Hiking Code

There are as many ways to hike the trail as there are people hiking it: Day hikers, section hikers, thru-hikers, speed hikers. All with their own "hiking code", whether they realize it or not. What I want to do, before I start my hike, is decide what I want my hike to be and define a simple code to hike by.

I have never thru-hiked, but I have seen and read about many thru-hikers. There are those who obsess over passing every white blaze (the trail is marked by white blazes on the trees). There was even one hiker that I know who counted every white blaze that he passed!  Then there are thru-hikers that skip sections, get rides around sections (yellow blazing), take alternate trails (blue blazing). There are thru-hikers that go north, south, and skip around.

Hey, it's all good, right? You have to do what is best for you. The trail community has a saying - "Hike Your Own Hike". This has a double meaning, of course. You have to hike your own hike. But you also shouldn't try to force your way of hiking on someone else.

So here is my "hiking code". Only good for me - your hike will vary.

• Practice "Leave No Trace". I don't intend to leave anything behind except footprints and bodily waste. Leave every campsite looking as if I was never there (not that difficult for a hammock camper).
• Don't obsess over passing every white blaze, but take no alternate trails or yellow blazes. For instance, when a shelter trail has two ways back to the AT, take the most convenient way. I don't consider that to be missing any trail. But I will not take alternate trails or skip sections, unless there is a flooded section or a section closed for a fire or other event beyond my control. When I leave the trail for resupply I will get back on where I got off.
• Walk in one direction only. For me, that will be southbound.
• No slackpacking. Slackpacking is when you pay someone to drive your gear to a road crossing, and you walk with minimal gear. Some people do the entire trail this way. I am carrying my stuff all the way. The only exception is the climb up Katahdin, which I will probably do with a light pack.
• Keep moving. Unless I am injured, keep those feet moving as much as possible. Keep zero days to a minimum - do neros instead.
• Have fun! The most important code of all.

Play the Numbers Game

The length of the trail is 2185.9 miles. Currently. It has a nasty habit of getting a little longer every year as old sections of trail are bypassed with new sections.

It's estimated that it takes about 5,000,000 steps (that's five million) to complete the trail.

Well, I happen to know exactly what my pace is, courtesy of my years of orienteering experience. When walking normally, it's 61 double paces per 100 meters. That's 122 steps per 100 meters. 2185.9 miles is 3517865.05 meters. So for me, it's only 4,291,795 steps. Whew! Glad I figured that out...

So how long is it going to take me? If we use my latest long hike as an example, then I averaged 14.2 miles/day over the 100 mile wilderness. If I maintain that same pace for the entire trail, it would take me 154 days. Starting on July 12th I would finish on December 13th. Just in time for Christmas! But that's with no "zero" days. That's trail slang for a day off. There is also a "nero" day, which is not when you sit around fiddling, but when you do just a few miles. So every day that you slack off has to be made up somewhere. The conventional wisdom is that you need to average about 15 miles a day to finish in a reasonable time, including all zero and nero days.

Even though I am playing with numbers in this journal entry, I am not going to set a schedule. I will not, for instance, say that I will reach the Mason-Dixon line in 64.7 days. Instead I will play it by ear as I go along, doing my best to keep my average up.

Another topic of discussion that can be all-consuming with hikers is the question of weight, as in how much weight are you carrying? When you consider that I have to carry everything on my back this is pretty important. Decades ago, I would carry 40 pounds or more and struggle to do a mile an hour. But materials and techniques have improved, and my pack weight has dropped to less than 15 pounds with no food or water. How much stuff do you really need, after all? Thru-hiking is all about simplifying your life, reducing your wants and needs to the bare essentials to maintain comfort.

I use a hammock (that I sewed myself) and a cuben fiber tarp. My pack has no frame, but relies on the contents to hold it's shape. I use a tiny alcohol stove made from a soda can. I carry just enough clothes to stay warm and dry. I use a kitchen scale to weigh everything, and make the best decisions I can, always weighing cost versus convenience and comfort. There is nothing unique about this - there are many people that carry this to an extreme, in both directions.

So playing with numbers can be amusing - and sobering. Enlightening and depressing. Best to keep your eyes on the prize and not get too obsessed with the details.

