Reintroduction to Backpacking at Cloudland

 So, it's 2016 and I decided I was definitely gonna do this thing. Our plan was to start doing an overnight trip every month, beginning in March, and by 2017 we'd start doing two weekends a month and increasing our miles so that we could comfortably do 10 to 15 mile days. General advice for thru hikers is to start the thru doing  8 or 10 mile days, and build on that to more like 15 to 20 miles a day as your legs adapt and you find your rhythm. I felt being able to put two 15 mile days together on a weekend would put me in a better spot to hit 10 miles daily out of the gate, again, I'm a slow hiker and don't want to count on my ever really pulling off multiple consecutive 20 mile days. 

We are centrally located in Tennessee surrounded by good hiking, including a reasonable drive for a weekend in the Smokies. But, it being March and still pretty chilly, South to Georgia where it might be a bit warmer seemed like the logical first choice. 

A name like Cloudland Canyon seems destined for a story, and so it is a little part of this bigger tale. I chose light and easy to measure my strength. First a short little day hike without packs as a warm up, then a one mile jaunt into the woods to camp. The site was picturesque: fir and rhododendron, a stream, and a great stone lined fire ring. There was even a picnic table and a pit toilet. We spent the evening reading outloud by the firelight.

The night turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. We had just upgraded our old standard very basic rectangular sleeping bags, purchased years ago at walmart. The two new bags weighed less and took up less room together than one of the old ones. They were three season bags, and were rated down to 40 degrees for comfort or 30 degrees overall. They were more of the tappered mummy bag style, although far from the high end ultralight options, and the filling was polyfil vs. warmer down. We were unlucky in that temps were dropping right to freezing that night, even though daytime temperatures were reasonable. I had never slept in a mummy style bag. 

At first, everything was fine. I slept on my side, face partially turned down the edge of the bag helping to trap heat near my face. But in the course of the night I turned to the other side, and the bag twisted around my torso. I couldn't get it to cover my head the same way, but I fell asleep again. I woke up cold a while later. I had tossed more in my sleep, and now the bag was wrapped too tightly around me. I struggled a bit. I stilled myself and reached for the zipper. I could not pull it down. I thrashed. I am not clausterphobic. I sort of liked to crawl into small spaces as a kid, and I still find it comforting. But in this moment I was clausterphobic. I felt trapped. I tried hard to stay calm, telling myself I wouldn't die. I shimmied some more, tugging at the zipper. I was afraid I was going to break it in my panic. Fortunately, I was not alone. I kicked to my left, waking my husband. "Help", I hissed. I tried to lay still as he worked at the zipper. And then I was free. 

So, these bags could be zipped together. I had thought separate would be better for warmth, but after my panic, we zipped them together, and I found out I was wrong about that. We stayed cozy and I had the extra leeway I needed to sleep on myside without getting trapped. All was well; I slept and did not die. 

In the morning, we broke camp and returned the larger pack to the car. With the other to share between us, we embarked on the Bear Trace Trail. I carried the pack for the first half, and Jake for the second. It was a short start, but it felt hard, and I was tired at the end of the day. But we were one day closer to our goal!  

That's enough for now. Thursday I will share about this weekend hiking some more AT miles, and will have more about our "years of planning and prepping" in future posts! If you have asked a question, I will get to some of those soon, too. Thanks!  

A Long Walk, A decision

It’s one of those things you talk about doing: a great adventure. You read a book about it, and it inspires you to dream. For years, it is talk. Then one day, you set a date; You will do this thing. You will walk this path. Since I was a teenager, I have wanted to put a boat in the river near my house and float with it all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The book to thank for that was Huckleberry Finn. I still haven’t set a date for that one, but it is on my list. 

But this is about the Appalachian Trail. Real knowledge or desire for the trail didn’t come to me until about 2011, when I read the book that so many people have, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. People who complete the AT are known as 2,000 milers, although the trail is longer than that. It travels the mountains from Georgia to Maine, and those with a will can follow it, walking north with the warming weather. Along the way people acquire a trail name, trail legs, and often a trail family, or tramily. They lose  weight, no matter what they eat, because it is hard work. 

