Thanks, All!

I am incredibly grateful for all the support I am receiving from family and friends as I prepare to go.  The last couple of days I have been "fed up"... gaining a few pounds for the start of the journey. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the spread on Friday night, Debra - it was awesome!  I did include a picture of my first helping at our family gathering yesterday.  My nephew Brian and his family hosted... and brother Dave brought enough NY strip steak and pork to feed hundreds!  I look forward to the final pre-hike meal later... a Mexican grill feast near the trailhead.  After that one, I won't see food like that again for a while.

Now, its time to go.  My support team, including my four-legged personal trainer Koa, is taking me to the trailhead this morning.  Interesting "coincidence" that today's devotional reading from Philippians included this message: "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal..."

Learnings from the Shakedown Hike

This is admittedly a long post, but I wanted to share this while I had access to my computer.  Future posts from the trail will be simple photos with a line or two of text uploaded from my phone.

I went up to the Walasi-Yi Center at Neel’s Gap to start my final shakedown hike on Tuesday.  It is about 30 miles from the start of the Appalachian Trail at Springer Mountain.  Mountain Outfitter there is famous for going through the packs of the thru hikers at that point and helping them to lighten their loads.  I wanted their advice before even starting my hike.  “Squirrel”, who had thru hiked in 2006 went through my pack with me, and it was a worthwhile exercise.  Among the items we decided to ditch: my extra pair of “campsite” shoes which he convinced me I will not need until we are beyond the threat of colder weather, and one of my Nalgene water bottles.  One 32 ounce Nalgene plus a collapsible Platypus jug of twice that capacity for the campsite will be fine during the cooler temperatures.  He also suggested getting rid of several smaller items which collectively added noticeable weight.  One of those smaller items was my compass.  More on that later…

Of course there were a couple of purchases too… they don’t do these pack checks for only altruistic purposes.  I purchased a silicone compressible stuff sack for my sleeping bag.  In addition to ensuring that the bag will stay dry, Squirrel showed me how to compress it down enough so that it fits inside, rather than strapped outside my pack.  The other purchase was a more compact coffee mug.  I was pretty excited when we finished.  Squirrel was a wealth of knowledge and I felt better prepared as a result of talking to him.

I set off on my hike 1:30-ish that afternoon.  In this post I’ll touch on three highlights on my time out on the trail till my return at a little before noon yesterday: navigation, the three basics for survival, and the community of thru hikers.  The kids at the Frazee Center had asked me all kinds of great questions about what the hiking experience would look and feel like… and the pictures that I have interspersed here will start to give them a feel for that.

Navigation:  I set out on the trail in the direction Squirrel pointed me, deciding I would head for the Whitley Gap shelter, 7.9 miles away.  He had said that it was a great shelter, but because the last 1.2 miles would be “blue blazing” off the AT very few thru hikers use it and I would likely have it to myself.  I had pretty much followed Squirrel’s advice on what to take, but I did include my compass.  It was a little disconcerting that as I started, I could not see a white blaze in sight.  White blazes are the guide marks that lead you all the way to Maine – vertical white painted marks… generally in the trees.  All I could see starting out was red marks.  Not wanting to start off in the wrong direction, I sheepishly went back to Squirrel.  He assured me that the red marks were simply boundary markers for their property and if I continued walking a ways I would see the white blazes.

There are two reasons why Squirrel was right about a compass not being helpful.  The first is that the AT is a very wiggly path.  Although generally heading northeast to Maine, as the trail goes up and around mountains there are times where you will be walking south.  The second is that there is so much iron ore in those mountains that my compass needle literally stuck to the bottom of my compass housing.  I found that I could tap on the housing and the needle might move almost a quarter turn one way or the other.  I will not be taking the compass with me.

At first I was a little disoriented by this humble beginning, but after being on the trail a while and seeing some of those white blazes I started to feel better.  About half way out, after a couple of rest stops, I ran in to my first fellow hiker coming in the opposite direction – “Blackbeard”.  He was a great guy, and we were both pretty excited about how beautiful a day it was so we chatted a while.  He explained that he had just taken a two hour break up on top of a mountain just to soak it all in.  I explained that this was a shakedown hike for me and that I had started out from Neel’s Gap that afternoon.  He said, “Oh… so you’re headed back there now, huh?”  I think I just gave him a blank look, while my inner critic was saying, “Way to go, Tom… how did you manage to turn yourself around accidentally on the very first afternoon?”  We went on… I was resigned to getting back to Neel’s Gap and then moving the car to a different spot to see another part of the trail.  I decided that since this was a shakedown hike for me, there was no need to tell Blackbeard of my blunder.  As I continued on, I convinced myself that I had indeed been on that part of the trail before.  A couple of miles later, I started descending on a gap that I thought would be Neel’s Gap, it turned out that it was Tesnatee Gap.  I wasn’t the one that was turned around… Blackbeard was!  At that point, I felt guilty for not having voiced my confusion to Blackbeard.  I hoped he had not gone too long before realizing his error.

