Category: 2018 Appalachian Trail

Something strange happened this morning—I woke up with the sun coming through the tent screen. I looked outside and decided it was a fluke and we had a short window to get packed and and going before the dark clouds in the southwest caught us. Bunny and I were both out of the tent by a little after 7. I got the bear bags down (everything with a smell has to be stored in bear safes or hung in trees to keep the bears from getting it—they are almost as annoying as mice and can be a little bit more noticeable if they step on your face) while Bunny packed up the contents of the tent.

We had breakfast with Patches and were on the trail by 8:20. Patches was still eating and hadn’t taken her tent down when we left. We thought she would catch up with us after a little bit on the trail, but we never saw her again. She is wanting to make a wedding in New York in early June and has to average 13 miles/day to make it. We’re not there yet.

Coming at us on the trail was a very thin woman and dog. It turns out that White Walker (I’m assuming that is in reference to walking through the snow all winter and is not a racial comment) and her dog, Riley are Sobo’s finishing the trail tomorrow. White Walker started October 1 of last year (this date stuck with us because that happens to be the date we stopped walking). She has completed the AT through one of the worst winters in recent years including 2 arctic blasts, in a mere 4.5 months. We hope to get done in 7-8 months.

Blood Mountain has been painted as a boogeyman to Nobo’s because it’s the first big continuous climb to be encountered. It’s only about a 1200’ and has nice switchbacks (a piece of cake even for two fatty GR10 veterans). We ran into lots of day hikers on the mountain because it is a weekend and is close to a main road. We’ve been planning on hiking the AT for years, so it amazes us when people don’t know about the AT even when they are hiking it. We ran into several people that didn’t even realize it ran all the way to Maine, but they did know something strange was up with us because of our smell.

Urban (or more apt, rural) legend has it that Blood Mountain got its name from all the blood of a couple of early American (pre-European, sometimes referred to as “native” Americans) people’s battling each other. Presumably it was a battle over legal vs. illegal immigration and it got quite heated leading to many deaths.

Coming down from Blood Mountain was when my left knee started acting up. I was able to determine that this is a soft tissue issue. When I stretched, it got better so I’ve got to be more diligent when I stretch every day. This is completely different from the issues Bunny is having, primarily, because it was happening to me. This just stresses the fact that old geezers and their young stud husbands (who do not qualify as a geezer for another almost 8 months) need to stretch each and every night.

We stopped in at the outfitter to get a resupply and decided to rent a cabin for the night after they called down the hill for availability. We want to get laundry done this evening and do a shakedown to lighten our packs. After 5 days, we’ve already decided we packed too much. We got a pizza to eat and about half way through it, we ordered another one as an after dinner snack. Tonight we have a bed, kitchen, and bathroom all to ourselves. I bet we even stay up until 9.

EFG

We ended the day just like we started it; cold (temperature below 40), in a fog (actual fog and not a mental one), and in a drizzle. From the sounds of it, one might imagine that we would rather be somewhere else than on the AT in February. I can think of two places even less appealing: 1) inside a tire plant, or 2) locked in an office being told to see more patients.

We passed an important milestone last night. As expected, the mice got a lot friendlier once the lights went out. I officially had my first mouse crawl on my head in an AT trail shelter. If I could get about 20 of them trained to run up and down my back with weighted boots, it would be a pleasant micro-massage.

I only got up once in the night and then again at 7:15 this morning fully intending to stay up. You know the conditions already, so when my wife told me to come get warm, I obliged. We got up at 9:20. It seems like all the early mornings I got up on our hiking hiatus mean nothing to my bride.

The trail today was kind of pretty. It would be beautiful in spring in another 6 weeks when the “hiking bubble” starts. We spent miles in a rhododendron forest. What was even more amazing to us is that we actually had sections of trail that were level for more than 5 steps in duration. The AT is currently 2,190 miles in length. If it were designed by French hikers, it would easily be 500 miles shorter (they are straight line hikers and abhor switch backs).

We did meet several hikers today. First were Breezy and New York; two women who will be starting their thru-hikes in April, so we plan on seeing them again in May when they pass us up. We are also sharing a shelter tonight with two men who only have 17 days allocated to get to Hot Springs, NC so we were too embarrassed to talk a lot with them since we don’t plan on being there for 5 weeks. They hiked today what we did yesterday and today. It’s a very slim chance we will ever see them again unless we have to perform emergency medicine on them.

Upon getting to the shelter today, we ran across a platoon of military guys out on a training mission. I couldn’t tell if the first guy I met was in trouble or pain—he looked like he was doing push-ups in the mud or he might have had leg cramps. Their packs tipped the scale at 70# so we had to stop whining a bit—especially when one guy was carrying 2 packs and 2 machine guns (another guy in trouble?). They said they were staying out tonight and couldn’t stay in shelters and they didn’t have tents. They were also running low on food. I told them about the abandoned gear we saw yesterday and they said it was probably some guys out on ranger training. Their check-points are so far apart that it’s easier for them to just live off the land and toss the gear they are given.

