I don’t believe I have done any sort of gear review until now. I did that review of my Army issued sleeping bag, but that was more of just an overlong recap of the snowpocalypse. I mean… highly enjoyable tale of human perseverance.
I only own blue jeans, khakis, jogging pants, sweatpants, and one pair of black dress pants. Convertible hiking pants are one thing I have never used or owned in my life, so I knew I needed to get at least a couple pairs for the Appalachian Trail. After looking online for the nicest and cheapest pants I could find, I settled on Poentab.
EXPECTATIONREALITY
Poentab is a decidedly Chinese company that sells camping and hiking gear through Shopify. The models on their website are predominantly blonde and white. I did not buy my pants from their website because I didn’t know it existed until 10 minutes ago.
Poentab also sells online through Walmart for $29.98. On the Poentab website the price is $42.88 so at least I bought from the cheaper option. It may seem obvious but, just to hammer the point home, there was no pick-up option. I had to have these pants delivered.
These pants run a little big. I took a long time trying to decide between the 30″ waist and the 32″. I normally wear anywhere between 32-34″ pants. I ultimately got the 30″ because I hoped if they didn’t fit that I would shrink my way into them. Turns out the 30″ are just about the perfect size. The waist is very stretchy and forgiving, so I say go a waist size below what you normally would.
They are 90% nylon, 10% spandex. It makes the pants feel very lightweight and comfortable, even when you bend over or squat low. The care instructions say to wash in warm water below 30 degrees C (86 degrees F), line dry, do not bleach, and only iron at below 110 degrees C (230 degrees F). I had no idea irons went up that high. I always thought irons just boiled water into steam, so I figured the upper limit was 212 degrees F.
Now for the convertible feature of the pants. They unzip just below the knees to become shorts. There is a flap over the zipper, so you cannot see an obvious zipper from the outside. Each zip-off leg even has a tag inside labelled L or R in case you get them mixed up and get confused about how to put your pants back together. Probably most useful when you are drunk.
This one is the LEFT leg
The belt came in a small plastic bag inside the same box the pants came in. I almost accidentally threw it out with the box. Once I did notice the belt I commented about how small and chintzy it looked. Turns out it only appeared to be feeble. Once you start using it, it works as well as any other belt. You may not even need it with as stretchy as the material is.
These pants are pretty good at repelling water due to the materials from which they are constructed. They will definitely get soaked if you stand outside in the rain though. Their lightweight nature allows them to dry quickly, so if you do get stuck in a downpour just walking around in them for a while can dry them out sufficiently.
My only real complaint is the colors I purchased. I bought a pair of dark grey and a pair of apricot. The dark grey are too dark for my liking and the apricot are too light. If I could turn back time I would go for army green and khaki, or maybe regular grey.
I feel like I got a great deal on these hiking pants. I am afraid they will easily rip at the knees if I fall on a rock, but most lightweight pants will do that. I have plans to never fall down on any trails again, so if that is the case I should be fine.
In case you are thinking right now, “what the fuck does this guy know about hiking pants”, I feel you. Don’t just take my word for it. Men’s Journal recently wrote a review of these pants and largely agreed with me. So there.
The Revenant won three Academy Awards, including Best Director for Alejandro Iñárritu and Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio. It is based on the true story of Hugh Glass and his fight to survive the American wilderness in the early nineteenth century. In what is by far the most memorable scene of this movie, Glass gets repeatedly violated by a bear in the woods.
That was a movie after all. Do bears really want to rape people? Or is that just movie magic and suspension of disbelief? Would a bear find me attractive? That is quite a few questions to ponder. What is the word for being violated by a bear? Well, I looked it up and couldn’t get a definitive answer. I tried all sorts of search terms:
“bear rape man”
“how can bear rape man consent”
“jeremy allen white shirtless pics”
I got all kinds of weird, weird things and went down all sorts of disturbing rabbit holes, but no luck on finding conclusive terminology. Also I need to clear my browser history more frequently. Seems like if I raped a bear it would be “ursophilia”, so maybe the term I’ll use is “reverse ursophilia”.