Here is the key to navigation the trail.  Trust the trail and the blazes.  If you get off of the trail to do anything, make a strong mental note or even make yourself an arrow on the ground to remind you of which direction to go when you get back to the trail.

The survival basics.  I told the kids at Frazee during my pack talk that there are three things we all need to survive: water, food and shelter.  So, how did I do with these things on my shakedown hike?

The easy one to answer was food… it was great!  I didn’t know I was that good a cook.  And I love the fact that the more you eat the lighter your pack gets.

Water?  Well, I arrived at the Whitely Gap shelter at just about dark.  I went down to the stream to start pumping water through my filter.  This is the filter that I had just completely broken down, cleaned, reassembled and used perfectly in my last practice hike.  No go.  Couldn’t get any flow through it.  Rather than try to figure out what was wrong with it in the darkness, I just opted to go to one of the other purification methods.  In this case, I opted to boil the water.  I was also carrying the iodine tablets for emergencies and I tested them out the following day just to see how that water would taste.  Not bad… there is a clarifying tablet you add after treatment, and it does a pretty good job of getting the iodine taste out.  I found out later that the problem with the filter was a small sponge on the inlet line, which is designed to keep you from pulling sediment into the filter, had fallen out.  So I had sucked a bunch of “gunk” into the line and plugged it.  Easy fix… and you can bet I’ll be checking for that sponge before each future use.

Shelter?  I had performed a home repair on my rainfly.  It was a rainfly with a fancy “window” that had become detached.  I had glued it back in place, but hadn’t had a chance to test it under rain conditions.  As dinner was cooking up that first evening, I set the tent up.  I was about 60 feet away from the shelter.  There were beautiful bright stars in the night sky, so I was toying with the idea of leaving the rainfly off.  After eating and cleaning up though, the sky had clouded over so I put the rainfly on.  I probably hadn’t been in the tent fifteen minutes when the skies opened up and it started pouring.  I thought about how great it was to be dry and protected inside a tent and listening to a strong rain.  Then I felt and heard the drips start – right at my legs onto my brand new sleeping bag.  At the first break in the rain, I made a beeline for the shelter.  It took three trips to get everything into the shelter.  I was glad I had the place to myself.  So… last night Anne and I made a trip to REI.  They gave me my money back for that old tent purchased in 2005 since my super organized wife still had the receipt.  I am now in possession of a state of the art model… it has a plain rainfly with no window.

Community of Thru-Hikers:  While I didn’t overnight in the company of the thru hikers, I did get the chance to begin meeting them.  They are a great bunch of people and I look forward to getting to know many of them better over the months ahead.  While some of the ones I have met I will not see again, others are moving at slower paces and I know I will catch up to them.  The second day I hiked north to the next shelter – Low Gap shelter.  That one is directly on the AT.  I had decided I would make a leisurely lunch there and then return to “my” Whitely Gap shelter in the afternoon. 

Derrick from North Carolina, on home leave from service in Afghanistan, was the first to arrive at the lunch time at Low Gap.  He had until March 1^st to hike as much of the trail as he could.  He had decided on the spur of the moment to hike the AT with two companions, and had run to the REI in Greenville to pick up what he thought he would need.  His two companions had given up and gone home.  He asked if I knew anything about the trail further north.  I didn’t other than having the guidebook, and he consulted that during lunch.

The next to arrive… Blackbeard!  We looked at each other, he said, “Why didn’t you…?”, and we both laughed heartily as the story unfolded and I was telling him I was just getting ready to put a note in the trail register apologizing to him.  We chatted a long while during lunch.  He had decided to take a long lunch and was planning to hike into the night to make up for lost time.  As he left, he said he would remember and laugh about our encounter all the way to the end of the trail.  Right after he left, it occurred to me that I should have said, “when you get back up the hill to the trail, turn right!”

A father and son from Indianapolis, Dan and Caleb were next in to our lunch spot.  Son Caleb had just graduated from high school and was doing the thru hike before starting college in the Fall.  Dan was going to join him at various sections, as his schedule permitted.

Jerry was the last in to our lunch spot while I was there.  He was from Washington, DC, but will be moving to Tennessee.  He was a huge Michigan Wolverine fan.  He was admittedly starting out at a slower pace, so I am likely to see him again.  We agreed we could put aside our natural enmity (remember - I’m a Buckeye) just for the duration of the hike.