It’s raining still as we head to bed at 7:30. Pam gets mad if I say she doesn’t stay up very late, but it is hiker midnight and I am getting cold as well. Since there are so few people here, we decided to just put our entire packs in the bear boxes rather than hang them in the shelter. Last night, after I threw the mouse off of my head, he decided to get even by making a nest in my pack and leaving me some chocolate sprinkles as a gift.

EFG

Before we went to bed, St Nick warned us that he snored and has even been known to “ventriloquist” snore. When Bunny woke me up snoring, I almost woke her up but decided to throw one of my boots at St Nick—it worked. A little bit later, he was so convincing that I thought I woke myself up snoring so I threw my second boot. When I got up in the morning, both of my boots were still by my bed, but Lotus’ boots were missing; we both have Merrell Moabs.

When we made our breakfast, we got a surprise 9th tortilla in our package of 8–a great hiking omen! The biggest surprise of all, though, was that Bunny and I were not the last ones to leave the shelter and we were on the trail at a very impressive 8:45. That’s 8:45 in the morning! Until now, Bunny didn’t realize they had such early times in the Eastern time zone.

Hiking was smooth and easy for us. It looked cloudy, but it was warm and we had heard the outlook for the day was no rain. Living large in Georgia. We knocked out the first mile and a half in about 45 minutes. That’s where we ran into our first “Trail Ambassador” from the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club. He told us this is the first day they are on duty. We stopped and talked with Jeff for about 15 minutes. He told us 15% of thru-hikers quit by Neel Gap and another 10% quit before getting out of Georgia. He also told us to expect trail magic ahead.

Beer last night, an extra tortilla this morning, no rain today, and even more trail magic ahead. In about 5 minutes we caught up with Patches, Bullfrog, and Lotus chowing down on grilled cheese sandwiches provided by Fresh Grounds and his “Leap Frog Cafe.” Fresh Grounds told everyone they would have to wait for their next sandwich until the new comers got some. His goal is that all hikers eat as much as they can handle. The only limit is you’ve got to stop once you throw up so others have a chance. Patches ate 3 grilled cheeses, I had two with Doritos and a Coke to wash it all down. Bunny T only had one sandwich, chips, and a Coke. While we were there, the sun came out!

Once we got going again, the temperature had gotten all the way up to 65. The extra food forced Bunny to brown blaze today (think about it—we follow white blazes all day). While we were stopped, we had a wardrobe malfunction. Nothing exiting—no appendages or accoutrements popped off, or out, of Bunny. We were just overheating and decided to shed some thicker layers. I switched to my short sleeve shirt, but Bunny switched to her size 6 shorts (fortunately very stretchy size 6, but 6 they are).

While we were putting our packs back on, a guy with two dogs came up. That reminded me that today is Ilana’s 12th birthday. I know she is happy staying at grandma’s house since grandma never lets her miss a meal. If Iliana can’t have the same food they do, she’ll scramble her some eggs. She’s in heaven at grandma’s.

We caught up with Patches and walked with her for a while, but she got ahead of us at Woody Gap. We were wondering around in a daze admiring the trash cans and luxury outhouse when a woman came up to us and asked if we were thru hikers. Cecilia had just done a 12 mile trail run and had a few extra protein bars and offered them to us. This not bathing thing has its perks.

We soon caught back up with Patches and walked with her the rest of the afternoon. We decided to just camp for the night and do a respectable 8 miles. Patches was going to hike on, but changed her mind and joined us. We had a “quasi” campfire after we set up camp, filtered water, and had dinner. A spectacular day filled with generosity and fun.

EFG

It helps sharing a shelter. Even Bunny Tracks was guilted into appearing by 8. By 8:20, we had the shelter all to ourselves. Yes, Pete, we got our earliest start yet—on the trail by the wee hour of 9:30.

As old people who hike know (or are about learn), the third day is the hardest on your body. Since today was Valentines Day, it was fitting to feel like we had nearly survived the Valentine’s Day Massacre—nearly. Bunny Tracks made every ascent look like she was climbing Mt Everest: pole, pole, step, step, breath, breath, pant, pant, curse, breath, repeat.

The weather didn’t help her mood much either. We were experiencing a GR10 flashback with all the fog and drizzle. It did eventually warm up to slightly above 50 which is not really a good thing because it then becomes too hot to wear your rain gear but it’s too cold to go without it. Towards late afternoon, the rain just decided that it wasn’t worth continuing suck a pitiful drizzle so it called it a day.