Yet, it’s a mental challenge more than physical, everyone says. I don’t know. For me, it seems natural to spend all of summer in the woods. A joy and a dream to live and wake with the sun, walk in the rain, sleep the sleep of exhausted bliss. The real challenge will be to cover new ground each day, and never linger. A surprising number of people learn to camp and hike so they can do the trail. A few just try jumping in cold turkey. But for me the trail represents a socially acceptable opportunity to live the life of my heart.  I already love camping and hiking. I yearn to do it with wanderlust of an explorer, a vagabond, a nomad. 

We picked the year 2021 in 2016. It seemed far enough away to allow for some planning and learning. but not too far. Jake’s 40th birthday would be a fun milestone to celebrate on trail. And it would allow us plenty of time to have money saved to take the time off of work, too. 

I am an avid day hiker. But I am also a slow one. I could easily do a ten mile day, or sometimes more, but also don’t usually get up early enough, and ready soon enough, to fit that in. A typical day hike for me was four to eight miles. I had backpacked a handful of times as well, and had the basic gear: a ten year old backpack, worn low tech boots, and a tent big enough for two (assuming you really loved each other). Unfortunately, it had been years since we had done it. Lots of car camping though. 

Our plan then, was to start taking monthly overnight backpacking trips with the gear we had, and figure out what we needed and upgrade some things once we got much closer to our start date. And hopefully get our bodies used to carrying the weight. 

Next week I will share about that first return to backpacking, and how the intervening years went (not as planned!) Thanks for all the support, and liking/sharing these posts. Gearing up to get on trail again shortly!

A Woman Hiking Alone

Dissatisfied with the current pandemic safety risks with getting an Uber to shuttle back to our car, for the second weekend of our Appalachian Trail soft start we decided to provide our own shuttle by hiking separately.  One of us has longer legs, and therefore naturally hikes faster. That isn't me. So, the most reasonable way for us to avoid Jake having a long wait at the trailhead, I would drop him off at the start of our hike, and drive to the other end, park, and hike towards him, then after swapping keys midway, he would drive back to the starting trailhead and pick me up, probably getting there before me. We decided to do these as day hikes, rather than doing an overnight, where we would only meet each other in camp. 

The first day we hiked eight miles from the park at Pen Mar to the Rattlesnake Gap road, just past the Old Forge Picnic Grounds. I dropped Jake at Rattlesnake to hike south, while I went to Pen Mar and headed north. It was far too many days after this when I realized that Pen Mar is like Texarkana and is a blended name of the two states we straddled on this hike. My mind was on other things. Mainly, hiking alone. 

It's not strange to hike the AT alone. according to The Treks 2019 Poll over 60% of long distance hikers start out that way. The advantages are everything that appeals to the rugged individualist. The solitude to think. Setting your own pace. Stopping and listening and hearing nothing at all. Smiling at the little secret things that only you will see, the leaf falling in the path, the birds head half tilted to watch you, a bug scurrying across the trail. And for that I was excited. I have, by my own estimation, never hiked such a distance completely alone. I often volunteer at a local trailhead, and typically walk it to check its condition, but that's just a few miles. I definitely wandered the rural area around my childhood home, but probably never walked more than 4 miles in a day. So it felt good, deeply satisfying, to just get out there be on my own. 

Of course there is a flip side to this. Hiking alone has risks. Geographical, Animal, and Human.  Thankfully I am not a novice in the woods. I reflexively check for blazes to stay on trail and am attentive and intentional when stepping off trail for mother nature. Animals aren't too high of a risk in this region or this time of year. Bears are mainly a risk in camp, snakes at other times of year. So that really just leaves the human component. We all know people are generally good. But we all know women have a particular concern anytime they want to go anywhere or do anything alone. We have basically taught men that rape is the natural act of a man against a woman who does not sufficiently protect herself. Men don't typically have to deal with this. Men who weigh less than me, they hike with impunity and never think about these things. They pitch tents, despite being all alone, near other, bigger, stronger men. They climb in, change clothes without thinking, and sleep without a knife at hand or any defensive plan. 