To say that I fear reverse ursophilia somewhere in the woods of Appalachia would seem obvious. I believe every single person on the planet would choose not to experience this if given any other option. But how likely is this to happen? Are there big, burly bears along the Appalachian Trail and are they on the prowl for fresh meat? To clarify, when I talk about “burly bears” in this post, I mean the family Ursidae.
American black bears exist along most of the Appalachian Trail. My research indicates that they are more interested in my improperly stored and disposed of food than my improperly protected orifices. You can’t put a bear canister around your bunghole, but you probably don’t need to. Safe to say that the odds of reverse ursophilia are vanishingly small. But how about a non-sexual encounter with a burly bear?
There are very few encounters of any kind between black bears and humans each year. Fewer than one person is killed by a black bear every two years since 1900, according to sources. But an incident doesn’t need to be fatal to end in reverse ursophilia. There has been an almost 100% increase in bear incidents since last year.
Why is that? It seems like droughts and scorching temperatures everywhere are putting pressure on the food resources bears depend upon. This pressure causes them to venture out of their comfort zones and into more contact and conflict with people. More people doing more outdoor activities in ever-decreasing wilderness spaces exacerbates the problem.
Still, by and large, bears don’t want to have anything to do with us. Sexually or otherwise. The reason for that seems to be the old standby “they are just as scared of us as we are of them”. They must have access to my search history. As long as you don’t feed bears or poke bears, stay on designated routes, and practice meticulous litter discipline they will probably leave you all alone. But bring bear canisters and bear spray just in case.
Being raped by a bear? Horrifying result, imperceptibly low likelihood. Having an incident with a bear? Troubling to possibly injurious result, very low likelihood if appropriate steps are taken.
To finish up I want to revisit The Revenant and my favorite fact about it. In that movie a young Will Poulter portrays Jim Bridger. Bridger wound up becoming one of the most influential explorers in the American West. He has multiple towns and schools named in his honor. Coolest of all, in my opinion, he is immortalized along with John Calvin McCoy and Alexander Majors in a statue at Pioneer Park in Kansas City.
Majors, McCoy, and Bridgers (L to R)
No bears or people were harmed in the making of this blog post.
I actually left the safe environs of Austin to travel all the way up to Cedar Park in order to check out Brushy Creek Trail. It turned into quite an adventure on an amazing trail surrounded by some amazing parks with tons of things to do and see. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
The western terminus of the Brushy Creek Trail is located at a trailhead near Twin Lakes Family YMCA in Cedar Park. Cedar Park is a suburb about 15 miles northwest of downtown Austin. Probably the two things Cedar Park are most known for are H-E-B Center, home of the Austin Spurs and Texas Stars, and the never-ending drama surrounding their city flag.
In 2016 Cedar Park pretended to be a real city and designed a flag of their very own. After a lot of to-do and hubbub they released one that was met with annoyance and derision. So they took it down and never bothered to create a new one. Almost ten years and counting at this point.
Twin Lakes Family YMCA is a big deal destination with a million and one things to do. Especially on a hot summer’s day. This is a common trend along the Brushy Creek Trail. Almost everywhere along the trail there was always something else fun you could be doing instead. Check out all these options available at the Y.
The happiest place on Earth. Click to enlarge.
Fishing, water slides, pools, play areas. Sky Trail. I honestly didn’t want to leave the Y to even get started with the hike. Filled with sadness, I did make my way to the mile zero marker. All along this trail there are stone markers buried in the ground at 1/4 mile intervals, beginning with the first one.
Immediately after leaving the Y, the trail meandered along following the creek. For about the first two miles there was not much but loads of trees and plants. They did have these “animal tracks” stamped into the concrete on the trail, which looked aesthetically pleasing.
One tremendous thing about this trail is how clearly and carefully it was laid out. After two miles I came across Brushy Creek Sports Park. Pretty much the entire trail from there to the eastern end ran alongside or through a park of some kind. This was the secret to why it felt like there was always something to do; there was always something to do.
Brushy Creek Sports Park was exactly what it sounded like. A park with lots of sports. Sports, sports, sports.
They had softball / baseball fields, football / soccer fields, and play areas for kids.