Two Nobo’s passed us on what was for us a long hard climb. Hopefully we will look back on this in a few weeks and think how much we have improved. Bullfrog and Lotus had just met each other yesterday at the start of the trail. It turns out that they live less than 30 miles from each other in New Jersey. They left us in their mud splatter in no time (no dust with the drizzle).

As we were nearing the end of our will power for the day (and hopefully our predetermined end spot) we met a young man wearing shorts and what appeared to be an empty pack. His name was Sparks and he was out performing some trail magic. He told us we could look forward to a cold beer at the shelter less than a mile away. It’s amazing how much pep Bunny and I both got in our step after meeting him. We weren’t really craving beer, but we were excited to partake of our first certified magic. We still assume the trail mix yesterday was supposed to be magic, but mice and rain ruined that one for us.

When we got to the shelter, Bullfrog, Lotus, and St Nick were already there. It was real nice having our first social night on the trail having a beer getting to know some new people. Bullfrog got his name from the movie Easy Rider and realized he WAS bullfrog one night in high school after he had “accidentally” had some bad mushrooms. Lotus chose his name from sitting in the lotus position and actually being able to fall asleep in it. St Nick just looks his part.

It’s exciting to start meeting people and wondering if we will develop a trail family like we did on the Camino. It’s a little disheartening to think that since we are in such bad shape that we probably won’t be able to keep up with them. It’s only the third day so who knows what will happen. At Bunny’s and my pace, we are easily going to have another couple hundred days to figure it all out.

Just as everyone was getting ready for bed, one more hiker came in—Patches. She hiked southbound from Katahdin to New York and stopped when the weather got too bad. Now she’s hiking Nobo back to New York.

EFG

After nearly 8 years of dreaming we are finally hiking the AT. Today was a little more grueling for us than it should have been for a number of reasons, but I’ll get into that soon enough.

I’m going to present our mileage’s in a little different manner than I have in the past. The first number will be the actual trail miles followed by the total number of miles we had to hike to accomplish the official miles. As you might notice, we only hiked 2/10 ths of a mile on the AT today, but it took us almost 9 miles to do it. Most people will probably assume that I just put Pam (henceforth known as Bunny Tracks or Bunny T) out front to lead the way. Even though these numbers would reflect such a happening, that wasn’t the case today. We had to hike up the approach trail from Amicalola Falls State Park in Georgia before we could get to the trail.

The Appalachian Trail is officially 2,190.3 miles this year, but there’s more to it than that because you can’t drive to either Trail Head. In Georgia, there is an 8.8 mile approach trail which is regarded as the semi-official start, but not everyone gets on the trail this way or hikes the entire approach trail as is the case with us—we skipped the first mile of the trail which is the climb up Amicalola Falls). I wasn’t thrilled about skipping it, but we stayed at the Lodge last night so we were already above the falls so it just didn’t make sense to back track to the bottom. Now that we are on the AT, we will white blaze the entire trail (unless we run into forest fires or another government shutdown).

We took the “6 state challenge” to get down here yesterday. That is, we rode with George through Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. I got my first blister of the trip on that drive down. I was riding shotgun and George is a surprisingly aggressive driver who places a lot of faith in his brakes. I spent a lot of the time trying to slam on the brakes on my side and developed a blister on the side of my big toe, but I’m a former cross-fitter so I know how to deal with blisters—ignore them.

Back to the AT total “official” length. It is believed that the average hiker will take right around 5 million steps to complete the trail. As can be surmised from our progress today, we only have 4,999,500 steps to go until we hit Katahdin—slice of pie (or piece of cake—I get my idioms mixed up).

Why was today so hard for us? Well, it’s February 12 and we are starting to hike. We have to assume that we are going to hit some pretty cold weather so I’m carrying about an extra 10 pounds of winter gear in my packweight’s 45 pounds. Bunny is carrying at least an extra 5 pounds of crap (not necessarily winter gear, but more vitamins, clothes, tea, personal crap, etc.) in her 35 pounds of packweight. We will get rid of this extra gear in a few weeks when Pam and Joyce join us as we hike through the Smoky Mountain National Park.

However, we have some additional weight that we are carrying that we didn’t have on the GR10 and the TMB last year. Namely, bellies from sightseeing, drinking, great home cooking, and, in my case, M&M’s reasonably priced right next to the dog food. I have put on nearly all the weight I lost last year—about 40 pounds. Bunny is carrying an extra 30. (We had a lot of fun trying the European food and beer.)

Although today was a beautiful day in the mid 60s with occasional blue skies, we aren’t going to stay that lucky. The 10 day forecast for our area only calls for 8 days of rain. As I’m writing this, the rain is gently beating down on the shelter metal roof and almost drowns out the sound of the mice scurrying around. Yes, Pam and Joyce, expect mice. They are the cutest little things. They haven’t gotten brave enough to get closer than a foot to us, but we are still awake. I’m sure they will be willing to cuddle in a few hours.

