We are officially 2 weeks into our journey! We have hiked a total of 155.9 miles. WOW, What a journey! I know I said we likely wouldn't have time for a blog entry while we were stopped in Bryson City for our next resupply stop, but as plans often do that has changed slightly. In the last 4 days my (Carolyn's) ankle has started to be slightly bothersome, mostly in the evenings. And then around mile 128, it started aggravating me on the trail and by yesterday (Friday) afternoon when we stepped off the trail at Nantahala Outdoor Center just outside of Bryson City, I could hardly put any weight on it. So, we are laid up at a hotel for a couple of nights trying to do my best to rest my foot & ankle. In the mean time, I wanted to share a few things that we have learned about ourselves & the trail in the last week.
#1: Hiker Hunger is Real
Hiker Hunger has struck, for real. With a resupply happening today, yesterday was feast day. My lunch alone included more than 1,000 calories. We ordered in pizza at the hotel last night, and then went out for frozen yogurt and loaded it with everything you can imagine. Our last night on the trail, I was dreaming about food - and what all I could eat while we stopped in town.
#2: Hike Your Own Hike!
This one is pretty major and one we sometimes struggle to follow when we are hiking with a great group of folks. The first week of our hike we would spend time each night deciding how far we wanted to hike the next day, where we would stop to camp, etc. This worked fine, but I was starting to feel like I wanted to do a little more at the end of the day. So, this last week we have gotten up in the morning, taken as many breaks as we wanted to eat, enjoy the view, watch wildlife, or look at new plants and then near the end of each day we would start looking for a place to camp starting at around 5:30. This has been working wonderfully! Sometimes we would stay with a group at a shelter and other times it was just us out on the trail. A couple days ago, for whatever reason we decided to push on to a specific shelter. We hiked until 7 p.m. It didn't take long before neither one of us were enjoying the journey and instead we were just looking for the shelter around every corner and cursing it when it wasn't there. Once again, we had to remind ourselves to HYOH.
#3: Enjoy your Surroundings
This goes with the last one a lot. I have noticed that many of the people we started hiking with are college students, and thus many of them have a deadline and they want to go as far as they can, preferably finishing the trail entirely by the time they go back to college in the fall. This means pushing for 15-20+ mile days. I am sure they are still finding the hike enjoyable and I am glad they can enjoy at this pace. But the one day that we did that and forged ahead, we could not enjoy the trail to its fullest. We have found that we really enjoy stopping at the different look out points, talking to others along the trail, and watching the animals go about their business.
We are hoping this stop in Bryson City is brief as we are both looking forward to getting back on the trail as soon as possible. Our next stretch goes through the Smoky Mountains National Park and from everything we have heard it is a gorgeous and challenging stretch of trail. Being that we are also nearing the end of May, this will likely be our last major milestone before we take our time off to temporarily rejoin the real world and then make our way via motored transportation to the northern end of the trail. Here is hoping our physical barriers prove to be temporary and we can be on our way after this short respite.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Sunday, May 10, 2015
1 Week & 78.2 AT miles In!
Hey All -
We just wanted you all to know we are still alive and still kicking! We have learned a lot in the last week, replaced some of our heavier gear for lighter alternatives and started eating more than you can imagine!
We learned that these Appalachian Mountains are no joke. Seriously, this is some of the hardest hiking I have ever done. I carried my MSR Whisperlite & my Katadyn Water filter with me on the Superior Hiking Trail, and countless other backpacking adventures.... One week here and they got sent home and replaced with an MSR Pocket Rocket (about half to a quarter the weight) and a Sawyer Mini water filter (from 1+ pounds to 2 ounces). We started looking at other items to cut when we get off in a month also. The Chaco sandals are still up in the air, possibly looking at replacing a sleeping bag, and definitely replacing a sleeping pad. We also originally purchased the Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker's companion as our guidebook for these 2,000 miles and well... we have decided that in a month it will be replaced with the AWOL book. It is much more detailed and slightly more compact (and therefore lighter).
Accomplishments this last week have been numerous, which is great- because it keeps spirits up even when each step is torturous. Our first day out, we hiked 9 miles and only the last 0.2 were actually on the Appalachian Trail, but we were happy to see the first official white blaze atop Springer when we got there. The first 1.25 miles of our hike that day included over 600 stairs to climb, but the waterfalls at Amicalola Falls State Park (Georgia) where gorgeous and well worth the work! On day 3 or 4 (I don't have my journal in front of me), we summited Blood Mountain, the highest point in Georgia at 4,459 feet. The views at the top were unmatched to anything we had seen thus far. We enjoyed shade in the CCC made shelter (One of the oldest permanent shelters on the trail, Dated 1936) and lunch on the summit. The climb down was a bit treacherous, but at the bottom we were rewarded with our first re-supply location on the trail. We enjoyed some real food and a few hours rest with other long distance and through hikers before heading out again late afternoon.