That final picture is obviously of a bike repair station. A great accessory since there were tons of bikers using the trail the day I was. This would be as good a time as any to talk about how well Brushy Creek Trail lets bikers and hikers co-exist. Most of the trail was paved but there were lots of unpaved paths as well. And a lot of unpaved trails running parallel to paved trails specifically for bikers to use. It really felt like the trail was not geared toward either bikers or hikers, but actually a shared experience for both. What an idea!
Just past Brushy Creek Sports park came Brushy Creek Lake Park. It sort of combined the best of both worlds. A lake on one side with fishing and kayaking and such. A park on the other side with open spaces and beach volleyball and two bocce ball courts (bring your own bocce balls).
That last picture shows a body curl and ab workout station that I assumed was part of an outdoor fitness area. I looked all over everywhere near it but could not find so much as a rusty pull-up bar nearby. It’s too bad because the only thing that could have made this better was some freestanding exercise equipment.
As a reader of this blog, you have surely picked up on the fact that I am not particularly enamored with modern art. Most of it seems like easily disregarded trash created by people with too much free time and disposable income. However, sometimes a piece will cause a small stir in the part of my brain that yearns to appreciate beauty. I saw one of those pieces on the shore of Brushy Creek Lake. Here is “Freshwater Cowgirl” sculpted by Anthony St. James.
I’m not sure what it is exactly that I enjoy about this piece. Maybe the way she seems to rise from the earth like Minerva from Jupiter’s skull. Or the fact that she seems to be offering you something you strongly desire with her free hand. It has been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, and certainly talking about art falls into that same category. I really liked it, is all I’m trying to say.
Moving on from the lake I got to cross over the dam that explained it.
By this point, I was just over halfway to the other end.
Next up was Champion Park. This park was named after Jack Champion, who owned 200 acres of land along Brushy Creek in the nineteenth century. He was buried in a small cemetery adjacent to the trail and park. The thing I’ll remember most from this park is the unfathomable water pressure behind the bottle filler on the water fountain. It literally knocked the bottle out of my hand when I first held it underneath the damn thing.
I know I’ve already heaped so much praise on this trail, but I need to continue to do so. More kudos because it really felt as though this trail was designed by and for people with two things as high priorities: staying hydrated and staying in the shade. There were loads of water fountains all over. Not all of them worked, but even still it was never more than a mile and a half or so between working ones. Same with the toilets. There were also multiple locations totally covered in shade, even in midday.
My next noteworthy experience was catching some shots of a giant bird perched ominously along the treetops.
I believe this to be a red-tailed hawk based on my extensive knowledge of the local fauna. If it had made a noise I would be certain. Red-tailed hawks make the noise you imagine birds of prey make. If you’ve ever heard a bird of prey in a movie or on TV, you probably heard a red-tailed hawk. Check this video about the difference in sound between a red-tailed hawk and a bald eagle. One sounds like it wants to go to war, the other sounds like it wants to go to Starbucks.
At one of the creek crossings, I almost got a picture of a great blue heron. It darted across from one set of trees into another before I could get my camera ready. It never poked back out again even though I waited for about ten minutes. I’m still fighting with myself and my equipment to become the nature photographer I know I can be. In the meantime, these back-lit faraway shots are all I have.
The next few parks the trail touched were Olsen Meadows Park, Creekside Park, and Shirley McDonald Park. Creekside was the largest of those parks and included tennis courts, play areas, and a pool.
Past Shirley McDonald Park one leaves the city of Cedar Park and enters the city of Round Rock. Round Rock is another suburb of Austin most known for being the home of Michael “Dude, You’re Getting A” Dell and his company Dell Technologies. It is also the home of the Round Rock Express. The Express are a minor league baseball team that oscillates affiliations between the Astros and the Rangers every few years. They have been the Rangers’ AAA team since 2021 so they are probably due to go back to the Astros soon enough.
The coolest thing about moving into Round Rock is that Brushy Creek Road becomes Hairy Man Road. This gives me the perfect excuse to discuss The Hairy Man.
