[pct-l] TP or not TP

[John Coyle]

The possibility of mistakinly using poison oak for tp reminds me of an incident from my misspent youth soon after I had just moved out west to Sacramento from Upstate New York.  We had the similar poison ivy back there, but it wasn't very prevalent where I lived in New York, and consequently I wasn't familiar with the appearance of poson oak or poison ivy.  I did a day hike close to Sacramento at Folsom Lake which is just chock full of poison oak.  Somehow, unbeknownst to me, I got the posion oak oil on my hands and then had to tinkle in the woods (number 1.)  Of course, if you get the posion oak oil on your hands, anything you touch will have a rash in a couple of days.  One of my friends said it was a rite of passage out here, but it is one I never want to go through again.  Luckily most of the Sierra PCT is too high for poison oak, but I would urge anyone hiking through posion oak country to learn its appearance real fast.

John Coyle