The Appalachian Trail - Better Late Than Never!

Hey all! Finally, I am about to blog about my experience on the Appalachian Trail in June! I'm sorry it has taken so long to put something up about it. Sometimes you just get busy and suddenly it's almost 3 months later! Anyway, as I said, better late than never right? :) So, just to make sure you're up to speed, late this past May, Michelle and I, along with my Brother in Law Al and my Dad, started at Winding Stair Gap in North Carolina, and over the next 8 days, we would walk a total of 53 miles of the Appalachian Trail, to be picked up in Cades Cove, TN. The experience was difficult and often treacherous. It was a little scary, and stressful. But it was definitely an experience not to be missed, and I'm sure that none of us are finished with the AT. If you haven't seen the pictures yet, they're in my gallery on my website. Rather than post a lot of pictures here, I'll just send you that direction for a better interface. It's probably next to impossible to put everything we experienced into a single blog post, but I'm going to do what I can. Here goes! First, I'll say that none of us were truly prepared for a week in the woods. I don't think any of us believed we would be, but that doesn't change the fact that it was more of a challenge than we anticipated. We were fortunate to have an excellent shuttle to our trail head. Without them we'd have dealt with some difficulties that were unneeded. Our driver went over some possible hazards to avoid, and helped us a great deal with pack weight, and food management, so after the three hour drive to the trail, we felt more prepared than we had been, which was good. We would need every extra bit of help! :) Jeff (our driver) also asked us why we had chosen the hardest length of trail in the southern half as our first piece. Well, the location worked out best for our drop off and pick-up, but would we have made an adjustment had we known that before the day we started? No point dwelling on that now. Done is done! (it was all my fault) :) My aunt and uncle met us at the trail head to see us off. With a prayer and a couple of pounds of birthday cookies, (thanks Aunt Patty) off we went! Day one, and we hiked and hiked and hiked. Now, we had some long days scheduled. 10 miles, 12 miles. On our first day we went about 8 before we camped, at a place called Wine Spring. The spring was a little creek, which was where we first filled our water bottles with mountain stream water. A lot of realizations on that first day or two. Let me relate a few:

1. We aren't making the kind of time we planned. Either have to speed up, or not go as far. (This was also some good advice from our shuttle driver. Relax, and enjoy your time, he said. It's a vacation and you aren't racing. Very quickly we realized we were not going to go as far or as fast as we had planned. That realization and subsequent acceptance made the trip a lot easier and more enjoyable.)
2. Everything you do has to have a purpose. In the woods, there is no action without thought and purpose behind it. After awhile, the routine got easier, but you have to be aware of every step, lest you plummet over the side of the hill. You have to cook in the right place in the right clothes (as not to attract rodents and bears) , plan your water stops, prepare your camp efficiently, break your camp efficiently, hit the trail early enough to make your next campsite. The thinking can wear you out, but as we often talked about on the trail, you may still be stressed, but you aren't thinking about work, or the lawn, or the bills, You're thinking of things that will keep you alive and healthy. Bears, clean water, dry clothes and shoes. You're trading one set of trials for another. And I can't speak for everyone else, but I found that enjoyable once I was accustomed to it.
3. Too much food! We all experienced this. Our appetites were slim under the physical exertion. I could have carried two thirds less food and probably still had too much.
4. Small kindness really does matter. This is related to number three actually. We had too much food, but there were foods that we didn't have that we really missed. Day two we encountered a lady at a picnic site that came near to the trail. She had some fresh strawberries which she offered us, and which quickly disappeared. I actually didn't' have one, but the rest of the group did. Later in the week, the same thing happened when we hiked along with a couple of ladies who gave us a bag of cherries. I had a few of those. Those were the best cherries I've ever eaten. I think just because they gave us a little of something that we didn't have, and couldn't possibly have had without them. It made me realize how significant even the smallest gift or aid can be to someone who is without, and we didn't even need the cherries to live. They just hit the spot. It's funny how much of your time on the trail revolves around food. When to eat, how much, where and so on. At Fontana Dam, NC, just before we crossed into Tennessee, I offered a melted Snickers bar to one of the kids who was sharing a shelter with us. His eyes got wide, and he thanked me as though I'd given him a nugget of gold! We found out a couple of days later that he and his friends had been raided by bears in the middle of the night, and they had stolen all of his food, so he had been living fairly lean for those few days. Likely he'd have taken a Snickers over a gold nugget out in the middle of the woods. :)
5. I was worried about drinking water from a stream. If you stop to think about everything that drinks from the stream, that crawls in it...it's a little disgusting. But I realized that the taste of the water coming out of those mountains is not to be had from city water. It was so clean tasting that when we were finally able to drink some city water again, it was metallic and heavy by comparison. After we left the hostel where we slept mid week, I was tempted to dump my city water in favor of a spring we passed, but I just didn't want to wait for the purification.

