The Mary Badass

Many times a day I have to dig deep to keep going. For example, when it is 16 miles to the next water and my feet, knees, hips, and shoulder hurt. It would be easy to stop and give up. But I don’t really want to end my hike. Neither do I want to sit…

Staying hydrated in the desert A water cache stocked by volunteers in the Great Basin of Wyoming. By Mary Anderson The heaviest thing I carry is water. I can easily drink one gallon, or eight pounds per day, especially in the windy desert. Some water sources are 30-plus miles apart. This is when I have…

By Mary Anderson It has been at least 20 years since I have done a self-arrest with an ice ax. I thought some practice before my hike would be a good idea, so before leaving home, I went to a local ski area in search of snow. I trudged up the slope, aware that I…

By Mary Anderson Yesterday I wrote about how long-distance hiking has made me more aware of basic human needs, but I left out what I believe to be the most important resource a solo backpacker can have: friends, and the ability to stay in touch with them. I set out on this hike to find…

By Mary Anderson As I packed for my hike I thought about the spin it put on my concepts of resources. I was surrounded by all the stuff I would use in the next four months. It looked like a lot. Yet it all fits inside my pack, and except for the food, it weighs…

I’m preparing messages to go into my satellite device. Typing on it in the field is cumbersome. I’m allowed twenty messages, 160 characters each. It is making me have to really think about the words I will choose and what it is I will most want to convey with you folks back home. If we…

By Mary Anderson I’m thrilled. My van windshield is full of dead bugs. Over the last number of years I have noticed I seldom needed to clean my windshield of dead bugs. It has concerned me. I know that many cities spray to kill black flies and mosquitoes. Farmers spray insecticides. And undisturbed natural habitats…

By Mary Anderson To soothe the little parts of myself that were so shaken up by hitting a deer, I stopped and tried to buy myself a hot chocolate. I say “tried” because when I went to the checkout with my cup overflowing with cocoa piled high with whipped cream, I was told by the…

By Mary Anderson It wasn’t revenge. I swear. I know that deer are a vector of Lyme disease, and having just been diagnosed with it, it might seem I did it on purpose. I was tootling along Highway 80-West in Iowa. It was dark—about 4 a.m. local time. A big, beautiful deer ran right out…

By Mary Anderson Just before I left home I noticed a telltale bullseye on my ankle. “Just what I need,” I thought. “Lyme disease.” I stopped at a clinic on the way out of Vermont and filled the prescription for the heavy-hitting three weeks of antibiotics. Both the doctor and the pharmacist told me, “Make…