On this day I saw very few people. I had good cell service and checked in every mile to two with Jake. We crossed paths at my 3rd mile, his 5th (hey I did have to drive!). On the second day, we hiked a shorter distance and I spent most of it listening to an audio book and saw even fewer people, although I didn't have cell service for the most part. I never felt unsafe. But when a lone male hiker tried to get chatty in passing and stopped and took a step closer, I took a step back. He was only my size and a smiling, grey headed, fit grandpa type, something like Mike Pence, if he were not obviously a robot. People tend to think of this as "being afraid". You can't live your life in fear, say people who don't have to. But it isn't really fear. It's caution. You check for ticks and wear boots to protect bad ankles, and get vaccinated. Your pulse doesn't increase, your hackles don't go up, you don't struggle to sleep at night afterwards. You're taught to do it, or you learn, and then it's just part of your life's routine.

It's dumb to feel this way. It's dumb that things are this way. The odds are low, and that is true. But while 60% start out on the AT all alone, only 20% finish hiking most of the trail that way. People who don't start with a family member or friend usually pair up with some of the hikers they meet; they form a tramily. Companionship and safety in numbers. And while The Trek Doesn't break down these categories by gender, I would guess that women are more likely to start with someone else, and less likely to do the whole thing mainly alone. On top of that, only 40% of the long distance hikers in 2019 were women to begin with. The trail has other diversity issues. I can't speak to them personally. But it is silly, and wrong to assume people aren't on trail because any grouping of people "just don't want to" There are other factors at play. There probably always will be. 

So what is the takeaway? What can we do? On trail, really simply, we can respect people and give them their space. We can drop our egos and not take it personally. That man on the trail, when I stepped back, he stepped back, too. He might of thought I was maintaining my 6 feet, or he might have understood then, how it was with me. He didn't get mad, he didn't try to intimidate me. He didn't try to suggest he wasn't or couldn't be dangerous. He didn't hey baby/sweetheart/honey, he didn't make a face. He just stepped back, and smiled genuinely and told me to enjoy my hike and went on. 

 Ultimately, I loved both of these days, but my goal is not to be one of the hikers that does it all alone. I am happy with myself for getting out there and having a lovely weekend, but I do hope to hike most of the trail with my husband. For our next adventure we hope to take two cars and set them up at either end of whatever section we tackle next.  

Next week it's all about how I came to the decision to do the hike, set a date, and my "easy" first backpacking trip towards that goal. 

Socially Distanced Trailhead Access on the Appalachian Trail

 

Last month I logged my first official Appalachian Trail miles in our Covid adapted 2021 thru hike. One of the biggest challenges to doing the hike during a pandemic is simply how to handle getting on and off the trail. This is especially true as we do a soft start, and are likely only going to do weekend or simply day hikes as we are able through the winter, until the weather warms up a bit again. 

Even during a traditional thru, hikers needs to get off trail and into towns for food resupply about every week. They also take advantage of civilization's modern conveniences like heating and air conditioning, showers, and fresh vegetables (beer is a vegetable right?) This is normally accomplished thanks to a great trail community, whether people who offer paid shuttle services, a willingness to pickup hitch hikers, cab services, or uber/lyft. 

While some of these folks are still out there operating, it was something I wanted to avoid. It's too close, often for too long for my own comfort levels. I don't want to get sick on trail, and difficulty breathing with a lengthy recovery of months could be a deal breaker. 

Still, our first weekend out, we did plan to try it out. Full disclosure, despite a fair amount of travel in a lot of different places, we've never used Uber or Lyft or similar. We had downloaded and set up Uber once, but never used it. We settled on parking the car at the start of our weekend hike, and having only Jake Uber back to the car. This would minimize the interaction, and ensure he could sit as far from the driver as possible.

In the end, we decided to actually call an Uber Saturday night rather than camping overnight. It wasn't that I was too worn out or that we weren't prepared to camp (we both hiked with full gear). It was mainly that I didn't realize the shelter was just half a mile onward from a popular trailhead parking area and I was afraid the shelter area itself would be full of people, combined with the fact that we'd left our car parked in a high traffic spot, just right off an interstate exit on a major highway (not my favorite situation), combined with the additional and important fact that it was gonna be 39 degrees that night and I'm a giant baby when it comes to the cold. Our sleeping bags are not new, and are comfortable to 40, technically. So we called an Uber Saturday night and Sunday night. Both times Jake rode behind the passenger seat, and everyone was masked. The first driver kept the windows partly down and didn't talk much. The second driver was chatty and windows up. Overall, it felt risky to me. And there were other drawbacks. Both times, the wait for the driver, trip to the car, and Jake's return took about an hour and twenty minutes. And of course, Uber isn't free. Between both trips with a decent tip, the total was about $40. Not ideal.