100 Mile Wilderness - Shakedown Hike June 2013

Can you see the white blaze marking the AT?

So about a year before my SOBO hike I made a trip to Maine and hiked the 100 mile wilderness as a shakedown for the real thing. I did it at the end of June, which, at the time, I thought would be the same time that I would be starting my hike (later I changed my start time to about the middle of July).

Maine in June is wet and chilly and buggy. Remember, the snow just melted! I had hordes of mosquitoes, so many that people were wearing headnets. I took a headnet, but never wore it. I know I was in trouble when I got out of the shuttle at Abol Bridge and was immediately swarmed before I could even get my pack on! But you can get used to anything, really, if you try. I used a wet bandana in constant motion to keep them away from my head and arms and kept moving. Standing still in some areas was madness inducing!

My plan was to leave my truck parked at Shaw's hostel in Monson, eat one of their famous breakfasts, get a shuttle to Abol Bridge (at the beginning of the 100 mile wilderness), then hike back to Monson (almost exactly 100 miles). This plan worked very well.

I only took 7 days of food, which turned out to be just perfect. I walked into Monson with crumbs left in my pack. Here are the tickmarks for the bean counters:

• Day 1: Abol Bridge to Rainbow Lake/Spring Campsite - 11.2 miles
• Day 2: to Nahmakanta Stream campsite - 17.7 miles
• Day 3: to Cooper Brook Fals lean-to - 15.7 miles
• Day 4: to Sidney Tappan campsite - 17.1 miles
• Day 5: to Chairback Gap campsite - 11.7 miles
• Day 6: to Wilson Valley lean-to - 15.6 miles
• Day 7: to Monson - 10.4 miles

a typical bog bridge

What did I learn? The 100 mile wilderness has a reputation for being very remote and difficult. It's not quite as remote as all that - there are spots where you can pay someone to leave you a cache of food, and there is a hostel that is a boat ride away - White House Landing. I didn't take advantage of any of those.

It is a fairly difficult walk. The trail is not maintained well - it is badly eroded in places and is just root and rock. And the bogs can be difficult to get over.

The first half is fairly flat and not really difficult. In fact, I saw a lot of hikers dawdling in this section, which is a mistake in my opinion. Better to make time while possible, because the second half, when the climbs start, is slow going when you are old and inflexible.

The lakes, ponds, and steams are what really make the 100 mile wilderness memorable. Mountains can be viewed just about anywhere on the trail, but the beautiful and seemingly pristine lakes and ponds are breathtaking.

The best thing? I get to do it all over again when I start my thru-hike!

I reached the road to Monson at about noon on the last day, after doing over 10 miles. It was pouring down rain, of course. Called Shaws and they picked me up a half hour later. Took a shower at the hostel, then jumped in my truck and started driving back to Atlanta. By the first night my feet had swollen up so badly I couldn't get my shoes on! It took a few days for them to get back to normal. I'm sure it was a combination of my age and sitting in the car for a couple of days after all that exercise.

So I averaged just a little over 14 miles a day. Not bad for a difficult section hike. When you consider that I started midday on the first day and ended midday on the last day the record improves a little.

Why keep an online trail journal?

It has always seemed to me to be a little preoccupied and self centered to share everything about one's life online. I am definitely not a member of the Facebook generation. I have kept blogs before, usually chronicling some project or endeavor, but doing it to just get 15 minutes of fame or for bragging rights is not very attractive to me.

Doing it to educate is also not my forte. There are plenty of other places you can go to get better information that I can give you.

I am also not a fan of the trail journals that just give a rundown of the miles walked, the food eaten, the people talked to, the sites viewed. They can be so boring.

So I see this blog as a way to remember what I have done after it is all over, and as a way to let my wife, Laurie, participate as much as possible in my hike. I hope to focus on things that other hikers might overlook. Yes, there will be statistics and tick-marks as I progress, but hopefully I won't be boring.

Laurie and a friend out jogging

So if following the steps (five million+ of them!) of a 60 year-old attempting to hike 2100+ miles is fun for you, I'm glad to have you as a reader!

My Hiking Resume

Funny to think I might have a hiking resume!

