To Walk Far, Carry Less : Camino de Santiago (5 page)

Your fleece, vest, or other insulating garment is the thickest layer between you and the cold. Starting in early spring? Choose an appropriately warm insulation garment, and mail it home once temperatures rise. Replace it with a lighter insulation layer to handle unseasonably cool weather or potentially cold higher elevations. Ending in late autumn? Buy, or have someone mail to you, a warmer insulation layer—and perhaps a rain jacket to replace a poncho.

Carrying a Few Extra Items for Warmth

The hands, head, and ears are most vulnerable to cold. If you tend to get cold easily, you might consider carrying a few items to provide extra protection.

Gloves

Fleece gloves are warm and often the most lightweight option, but they’re not waterproof. If you’re using a walking stick, at least one hand will get wet if it’s raining, and if you use two walking poles, both hands will get wet.

An ultralight backpacker might keep gloves from getting wet by abducting waterproof stuff sacks from their original use in the backpack, or using ordinary plastic bags, to cover the fleece gloves.

If not using a walking stick or walking poles, you can hide fleece-gloved hands under the extra-long sleeves of a waterproof jacket.

Or, take lightweight waterproof gloves. If your hands tend to feel cold, take liners for warmth.

Fleece Ear Band

This is my favorite cold-weather item. It weighs almost nothing and, combined with a hat and a hood, makes a big difference in keeping the head and ears warm.

An ear band doesn’t contribute to overheating while walking, either, like beanie- or Sherpa-style hats sometimes do.

Scarf

Weigh your favorite winter scarf; its total weight may surprise you.

Instead of a scarf, consider using an all-purpose bandana to cover your face like a bandit—over the nose, falling below the chin—when it suddenly gets cold.

I’ve used this approach while walking in below-freezing temperatures on the Camino, and the thin cotton bandana provided perfect cover for my nose, chin, and cheeks.

Cold-Weather Hats

There are several good options for a warm hat, such as a lightweight merino wool or fleece beanie style. Fleece or merino wool Sherpa-style hats, with their drop-down earflaps, keep both the ears and the head warm.

Those who are extremely sensitive to cold temperatures might try a balaclava, which pulls over the head to cover the head, neck, and the lower part of the face.

And there are other hats to consider too—for hot days, rainy days, or perfect-weather days.

Dead straw hat along the Vía de la Plata route, Spain

Ditch vanity, sentimentality, or romantic notions when choosing a hat for the Camino. Think
practicality.

All right, I confess. I know this now because I once let vanity and sentimentality overrule practicality. It was my first pilgrimage (the one where I carried too many fears in my backpack).

I wanted to remember a deceased friend by wearing her beloved black beret on the Camino. And a mirror at home suggested I looked slightly charming, maybe a bit bohemian, in that black beret.

I started walking the Camino in Roncesvalles, a Basque village in the Spanish Pyrenees. As I passed through other Basque villages and towns, it became clear that practically every Basque man with a little gray in his hair wore a black beret.

Along the way I learned that the French word
béret
means “Basque cap.” The black beret is a symbol of solidarity, pride, and tradition, especially among Basque men of a certain age. Not only did I feel ridiculous, but the beret was useless in the rain and provided little warmth. I mailed it home and started wearing my plan-B hat: a baseball hat.

Basque man wearing a black beret in Pamplona, Spain, along the Camino Francés route

Camino Hats: A Personal Matter

Telling someone to wear a particular hat is almost like telling someone to wear a particular type of underpants. It’s personal. I’ll share my opinions and experiences on the matter of hats, but you’ll have to decide what’s best for you.

Here’s my hat strategy: I take two. I take a bucket hat to cover my head when it’s hot, and a baseball hat for mild to cold weather.

Spring or autumn on the Camino can be both freezing cold
and
extremely hot—sometimes changing from one day to the next. Summer is typically hot, but it can also turn rainy and cold. That’s why it’s practical to carry a couple of hat choices.

Baseball-Style Hat

Although a baseball-style hat is not a warm hat, it has one great advantage: When it’s cold, but not terribly so, I cover the baseball hat with the hood of my rain jacket or poncho. The hat’s stiff bill holds the hood away from my face so it doesn’t obstruct my view or diminish my ability to hear—especially when it’s raining.

I take a
waterproof
baseball hat. My first one wasn’t waterproof, and the bill got wet even when covered by a hood. The wetness soaked from the bill into the sweatband and beyond, leaving me with a soggy hat and a cold forehead.

As already mentioned, when it’s extremely cold I might wear a fleece ear band—usually under the baseball hat. But when it’s windy and cold, I’ll wear the fleece band
over
the hat to lock it down. (I meant it when I said there’s no room for vanity on the Camino!)

I’ve also worn a fleece Sherpa-style hat under the baseball hat in cold weather. It’s essential to choose an adjustable baseball hat, so you can expand the hat’s diameter to fit over the thickness of an ear band or a Sherpa- or beanie-style hat.

Bucket Hat

For sun protection on hot days, I use a bucket hat.

A bucket hat is sometimes called a fisherman’s hat, although this varies by culture. Do a search for “bucket hat” in Google Images and you’ll see the kind I’m talking about.

