Hiker Dictionary Vol. 1

Hiker culture is weird. You’re doing a lot of strenuous work, have either very little or way too much close human interaction, and you experience things that would never arise back in the real world.

Because of this, certain terms, phrases, or idioms arise as they do in other cultures. Below are some of the words I’ve heard, said, or thought about on trail.

zeek (zeek) noun – a period of seven days of no hiking activity.

“Did you hear that Delicious spent two weeks at the Snapped Guitar Hostel? They gave him a discount after his first zeek there.”

*Author’s note: A zero is a day with no hiking. A nearo is a day with few miles hiked, such as one spent getting to town in the morning. Other common lengths of time are double and triple zeroes, often spent in a town to heal an injury.

sasquatch (sass-kwatch) verb – to stomp or clumsily and loudly move around or through an area such as a campsite or other hiker outdoor residence.

“Did you hear Nuggets sasquatching around camp last night? He took his tent down at 3 a.m. and then got lost looking for his food bag. It was sooo annoying.”

double PCT hang / TreeCT hang (dubble pee cee tee hang) noun – an unfortunate accident occuring when attempting to hang a bear bag in the PCT fashion wherein another object or part of the tree in use becomes stuck in the bear bag’s carabiner, rendering the food bag stuck and possibly unable to be moved either up or down without substantial outside help.

“Yo, Pat got his bag stuck in that tree after that branch went through his carabiner. He double PCTed it!”

leaf engineering (leef enjin-eer-ing) noun – the practice of using or placing a leaf, typically from a rhododendron, in such a way so as to allow water to pour from a source in a way that allows a hiker to easily refill a water bottle.

“Thank God someone did some thorough leaf engineering at this spring. I don’t know how I would have refilled my water without them!”

raw dog (raw dawg) verb – to experience naturally or without aid from technological or other material means.

Hiker 1: Did you see Overshoot raw dogging nature this morning?

Hiker 2: Eww, what??

Hiker 1: Get your mind out of the gutter! He was hiking without his headphones for the first time this week.

hyper wipe (hi-per wype) verb – to use toilet paper in an overzealous or overly aggressive manner in a way that results in injury or other harm to your buttocks.

“Crutch needs to buy some ultra quilted TP because he hyper wiped with some single-ply and now he’s hurting.”