[pct-l] Laundry

[CHUCK CHELIN]

Good morning, Mark,

For me doing laundry is not a discrete activity:  It is done piecemeal
rather than as an event.  I don’t try to wash a sleeping bag on the trail.  I
don’t use a bag liner.  My fleece sweater is rarely worn, and as a result
rarely needs to be laundered.  The same can be said of my thin, light
windshirt.

What remains are the garments that I wear regularly or all the time:  I
only take one pair of short, light, synthetic-fabric athletic shorts.  They
have a jock liner so separate underwear isn’t necessary.  Whether on the
trail or in town, they get wet when I get wet, and dry quickly.  The same
applies to my single synthetic tee-shirt, except I can rinse it at times
when I don’t dunk myself.

Socks – two or three pair, total – can be rinsed or washed at any
convenience, as can the one or two handkerchiefs that I carry.

It can’t always happen, but I try to clean myself somehow before hitching
or stopping in town: We must try to avoid alarming the local citizenry,
don’t you know.

In town, I’d feel pretty silly standing in front of a 20-pound capacity
washing machine with less than one pound of clothes.  Most hikers combine
their items to make a load, and it’s a bit of a hiker tradition, but I’m
not very tradition-bound.

Steel-Eye

-Hiking the Pct since before it was the PCT – 1965

http://www.trailjournals.com/steel-eye
http://www.trailjournals.com/SteelEye09/

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Mark Halverstadt <markhalverstadt at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Hey PCT-L,
> Quick question, when you guys are in town with access to laundry, are you
> planning to do it all at once and sit around naked? I'm not planning on
> bringing extra clothes so...I guess I'm just going to sit around naked when
> doing laundry. But it sucks I wont be able to hang out (ha) in town when
> I'm doing laundry.
>