The Hairy Man was a small boy in the 1800s who got separated from his parents and was raised by the fauna of Brushy Creek. As he grew he had no clothes to wear. Fortunately, his hirsuteness covered his modesty. The Hairy Man vowed to protect the denizens of Brushy Creek by scaring away other people. One day he got trampled by some horses, but the caretaking cryptid is said to still haunt the area until this day.
Click to enlarge.
The Hairy Man is a pretty big deal in Round Rock. So much so that there is a whole day and festival devoted to him. The day includes a 5k race and a hairiest man contest. The festival is on October 17th this year, which means you still have time to stop shaving your back and enter yourself in the competition.
There wasn’t really much left to do to wrap up this trail after that. You may notice the very first picture here mentions Fern Bluff. In case you are wondering what a “fern bluff” is, I’ve got you.
The bluffs are an outcrop of rock that provides the perfect amount of shade to allow the ferns to bloom underneath their purview.
Soon after that I hit the mile 6.50 marker.
And finally, the end of the trail. I knew this because there was a helpful sign.
Normally, I’d wrap everything up here. But in this case I actually had to walk all the way back to the Twin Lakes YMCA to complete a slightly greater than 13 mile loop. For some other stupid reason I decided to do a whole host of errands after I finished up. This resulted in me walking over 60000 steps on the day. I had never even done 50000 up to this point so, needless to say, I was plumb wore out.
Having read this far I doubt I need to explicitly mention in my conclusion, but I loved loved loved this trail. I loved the way they integrated both bikers and hikers. I loved the way the trail touched so many parks with so many things to do in them. I loved the facilities. I loved learning about The Hairy Man. Easily the best trail I’ve hiked so far.
In chapter 11 of the Book of Judges we are introduced to Jephthah. He is the bastard son of Gilead and gets forced into exile because his legitimate brothers will not share their inheritance with him. While in exile, he is exhorted to lead Israel’s armies against the Ammonites.
Before the fateful battle, Jephthah prays to God for assistance. In return he vows to make a burnt offering of the first person to emerge from his house. God delivers a victory for Israel and when Jephthah returns home his only daughter is the first person that comes out to meet him. Awkward. Being a man of his word, he made an offering out of her.
In the twelfth chapter, the Ephramites threaten to burn Jephthah’s house down. Not because he killed his daughter, but because he fought the Ammonites without asking their help first. Jephthah goes to war with the Ephramites and routs them. As the Ephramites attempt to flee over the river, the Gileadites make everyone who tries to cross pronounce the word “shibboleth”. Because of linguistic differences, Ephramites pronounced the word as “sibboleth” making it easy to know which ones to allow to cross the river and which ones to kill. 42000 Ephramites died, so the method was coldly efficient.
Anyway, that story is where we get the word “shibboleth” which is any word or phrase that can be used to distinguish between in-groups and out-groups. One common shibboleth is in the way place names are pronounced. People local to an area will know the pronunciations, but tourists or recent arrivals will get tripped up and mark themselves as part of the out-group.
Living in Las Vegas, the most common shibboleth was the pronunciation of the state name. Locals would say it correctly as “ne-VADD-uh”. People whose sole purpose in life was to crawl into casinos and empty their wallets so we could avoid paying state income taxes would pronounce it “ne-VODD-uh” or some other appalling way.
Massachusetts was full of geographical shibboleths. This happens when the place names are a melange of American English, British English, and Native American words. Then each word gets filtered through a heavy Bawstin accent. This is how you wind up with Worcester pronounced “WOO-stah” or Cochituate as “co-KIT-chew-it”.
Like those states, Texas also has shibboleths. I dare anyone to say Pedernales correctly the first time you see it. One big one in Austin guaranteed to trip you up within your first month of moving here is Manor. Pronounced “MAY-ner”. Manor is a suburb east of Austin where a host of commuters live.
Okay, I’m going somewhere with this meandering introduction. Manor is important to this post because there is an Austin To Manor bike trail that runs five miles and terminates at Johnny Morris Road in east Austin. Just on the other side of the street from the end of that trail is the northern end of the Southern Walnut Creek Trail. I did the Northern Walnut Creek Trail earlier this spring, so it was only a matter of time before I grabbed the 25 pound backpack and attacked this one too.
