JONTILLMAN.COM

Backpacking Shelter

Jon — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:07:32 +0000

It's hard to say what piece of gear is the "most important" when putting together backpacking gear, since most long-distance backpackers are cutting it down to the bare minimum anyway, and every piece of gear is actually essential. That said, the psychological first step in my gearing up quest was to take care of my shelter. Small and light are the watchwords here, and shelter seems to be an area of backpacking gear that tends towards the heavy and overbuilt, almost as much as rain gear. My search for light and fast shelter quickly pushed me out of the standard outdoor store and into the world of cottage gear makers. These folks, when faced with the problems of super-heavy, overbuilt gear, decided to do something about it, and began making their own gear, and then selling the better designs to others that were, like them, annoyed at how heavy most camping gear is. I started compiling a list of my options for shelter, and it basically boiled down to three broad types of... Read more

Georgia to Maine

Jon — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:49:44 +0000

I suppose this will make it "official", or at least utterly embarrassing if it doesn't actually happen, but whatever. I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail this coming Spring and Summer. I plan to leave Amicalola Falls State Park and hike up to Springer Mountain and the start of the Trail on March 16th, give or take a day or two. With any luck, 2,168 miles later, I'll climb Mt. Katadhin in Baxter State Park in Maine sometime in the second half of July. I will walk an average of close to 20 miles a day, taking a day off once a week or so to resupply, eat non-dehydrated food and clean myself more thoroughly than I can in the woods. I will carry everything I need (or at least everything I need for a week at a time) with me. It weighs less than 15 pounds, not counting food and water. Food will weigh about 2 pounds per day, and I will carry two liters of water (4.4 pounds for the conversion-challenged). All told, on the heaviest days of my trip, I will be carrying 33 pounds of... Read more

A New Direction

Jon — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:52:33 +0000

For the few of you who read this blog regularly, you have undoubtedly noticed the paucity of posts over the last several months. This is attributable to many things, but mostly it is because this blog, and all of my online doings, have become part of a wholesale reappraisal of my life (getting a jump on that old canard the mid-life crisis). During that reappraisal, I spent a good bit of time reading the things I have posted here over the years, and decided that I didn't like the direction my writing here was moving in. It had become too reactionary, too temporally topical and in some cases downright silly. Instead of continuing on in that vein, or simply walking away completely, I have decided instead to refocus my writing on subjects near and dear to me, but to shift the emphasis from that of critique to something more like reportage; focusing on things as I encounter them, making sure to keep in mind that watching them on television or reading about them on the internet is... Read more

Michael Pollan Blames “Feminism”

Jon — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:53:32 +0000

So, in addition to being a smug bourgeois know-it-all with a shaky grasp of history, it seems Pollan is also a raging... Read more

VBM

Jon — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:01:22 +0000

I don't really have words for how annoyed I am by the sanctimonious Mark (needs-to-get-a-dictionary) Bittman's Vegan Before Dinnertime. Fortunately I don't have to, because Dr. Mary Martin has them for me. Maybe Bittman, Michael Pollan and Peter Singer could all get together over a nice pile of foie gras and butcher the meaning of vegan a bit... Read more

Out of the Kitchen, Into the History Classroom

Jon — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:51:21 +0000

The favorite bourgeoisie food scribe, Michael Pollan, recently published a whining screed about how people don't cook anymore, they just watch other people cook. Of course, as with all Pollan articles, by 'people' he means the bourgeoisie; white, upper middle class social strivers with disposable income and well-examined navels. These people, the bourgeoisie, have always aspired to NOT cook. Julia Child, who Pollan appreciatively credits with his mothers, and his, "culinary awakening", is not so disingenuous as to pretend to be a defender of some sacred social ritual. In a 1989 interview, Child states simply that “I grew up in the teens and ‘20s, when most people had—middle class people—had maids or someone to help.” She goes on to say that her mother only knew two dishes, and herself, none at all. None of this should be surprising. The aristocratically wealthy have always had cooks amongst their servants, and the bourgeoisie have always longed to emulate, as far as... Read more

Stoned wallabies make crop circles

Jon — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:51:24 +0000

Stoned wallabies make crop circles says Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of... Read more

Ganguro Girls In Essex

Jon — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:42:36 +0000

There are not words to express the horror of Essex Ganguro... Read more

This Is Why You’re Fat

Jon — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:55:36 +0000

Ever wonder why you're fat? This Is Why You're... Read more

Some Outdoor Activity Definitions

Jon — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:22:21 +0000

Reading through a bunch of hiking and backpacking message boards brought up an interesting subject recently; namely, what is "backpacking"? After some pondering, I think I have arrived at a satisfactory answer, to me at least. Hiking is walking (and only walking) in natural environments, often but not always, on trails specifically for foot traffic. It is the natural environment bit that separates it from walking. Camping is living outdoors temporarily(?) , often in the wilderness and generally in non-urban areas and may involve the use of a tent, primitive or natural shelter, or no shelter at all. Backpacking is the convergence of hiking and camping. To be backpacking is to hike while carrying all of the gear one needs to camp (shelter/cooking facilities/etc...).In my definition, it is also necessary to actually use those camping items to camp (or intend to). Synonyms to my definition of backpacking would be trekking, tramping (in NZ) and bushwalking. So, one can hike for... Read more