Backpacking While Old

If you followed the final days of my Pyrenean Haute Route hike, you read about the oafish American man who questioned my ability to manage a route of this difficulty. 

“Even YOU?” he asked, his lip curling in distaste. “I haven’t seen many old people hiking this.”

It was an unpleasant moment and happened right after I ate a tainted quiche. Sadly, I was unable to offer a snarky comeback and simply slunk away to a night of severe illness. 

Feeling low and feeling old shook my confidence that I really had what it takes anymore to hike a route this tough. Truth is, as a 59-year-old cancer thriver with two fake hips, I had nearly finished the route and hadn’t skipped a single hard part. 

Still, a cascading set of issues were piling up and finally forced me off trail. Looking back, I wonder what I might have done differently to set me up better for success. 

But first, here’s something that did work.

Sleep System

A doctor once told me, “Good health requires rest, nutrition and exercise – and in that order.”

He was definitely talking to me since I tend to live more toward Governor Walz theory of living, “We’ll rest when we’re dead.” Here’s what I’ve learned: not resting can make us dead a whole lot faster.

Sleeping on the ground gets harder as we age. We have less cartilage to cushion our bones, we produce fewer hormones that allow us to stay asleep and many of us develop conditions that keep us awake us up at night. 

Long, hard hiking hiking days are punishing on the body and require proper rest. So for this hike, I got myself a luxurious sleep system that’s still within reasonable weight limits for thru-hiking and all made by the terrific Australian company, Sea-to-Summit.

Pad

What I looked forward to most at the end of my day was laying down on my air mattress. The Women’s Ether LiteXT insulated air sleeping pad is cut for us wide-hipped ladies, so I never rolled off. With a 3.5 R-Value, it’s warm enough for 3-season hiking and floats four inches above the ground on cushioned springs. I filled it with air using its stuff sack in only five breaths! 

Weight: 17.5 ounces
Size: a small log for the fireplace

Pillow

The pad sports a “pillow lock” of four bits of sticky velcro in a circle. This holds in place the anatomical Aeros inflatable pillow and soft cover in place. For years, I just rolled up clothes as a pillow. Nowadays, that means a stiff neck by morning. I don’t go anywhere anymore without my pillow which is as comfortable on my back as on my side. Incidentally, both pillow and pad have a one-way port that keeps the air in as you inflate, then dumps air out fast when time to deflate. 

Weight: 2.1 ounces
Size: a man’s wallet

Bag

My brilliant orange Flame 25° sleeping bag easily opened up into a quilt when it was hot, which was most nights for this post-menopausal woman, though I was grateful to have all that down surrounding me on the two nights it actually was cold. It’s cozy, fluffy, ultralight, and packs to nothing.

Weight: 24 ounces
Size: a mayonaise jar

In addition, I picked up a large bit of polycro for a ground sheet which kept the tent dry as condensation covered the outside and inside of my single-walled tent. 

Rest? Success!

More about my gear and where to buy it is here.

Nutrition

Eating well on trail is my Achilles heal. After about two weeks, no matter how much I eat, I cannot seem to keep the weight on. Spain and France both put an emphasis on white bread as a mainstay. While it fills me up, it left me longing for healthier choices like fruit, vegetables, beans, or rice. 

I could feel my energy lagging as the hike continued, even though I’d seemingly eat enormous amounts. True, a hiker can burn an average of 5,000 calories per day. But it’s not about replenishing calories only, but replenishing them with the right food. 

As we age, we lose bone and muscle mass and our nutritional needs change. It was ironically at Refugi Certascan – the place where I tripped on a stair and broke my foot – when I started to feel like myself again. They served a dinner of garbanzo beans and vegetables, whole grain bread and quinoa salad. The minute that food hit my stomach, it was as if I woke up from a bad dream.

But finding those ingredients to make my own meals was tough. Sometimes I  was able to purchase overpriced, highly caloric and minimally portioned hiker meals, but mostly I relied on cheese, saucisson, baguettes, nuts and dried fruit. 

That might be why I would eat and eat and eat but never feel full, because my body was desperate for specific nutrients. And that’s when, I’m embarrassed to admit, I would resort to quick fixes like gummy bears.  

One of the best refuges on trail was at Portillon. They made a giant vegetable and meat-filled omelette for one of my hiking friends, Tamir and me, plus a hearty vegetable soup served with whole grain bread. Again, I felt revived. That might have been what I was searching for when I bought the tainted quiche…

Nutrition? Definitely needs work, possibly by taking a bus off-trail to larger supermarkets, bringing supplements or planning to eat at refuges more often.

Check out Backcountry Foodie for nutritious recipes

Exercise

I was crazy strong on this hike – until I wasn’t. Tamir and I had opposite skills.  His was flying down steep slopes and skimming across boulder fields, while mine was ascending as if a butterfly, my feet hardly touching the ground. 

Obviously, pacing yourself and “listening to your body” is key. But it becomes even more critical as we age when we might be nursing arthritis, inflammation, old injuries, and generally not quite being the person we were, even last season. 

I just read an article about a horrible condition called rhabdomyolysis. This is when injured muscles die and release toxins into the bloodstream. It can shut down organs and even kill us. 

Sounds lovely, huh?

The Haute Route had four days of highly exposed sections that I had no interest in walking alone. I was lucky to meet Tamir, Evelien and Floris and we took on these challenging sections together with encouragement, camaraderie and lots of laughs. 

The only problem was they moved faster than me, so, to keep up and not end up walking alone, I had to push myself – hard. Quite honestly, those long days skipping on boulders and navigating steep slopes exhausted me. I might have been more successful lagging behind and walking shorter days, especially after it was no longer necessary to stick close together. 

Over time, I developed a “Runner’s Hack,” a cough brought on by heavy breathing at altitude. Because we have less of a filter between our mouths and lungs as opposed to our noses, we are at risk for infection. Once my cough started, hiking got harder. The advice to avoid developing this type of cough is pretty obvious: do not over-exert. 

Exercise? Probably a bit too much. It might have been wiser to slow down and take a zero on trail.

Read “Meet the Old Lady on the Trail”

Conclusion

A wise woman who’s hiking into her 80’s once told me not to compare myself to younger hikers – or even to my younger self. 

As we age, we don’t bounce back the way we did when we were younger. That means being far gentler with ourselves by getting a good night’s sleep (plus lots of breaks) eating nutritious meals to fuel our hike and backing off on taking on big distances just because you can.

After all, as older people we have less time to do all the things we want to do, but we’ve had long lives with tremendous experiences. Why not savor each experience fully?

And the next time some idiot acts shocked that someone of our age is out there hiking, we can simply smile and reply, “Yup, even me!”