First things first, this trail was very wide and well kept. It definitely functions chiefly as a bike trail with hiking being a second priority. The entire thing was paved with almost no potholes or visible cracks or anything. Every section had lots of signs about upcoming curves and reminders to slow down in hilly sections. I enjoyed it as a hiker, but I feel like if I was a biker this would be my favorite trail by a wide margin. Oh, and there were lots of trees and shade. This was great because Austin is currently in the grips of a seemingly never ending run of consecutive 100 degree days in August.
Second thing second, you’ll notice that the sign is showing the miles to the end of the trail instead of beginning at mile zero. Mile zero is on the southern end closer to downtown. I started on my less preferred end for two significant reasons.
One, the northern end is difficult as fuck to get to using public transit. I had to take two buses and then hoof it almost two miles to reach the start point. Conversely, the opposite end was only about a quarter mile from a bus stop. I figured it would be better to inconvenience myself at the beginning of the day before it got too hot than to walk the entire trail and then have an hour of walking to look forward to.
Two, doing it this way allowed me to go somewhere exciting close to the mile zero marker. Sort of like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I’ll leave exactly what that place was until the end of this post.
One of the more interesting sights along the first couple of miles was this painted bench.
I’d like to say, for the record, that whoever painted this bench never saw my face. If they had they would never say it was better than any view. In all fairness though, I guess I need to share the view from this bench before I can say it is definitely better than my visage.
You can make out a faint view of downtown beyond the green trees. If you can get past the mountain of tall, brown, dead and dying grass. In addition to being 100 degrees every day in August, water has been in short supply. The airport has seen a grand total of 0.02 inches of rain this month. Most every living thing in town is either slowly dying outside or complaining inside in their underwear sitting next to the air conditioner.
The trail meanders along for a few miles and then runs along beside Harvey Penick Golf Campus. In addition to a nine hole golf course, they also host a footgolf course. Footgolf is pretty much what you think it is. You kick a soccer ball around a golf course until you kick it into an oversized hole. Fewest kicks wins.
At least you could see some green grass on the golf course. Check out this bridge over Walnut Creek that showed how low the water level was.
Not to belabor the dryness in Texas right now, but I’m going to do just that. The Ross fire continues to rage west of the Metroplex. Honestly, as bad as conditions are it could have happened anywhere in the Lone Star State. I passed a “wildflower meadow” in name only.
If nature’s first green is gold, then her last green is brown. With apologies to Robert Frost, I’d like to wax poetic about summertime in Austin.
Nature’s last green is brown, once you notice it gets you down.
As temperatures climb ever higher, everything might catch fire.
This recap might make it seem like I was depressed the entire trip, but that would be far from the case. Truth is, Austin always gets hot and dry in the summer. It’s not as bad as Lake Powell or anything, so we’ll be just fine. Fingers crossed.
Nothing much eventful happened until I reached the southern end of the trail at Govalle (pronounced “go-VAL-ee”) Neighborhood Park. Remember when I said earlier that this trail catered to bike riders? Once I got to Govalle Park I realized that there were no bathrooms or water fountains anywhere along the main trail. Fortunately the park had nice restrooms and water fountains with faucets for filling water bottles.
I took a few other pictures at Govalle Park, so I might as well show them off here.
After milling around in the park for a while, it was time to go check out that sweet mile zero marker and bring this hike to an end.
But, of course, this was not really the conclusion because I promised a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. I walked about half a mile down Shady Lane from the park and found my destination, Hi Sign Brewing.
I had to try their Millie Brown Ale, an American brown, and got a cool cup of delicious ice water to stay hydrated.
Both beers were refreshing but, truth be told, the service was less than desirable. Despite being one of only two people at the bar I had to stare daggers into the bartender before she would stop doomscrolling and come over and assist me. I get it, I’m hideously ugly. But does that mean I’m not entitled to good service? I am not an animal!
After the second beer it really was time for my journey to end. I don’t really have a closing statement here, so that’s it. Drive home safe.