So the hostel is another story. After three or four days, we were very tired, and having a hard time of it, so we decided to take a day off of the trail to heal and relax. We stopped at the Nantahala Outdoor Center in North Carolina. It is a fabled destination for AT hikers and affectionately called "The NOC". A couple of restaurants, $20 hostel rooms. Hot water and showers. We decided that in the spirit of not killing ourselves, and also enjoying ourselves, that we needed to take the time. It was well spent. Laundry done, showers taken, gear cleaned up and repacked, we shuttled ahead so we could meet our pickup in Cades Cove on the appointed day.

I think I can be safe summing up the rest of the hiking. Naturally there are countless stories I could tell you, but I want to keep this blog readable. Feel free to ask me any question you have. But I can say that the hiking and camping were harder, and more worthwhile than I could have imagined. The time I got to spend with the people who went with me was irreplaceable. And as I mentioned in a previous blog, God was there too, as I expected. Interestingly, the bear activity this year is extremely high. People coming and going saw them the whole time we were on the trail. We never saw the first one. I wouldn't trade this hike for a week doing anything else! Also, there are some views of the Appalachian Mountains that you can't drive to. I saw some incredible places. There are pictures of some of them, but pictures don't do them justice. More than once I was awed by a 360 degree panorama of mountains as far as I could see. If you haven't experienced it, that's good stuff! :)

I think the only way I can make sure to answer everything that you might be wondering is in the comments section of this post. Ask a question or anything and I'll see about answering! If it requires another blog post, then all the better! Thanks, as always, for reading!!

-J

The Contents of My Pack

Well, Here we go. I'm going to do a quick blog about the items I'm taking with me when we head out on our big hike this weekend. We'll be headed out on Friday evening, the 29th, and returning on June 7th. This is a week long, no holds barred, sleep in the dirt kind of hike. We're also going to be raising money for the Faith and Fitness Center in Ironton by making this a Hike-A-Thon. Willing sponsors can pledge by the mile (75 of them) or a flat amount. But anyway, I thought I'd give you a quick tour of my pack, which is effectively my house for the next week.

First, a picture of all the contents. I have numbered them, and I'll go over each number to let you know what's what.

