What? Me worry?

Days to Start of Hike: 1

With one day left before I start my thru hike, I have to admit that I feel like a 13-year-old about to run his first high school track meet. But that youngster had it easy--he didn't need to think of a gazillion things to bring with him to the race--just some shorts and laced-up spikes. 

That's not to mention the emotional distress of leaving someone behind, who now has to support me in numerous ways and who will be a constant ball of worry. After all, there are bears, rocks, below freezing temps, snakes, falling trees, lightning, ticks and untold what-nots along the way that could harm me. 

With luck we will both overcome our worries and continue to be happy.

Gearing Up -- what I will be using

Days Remaining to start of Hike: 3

Admittedly, I am a newb when it comes to backpacking and long-distance hiking, but I can read so I spent a fair amount of time researching lightweight gear, plus talking with a couple of thru hikers.

First, some personal considerations that entered into my choices for gear. One, I'm very prone to getting hypothermic; I suffer with Raynaud's Syndrome, which can show up even when the ambient air temperature is 50°F. While it isn't that painful to deal with, it does impact my dexterity, making it quite difficult to do such common tasks as untying shoes, unzipping a jacket, or opening food packages. As a result, I lean toward keeping my hands and head warm regardless of the temperature. And staying dry enters into that objective as well.

Shelter

If you read about the SUL/UL hikers, the consensus seems to be that lightweight tarps offer a lot; however, I much prefer to have some bug protection and room within the tent to store my pack and shoes, too. Why have the shoes in the tent--porcupines have been known to chew trail shoes and boots--evidently to extract the salt in them. While that probably wouldn't ruin a hike, it would make it another unneeded hassle to deal with.

I chose to go with a Cuben fiber tent, now rebranded as Dyneema Composite Fabrics. Here are some facts that make the material suitable for a lightweight tent:

• lightweight, highly durable, and is 50-70% lighter than Kevlar, four times stronger than Kevlar
• flexes without losing strength
• weighs less than silnylon
• floats on water
• 100% waterproof before stitched
• has high chemical and UV resistance

The fact that Cuben fiber does not absorb water means that when it comes time to pack up the tent, a quick shake will leave one's tent practically dry and weighing close to what it would normally.

I chose the ZPacks Altaplex tent for a couple of reasons--it is a 1.5-person tent, so there is plenty of room for my sleeping mat, my pack, and my shoes. Plus, it will accommodate two thin people in an emergency. The tent retails for $585.00 and the 58" carbon fiber pole costs $68. 

Backpack

Again I opted for a Cuben fiber pack, but I relied on some other thru hikers for the size suggestion. I chose the Zpacks Arc Blast 52L and had the mesh-top side pockets, roll straps, and key pouch added. Zpacks suggests this size so that I can carry 5-6 days of food along with all my other gear. Price: $367.00.

While not guaranteeing to be waterproof, they say that it is highly water-resistant, suggesting that one should use a dry bag as well, especially for one's sleeping bag. I intend to also use a pack liner from Gossamer Gear inside the bag. Better safe than sorry, imo.

Sleeping Bag

Once again I turned to Zpacks--opting for their 20°F 900 fill power down bag in the regular width and the 6' 1" length. The weight came to 19.3 ounces. Price: $400.00.

I was a little worried that the sleeping bag might not be warm enough in the Whites or Maine, but I'm trying to avoid those areas when the weather might be extremely cold. Still, I intend to bring along a down jacket and some fleece pants for extra warmth, if needed.

As you can gather, this isn't a cheap undertaking. The only consolation is that there is a good resale market for this type of gear, should I desire to unload it after the AT. Or not. :-)

Other Gear

Let's cut this short by providing a link to LighterPack where you can see everything that I will be using. 

Let's Talk Food -- or rather what I'll be consuming on the trail

Days Remaining to Start of Hike: 6

Breakfast 

As a coffee drinker I'd love to have someone hand me a couple of cups of Joe every morning, but that's a lot of work on the trail. And disposing of the grounds isn't a simple operation; they would have to be packed out and disposed of properly once in town.

