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Yes, always a good reminder how the internet amplifies a lot of voices and perspectives that aren't actually common or mainstream!
Hiking Naked?
- Thread starter balzaccom
- Start date
UtahBrian
God bless America. Let's save some of it.
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- Feb 15, 2018
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I was backpacking in 1998 in the Ventana Wilderness of California. I'd gone up the Palo Colorado Road (which has been closed for over 20 years now because of flooding) and followed an abandoned trail which had already received no maintenance in the jungle environment for 20 years before that. I spent a nice three day weekend camping by a beautiful waterfall about halfway up the windward side of a mountain with a little 1930s fire grill hidden off the the side of the thick vegetation that had filled in the former trail. You could tell where the trail used to be because of the cut into the steep mountainside.
The mountain was producing a steady flow of cool water down the steep gully, presumably from collecting ocean mist at the higher altitudes, even though it was sunny where I was all weekend. I decided to follow the waterfalls down to the stream below, a long twisty tributary to Big Sur. Since I was in California working, I hadn't packed much backpacking gear and was dressed mostly in cotton, so I stripped down to nothing but my camp Tevas and went a couple miles downstream in the warm air.
I was miles from the trailhead and any reasonably used trail and even then I was off trail the entire time. I thought it would be fine. Even if someone saw me, which I certainly did not remotely expect since I was probably the only person who had been at the spot all year, it was California and the liberal minded locals probably go around naked all the time, smoking marijuana and listening to avant garde music and doing other dissolute activities.
It went well. I swam in flumes, climbed up and down vertical waterfalls (5.5) in the fresh spray, took in views of the distant ocean, and mostly did a lot of vertical scrambling in cool water in the warm air and sun.
But when I got back to civilization the next day, I discovered the worst consequence of naked hiking.
At some point I must have sat down on some poison oak with my bare butt. It was a few weeks of heavy investment in aloe, lidocaine, and light topical steroids. And standing up to work instead of sitting down.
The mountain was producing a steady flow of cool water down the steep gully, presumably from collecting ocean mist at the higher altitudes, even though it was sunny where I was all weekend. I decided to follow the waterfalls down to the stream below, a long twisty tributary to Big Sur. Since I was in California working, I hadn't packed much backpacking gear and was dressed mostly in cotton, so I stripped down to nothing but my camp Tevas and went a couple miles downstream in the warm air.
I was miles from the trailhead and any reasonably used trail and even then I was off trail the entire time. I thought it would be fine. Even if someone saw me, which I certainly did not remotely expect since I was probably the only person who had been at the spot all year, it was California and the liberal minded locals probably go around naked all the time, smoking marijuana and listening to avant garde music and doing other dissolute activities.
It went well. I swam in flumes, climbed up and down vertical waterfalls (5.5) in the fresh spray, took in views of the distant ocean, and mostly did a lot of vertical scrambling in cool water in the warm air and sun.
But when I got back to civilization the next day, I discovered the worst consequence of naked hiking.
At some point I must have sat down on some poison oak with my bare butt. It was a few weeks of heavy investment in aloe, lidocaine, and light topical steroids. And standing up to work instead of sitting down.
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If you are so inclined, the movie "The Same River Twice" is a classic. Beware, it is not for the faint of heart, lot's of naked people running the Colorado in 1978.
On our honeymoon in July of 1981 we spent 4 glorious days in Coyote Gulch, mostly sans clothes. No cars on the drive in except a VW bus parked where the Gulch crosses the Hole in the Rock Road. Late afternoon on our 1st day, chilling in thew shade by the Escalante, the couple who owned the bus were walking up the shore towards us. They had a baby maybe 12 months old on the guys shoulders, wearing only t-shirts and packs, clearly over dressed. We hung out for an hour, sharing food. It was a beautiful, memorable day. Probably not something that could happen now, which is kinda sad. They were the only people we saw.