Bear Bait!

So my backpack smells like chicken … which, with less than two weeks before I start traipsing around the backcountry, isn’t really a good thing. To make matters worse (for me) it smells like rotten chicken. Thru hikers can get pretty smelly but STARTING the trip with your bag smelling like the bottom of a curbside garbage can … that could earn me a name change. Yahtzee could go to Stinky in nanoseconds!

Long story short, I took my pack and it’s contents over to my sisters’ homes this past weekend. The intent: show my nieces and nephews all of my gear and explain the trip to them. They all tried on the pack, which is currently standing at 41.3 pounds without water, fuel, my first aid kit and a few other items, so I’m pretty sure it outweighs my youngest niece who, needless to say, couldn’t lift it off the ground.

I got home on Saturday night and unloaded the food bags from my pack. It was then that I realized that there was something wet in one of the compartments. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was. I didn’t have any fluids loaded yet. The mystery liquid was the consistency of water but smelled horrible.

The next morning it dawned on me … one of the chicken pouches I was carrying in my food supply bags must have come open. It was the only thing that had any liquid to it. Sure enough, after inspecting everything carefully I found the culprit chicken pouch with a small slice in it (like that of a box cutter). I probably purchased it that way. It was fine until I squeezed it into a tightly stuffed pack which forced the liquid out of the pouch and into my pack. Needless to say I’ll be checking the rest of the pouches for structural integrity, washing my pack with baking soda and warm water plus looking over my shoulder a bit more to check for “friends” on the trail. A chicken flavored backpack would make me the pied piper of the AT … at least for a short time anyway. 

Happy Trails Everyone!