The alternative is to just use instant coffee, but most of that tastes terrible. The only instant coffee that I could stomach was the Starbucks Mocha, but, alas, they've changed that formulation.

In my search for a decent instant coffee, I saw a video on YouTube by Kurt Papke that discussed his Mocha Protein Shake that he has for breakfast on the trail. I had to modify his ingredient list to suit my tastes and needs, but it was a great inspiration.

Now I will be able to make 20oz of my Mocha Protein Shake and hit the trail while eating a Square Organics protein bar, too. Note: Do not pour boiling water into your 20oz bottle--the whey protein will coagulate. :-(  Use water that is cool enough that you can drink it.

Lunch

My staple lunch will be simply a home-made trail mix of cashews, raisins, coconut, pineapple, cherry craisins and freeze-dried blueberries. Other occasional goodies might include chocolate, tuna on some sort of bread or cracker, and some cheese. And lots of water.

Dinner

I plan to eat a variety of Mountain House dehydrated meals. If bought on sale, these are still pricey, but given the convenience factor, I won't complain. I'm bringing a canister stove, a Titanium cook pot and a cozy to prepare the meals. Instead of carrying the MH meals in their original packaging, I will just repackage them in a Ziploc bag--packs smaller for mailing and for carrying.

Snacks between meals

I just love Peanut Ginger Chews from Reeds. If you buy them in any store, they are outrageously expensive, but Reeds does sell them in 11# boxes for $36--a very tolerable price. I usually order 22#, so the shipping charge is OK, then. 

My other snack is a favorite from my running days, Chia bars from Health Warrior. These come in eleven flavors and all of them are good, but some are better than others. :-)  I like these the best:

I find that the Chia bars give me almost an immediate pick-up in my energy level, but not too much. After all, these are fairly small bars weighing 0.88ounces, so there's nothing too heavy in your stomach and they get digested quickly. Also, they aren't annoying sweet, just enough to keep me happy. 

"Recipes"

Breakfast Mocha Protein Shake

Qty        Ingredient

5 scoops                Whey Powder

15 Tablespoons     Peak Milk Powder, full fat

5 Tablespoons       Douwe Egbert Instant Coffee

1 ¼ teaspoons       Cinnamon

2 ½ Tablespoons  Cocoa powder

5 Tablespoons      Sugar

This makes five servings of the drink. I package them in small Ziploc bags.

Trail Mix

Qty       Ingredient 

10 ounces           Salted Cashew Pieces

5 ounces             Raisins

5 ounces             Coconut pieces—chopped

6 ounces             Dried Pineapple pieces—chopped

5 ounces             Cherry Craisins, or real cherries

1 cup                  Freeze-dried Blueberries
6 ounces            Dark Chocolate Medium Peanut M&Ms

This makes 9 bags of approximately 5 ounces each.

On the AT in October Mountain State Forest -- with my new Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Guthook App

So I downloaded the Guthook App onto my Galaxy S7 and decided to see how it performed in the woods. Mind you, this is my first smartphone and there's a steep learning curve that I'm trying to climb, along with the hills. :-)

I started where the AT crosses County Road and headed north to the October Mountain Shelter. On the way out, I turned on the Guthook app and saw only a base topo map with a little blue dot and a small triangle that seemed to point what direction I was heading. Alas, there was no AT trail showing at all. Confused? You bet I was, not with where I was on the trail--this is almost in my backyard, so I know the trail well. However, the app wasn't giving me much help.

When I got to the shelter, I sat down and tried again. Then I clicked on the Elevation tab, and I was seeing the Approach Trail. LOL  Really, that's what is shown when you get the free demo app. 

After a bit of playing around, I finally got a screen asking if I wanted to download the offline maps. Well, or course I did. Turned on the Verizon connection and downloaded them within a minute, and, voila!, there was the trail, the shelter I was sitting in, etc. 

So finally something was going right. 

And here's are a video for your amusement--showing that it's already green in Massachusetts:

And there's plenty of food for all, too:

Training on the AT -- heading south from Jerusalem Road in Tyringham, Massachusetts

It won't be long before the NOBO's get to Massachusetts and one of my favorite sections lies between Jerusalem Road and Beartown State Forest. Much of the woods are old-growth trees, the terrain varies from very steep to gently rolling and there is a remarkable quietness to the woods, thanks to the lack of paved roads and any buildings in the area.