A bucket hat is typically made in a lightweight cotton fabric and has a short- to medium-size brim. Some might prefer a wider-brimmed hat, but be aware that wide brims can be annoying when walking in sunny but windy conditions. While a chinstrap might keep the hat from blowing away across the landscape, a constantly flopping brim is irritating.

I’ve found the bucket hat to be the lightest-weight option for a sun hat. It’s also the most resistant to abuse: I stuff it in my backpack or a pocket without worrying about it losing its shape. It has a thin chinstrap too.

On extremely hot days I might soak the bucket hat under a village fountain, or pour water into the hat from a water bottle, and put the hat on my head again for sweet relief from the heat.

Pilgrim Stories

Here’s another hat-choice mistake I once made.

I planned to start walking on the Vía de la Plata route near Seville, in southern Spain, in seriously hot temperatures during the early weeks of September. Seville is called the “frying pan of Europe” because of its heat.

I thought my bucket hat would provide inadequate shade, and besides, a stylish hat seduced me. It spoke to me of safaris and other romantic outdoor adventures, and although it was expensive, I bought it.

But it failed to perform in the frying pan. Air didn’t flow through the mesh fabric in the crown of the hat as promised. The velour-like sweatband inside cooked my head. Although the wide brim provided shade, it made the hat feel heavy. I frequently had to take the hat off just to cool down, even under the blazing sun. And the slightest breeze made the brim flop up and down before my eyes.

My walking partner had also bought a hat from this famous hat company. Hers was a different model, with a more understated style and a shorter brim. She loved it. The hat felt light on her head. The sweatband was made of a light fabric, and grommets allowed airflow in the crown. It was practical—and worse still, it looked cute.

I sacked my horrid hat after I found a paper hat for €6 in a town along the Camino. Yes, a 100 percent paper hat. It was cool as could be, and it held on in the wind—even without a chinstrap.

A paper hat is useless in the rain, of course, and it was quickly squashed to shapelessness in my backpack—it wasn’t really a practical Camino hat—but my waterproof baseball-style hat still waited quietly in my pack, ready for serious duty.

So for a time, in roasting temperatures under the intense Spanish sun, the paper hat was perfect.

Maybe it was kind of cute, too.

* * *

We’ve looked at the clothing layers that can help you stay comfortable in most situations on your pilgrimage; now let’s look at ways to stay dry on the Camino. This will be your “outer shell”—the fourth and final layer of clothing to consider when planning what to wear on a Camino pilgrimage.

provides protection, primarily from wind and rain (snow is also possible on early-spring or late-autumn pilgrimages)

Imagine walking in a steady rain for five hours or more. It’s entirely possible you’ll have to do this at some point on the Camino, where it takes that long to walk a typical day’s twenty-plus kilometers.

Plan for the worst, even in summer. If you’re walking to Santiago, you’ll be passing through Galicia, a lush green paradise with abundant rain all year long. But a pilgrim can face rainstorms anywhere, even on the driest plains of Spain. The French routes cross luscious green landscapes, a clue that you can expect rain there as well.

In short, rain gear is a must for the Camino, and it’s important to choose wisely.

Packing Tips

Umbrella?

Imagine holding an umbrella aloft for four or five hours, perhaps while using a walking stick. Then add strong winds.

Clearly, an umbrella is not a good choice for a Camino pilgrim.

Poncho Versus Rain Jacket

Pilgrims typically use a rain poncho or a rain jacket. I’ve worn both on the Camino, and both have their pros and cons. Ultimately, which to use is a matter of personal preference.

Sometimes one’s preference comes about through experience. One year I began walking the French Le Puy route on April 1, a day that was all blue skies and warm sunshine—until the weather suddenly got mad. During the following eight days, my fellow pilgrims and I walked, heads down, through a mistral—a cold, relentless day-and-night wind, the kind that justifies the cliché “a howling wind.”

The word
mistral
has its roots in the Latin word
magister
, meaning “master.” This “master wind” blows from northern Europe through southern France, not relenting until the force scatters upon reaching the Mediterranean. A legend says that an old Napoleonic law pardoned crimes of passion—such as murder—if the violent act occurred during a mistral.

Luckily, I had a rain jacket with me when the mistral kicked up on that Camino journey. Other pilgrims found that their ponchos turned into giant sails, constantly flapping in the outrageous winds. A Swiss woman told me that her poncho was whipped up by the winds and wrapped around her neck. When the rains joined the winds, the poncho was useless.

But one’s choice of rain gear need not be strictly either-or; you could use both on one journey. I once mailed a rain jacket home after buying a poncho to wear during warmer days at the end of my journey. You could also do the reverse: when walking from summer into cooler autumn months, ditch the poncho and buy a jacket in France or Spain when you need it.

We’ll look at both the benefits and drawbacks of ponchos and rain jackets, and some of the features of each. Then you can decide what might work best for you. First, let’s look at the different styles of ponchos, which can vary quite a bit.

Ponchos

Despite the experiences of those poncho-wearing pilgrims who hiked with me during the mistral, I’m not prejudiced against ponchos. They do have their advantages, which I’ll explain shortly.