As I walked back to Whitely Gap shelter I encountered several other thru hikers.  Most stopped and chatted briefly.  The second night at Whitely Gap I pitched my tent inside the shelter… and didn’t bother with the rainfly!  Hiking back to Neel’s gap yesterday morning I encountered 11 thru hikers headed north.  I am excited about the community that will be created on the AT this year.

So... get on your way!

After the setback and change in plan described in my last post (which admittedly I let languish up there too long) I am fully excited again!  Here is the message my beautiful wife Anne gave me this morning… it’s a quote from Theodor Seuss Geisel: “Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting.  So… get on your way!”

I wanted to acknowledge today some of the key influences that nudged me towards wanting to take this hike.

1)      The Boy Scouts, of course!  And my family’s support of the scouting activities.  I was not one who attained an Eagle rank, but I always loved getting out and going on those campouts.  One of my earliest memories of camping was waking up in a two man “pup tent” at a campout at “Desierto de los Leones” national park in Mexico.  I found out that a two man pup tent sleeps one scout and about half an adult just fine.  Dad had slept with his upper body in the tent and his legs outside… and had been uncomfortably cold all night.  (As an aside, I never could figure out why the park was named “Desert of the Lions” as it was neither a desert, nor to the best of my knowledge were there any lions in it.)

2)      My dear friend Jimmy Bray.  If I had to name a single person who most influenced my love of the outdoors in my adult life it would be Jimmy.  Our families lived in Corpus Christi, Texas at the time, so it wasn’t usually mountain climbing that we did… although there was one trip to the New Mexico Rockies.  We did so many different things together in so many parts of the world that I can’t even begin to list them here.  But key was fishing around the Texas gulf coast.  Jimmy was a master at teaching that even on the days that we didn’t catch anything, being outdoors had a magical healing quality.  (Aside: that same sentiment - that there is a healing value in getting closer to our natural world - is something that Benton MacKaye, the visionary creator of the Appalachian Trail concept, firmly believed.)  Jimmy passed away last year after an incredibly courageous battle with cancer.  I’m dedicating this hike to his memory… and I know he’ll be watching. 

3)      Lane Paschal and the awesome Camp Pike that he directed for so many years near Divide, Colorado.  My wife and I had the privilege of serving as staff with Lane and Carla, his wife for eight years or so.  During that time, we were involved in many, many hikes with Jr. High and Sr. High youth.  With the Sr. High’s that led to the first backpacking trips for me… priceless memories.  Camp Pike is still going strong under the incredibly able leadership of Doug and Kim Heaton.  You can see what this camp is all about on the Camp Pike facebook page. 

4)      My sons, Phil and Kevin, who took to Camp Pike like ducks to water and loved the mountains so much that we started taking our own backpacking trips to the Colorado Rockies, usually with Lane and his sons.  Yup, these pictures come from a couple of those trips way back in their High School days. 

5)      Finally, Greenville, SC… the place where I now live.  It is just a great place with easy access to incredibly beautiful mountain trails.  I have enjoyed many of them already, and there are many more yet to be explored.  The Foothills Trail is a 76 mile gem waiting for a mini thru hike at some point after the Appalachian Trail experience. 

I’m off to my final shakedown hike – this time actually on the Appalachian Trail for the first time.  I’ll spend a couple of nights up there, get a feel for the condition of the trail, and see if my gear list needs any tweaking.  The “real deal” will start sometime soon thereafter, after I have digested any final learnings.

What happens when you mix a rookie hiker's AT plan with a bitterly cold winter?

You get to eat some humble pie!

Alright, if you are going to follow this blog you might as well find out early - before I even take the first step on the Appalachian Trail - that I occasionally make a blunder.  I just spoke with Laurie at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters in Harper's Ferry.  She strongly suggested that I not start my hike from there at this time.  A handful of experienced hikers have come in recently reporting that the north faces of the mountains are heavily iced over.  They are having to inch along, at times sitting on their behinds to slide a ways down the trail.  That, combined with bitterly cold temperatures, does not sound like a smart way to start a journey of over 2,000 miles.

So... a change of plans is underway.  I will now join the group in starting at Springer Mountain, Georgia and heading straight north to Maine.  What that means is that I will have the company of other hikers as opposed to being mostly alone, as I would have been for the first half of the hike under the original plan.  I will now target late February / early March as the start date, depending on the weather.  The approach to Springer is being closed today due to the winter storm passing through. 

Patience, patience.  I get the feeling this trek is going to involve some improvisation.

Eating on the Trail

In my preparation to take this hike I have read a lot on other people’s experiences with the trail, as well as information that the Appalachian Trail Conservancy has published and information from the www.whiteblaze.net website on which knowledgeable hikers share their experiences.  There are many reasons given for why a person decides to hike the AT.  Never once have I seen anyone say they wanted to hike it “for the food”. 