We didn’t get off quite as early as we were hoping this morning—this is a paragraph dedicated to our good friend Pete up north of the border (the one that hasn’t been designated as needing a wall, YET). George was supposed to wake up and shower to be ready to eat at 7a then we were going to shower after breakfast and head out by 8:30. George overslept and convinced us that it was very foggy out. He skipped breakfast and took off at 7:30. We decided to sleep a few more minutes. Yadda yadda yadda, we hit the trail at 10a (but to our credit, that’s Eastern Time so we really set off at 9–a mere questionably justifiable 30 minutes late).

We didn’t run into any fellow thru hikers at all today, but we did notice two signed in on the register atop of Springer Mountain. We fully expected to be sharing a shelter tonight, but have it all to ourselves (if you ignore the mice who were already here). We only ran into 2 people all day and they were just exercising their dogs.

We did run across a lot of gear on the side of the trail and in shelters we passed. In one location, we came across what appeared to be an abandoned campsite with sleeping bag, tent, and food all abandoned. I have heard of people deciding this trail is too tough and give up right away—I hope that was the case with this site. Hopefully, they were just having a “Brad moment” and threw all their gear off the trail and said they were “getting out of this chicken-shit outfit once and for all” and that they weren’t abducted by aliens. Although I would love to be an ambassador to another alien race, I’m not up for the associated anal probes that go with the job description.

EFG

Maybe it’s because we’ve been staying with family for over two months; or maybe it’s because taxes are coming due; or maybe it’s because we haven’t exercised or walked for almost 4 months; or maybe it’s because I may never see my dog alive again once we leave this time; or maybe it’s because I’m in Trump overload; or maybe it’s because I’ve been to Wal-Mart twice in the last week; or maybe it’s because my wife can now order off the senior menu at Denny’s—for whatever reason, I’ve been in a bit of a down mood of late.

As soon as we got back to the states, we sent our major gear in for repairs.  The tent had a few broken brackets and small holes which Z-Packs took care of (for free).  My pack had some broken straps and a tear which Gregory repaired (for free).  Pam’s pack was so far beyond repairable that Osprey said they didn’t even want to attempt to repair it, so they chose to send her a new pack (for free—they really mean a “kick-ass” lifetime warranty).  Our boots were worn out so we went to REI and got new ones (no where near free!).

I’m antsy and depressed.   Pam is antsy and kind of grumpy (at least to me but she’ll argue that when she reads this—but it’s true).  Ilana is tired and old.  Pam’s parents would like to have their old life back, but little do they realize it will never be the same now that they have agreed to become a white trash family and raise their grand-daughter-in-law (Ilana whom some call my dog when we all know she is, in reality, my daughter).

One thing all of our family and friends agree upon is that they will miss Pam, but what a relief it will be to have me out of their houses again.  (We may have to leverage this fact in the future and start asking for donations to NOT have me visit).  There’s only one thing that will put all these things right—we must leave, and soon.

To make the world a better place for all of our family and friends, we have chosen a start date for the Appalachian Trail.  February 12, 2018 is “FFC-Day” (Freedom From Curtis Day for all but Poor Pitiful Pam, PPP).   She kind of knew what to expect when she agreed to marry me (thank heaven for the grape growers and vintners of New Zealand for making our second marriage a possibility).

We’ve got our gear ready–plenty of food on hand and a couple of care packages have been prepared for friends to bring to us on the trail.  Several friends have agreed to spend some time with us on the trail (presumably to make sure that we are actually hiking and not allow us to return and bother unsuspecting family/friends).  Pam Lewis will spend a couple of weeks with us early on when we make our way through the Smokies and again at a later date TBD.  Dan and Sue Settle are planning on meeting us in Damascus, VA.  Chris and Bob (last names withheld to protect their professional identities since they work in Washington, DC) will meet us around Shenandoah.  We will see friends in New Jersy.  Peter and Marcia from Maine (two of our closest friends we met while hiking the West Highland Way in Scotland) are planning to hike the “100 Mile Wilderness” with us.  Even George has agreed to take us to Georgia to start the trail if we will agree to quit pestering him to hike with us on the AT and New Zealand.

We are in the process of saying our final goodbyes–the “ladies of the evening Friday night club” were visibly relieved when we turned in our notices last week (Sarah has had a nervous tick ever since we got back).  Pam’s parents have been tremendous hosts for us and it is with great relief, to me, that they will raise my daughter while I, once again, become an absentee parent.  We drive to Georgia on Sunday and start the trail Monday.  The world is about to be right once again—we start hiking the AT in four days.