), and I nearly collapsed. It was about midmorning, I'd had a lousy sleep and little breakfast (foolish determination to hit the trail very early), and I just stopped moving. My hands were sweaty and cold, I felt nauseated and extremely tired, and I was just generally sick. I started looking around for a place to camp right there (I was only about 1/3 day into a 3-day trip!), but decided to drink lots of water and force myself to eat some gorp. The gorp tasted like sawdust, but after about 10 minutes of stuffing it down I began to feel better, and after 20 I was almost completely recovered (not totally: I had bitten off far more than I could chew and ended up turning the 3-day 45 mile trip into a 1.5-day 16 miler; it was also incredibly wet, both from humidity and rain, for the whole trip. Not really a bad experience, but not one of my pinnacle hiking experiences).So, was I just low on blood sugar? I've had students faint before giving presentations in class because of lack of sleep, no breakfast, and nervousness; do you suppose that's what was going on here? Is there any way of preventing preventing this, besides the obvious: eat breakfast, get a good sleep, and snack on the trail?
-B2