The good news, as anyone who has spent time exercising and then eating outdoors is that somehow foods that taste marginal in an indoors civilized setting tend to taste much better in the wild.  When hiking the trail, you basically want to down as many calories as you can.  But there is always the weight and volume consideration.  Since you have to carry enough to last three to five days typically, depending on your resupply strategy, you generally carry almost nothing fresh.  It seems to me that most hikers lean towards one of three strategies: 

1)      Simply take the most calories you can per unit weight.  Some modify this approach by adding a cost factor, so that basically you are looking for the lightest, cheapest calories.  The problem with this approach is that it leads you to foods such as Little Debbie’s honey buns.  I don’t think my older body would do well with a diet of such foods over a five to six month period.

2)      The second is to try to get a reasonable balance of foods in, recognizing that you will be woefully short on fruits and vegetables, and eat all the fruits and vegetables you can in restaurants on your town days.  Erik the Black has a backpacking blog with what appears to be very sensible advice on foods to take.  I am starting out using this general philosophy, and the photo I have attached below illustrates the types of food I will be taking.

3)      Likely the healthiest approach, but one that requires a lot of preparation time and a dehydrator, is to start way in advance dehydrating the good quality foods you would eat at home.  Maybe next trip I’ll try this approach!

Some of the ultra light backpackers choose to eat only cold foods on the trail to avoid having to carry a stove.  That is not an acceptable option to me, particularly since I am starting the hike in the winter.  I’ll generally have oatmeal and a cup of coffee (instant – ugh!) in the morning, make do with cold foods during the day, and then make a hot meal in the evening.  The "during the day foods" will be energy bars, trail mix (of course!), peanut butter, cheese and tortillas.  The fuel canister for my stove has about 90 minutes worth of fuel in it, so the name of the hot meal game is find foods that cook quickly.  My rule of thumb: no more than six minutes.  That leaves out most pastas, beans and rice.  Foods that cook quickly include couscous and tabouli.  Pastas that will cook quickly include Ramen noodles – the staple of hikers – and Knorr pasta sides.  Dried hummus can be mixed easily with warm water, and I am excited about a dried black bean mix from Whole Foods that can simply be mixed with boiling water and sit for a few minutes.  There are three foods that generally take a little too long to cook, but hikers have found a trick to make them work: lentils, kasha and freekeh.  I had never heard of the last two until a couple of weeks ago.  The trick is, you put them in one of your water bottles during the afternoon to pre-soak them and then cook them at your dinner site for six minutes and call them done.  I'll often supplement the grains/pastas with the aseptically packaged tuna or chicken.

Many of the foods that I have listed will not be available at the groceries in the smaller towns I will walk through – no Whole Foods J - so much improvisation is yet to come!  I am planning to pick up four mail drops from my support team (thanks, Anne!) during the southern portion of my hike.  That will be a limited opportunity to get more of the “good stuff”.  Most of the resupply will come from what is available in the trail towns.  It will be interesting to see how my food philosophy changes as the hike progresses.  Maybe I will end up being a honey bun fan.

Trail Name

One of the traditions of thru hikers of the Appalachian Trail is to take on a "trail name".  This is a name by which you are known by your fellow thru hikers.  Some hikers choose a trail name, and others are given a trail name.  The latter group often takes on a name related to the first blunder or dumb thing that they do on the trail.  Knowing that I will have many blunders and do a few dumb things on the trail, I don't think I want that to follow me for the whole experience... so I have chosen my trail name.  I chose "mexbuk-i" (pronounced "mex-buckeye").  That was a user ID I used way back when all sorts of web applications were first starting to require user IDs and passwords.  But I chose it because it said a little about who I was. The buckeye part refers to my state of birth... and to the team from The Ohio State University that I am a huge fan of.  The "mex" refers to Mexico, which is the place where my first memories of the formative years came from.  I lived in Mexico from age 4 to 16.  I still love the Hispanic community and culture.

Counting the days....

I was so excited yesterday morning when I awoke and checked the 10-day weather forecast for Harper's Ferry, WV.  It starts to cover the window I am considering for the starting point of my Appalachian Trail journey.  Granted, forecasts 10-days out are iffy, but I am excited to see some sunshine showing up towards the end.  Maybe this week's storm will be the last big one of this winter?  We'll see... I'm an optimist.  I think the polar vortexes should go back to where they belong.  The U.S. is not at one of the poles.

I enjoyed spending part of the afternoon yesterday with the folks at the Frazee Dream Center.  More about them to come in the next few days.