There we go. Let's begin shall we? 1. This bag contains my personal effects, and electronics with which I'll be documenting the hike. My phone, for micro blogging and GPS in a pinch, the camera for....well, pictures. My charger, spare batteries, a trail log, a new testament and a novel. Also included is my headlamp and my clip on light. On the test hike a few nights ago, it made an excellent overhead lamp in the tent. 2. This is the toiletries bag. Soap and deodorant, toothbrush and towel, you know. All the essentials to keep me from smelling any worse than I need to. :) 3. My emergency kit. All of my first aid and just in case gear is in this one. Hand warmers, gauze, band aids and ointments, and some pain and fever medication. Also a couple of chem-lights. You never know when all of your lamps/flashlights might all die. If everything goes according to plan, though, I should never have to open this one up. 4. Two 1 Liter bottles of water. This is all the water I'll be carrying at any one time. They'll be refilled at streams or springs along the way and purified. 5. Camp shoes. $1.00 Croc rip-offs from Walmart. Women's size 10. They were lighter, cheaper, and better looking than the men's. :) If I need to go slogging across a stream and don't want to take a chance on getting my boots wet, these will come in handy. Also, the one shower I get at Fontana Dam, three nights before the end, will require these. Would you stand in an outdoor bathhouse in bare feet? :) 6. My Eureka Silver City 30° Sleeping Bag. This is one of the pieces of gear I'm most proud of. Packed and compressed, it's not much bigger than a loaf of bread, and it's good and light. 7. The orange sack and the long black one next to it are my tent and poles. The tent, which I have blogged about before here is a Eureka Solitaire. I've slept in it twice now and it's a pretty cozy little getup, if a little shy in extra room. It only requires moderate skill in yoga to get around inside it. :) 8. This is my spare clothing. Nothing more than a change of clothes for the camp site so I can wash the stuff I'm hiking in, along with a set of thermals in case of a cold night. All of it is synthetic, quick drying and light. 9. Foul Weather Footware. This is a pair of socks, sock liners and small gaiters in case things get really sloppy on the trail. I'll have two spare pairs of socks and a spare pair of liners total. You can't be too prepared when it comes to your feet. 10. This is my rain gear. A Marmot Precip jacket and field and stream pants. It's all packed into one of the jacket's pockets. I hope we never have to get this stuff out either, but in all probability it'll rain on us some. Looking at the forecast, it may rain on us a lot. :) 11. This is my rain cover for my pack. Another piece of gear that's good to have along, but better if you never need it. 12. My fleece jacket, in case things get cold. I don't expect it'll get cold enough to need this, but again, an ounce of prevention and all that. This jacket actually works along with my other clothes for layering. I have my base layers; this jacket is my mid layer, and my rain jacket is my outer shell. 13. My kitchen. I like my little cook set. This is a Coleman MAX pot and pan, and inside is my stove and fuel, (Esbit solid fuel tabs) along with two mini Bic lighters. Also contained inside are coffee filters for my water and my purification drops. My drops are Aqua Mira, which is chlorine based and safer than iodine in a long term situation. 14. This is the majority of my food in our Ursack. The Ursack is a cool piece of gear. It's a bear bag, made of Kevlar. We're using the bag primarily to keep our food from rodents and such, but this is supposed to be able to resist the bears as well. Technically it should be bulletproof also. :) Laying next to the Ursack, you can see a sample of the food we're taking with us. That's a small jar of peanut butter, some dehydrated 3-bean Chili from Trailfoods.com, a bag of my famous homemade beef jerky, and in the back there is some freeze dried corn. It's a fantastic snack! Tastes just like a well buttered ear of corn! You can also see my all purpose spork there. Ya gotta have the spork. :) 15. This is my sleeping pad. It's basic, closed cell foam that you can buy at any Wal-Mart. I trimmed a little off of it to save some weight. 16. Here it is. The Gregory Baltoro 70. A 70 Liter Capacity pack with a legendary padding and suspension system. It had better be up to the challenge of carrying all of this gear, because I'm not certain I am. :) So there's the nickel tour of my gear. I hope you find it as fascinating and engaging as I like to pretend it is. How about a picture of the whole mess packed lovingly into the aforementioned backpack:

Total Packed Weight: 39 Pounds. A little high perhaps. I was hoping to keep it near 35, but in a couple of days it'll be down around there as I eat. My food weight will be reduced by about 2 pounds per day. Hard to believe that this is all I'll have with me for 7 days, but at the same time, It's hard to believe that there's so much there. :)

Alright, I have time to entertain a few questions, but as of Friday afternoon, I'm out of here! I'll see you all on the Twitter feed if there is sufficient service to update via phone. Later!

-J

Appalachian Trail Update

Hey gang! Just filling you all in on our AT plans, and such. This past weekend was a good trip. Michelle and I went a little crazy at Little River Trading Company in Maryville, Tennessee in preparation for the hike. We grabbed a few last things that we needed. Water purification, good insoles, clearance Columbia mid-layer fleece (total score), socks, sock liners, gaiters, a water carrier for camp...you know. All the things that you may need when walking a long way and camping without the modern conveniences. As I said before, once I get everything together and arranged, I'll be posting my complete gear list for you. Weights and all. I figure it will be a good idea so I can then compare after the hike and figure out what I really needed and didn't need. (I'm thinking it'll be a good comparison for all of you out there if you decide to try this at some point.) We are pretty much ready to go with the exception of food at this point, and we mostly have that figured out, so the prep is essentially over. That is of course, excepting the physical conditioning, which is ongoing. So now we just train, and wait for it. And read and try to learn as much as we can to be ready. I figure there's only so much head knowledge you can accumulate for this kind of thing. At some point you just have to put one foot in front of the other and do it. We're ready I think. Is there trepidation? Are we a little nervous? Yeah a little, but the excitement and anticipation are there in equal parts if not greater. This is going to be real adventure. The kind you can write books about! :) So I was doing a little reading about Thru-Hiking. Hiking the whole trail in one go. And the guy was talking about what happens to you on the trail. I know we're only doing a week and only 75-80 miles at that, but I hope that this trip has an impact on me. The guy who wrote this article, put it this way (paraphrased): Most people who attempt a thru-hike and succeed find that they are a different person at the end. In a good way. On the trail, there are three examinations that happen in order. First, you examine your body. You wonder if you can really pull it off. If you're physically capable. Then you start to examine your gear. Do I need this? Do I really need it? I can definitely get by without this or that. Many people start to leave their unneeded gear behind. (Sometime if you get the chance, stop in at the Happy Hiker in Gatlinburg in peak thru-hike season and take a look at the boxes of discarded gear left by hikers. They leave it in case another hikers needs it.) Finally, you start to examine yourself mentally and spiritually. (End paraphrase) Michelle and I call it "resetting your meter" and that's the part I hope I get to in my short week on the trail. The point at which you start to see what you're fortunate to have in a different way. When you start to appreciate what you have more fully, and when you start to see how much it really is that you're blessed with. That's really the biggest part of what this trip is about for me. Perspective. There's a lot of fun in seeing how simply you can live, and in seeing how far you can travel on foot and all that, but truth be told, if I can gain just a little more appreciation for creation, and the things I have, then the trip is worth it. In short, my expectations for this little walk in the woods are as follows: I expect to-

