Do What You Can

We had  hoped that November seventh and eighth would be the days we hiked the remaining miles of the Maryland section, giving us our first completed state. But with Jake's hip hurting, we didn't want to get 5 miles in to a 10 mile hike and realize he couldn't make the remaining distance. Fortunately some of the next section was crisscrossed by several roads making a few short sections we thought we could tackle during the work week. 

Since Jake is working remote right now, and I'm reserving some time off from dogsitting to make this possible, we were able to spend the week in the area. After a full day of rest, we headed out on Tuesday to try our first tiny section: an almost half a mile, up from a small side road to the parking lot of the Maryland's Washington Monument. This monument actually predates the DC version, although it's not nearly so tall. Since that went well with no pain, we followed up with a one mile lunchtime section that connected with the portion we had hiked on Sunday. Then he took a couple more days off to heal before the weekend. 

On Saturday we filled in some gaps and hiked a total of 5.1 miles over 3 small sections, repositioning our cars in between. This was to make sure we had to opportunity to stop if things were hurting, and meant we didn't have to carry much with us. The longest section was the 2.5 miles from the Washington Monument up to Boonesboro road, which connected the two midweek hikes. 

While moving the cars we had to use earplugs riding in Jakes car, because one night the preceding week we had left it for several hours in a Walmart parking lot and gone to a nearby McDonald's to stress eat fast food and distract ourselves from the election by streaming some shows using their wifi. During that time, someone came to Jake's car, and, despite the fact that it was parked near the busy grocery entrance, they got under his car and stole the catalytic converter. This meant that our exhaust was disconnected from the muffler, making the car exceptionally loud. Luckily, this wasn't something that affected our ability to drive the car, so we resolved to wait to fix it until we were back home, away from the area. 

The other two sections we did connected farther south, although we hiked everything in a northbound direction. I still generally want to get the NOBO experience, and don't want to find myself avoiding hard climbs by switching up directions. The other two pieces we hiked Saturday connected from the Reno Monument up to the half mile we did just below the Washington Monument. 

Yes it was quite a bit of hopping around. I will write more about the thru hike options and names (NOBO, SOBO, flip flop, leap frog) another day, but I think our sort of random but generally nobo sections should be called Quantum Leap. 

Jake was feeling good, but the next section of trail was over 6 miles road to road, and a lot of elevation gain. We both thought a flat section would be a better idea, and since we weren't camping, we could drive closer to home at night, and split up the return trip a little. So we chose a section along a ridge that ran beside the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. We covered the 6 miles of trail easily in terrain that looked dramatic with brilliant sassafras leaves in the clearings and full fall colors in the valleys below, but was warm enough for t-shirt and shorts, and gently rolling land. We went really slow, took a long lunch and paused in the middle of the second half for a sun induced nap among the leaves. 

Overall a lovely weekend, but one that left us with 16 miles yet to do in Maryland, and one very loud car.  

Halloween on the Appalachian Trail

At the end of October, we headed to Maryland for two weekends of hiking, hoping that we could complete the 40 miles of trail there over four days. On the first day, Halloween, we headed out from Wolfsville Road and hiked up to Pen Mar, just below the Pennsylvania state line, where I had hiked north from in September. We traveled up with two cars so we would not need a shuttle, and left one parked at Pen Mar before heading down to Wolfsville and heading out. It was a beautiful, relatively warm day. There was still a broad mix of leaves on the trees, with some turned deep red, and yellow, while others were still mostly green. We spotted some interesting fungus and kept up a good pace. 

The trail had a couple good rises to climb, but the trail was mostly rock free and easy walking except a portion coming down from the High Rock overlook, where it was mostly loose rock and picking our way over the rubble pile. But compared to what we had done earlier in Pennsylvania for miles and miles, I barely remembered it by the next day. The weather was clear, bright, and warm, promising summer rather than winter. We started later than I would have liked, because I prefer to allow myself the option of going a mile an hour, and finishing before dark. I am usually faster though, so we were able to keep up the pace and only had to pull out the headlamp for the last twenty minutes on trail. Fortunately by that time, we had reached a wide carriage lane, or old logging road, and the trail was level and clear of any major tripping obstacles. 

It was lovely since it wasn't too cold, to finish Halloween walking pleasantly along and having the full moon come up. As we came up to the park, there is a large covered shelter that overlooks the valley below, and we went up to look at the view, and spooked a couple of cats relaxing there. Then I turned off the headlamp and let the moon light us along the paved pathway to the parking lot where our car was waiting. A good hike, 10.78 miles.  

The next day we hopscotched south and hiked north to Wolfsville road from the Annapolis Rocks trailhead near I-70. This was an uphill climb into heavy fog and sporadic, light rain. All flat and easy along the ridgetop except for a brief Rocksylvania type section. It was a set taken directly from Sleepy Hollow, and spoke Halloween in every way that Saturday's sunny hike had not. It was silent and wonderful. Not a world or weather I would want to live in, but dream like to wander for a day. Along the trail we met a pair of women with wet hair and damp clothes, disoriented from missing a trail turn off. The weather was 50F, but in those conditions risky. We helped, along with another hiker, point them on the way to a trail out. They were in phone contact with a family memeber who was driving to pick them up, and although we offered some food and a hot hands said they were good and comfortable to hike the extra miles. A friendly reminder to bring a map, and some emergency weather gear. We are hiking with guthooks on one phone and Alltrails on the other. a compact rain jacket or an emergency blanket can be life saving in what might seem like mild weather. After that, our day was uneventful, and the fog finally cleared towards the end of our hike was we climbed through a small rocky pass and started the descent to the road where the extra car was parked. This is where Jake's hip started to hurt him with every step. So we had to go slowly, and tried some side stepping and backwards walking where flat to ease the strain. It seems he likely has some bursitis in his hip, so we'll have to give it rest for it to heal, and also work on better stretching and strength training at home. The last half mile took us an hour, and I am so glad he made it through most of the hike first. 9.7 miles total. 

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!

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. 

Buffalo Flow

Check out this short piece of creative non fiction I published on Medium. Let me know what you think and share your favorite National Park Service moments in honor of  #nps100 today!

https://medium.com/@DesiraFu/buffalo-flow-in-honor-of-our-national-parks-6f75a6dbb65f#.gnj9uy7sx