The Secret Naturist Handbook

[jbeegoode]

Backpackers so frail and sensitive a bunch and one is certain to report such a hardship as improper behavior. I'm sure that there is also risk of one thinking that a nude male is getting his kicks in the middle of the night, by using bathroom as an excuse...almost rape I suppose.

Don't want them to give them something to talk about, that might get out of hand and jeopardize your position? Do you wear a skirt at other times?

  or or

John P., DF may appreciate me using the finger beam thing, when I get a call in the middle of the night. I'll experiment, that strategy should come in handy. The products out there are high-beam, which I like, but adjustment is difficult.

I tend to find the thing stuck between my teeth as I take care of chores, especially naked/no pockets at night on latrine duty. The lighter weight keeps my teeth and lips from wearing out too soon. The headlamps are good for reading, but when I'm not backpacking, I have a small solar powered lantern with LED to hang behind me. The lantern tends to make everything outside of the immediate illuminated realm invisible, but it is a friendly light. For secret naturism not so good. It would illuminate nude me.
Jbee

[jbeegoode]

Mountain Bikes:
From The Secret Naturist Handbook's "Gear" section:

What better way to explore countryside trails and urban cycle routes than by mountain bike. Imagine the thrill of travelling totally naked for miles through leafy forest trails, along ancient drove roads and by night, stealthily cycling through dark and deserted city streets. An experience never forgotten.

As far as equipment is concerned any standard mountain bike will do for secret naturist use, if used with respect. But do remember you get what you pay for. A cheap bike at £100 will not last very long if abused off road. However, spend £800 and you get a bike that will last a lifetime and will not let you down even under the toughest of conditions. Reliability comes at a price but when you are naked and miles from base, it might just be worth it.

Most bikes do not need much in the way of alteration for secret naturist use and can be used straight off the shelf. However, with quite a few years of nude cycling under my belt, both on and off road, there are a few hints & tips that can make all the difference.

Clip-less pedals or pedal fitted with toe-straps can be difficult to get out of in a hurry, even for the experienced. For safety and a quick response, clip-less pedals should be replaced with flat pedals and toe-straps should be removed.

Reliability is very important. Should you bike fail at an inappropriate time the consequences could be sever and a well maintained bike should not let you down. All parts of the bike should be working perfectly. Pay attention to gears, chain, brakes, tyres and tyre pressures. Good lighting is also essential under most conditions and I favour two lights at the front and a flashing LED at the rear.

One of by best ideas was to fit two LoweAlpine bottle pouches to the handle bars. These proved ideal for carrying shorts and t-shirt for both urban and rural cycling. A second set of clothing was carried in a small under-seat bag.

[jbeegoode]

One more thing that I dislike about headlamps is that they attract bugs to my face.

I love to mountain bike. I'd like to egt abck to it, but nude, it is risky. What to do when you come across someone going so fast, but to keep going fast. If it is the wrong person, then problems. So, that in itself limits the range and venue for nude riding. If I had no reason to fear being caught nude, I would do it there.

I may get me a bike again. Gotta see where I end up.
Jbee-

[jbeegoode]

Navigation: From The Secret Naturist Handbook

When exploring the countryside naked, as we secret naturists tend to do, the ability to find your way about is quite important, especially when you might choose to dispense with carrying clothing with you. The obvious way to navigate is to carry a map and compass, or even a GPS unit. But if you are trying to travel lightly, carrying a map can be real awkward, particularly if you only have a bumbag.

Usually, my own method of navigation on secret naturist outings is actually not to carry a map or compass at all. On the bulk of my outings I will get to know the area thoroughly beforehand, as part of the planning phase, and usually don't need a map or whatever to find my way around.

However, there are occasions when navigation aids are desirable and to keep to lightweight principles I carry the minimum I can get away with. My usual compass is replaced with a small button compass and the main map is replaced with a photocopy of the area required. This allows me to fit the "map" easily inside the bumbag and the button compass takes up no space at all. With a photocopy of the map, it does not matter if it gets lost, wet or damaged.