The trail was remarkably clean, save for a couple of recent blowdowns. Certainly the blazes have been repainted, a new plank bridge has been installed over a stream, and one particular wet section near a beaver pond will now be a much drier traverse due to a string of planks nailed to big logs. Kudos to the Berkshire chapter of the AMC!

Today's hike with a modest amount of running.

Progress: a few steps at a time, running!

Went for a hike in Pittsfield State Forest yesterday on a couple of nice bike trails--the Turner Trail and the Honolulu Trial. The Turner which I took first is a twisty route with a good steady climb for two miles. When I used to run it, I could make it up without stopping. Sadly, I'm not in that kind of shape now, but I did decide that I should try to run any incline that wasn't too steep, as well as the flats. 

I felt fine on the short sections while running, although a bit clumsy. Once on top of Honwee Mountain, the Honolulu Trail is mostly downhill. However, since it is a bike trail, there were numerous little climbs to enjoy even while descending.

Overall, I was delighted to do some running, even if it was slow and clumsy. :-) It was a start and today the knee felt just fine. Not that I'll be running on the AT, but running is still the best form of training, so I'll try to increase my running time over the next few weeks.

On the AT in Connecticut -- just a training hike

My friend, Bruce Shenker, joined me in doing a small section of the AT in Connecticut, from W Cornwall Road in Sharon up to Route 44 in Salisbury. The guidebook showed the distance to be 15.9 miles.

Where the AT started on W Cornwall Road is only about two miles from West Cornwall, even though the actual town is Sharon. 

There is only one significant hill on AT along our route, Mt. Prospect, which gets up to 1460', as I recall. However, we did a have a short, steep, rocky climb from W Cornwall to start the hike. By the top of that climb, the clothes were coming off quickly.

From there, it was mostly rolling terrain until the trail dropped down to the junction of Routes 112 and 7, just south of Falls Village. I had hike from that junction in the fall, heading north on the east side of the Housatonic River; at that time, I was under the impression that the iron bridge in Falls Village was still crossable, but, alas, it was not and I didn't know that the detour was actually back where 112 & 7 joined. Instead I walked on roads up to Route 44 and then picked up the AT where it crossed 44.

As we were leaving the AT and hitting Route 7, there was a sign saying that the AT did detour by going west on 112 and then taking Dugway Road north. So we went that way, although the rumor was that the iron bridge had been replaced and was open, but was soon to be shut down for further work. Given the good weather that might have allowed for work to start sooner, we opted for the safe, but boring road detour to the bridge. It was open when we got there. :-(

We stopped for a quick lunch and then headed north, passing the beautiful waterfall just south of the dam; there were some folks enjoying the sunshine and the rocks in the river since the water was very low.

Finally, the two-mile climb to Mt. Prospect was upon us and Bruce led the way at a good clip. I managed to maintain contact, but had I been alone, the pace would have been significantly slower. Once past the summit of Prospect, we were treated to a nice view of the Taconic Range to the west:

Photo credit: Bruce Shenker

We assumed, of course, that the rest of the trail would be mainly downhill to Salisbury, but that wasn't quite true--there were numerous little climbs to overcome.

We started to see a few day hikers, but had not seen any before we reached the summit of Prospect. On our way we did get to see this rather unusual rock:

Photo credit: Bruce Shenker

As you can see, it seems to be a popular rock--I wonder why? ;-)

We covered the 15.9 miles in 5:43, with 3,278' of climb. This is certainly one of the easier sections of the AT, but it was fine for me after last week's two-day rogaine.

My knee was swollen and tight after the hike, but an anti-inflammatory did wonders to restore it by the next day.

Pressing my luck--two days of orienteering

On March 5th and 6th, I participated in a rogaine event with my friend, Frank Boscoe. Rogaining is orienteering, but done with a partner. We had eight hours each day to find as many controls as possible and the route and order was our choice. These controls are scattered over a wide area and involve traveling on anything from paved roads, dirt roads, marked trails, game trails, or just plain bushwhacking, in order to reach them.