So for the second weekend, we thought we might rent a car instead, so we could hike from our car to that car and ride back together. This was a lot more expensive than I wanted, nearly $150 for a Saturday AM pickup and Sunday PM drop off,. Not at all sustainable to do regularly. And not likely something that would always be doable depending on our locations and distances, and especially if we do a multiday hike. Add to this, we still had to do a fair amount of extra driving to the car rental location. We went ahead and reserved free online, but when we showed up, there were a lot of people, employees and customers, sort of scattered everywhere, social distancing, fortunately, and waiting their turn, but, having spent months in major isolation, it felt overwhelming to me. So, instead of picking up the car, we cancelled the reservation. Which was also a financial relief. This option is likely never going to work for us. 

So what else could we do? We only had one car. We do hope to hit other, closer to home sections by driving two cars and parking at either end, but this weekend, that wasn't an option. 

So what we decided to do instead is what I will call crosswalk, until someone wants to tell me an actual term, if there is one. We hiked separately from opposite ends of a section, and met in the middle for lunch and an exchange of car keys. I feel overall positive about the experience, but there are definitely limitations. I will share more next week. 

If there is an alternative method to do this you can think of, let me know in the comments! I am all ears. 

Georgia To Maine

This past month of September my husband and I began our soft start to thru hiking the Appalachian Trail. We have long intended to hike the trail "eventually" and in 2016 we decided that 2021 would be our year. Jake's 40th birthday year, it just seemed like a great fit. Since then, he had toe surgery, and I had a very nasty ankle injury that led to arthritis, in my knee too. Recovery over 2019 had been slow, but we started out 2020 feeling pretty good about our goal, with a likely start mid March the next year. 

Then 2020 developed and those plans were looking very questionable. the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) which protects and manages the national scenic trail, closed the trail, to the extent they are able (the trail land is owned by a variety of entities, and travels through multiple states after all) and stopped issuing the numbered thru hiker permits, an often coveted souvenir. Many hikers left the trail. Some did not. But what does that mean for 2021? Practically everyone across a variety of forums wanted to know. But whether it would lead to more crowding next year, or whether it too, might be canceled, is anyone's guess. 

All we really had were a lot of what if scenarios. Hiking a 2200 mile trail, over a course of 5 months, would require us to leave our jobs, hopefully rent our home, and maybe at some point, you know, shave my head. Not small decisions, nor easily reversible. Add to that complexity, Jake had just changed jobs, starting his new position in February, and on a contract basis. how long would it last? what would happen to the economy? Was it reckless to voluntarily leave a job next spring? 

So, after a lot of back and forth about potential ideas, including just putting it off until possibly 2022, we finally settled to move forward as flexibly as possible. Which leads me to a soft start in September. 

We are mainly able to work remote, except I do babysit dogs regularly. Did I want to abandon my clientele if this turned out to be a no go? Not really. So, instead, we resolved to start blocking weeks that were unbooked 4-6 weeks ahead, and getting on the trail in those downtime weekends. Jake could still work thanks to the magic of wifi and mobile hotspots during the week. 

So on September 19th we got on the Appalachian Trail and spent 2 weekends hiking, one at a section at the top of Pennsylvania, and one at the bottom. Spending most of the midweek car camping in a nearby state park with good cell signal. Technically, a thru hike is just doing the whole trail in 12 months, so, if we finish next year by September 18th, these could count towards a thru. It wouldn't be traditional, but the hiker communities favorite refrain is HYOH: Hike your own hike. And this is mine. 

Of course if everything goes swimmingly and we start full time, just when we want, in spring with the blessing of the ATC, then we might well just rehike these sections. but if that is delayed, hopefully these miles will help us reach our goals. And worse case: there is no better place to train than on the actual trail, and we'll gain the experience and muscle for a traditional go in a later year. 

There are lots of topics I want to share, and I will blog about them soon, Gear, social distancing logistics, Rocksylvania, food, cold season hiking plans and more. If you have any questions or ideas, let me know! I have spent far too much time reading about the Appalachian Trail over the years, so I'm ready to answer your questions. 

In the meantime, check my posts and highlights real over on Instagram for too many pictures.