I've found that this type of navigation, using a basic compass and small piece of map can actually be great fun. If you hide all you clothing, perhaps even footwear as well, you can us the basic equipment you have to complete your outing. Try it, it actually feels quite daring and exciting.

If looking for a button compass, you can get them in the form of a key fob, often with a thermometer and wind chill chart attached as well. I keep mine attached to the outside of the bumbag, ready for use at all times. There's actually a whole range of these products. You get the basic compass but with a variety of other features such as LED torches, whistles and thermometers, all useful for the secret naturist.

[jbeegoode]

I have yet to use my GPS except for experimenting. Mountains and desert , ten miles or less, it is usually not necessary. Rugged areas are generally, a limiting trail, or a walled canyon and hard to get lost.

I tend to feel that it may be easy for me to get turned around and lost in the forested White Mountains. That is when I will use it faithfully. Things look too similar and trails and roads are winding. Just taking off through a forest, I can loose the trail very quickly. Using memory to such an extent can get confusing, it is fallible and takes away from the experience of being in the moment.

Getting lost can be a whole lot more serious than just being caught with your pants down, I figure.

Yesterday, I was out in a new area for miles with often similar terrain. I was lining up two mountain peaks in different directions for guidance and making a collection of landmarks in my head, which were flakey. There are lots of tricks, but they use up lots of mental energy. When I go back there, I'll probably use GPS as a backup. I still like to have a more natural woodsman kind of experience, hone the skills, until it gets in the way, or I feel an uncomfortable "oops" in my stomach when I feel unsure.
Jbee

[John P]

I really enjoy GPS, but as any authority will tell you, it's a bad idea to use one as your only means of navigation. A map and compass will never run out of battery power! But if you mark the location of your car or campsite as a waypoint, you can go out and get thoroughly lost, then get pointed reliably back again. Or record your path and review it when you get home, or mark small items and reliably find them again. I just think it's endlessly fascinating.

I gave up on purpose-made GPS units years ago, though. Now I use an Android phone with Osmand, an app that lets me load maps for anywhere in the world, with all the data known to OpenStreetMap. (There are other apps that people will claim are the best, and I won't argue about it. What I like about Osmand is that it shows open country adequately, and also gives driving directions when I'm in the car.) When I'm serious about a trip, I leave my everyday phone at home and take a waterproof one, with a bigger screen and larger battery, but running the same software.

[BlueTrain]

I find maps fascinating and always take one along when I'm in the cool, shady woods far from home. But I don't have any of those other things. No cell phone and I rarely even wear a watch. I also take, when I remember to, a second map of an alternate destination in the not too unlikely event my primary destination is closed or something. This is for year-round, not just for the good nude hiking season.

[Greenbare Woods]

A long time ago when I was a Boy Scout, the Scoutmaster taught us to turn around frequently and observe the landscape from the other direction.   Landmarks often look quite different going than when coming back.  Observe and remember what it looks like from the other direction gives you something to remember finding your way home.  All my life I have stopped and look back every few hundred yards.  Never gotten lost in the woods.

The one time my GPS really saved me was one night in Huntington, West Virginia, USA.   My son and I left our hotel with a couple of friends and went to a roadhouse for dinner.  We came out after dinner and a few beers to find a dark and rainy night in a strange town.  I did find the road back to the hotel, but turned the wrong direction.  After going a few miles in the wrong direction and not finding the hotel I was thoroughly lost in the dark in a strange city.  Then I thought of checking my GPS.  I had been smart enough to set a way point in the GPS at the hotel before going out.  That was in the days before ubiquitous cellphone navigation aids.  That solved the problem and we drove straight back to the hotel.

