I am preparing 18 boxes for 1000 miles. Am I being too cautious? Perhaps, but I’d prefer to think of it as acknowledging potential limitations of an older body and planning accordingly.

Less than a month until the hike start!

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AT 2012 Trip Plan

“It would be irresponsible not to speculate.”
– Peggy Noonan

For long hikes I prefer to sketch out nightly stops and food drop points, even though The Plan is likely to change with weather, mood, and injury. This gives me a chance to identify the most convenient post offices for receiving packages, as well as the shelters that happen to be spaced optimally for my particular pace. I can game out the trade-offs between going an extra 4 miles round trip to Post Office A versus 2.5 pounds increased average pack weight by waiting for Post Office B. The Plan also makes it easier for Base Support to schedule food package shipments and estimate my location when I am out of communication range. But The Plan is just a plan, not a covenant, so if I need to take a day off in a shelter to rest up from a sprain, avoid a day-long down-pour, or hang out with new trail friends, then so be it, and no guilt is attached.

The Plan for 1988 was reduced to a single sheet of paper printed on both sides, kept handy and consulted often. The Plan for 2012 is in spreadsheet form, available as a Google Doc to modify during the trip via smartphone and share changes with Base Support.

Here is an early version of the first few weeks of The Plan, showing how I organized the information. (It feels weird publishing the entire plan ahead of time because of imagined stalkers, which would imply imagining anyone reads this blog. I will present the entire plan after the trip.)

download as Excel file

Column F shows day of week, so I can avoid problems with post offices closed on Sundays and reduced hours on Saturday. The formula for F2 is

=CHOOSE(WEEKDAY(E2), “Sun”,”Mon”,”Tue”,”Wed”,”Thu”,”Fri”,”Sat”,”Sun”)

and that formula is copied down the column. An asterisk as first character in Column A indicates that line does not increment the day count, to include information about a location mid-day such as a mail drop. The formula in E3 is

=IF(EXACT(LEFT(A2,1),”*”),E2,E2+1)

It is easy to insert an extra day for rest or recuperation by inserting a line.

Column C shows daily mileage, computed from Column D, “Miles from Springer”. The formula in C7 is

=IF(EXACT(LEFT(A6,1),”*”),””,IF(EXACT(LEFT(A5,1),”*”),B6-B4,B6-B5))

Daily mileage goes way down in New Hampshire, due to large elevation changes.

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