On the Pinhoti Trail

"So you are thinking of doing at AT thru-hike, huh? All 2100+ miles? Exactly what experience do you have that might prepare you for attempting such an undertaking?"

Let me see if I can list the places I have hiked - this is really going to tax my memory. I think I'll just hit the high points:

• AT: From Springer to Davenport Gap (the north end of the Smokies) several times in sections, including the approach trail. The longest sections at one time were all the Smokies, Dick's Creek Gap in GA to Fontana, and Springer to Dick's Creek Gap.
• AT: The 100 mile wilderness in Maine in 7 days/6 nights.
• AT: The Bigelows in Maine, from Straton to Caratunk.
• Alabama Pinhoti: All of it, about 110 miles when I did it, in two section hikes: everything north of I-20, and everything south of I-20.
• The Grand Canyon: I did 9 days here, going from south rim to north rim, back to the river, then down the Kaibab Trail, down to the river, then back up to the south rim.
• BWCA in Minnesota: Canoe/portage trip. Two trips a year apart. On the second trip I went across into Canada and came back.
• Colorado: Hiked in the Lost Creek area and around the presidentials near Buena Vista.
• Smokies: In addition to the AT I've done about half of the side trails, mostly on the NC side. Everything down around Fontana and Bryson City, with Hazel Creek being my favorite.
• Sweden/Lapland: Spent a week hiking on the Kungsleden above the Arctic Circle in Sweden.

And so forth and so on. Seems like a lot, and it's certainly a lot more than most people who start out on the AT with the intention of doing a thru-hike. But I have the advantage of having been at it for a lot of years!

The other thing that I love to do is orienteer. I'm active in the Georgia Orienteering Club, making maps for them and designing courses as well as competing. I've orienteered in GA, AL, NC, SC, KY, OH, IL, IN, MO, PA, NY, KS, CO, WY, VA. That's what I can remember off the top of my head. Night-orienteering was my specialty for a while, and I was a US age group champion one year, many years ago - my one claim to fame, quickly forgotten. I also made the maps and headed the course design team for the 2012 US Champs. Also quickly forgotten (What have you done for me lately!?).

So that's a pretty good list of positives for hiking the trail. What about negatives?

I've been married to "Lovely Laurie" aka "Chatty Cathy" for 33 years. Being separated from her for the 5 or 6 months it will take me to hike the trail will be as difficult as hiking the trail. Hopefully she will see me off and visit me on the trail a few times. Probably about the third week I'll be calling her up, begging her to come and get me!

I play piano every day - can't take a piano with me on the trail...

My turn to Thru-Hike!

It's my turn to thru-hike! Finally!

zip-lining at Banning Mills

You might say this has been a dream of mine since I was about 10 years old - In 2014, when I start my hike, I will be 60. So that's about 50 years or so. Way back in 1964 (or thereabouts), my mother and father took me and a friend on a vacation to the Smokies. We rented a trailer and stayed at Smokemont and drove all over, visiting Cherokee and Gatlinburg, Maggie Valley and the Blue Ridge Parkway. But what my friend and I really wanted to do was hike, see some bears, and pretend we were really mountain men.

So when we visited Clingman's Dome, and discovered that there was an actual trail that went from there back down to Newfound Gap (the Appalachian Trail, naturally, although that meant nothing to me at the time), we begged and pleaded and used every excuse we could think of to be allowed to hike the trail. It was only 7 miles! We could do that easy, we walked further than that at home all the time. Right?

Of course my mother was dead-set against it. No way could we do that alone. I'm sure that my father, bless his heart, secretly wanted to go with us. Of course, nowadays, no parent would consider letting their ten-year-old do such a thing, but it was a different world back then. So Kenny (my friend's name - where are you now Kenny?) and I set out from the top of Clingman's Dome on our epic trek down to Newfound Gap. We saw bears behind every tree. We stumbled and slid down the rocky back side of the mountain. We discovered that it was not down all the way, but went back up sometimes. And seven miles was a lot longer than we thought.

So, at least on that day, God was looking out for idiot kids and their parents. Maybe He wanted to be hiking too. Somehow we made it down to Newfound Gap right as darkness was settling down in the valley. My mother was frantic, my father swore that he knew we could do it, no rangers had to be called to rescue us.

My love of hiking was born.