Kathy offered me a grand challenge, would the two of us be able to backpack for 10 days and cover about 105 miles? This is something we had never done before. I wasn’t keen on the idea at first, could think of a thousand reasons why I couldn’t go. But then I realized that if Kathy went on her own, she may just join up with someone(s) hiking all the way to Maine, so I decided to go to keep her from running off. There is a section of the Appalachian Trail (AT) that runs through Shenandoah National Park that seemed like a good place to try this. It had lots of services along it and was never that far from Skyline Drive in case I had to bail out at some point. If some important part of me broke down, for instance. We arranged to have my daughter Katherine meet us at the north end of the park on April 30 and drive us down to the south end. So now it would simply be hiking back to the car, wanting to get there by May 10.
The AT runs through Virginia for about 500 miles, the longest stretch in any of the states it traverses. Thru (or “true”) hikers going through Virginia often get the “Virginia Blues” because it takes so long to get through the state. We were privileged and thrilled to meet many thru hikers and hear their stories as we stayed in some of the shelters with them and hiked sections with them. We were classified as section hikers, but as long distance hikers we were allowed to stay at any of the shelters, they were for use by hikers who were out for three nights or more. It would have been nice if we didn’t have to carry a tent, but we needed to as the first night the shelter was full. The second night, after a brutally hot and buggy day, staying in the tent was a better choice also as I was too whipped to be sociable, so staying in the shelter didn’t suit me then. We did stay in the shelters three of the other nights, and the third night when it rained it was very nice to be dry in a shelter.
We carefully weighed everything and tested out what our backs could handle before our trip. I got my pack to 33 pounds, and determined that would be my limit. Kathy was close to that too, but she has a titanium neck and I have an arthritic neck so I let her carry an equal load. Besides it slowed her down enough which gave me a fair chance to hike at a pace where I didn’t break myself. I was only planning on carrying one liter of water, as I figured we could find water along the way. For the most part that worked, except for a 10+ mile stretch on the second day. It had to be the hottest (and muggiest and buggiest) day of our trip too, hitting about 80. I had to beg water twice to make it all the way on for 13 miles that day. We carried almost five days supply of food at first, which we determined was unnecessary as there were places to buy food. Another “luxury” I decided to take were fish oil tabs and glucosamine. I didn’t want to be away from these for too long. The Omega-3 in the fish oil has been a help to my joints, and I was actually able to avoid NSAIDs except for one time, which amazed and delighted me as I was expecting to be much achier. We were also delighted with a steri-pen water filter which uses ultraviolet. It was easy to use and took 90 seconds to disinfect water and then it was ready to drink. The battery running it almost made it through the whole trip, giving out on the last day.
The thru hiker community is very interesting, there are all types of people, but the ones we met were mostly young men. All hikers on the AT (and I assume it goes for all long-distance hikers) use trail names. Kathy and I have settled on “Brownie D” and “Tenderfoot”. There was a group of four guys called the “Hospital Guys”. One of their members, Eric, had worked in the Peace Corps in Tanzania and they were thru-hiking the AT to raise money for a hospital there. They carried big signs on the back of their packs describing what they were doing. You can check out their web site and see their progress at http://mufindihospitalhike.tumblr.com
Another interesting guy was “Possum” from New Zealand. He was actually a possum trapper back in NZ and it apparently is overrun with em. There were no native mammals in NZ and somehow the possum got introduced and now is a national menace as they have increased greatly. We had a hard time understanding Possum, his NZ accent was thick but we managed to catch a good bit. The possum fir is not the highest quality, but he had made enough money at it to afford a two+ month trip to the U.S.
“Stretch” and “Zipper” were the only couple we met on the trail. We camped near High Top with them on the fourth night. They had met while working in Yellowstone and were planning to do the AT in 4 ½ months, pretty fast. We traded stories of the west with them and found out they thought Chico Hot Springs was a great place, just like we did. They also had dehydrated all their food ahead of time and were shipping themselves care packages. Food is very important to long-distance hikers and is a favorite topic of conversation, as it is on their minds a lot. Zipper recommended the book “A Fork in the Trail” which contains trail recipes. Kathy also had dehydrated beef to make jerky before of our trip and made some granola bars, both were very tasty.
Among the other hikers we met were:
- “Helmet”, a smiling 20 year old man who hiked fast and slept a lot
- “Jelly Pants”, a 22 year old man who got his name from a “breakfast incident”
- “White Wolf” and “Always Fine”, two 60 year old men who were hiking strong
- “Orange Bear”, a Belgian whom we could barely understand also
- “Danger”, one of the Hospital Guys
- “Pringles”, who we met twice, at the first meeting she gave us the big news that Bin Laden had been killed and she also gave me water that she said she wouldn’t need, my trail angel
- “Indy”, a young man wearing an Indiana Jones hat who we saw the first night, then the last day also. He had taken three days off to go to a music festival and I found it interesting that his first day back from his time off left him feeling “trail rusty”.
