Bon Appetit

It’s 5am and you’re cold.  This is the 3rd night in a row that the temperature has dropped below your sleeping bag rating, making it hard to get a decent night’s sleep.  You’ve been slowly convincing yourself that getting up and out of your sleeping bag will result in you becoming warmer faster and so you do.  Breakfast will have to wait as you shiver while packing up your tent.

Within an uphill mile you’re taking off your hat and shoveling gorp into your stomach.  The next shelter is 3 miles away and you take a drink of water to fill your stomach.  Oatmeal and summer sausage are about the only things you think about as you march onward towards your destination for brunch.  As you reach the shelter, you unpack your alcohol stove, boil some water, pour three oatmeal packets in a bowl, and mix in some hot chocolate mix as well for starters.  Then it’s summer sausages, dried apricots and prunes, and spoonfuls of peanut butter.  Finally you have some fruit snacks to ward off scurvy.

After packing 3 to 4 granola bars into your jacket, you set out again for the final shelter or campsite of the day.  By the time you arrive, you’ve changed your mind and are craving chili and instant rice, maybe some more summer sausage, and possibly a bagel.  Out comes the alcohol stove and your Walmart grease pot (a lightweight aluminum pot, not intended for cooking, but works like a charm) and you set about to boiling some more water and shoveling food down before it gets cold.

Obviously I worry that I am not getting enough of this, or eating too much of that, but for the most part, considering I have to carry everything on my back, I am probably eating better than I did as an infinitely picky eater child.

And by the way, when you’re in town, AYCE is the greatest thing to see in the restaurant listings.  Particularly when it’s only $5.99.

Hello. My name is…

“Dan” – no that’s not quite right.  Everybody ends up with a trail name in some form or another.  Some choose theirs, but most are appointed by others. ”Campchair” got his rather quickly for obvious reasons.  In a group of people, among whom half own gram scales to compare weights of jackets, the idea of carrying a 10 oz. campchair 2,176 miles seems ridiculous.  But I certainly had campchair envy when the only other places to sit were covered in snow.

“Red Ranger” I can only assume got his because he wears predominately red clothing.  And “Tugger” did wood working on tug boats before setting out on the AT.  I had tried for “Three Maestros” wanting to avoid a less-flattering name like “Brown Butt” or something of that nature, but it seemed forced and was difficult to explain that it was only my name, and had nothing to do with the two other people hiking with me.

But then it snowed.  We marched on leaving boot prints for others to follow.  “Tugger” was trying to reach the same shelter as us and was about an hour or two behind.  I was pretty tired from back to back 10+ mile days and this one would be 13 in the snow and so I was at the back of our group of 3, dragging my body to the shelter.  We arrived close to dusk and it was already 18 degrees and falling.  We were all in our sleeping bags within a few minutes of finishing dinner and “Tugger” never showed.

The next day on top of Blood Mountain, “Tugger” came in as we were finishing brunch.  Talking to him about the snow, he said he had been following “Two Rings” all day.  “Two Rings” had almost led him to the shelter but his headlamp died and it was after sunset so he pitched his tent and called it a night.  I wasn’t sure who “Two Rings” was so I asked him.  Apparently the boot prints I had been leaving in the snow leave two large rings and is pretty unique among all the other prints. 

So no more “Dan” for the rest of the trail, but “Two Rings” from now on.  I might make up some story about how I was married twice before I was 18 or something like that in case I get bored with the boot print origin of the name.

The Last Few Days (Before I Start)

There are only a few days left before I fly down to Georgia.  I’ve been taking care of the last few loose ends which has included a slew of doctors’ appointments.  I’ve had my eyes checked, contacts reordered, gums near murdered by a dental hygienist, and now my lips feel like puffy balloons because my dentist was a bit too liberal with her application of Novocaine.  Nonetheless, my proverbial ducks are in a row and I am ready to set out.

