I love creating things, and Halloween is a perfect opportunity! Ever year, I would spend hours dreaming up ways and working with all kinds of materials to make my kids’ costume ideas become a reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once my youngest hit middle school, it seemed my skills were not in high demand anymore. I had to focus my energies elsewhere, so I started using parts of their old costumes to concoct new one for myself.

But this year, I got a welcomed surprise. My son and his girlfriend were almost five months into their thru hike of the Appalachian Trail and they wanted to dress up for Halloween! I was back in business!

They need costumes that were light, packable, easy to move around in AND incorporated a 65L backpack!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mackenzie wanted to be a Ghostbuster which was easy enough. Jumpsuit, name tag and Ghostbuster symbol, proton pack, maybe a blaster…done. I used a printed version of a proton pack and sewed it onto a black stretchy cover I made from spandex material to slip easily over her pack with adjustable elastic cord. I wanted to make it special in some way, so I ordered a special name tag in the Ghostbuster font. When you are an AT thru hiker, you are given a “trail name”. These are created by other hikers and are unique to you. Mackenzie was dubbed “Needle” (there are a couple stories behind this name that are too long to go into here). So that is what I put o her jumpsuit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now Jack wasn’t sure what to be. A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle was his first thought. But then I had an idea. Star Wars is an important thing to him. He grew up watching it with our family, his first date with his girlfriend was four years ago to see the latest Star Wars movie, and the final Star Wars movie which they are excited to see is being released in December. We had an old latex Yoda mask, so I thought of this…

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was excited and I went to work. First, how to get the mask to stay on top of his pack and how to “fill it” since it wasn’t going on someone’s head and was going to be packed flat. It had to be light and easy to pack. Ah ha…a balloon! Blown up inside, it was the perfect size.   I attracted elastic cords to the base and they could be pulled down and secured to various points on his pack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next was Yoda’s robe. That was easy to make out of some soft and stretchy fabric with an elastic neck that could slip over the mask and be secured around and u dear his pack. It worked out well because it ended up looking like Yoda as sitting on his sleeping pad that was tied to the outside of his pack.

Jack had tan hiking pants with him, so I sent a grubby-looking sleeveless T-shirt to wear on top with a flesh-colored dryfit long sleeve T in case it was cold. A couple inflatable light sabers from Amazon and the costume was complete

Alas, Amazon delivery was late and the weather could not have been worse! It poured all day on Halloween and they were both drenched! To make matters worse, the temps fell below freezing that night and they woke to frozen gear! They had to bang their hiking shoes on the ground to “crack” them enough to get them on. Jack had to hold hand warmers on the ropes of their bear bag (a Kevlar bag they store all their food and garbage in and hang from a tree to protect it from animals) for twenty minutes to thaw them enough to untie!

But as the sun rose, they donned their costumes and celebrated a belated Hiker Halloween!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And…Yoda was right their with them when they finished their 2,192 mile journey on top of Springer Mountain in GA a week later 🙂