The new cellphone navigation isn't foolproof either.  Last summer my wife and I were in Kalispell, Montana, USA.   Again after dinner with some friends my wife and I headed back to our hotel.  She was using her cellphone to be navigator while I drove.  She gets confused about the cell phone's map which puts forward at the top of the screen, rather than north.  She had me on the right road, Highway 93, but going rapidly in the wrong direction out of town toward Whitefish.  I got about a mile, recognized the area, and turned around in a parking lot, having to ignore her arguments.  I also ignored her cellphone's navigation advice (Google Maps) to turn off and wander through a maze of local residential streets.  I had followed that route the day before.   I followed Highway 93 to the middle of town and turned left at a big green sign saying "Highway 2."  Our hotel was on highway 2.   

[Greenbare Woods]

Speaking of maps. I frequently carry a topo map of the area where I'm hiking, or at least study the topo map before I go.   

 I have an older USGS topo map of Los Alamos, NM which does not show the town at all.   The map was printed back in the days when Los Alamos was a secret city that didn't show up on any maps.  Roads shown on the map just end with no explanation when they get near Los Alamos.   I was living in Los Alamos when I found the old map at a yard sale.  Its interesting living in a place that doesn't show up on your map. 

Newer USGS maps show the town but not very much of the National Laboratory which is still "classified" information.   

[BlueTrain]

Way off the subject but I live in a place where interstate highways and the beltway (originally called the circumferential highway) cut old roads and streets in two, resulting in occasional confusion finding an address and a lot of dead end streets. And they keep widening all of them. Yet a few local streets are still paved with cobblestones from the colonial period, just to keep down the traffic. 

[Greenbare Woods]

I lived in Albuquerque for some years.  They liked to put speed bumps on residential streets to keep speed down.  I hated that.   Cobblestones would have been better.

[ric]

we get speed cushions....sort of like speed humps but square and supposedly narrow enough for an ambulances wheels to go either side but still catch narrower cars....white van man loves them, catch en right and you dont notice them .

[John P]

I moved house recently, and one thing I had to look at and decide whether to keep or not was my collection of topo maps. In the past there was a map store around here, called "The Map Shack", and if I was intending to go on a trip, I'd often go there and pick up the local map. They had them in stock for all of New England. Of course, a good many of those trips were to places where I hoped to hike nude, or find a swimmin' hole! I'd paid good money for the maps, but I hadn't looked at any of them in years, since GPS maps became so easy to obtain. In the end I decided to keep the maps mostly for nostalgia's sake. (You Brits, these are the American equivalent of Ordnance Survey maps.)

Here's the collection, arranged so Winchester, New Hampshire, is on the top:


Here's the coverage of Pisgah Reservoir on that map, a place I've hiked and paddled nude:


The same as seen on the website of Caltopo.com, my favorite online map service:


And as shown on my phone screen. I do have to say, it's an inferior image, especially the countour lines. But I've got a dozen different states there, and it won't get soggy in the rain or flap around in the wind, and of course it shows me exactly where I am. In my opinion, it's the way to go these days.

[jbeegoode]

I like the bigger picture of a map. I even pasted together a group of topo maps once to take in the whole of the Penaleno Mountains.
The mountains make for spotty reception sometimes.

I like to plan distance.

If there is, say a mountain in the distance, a good landmark, or point of interest, I don't want to miss it because it is off of the edge of the screen. My phone also weighs more. I prefer maps and some GPS to augment.

Planning is important to me. If i print a map off of the internet, I can choose the best size to my needs and blow it up, or shrink it down accordingly. This reduces weight and bulk.

I often can't see a screen because of sunlight glare.
Jbee

[jmf]

My map collection also gets dusty on a bookshelf at home. For years I've been switching to maps and gps on my smartphone. With a subscription of only fifteen euros a year, I can download maps of all the places I want to go for a walk in France. In different scales from a view of the whole country up to the 25 000th as the hiking maps and even more 3 125th and the photo coverage up to the 1 500th. By playing with these different scales and with its exact position on them it becomes difficult to really get lost.