COMICS! Part 1

About half way through the hike, I started relaxing at the shelters. There was enough of a routine that setting up camp at the shelter was down to 40 minutes, leaving a good chunk of time to tool around. Most of the shelters have log books. Usually a notebook left inside a large ziploc bag with a pen to write notes and comments on the parts of the trail you've just done.

It was extremely helpful to see what people were writing in the books about upcoming sections. Water levels, terrain, grumpy bears,... that sort of stuff. It's also a great way to keep in contact with the hikers you know coming up behind.

For the first half of the trip, I'd write a few words and sign my name so there'd be a breadcrumb trail in case anything did end up happening to me. But that soon got old, and I reverted to my old ways... The following three posts will be photos of the complete grouping of comics that were drawn along the trail in 2007. Click on the photos to see them bigger.
My first. I had it in my head that my walking poles would be reoccurring characters. This was a few days after one of my poles lost it's rubber foot, and so he became the grumpy one. Oh, and I always draw myself as that big nosed dog in comics. Why? It's just something that I'd started back in high school, and never changed.

A quick one, the second night out from Hot Springs, NC. I received my trail name, MacGyver here.

The start of McGyver's "Shelter Tips". I used this camera hack for all of my solo photos. It worked great with the Komperdell poles I was using.

Aaah, another classic McGyver trick. We had a short 20 minutes of rain after the time I finally arrived at this shelter. The water source was completely dry, and the 1.5 liters we were able to get from the poncho was a lifesaver!

Yeah, I actually drew this one. Was rushing to get in to town. I later found out that the 'mesh bag' that I though Crabapple was using was actually a specially designed mosquito headnet. Oh well, I guess you could buy the headnet and use it as a mesh back when not in use then...

Next week I'll post the continuation of the McGyver comics!