I’ve got plenty of worries but I’m trying to not let them get to me.  I am definitely not in as good of shape as I was by the end of last summer.  A 20 mile hike in 10 inches of snow at 13,000 ft would be out of the question right now.   And the days of rain and possible snow aren’t exactly enticing.  But then it’s the rainy days that make the sunny ones incredible.

Everything needs a point of reference.  Coming home to New England in February I realized how easy the winter in Boulder was – it’s not damp, the ocean winds don’t rattle your bones with cold (the winds are sometimes warm), and really I had no right to complain. So when I’ve been cold and wet for weeks at time, maybe even hungry and sore too, I need to remember it’s just to provide a comparison against the days which will no doubt be wonderful.  But even more so since I will know what it is to be miserable. Without any up or down it’s basically all Kansas (no offense to people from Kansas, but your state is mathematically flatter than a pancake).

Hopefully Steve won’t break it after a week of “Let It Be”

The plans had to be scrapped because of time

Packing Step 1

Packing Step 2

Packing Step 3

Packed!

What I am Bringing

I said I’d try to keep this as exciting as possible so here it is: Dan’s Fantastical and Wondrous Gear List for the Epic Journey through the Wild Appalachians!

My Pack: REI 65L Morning Star – old and a bit on the heavy side, but I had it so it’s one less thing to buy.  It’s been faithful since my trip to Hawaii in 2005, was sleeping around before then.  Hoping it will survive the Appalachian trail as well.

My Tent: Tarptent Rainshadow 2 – super lightweight.  Uses trekking poles for support.  Props to Steve for finding this.  Props to me for buying it and depriving his fiance of a Christmas gift for him.

My Boots: Asolo TPS 520 hiking boots – I don’t think I’ve fully broken in the boots yet and I love them.  Water falls off the boots like it does the feathers of a duck.  They are warm and comfortable and will keep my feet dry!  I hate having wet feet but I’ve got good socks and liners which wick away sweat so I should be okay.

My Cook Pot: The “infamous” grease pot.  I still need to pick this up, but it’s cheap, lightweight, and has “grease” stamped into the side of it.  What could be better?  Found at Walmart, which are more numerous than trees in the forest, so if it breaks, easy to replace!

My Musical Entertainment: A black ukulele!  It weighs less than 1lbs and cost less than $15 so if it dies during the trip, it’s not too big of a deal.  I plan on painting it with pretty patterns before I leave.

Of course I am bringing other stuff – but these are the most important.  And I feel it would start to get more boring than it is already if I included any more things.  Next up: final preparations!

Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike

My name is Dan and I’ll be writing here, when I can, about thru-hiking the Appalachian trail.  On February 28th, I will be stepping out of the warmth of my brother’s car, into the cold and unusually snowy mountains of Georgia. I’m more or less prepared and will do a run through of my gear in my next post. But for now a preemptive strike on common questions:

Why are you starting so early? I hope to complete the Appalachian Trail in full before going to graduate school in the fall.  Since most programs start by late August, I am allowing myself a decent amount of wiggle room.  I think 15 miles a day is a not-unreasonable average for the trip.  But we’ll see.

Can I meet up to hike with you? Absolutely!  I will be smelly and famished, but would love to see y’all.  The interactive map offered by the Appalachian Trail Conservatory looks like a fantastic planning tool.

What will you eat on the trail? Peanut butter.  Lots of peanut butter.  I am trying to keep my pack weight down – since peanut butter comes in around 3000 kcals/lbs. it’s pretty efficient in terms of cutting weight.  I like dried fruit too.

Have you read A Walk in the Woods? Yes, and I enjoyed it a bunch.  It gave me a good perspective on one experience of the trail.  I’ve also read Walking North which is a really interesting account of a family hiking it.  If a 10 year old girl can complete the entire trail in one year, then I’ve still got a chance.

Don’t you know murderers hide out on the Appalachian Trail? I try not to acknowledge questions like these.

Are you bringing a gun? No.  Dear god no.  Plus, guns are heavy.

That’s about it for now.  Up next is my gear list (and the crowd goes wild).  I’ll try to make it as interesting as possible.