You know you've been hiking a lot when...

I dream in contour.

• You can feel when you're off-route.
• You are uneasy and your legs hurt from all the scratches.
• Your dreams are laced with squiggly brown contour lines. 
• You need to do laundry so you have clean hiking shirts.
• You have shed the deodorant and comb as extra weight. You give toothpaste the critical eye.
• You refer to "servings" of toilet paper, as in "How many servings of toilet paper am I going to need for this trip?"
• You have two definitions of hard hiking...

---  23 blowdowns in the space of 40 minutes.
--- Your 24 year-old hiking partner asserting that getting her period is the WORST thing that could've happened on this backpacking trip. She repeats it at least 23 times in a 40 minute period.

Lemme give you the blowdown.

• My kingdom for a Playtex Super.
• To plug her mouth with.
• You are outside to receive the sun's first kiss.
• It restores you because being alone in the wilderness at night is frightening.
• You can identify trail by cairn, by blaze, by sawed log ends, and by soil disturbance.
• You've worked out your own alert system for number of blowdowns along a trail...

--- Pink = Yay! An opportunity for a great ab workout.
--- Yellow = This ab workout expends a lot of energy.
--- Orange = Shit. Shit. Shit.
--- Red = Alright already, hiking gods! My abs are going to scare away my boyfriend.

• Tapwater tastes funny.
• A successful trip is gauged by netting more stories than scratches.
• You appreciate how the help never forgets to freshen the flowers. 



Colorado Blue Columbine

• You can't write down all the reasons you do it.

Alpine meadow beauties