1. Have a lot of fun with Michelle, Dad and any friends we may make along the way. (By fun I mean walking really far, hurting a lot, and smelling bad. On purpose!)
2. Do something mentally and physically daunting that I never imagined I'd do.
3. Spend some time while I have a perfect opportunity to pray and meet with God in the mountains.
4. Search my pack and leave behind any gear that I don't need. Figuratively speaking

So, that's that. And THAT was going to be a quick update, but it seems to have turned into a discourse. :) Anyway, that's what I hope to do on this hike. Won't be too long on that gear list I mentioned. Thanks for reading! -J

General Update

I have just a quick update on a few things for those of you following along. It's a big week in the general goings on leading up to the crazy (I mean AWESOME) summer of 2009! 1. Fitness: In the world of fitness, things are now underway. Today I bought a new pair of Saucony running shoes and Michelle and I rebooted our runner's training with Couch to 5k. I linked it way back in 2008 when we started for the first time. This time we're going to try and repeat the program with a couple of differences. This time we're in pretty decent shape to begin with, and also we're doing it faster with a goal of running the Memorial Day 5k in Ironton and posting a much better time. It shouldn't be too hard to beat last year's time of over 37 minutes, but I'd like to beat the Jingle Bell Run time of under 29 as well. More on this as it develops. 2. The AT 2009 Expedition: The planning has begun. Our long anticipated week long hike on the Appalachian Trail looks like it'll be taking place the first week of June, barring any scheduling trouble or unforeseen circumstances. Michelle and I are heading down to Tennessee this weekend not only to see my grandparents who are up from Florida, but also to make a quick trip to a couple of good outdoor/backpacking stores for a little outfitting. We're going to get the rest of our footwear (socks and liners and such) and also our cookware. I have my stove, but I need a little better mess kit. We're planning on scouting out some of our food as well. There are various other essentials that Michelle has on a list that is pretty long, but hopefully not all that heavy once they're loaded on our backs. :) I'm thinking I'll probably post my complete gear list once I have everything together in one place. After the hike we'll do a comparison and I'll see what I can eliminate for future hikes. 3. Ninja Skills: Beginning the first week of April, Michelle and I will be joining our friends Mike and Jenn in a Kung Fu/Self Defense class in Huntington. We have never taken any kind of martial art, and thought it would be fun to try, not to mention a good thing to help with fitness and protection. Who knows, I might have to wrestle a bear in June! Michelle has expressed some interest in Bo Staff. I for one think it would be the coolest thing on earth if Michelle could just go nuts with a Bo. Just like Donatello!! 4. Japanese: I have finished lesson 11 of 30 on my Japanese I course. I did a quick review of lessons 1-10 just to make sure I had a grasp of most of the material, and I feel like I am definitely improving. Slowly but surely this course is increasing my flexibility with the language. Also, I picked up a used copy of "My Japanese Coach" for Nintendo DS this weekend and I've been working on my vocabulary with it. It's a neat little program that teaches with word games. There is a good dose of Education about Japan itself. The program is actually designed not only to teach you the language but to be a travel tool as well. It includes a fairly large dictionary and phrase book, as well as a sketch pad in case you jut have to draw something to get your point across. There you go. I know there were other things I was going to update, but I can't remember. I should write them down somewhere. I've been thinking about getting a Moleskine notebook for that purpose. Blog ideas, random thoughts and such. They're so nice in that display at Borders. So earthy and Bohemian. I think I need one. Alright. I'll get one soon, and then you won't have to feel so cheated when I can't remember all of the details that I meant to impart. :) Later! -J