We had heard reports of an 88 year old man hiking the AT. Then amazingly we came across him at a park pulloff getting interviewed by TV3. The man was Earl Zook, who also went by “Bald Eagle”. Jelly Pants was with us at the time and the reporter was interested in what a 22 year old hiker thought of an 88 year old hiking the trail. So Jelly Pants got interviewed too and he was impressed with what Bald Eagle was doing. Bald Eagle was hiking the trail to raise money for cancer research. His Kiwanis Club runs a camp for children with cancer and he was touched by their plight and wanted to do something to help them. He can only do 5 miles at a time, so will attempt to complete the AT over two years and finish next year by October 2, which will be his 90th birthday. He won’t actually be able to hike up Mt. Katahdin, the end point as it’s a ten mile round trip and they don’t let hikers stay up there overnight. http://aicr.org/zook is a site that tells what he is doing and where you can contribute to his cause.
OK, it turns out there is another 88 year old man, “Cimarron”. So we’re not sure which 88 year-old man we had been hearing about. He is attempting to thru hike this year, more ambitious than what “Bald Eagle” is doing. His story can be found at http://trailjournals.com and search for “Cimarron”. He started on February 25 and is currently at 330 miles, still in Tennessee, so that leaves him with over 1800 miles to go. Good luck Cimarron.
So the thru hiker life is arduous and demanding. Many of them hike amazing distances, 20 and 30+ miles at times. If they take a day off, which is a good idea, it is called a “Zero day”. They have to keep a focus on their end goal of completion, but also set daily goals. We were generally hiking the distance between huts, but many of the thru hikers were hiking “two hut” distances. The ones going the fastest tend to be traveling light. The amount of calories they are burning is high, and they can consume food like no one else on the planet. We stayed in a cabin one night, buying hot dogs from the camp store, but had to buy a pack of 8. We had 4 left over and I carried them with me the next day, knowing I could give them away. Sure enough, Helmet and Orange Bear were happy to devour them and I was happy to be relieved of the extra ½ pound of weight. Don’t laugh, every ½ pound counts. Anyways it’s called ‘trail magic” when a hiker receives a treat of some kind. We heard of a delivery of pizza to a shelter by a former hiker from Jelly Pants, and it was much appreciated. Besides food, sleep is very important. “Hikers Midnight” means 8:00 PM. No kidding, when staying in the shelters, people generally turned in then.
We tested ourselves the 9th day by hiking 18 miles. It was the night after “Smores and Snores”. That night we stayed in a shelter with “Red Lion”, an older and heavyset gentleman who shook the rafters that night with his snoring. Preceding that, two young women, “Rea Sunshine” and “Halley’s Comet” had the makings for smores and they were assembled around a fire, roaring at first, with mixed success. The two young women and Kathy got almost no sleep that night, but my ear plugs worked well enough, although I was aware of the snoring. So on little sleep, we got an early start and made it all the way to the next shelter which was 13+ miles by 3:00. We hung out there for a while, cleaning up and visiting with Jelly Pants, Always Fine and Goose. We left after a good rest, deciding that we could keep going and “dry camp” somewhere, thereby getting closer to our car so we could get home at a reasonable hour the next day. We kept going for about another 5 miles before we saw a decent spot to set up camp, not finding water but deciding we had enough to last us until the next morning.
The AT through Shenandoah has many ups and downs. The mountains there remind us of the Catskills, as a few of them are over 4,000 feet and many are over 3,000 feet. They are beautiful and the trails are generally dry. The only time we saw any mud was the fourth day after we got a lot of rain the night before. We did two different 4,000 foot peaks, Hawksbill Peak at 4,051, the highest peak in the park and Stony Man, the second highest. We had stayed at the Skyland Lodge the night before we went up Stony Man which was nearby, but it was only a 300 foot climb up. Both peaks were little side trips off the AT, and Hawksbill required us to take a “blue blaze” trail that paralleled the AT, causing us to miss that portion of the AT and thus making us “blue blazers”. “Blue blazers” are not purists, they don’t stay on the “white blaze” trail as “white blazers” do. Then there are “yellow blazers”, they actually take roads at times and even hitchhike, the lowest of the low. A good site for long-distance hiking is http://whiteblaze.net . I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the blackberry shakes that you can get at the waysides in the parks, they were wonderful. We used these waysides, three of them to full advantage, devouring food like there was no tomorrow. Maybe that’s why we only lost about ½ pound each, we thought we would lose more.
We are heading back to Rocky Mountain National Park for another stint of volunteering for the summer. They appealed to our emotions to return, so we gave in; we will get there June 11. There really are many other good reasons to return, and there are a lot of things we didn’t get to in the park and around Colorado, so we’re glad to go back. We will have more friends and family visiting this summer than last, so it will be a busy time, and I expect it will go fast. Hanging out in Binghamton over the winter was fine, but it’s time to raise things to another level and get back to adventure, more stories coming soon.
