Terrorist? Hiker? Terrified Hiker?

Check out the new headgear. No, it's not a terrorist get-up... it's my latest in a string of purchases in preparation for next week's adventure on the Appalachian Trail.

On Sunday, my brother Tim and I are setting off from Roan Mountain and hiking north toward Damascus. With temperatures predicted in the mid-20s at night, this Cupcake is, frankly, terrified of freezing her frosting. I've never done an extended hike this late in the year. Last week's snowfall in Michigan didn't help the fear factor.

Hence the headgear: the black thing is called a balaclava (not "baklava," nor "burka," as Joe and Maria have taken to calling it). It's made of fleece and covers my whole head and neck. The hat underneath was a knitting experiment with wool, based on a pattern from my friend Sue. The combo is certain to launch a fashion trend while at the same time (I hope) keep me from dying a cryogenic death in some A.T. shelter next week.

Here are the rest of the layers I'm bringing:

• On the top: polypropylene tee, longsleeve synthetic UnderArmour shirt, short sleeve synthetic tee overtop of that, zippered fleece, thermal jacket, vapor-barrier raincoat.
• On the bottom: long undies, synthetic lined workout pants, lined ski pants.
• On the tootsies: synthetic sock liners, Smartwool socks, fleece booties.
• On los manos: I've apparently lost my mind completely and might've singlehandedly rescued the economy from the recent financial collapse, because I blew $55 on a pair of Black Diamond gloves. In a kind of funny twist of irony, overtop of them I'm going to wear a pair of blinding-orange hunting gloves, which I picked up at the thrift store for 85 cents. During the day when we're hiking and I don't need the double layer of gloves, the orange ones are going to be clipped to the top of my backpack and double as the universal sign of please-don't-shoot-me-Mr.-Hunter, since it will be deer season.

As you can imagine, all this extra stuff means that I won't be bringing my usual sassy little ultralight pack, as it can't accommodate all the bulk. So I've upsized to my bigger green Kelty backpack, which I haven't used for a couple of years now. It feels funny to have all this room to spare. I'm pondering bringing along a space heater.