Since I'm still in recovery mode from my arthroscopic knee surgery, I had agreed to join Frank, but only if we could walk the entire time. In previous rogaines, we would have run and been able to cover much longer distances than we would if just walking.

Day 1 went fairly well navigationally, and route choice wise, and I ended up covering 22.30 miles, much better than I had anticipated.

The event was based at Endless Trail, a horse farm in Hubbardsville, New York, that offers B&B service to riders. It was a beautiful location and the start and finish, along with our room, was at the farm. So, we got to eating and replenishing right away after day 1.

The next day, due to distribution of the controls, we knew that we could reach only certain controls within the eight hours and that we'd have more roads to traverse than day 1. And we had that right--I covered 24.2 miles. Surprisingly, despite barely being able to walk upstairs on my way to the bedroom the night before, I felt pretty energetic the whole eight hours. As I team, we placed third in our age group, about what we thought possible.

My knee, however, wasn't too happy with those two days--it swelled a fair bit and was sore for at least three days after the event. 

So, I may have done too much, too soon, but I do not feel that I did any further damage to the knee. It just needed to rest and recover. Certainly I have zilch plans to do 20-mile days when I start hiking the AT.

Time to get everything in order -- Today I worked on the tent

I've never had a lightweight, single-person tent, but after a lot of online research and some feedback from Airlock, I chose the ZPacks Altaplex -- a 1.5-person tent with a bathtub floor and mesh between the floor and tent so that condensation can run down the inside of the tent and out through the mesh, hopefully keeping everything inside the tent dry. We shall see.

Today I finally broke out the instructions and went to work cutting the supplied Spectra cord and creating 2" loops on the ends of every string before attaching them to the tent.

Five 27" cords and two 50" cords.

And then it was time to get outside and learn how to set up the tent. Fortunately, ZPacks has an excellent tutorial on YouTube. 

Let's just say that it was a learning experience; first, I realized that if I do want to use a groundsheet, such as Polycro, it helps to put something heavy on each corner. Or, you can then watch it blow away on any breeze; fortunately, I managed to run and jump high enough to pull it down. Most likely I won't bother with the Polycro--after all the floor is waterproof, so the groundsheet is a bit of overkill, albeit the bottom of the tent might stay cleaner longer.

Finally, after re-watching the video and making the adjustments, I had a reasonably satisfactory set-up:

The tent, including all the guy lines, stuff sack, carbon fiber pole, and 10 Toaks Titanium angled tent stakes (with stuff sack) comes to 24.7 ounces. I could probably drop that a couple ounces by using some lighter stakes, but I'm a Ti lover, so I will wait and see how these perform.

There is plenty of room inside the tent for two not-so-large people; my wife and I could sleep in this together, if need be, but the waterproofness might be compromised by the sides of the floor being depressed from the bodies pressing against them. With only one occupant, there's more than enough room for me, my bag and my shoes.

With two mesh pockets, one on each end of the tent, there's plenty of space for the little items: eyeglasses, flashlight, etc.

Costs: Tent and carbon fiber pole: $624.00; Toaks Ti angled tent stakes: $36 for 12 pieces.

AT Starting Date

With the warmer than normal weather, it is looking more likely that I'll start my AT thru hike in early April, rather than the end of April.

This weekend I gave my recovering knee a real test--I partnered with a friend to do a two-day orienteering event call the CNYO Snowgaine, which consisted of two eight-hour days of searching for orienteering controls in the woods.

We had agreed that we would restrict the event to walking only, whereas in the past we had run during this event. And since there was no snow this year, we didn't need the skis, nor the snowshoes.

The first day I covered 22.3 miles in 7 hours and 40 minutes and the second day we did 24.2 miles in 7:46. And, yes, the knee was hurting a bit, but an overnight dose of an anti-inflammatory helped it recover enough so that the second day was possible.

While the knee isn't back to 100%, it is improving, so now it gets some rest and recovery and then I'll be back to more normal hikes of two to four hours.