Date: 2010-03-13
To: Lost in translation.
Miles today: 0.0

Creativity is everyone¢s right. If you can think it you can do it ¢ in most cases. That however doesn¢t mean what you can think will be¢¦say, brilliant. Being one who is driven by creativity, I definitely take a keen interest in some of the concoctions that present themselves on the AT. Who doesn¢t enjoy a good laugh? Many who concoct don¢t actually think their notions are silly, quite the contrary. Some of these trail conquering inventors saunter up the trail overflowing with self-confidence, congratulating themselves on being a dadgum genius. It¢s wonderful, really. Of course, as any rocket scientist will attest to, what seems brilliant on paper isn¢t always stupendous in application.I met a fellow hiker one year who arrived at the shelter all giddy and smiles, he had this big white thing poking out of his pack, which did appear to be quite lightweight. It seems in the quiet moments at home, it dawned on him that if he could fuse the base weight of a sleeping bag and tent into one unique invention, a great new product or at least a big chunk of weight would be saved. Pulling from the housing industry, where they wrap the walls with Tyvek to serve as a barrier to moisture, his inspiration was to fabricate the Tyvek fabric into the first AT hybrid Tent Bag. (I didn¢t point out to him someone had already done this, which they named the Bivy Sack. But I digress.)As we all started retiring to our bags for the night, I witness him laying out this huge swath of Tyvek on the ground. He then laid down on one end and proceeded to roll himself into, well¢¦ a giant forest burrito. All that bright white Tyvek lying on the ground, it looked like he glowed in the dark. Ok, you don¢t see that everyday. The kicker came at about 2 am that morning when the sky opened up a deluge of rain. In an apparent miscalculation, the ends of the giant forest burrito were open ¢ you know, for breathing and all. However, this allowed all the rain to funnel inside to his sanctuary of brilliance. It was a long night for the hiking Einstein. Never saw him again, but what a trail treat to behold.The next ingenuity gone awry was one I dreamed up and then later witnessed two others dream up as well. One of the great gear axioms of long distance hiking is to have your gear, if possible, serve more than one purpose, this naturally saves weight. It occurred to me one year that if I carried one of those shiny silvery emergency bags that weigh a scant 2 ounces, my sleeping bag could slip inside in extreme cold for extra warmth or be used as a waterproof bag cover in bad weather, thus saving six to eight ounces over conventional bag covers. Additionally, those emergency bags are folded up so small when you get them, they¢d take up no measurable space at all ¢ It was brilliant and I was brilliant for thinking it up. It¢s wonderful being a genius; ¢¦ hmm¢¦ ¢Wonder if MENSA needs any new members?¢ I thought.Here¢s the rub though, once you open that tidy, compact chrome bag of brilliance from its factory package, it¢s impossible to get it anywhere remotely close to its original size again. Worse though, and this is the kicker, all that ultra thin silveryness CRINKLES and CRACKLES to such a decibel level while trying to do so, that you might as well be trying to fold up a bag of potato chips. Just to touch it ever so slightly is to trigger a CRINK, even to breathe near it makes it CRACK and POP and SCHRICK and SCHRACK. This cacophony of CRINKLES and CRACKLES ruckus is particularly magnified when one is trying to pack up early in a shelter full of sleeping hikers. Try folding a bag of potato chips quietly ¢ can¢t be done. And despite my warning to a hiker friend who was freezing her tukkus off in a cold spell, feeling that I had overstated the annoyance, she headed out with her new brilliant emergency bag solution despite the warning. It lasted one night, she almost got herself tossed out to the bears by a full shelter revolt from all her midnight CRINKLING at her every turn. There are a lot of laughs out on the trail, some the AT makes and some we become.Inventing stuff or just connecting the dots on a solution can be fun. I raise my glass of hot chocolate and say, ¢Cheers¢ to you inventors of brilliance, you originators of the marvelous. My best invention that continues to make getting into town all the easier is my Hiker To Town billboard ¢ a bandana that Velcro¢s to your hiking sticks. This sort of pales to my great uncles invention of the Toggle Bolt, or my second cousins invention of the Smart Bomb for the military, and then there is that distant Hughes relative named Howard who invented the oil drilling bit. Yep, my meager Hiker To Town billboard won¢t win me any vast millions, but it makes a meal and shower in town a touch easier.Invent on inventors of the trail, invent on.