This week also meant meeting lots of great people. We spent some time hiking with Dandy - a wonderful young lady who was committing 1 month to her first backpacking trip ever! We split ways about 3 days ago, when she decided to go into town to rest a bum knee. We wish her much luck on the rest of her journey!
Just before coming into town yesterday we also met up with Courtesy and his two kids Big Horn & Cartwheel. They brought a little trail magic with them that meant a huge amount to Evan (Yooper Trooper) and I (Daisy). Fresh bananas & other fruit is so appreciated out on the trail. A HUGE Thank you to this wonderful hiking family! Also, Courtesy - I loved your Hike for Mental Health Shirt.
Well that is probably enough for now, in the next few days we will cross our first state line and enter the great state of North Carolina. We are planning on getting a few pictures printed later today and start getting some postcards sent out to folks around the country. We hope some of them will show up on our blog periodically. We hope all of you in cyber space are doing well. Our next planned stop is Bryson City, NC however, we are not planning on spending the night and therefore I am not sure if we will get a chance to update the blog.
Happy Trails!
Yooper Trooper & Daisy
We just wanted you all to know we are still alive and still kicking! We have learned a lot in the last week, replaced some of our heavier gear for lighter alternatives and started eating more than you can imagine!
We learned that these Appalachian Mountains are no joke. Seriously, this is some of the hardest hiking I have ever done. I carried my MSR Whisperlite & my Katadyn Water filter with me on the Superior Hiking Trail, and countless other backpacking adventures.... One week here and they got sent home and replaced with an MSR Pocket Rocket (about half to a quarter the weight) and a Sawyer Mini water filter (from 1+ pounds to 2 ounces). We started looking at other items to cut when we get off in a month also. The Chaco sandals are still up in the air, possibly looking at replacing a sleeping bag, and definitely replacing a sleeping pad. We also originally purchased the Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker's companion as our guidebook for these 2,000 miles and well... we have decided that in a month it will be replaced with the AWOL book. It is much more detailed and slightly more compact (and therefore lighter).
Accomplishments this last week have been numerous, which is great- because it keeps spirits up even when each step is torturous. Our first day out, we hiked 9 miles and only the last 0.2 were actually on the Appalachian Trail, but we were happy to see the first official white blaze atop Springer when we got there. The first 1.25 miles of our hike that day included over 600 stairs to climb, but the waterfalls at Amicalola Falls State Park (Georgia) where gorgeous and well worth the work! On day 3 or 4 (I don't have my journal in front of me), we summited Blood Mountain, the highest point in Georgia at 4,459 feet. The views at the top were unmatched to anything we had seen thus far. We enjoyed shade in the CCC made shelter (One of the oldest permanent shelters on the trail, Dated 1936) and lunch on the summit. The climb down was a bit treacherous, but at the bottom we were rewarded with our first re-supply location on the trail. We enjoyed some real food and a few hours rest with other long distance and through hikers before heading out again late afternoon.
This week also meant meeting lots of great people. We spent some time hiking with Dandy - a wonderful young lady who was committing 1 month to her first backpacking trip ever! We split ways about 3 days ago, when she decided to go into town to rest a bum knee. We wish her much luck on the rest of her journey!
Just before coming into town yesterday we also met up with Courtesy and his two kids Big Horn & Cartwheel. They brought a little trail magic with them that meant a huge amount to Evan (Yooper Trooper) and I (Daisy). Fresh bananas & other fruit is so appreciated out on the trail. A HUGE Thank you to this wonderful hiking family! Also, Courtesy - I loved your Hike for Mental Health Shirt.
Well that is probably enough for now, in the next few days we will cross our first state line and enter the great state of North Carolina. We are planning on getting a few pictures printed later today and start getting some postcards sent out to folks around the country. We hope some of them will show up on our blog periodically. We hope all of you in cyber space are doing well. Our next planned stop is Bryson City, NC however, we are not planning on spending the night and therefore I am not sure if we will get a chance to update the blog.
Happy Trails!
Yooper Trooper & Daisy
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Go!!
The last week has been amazing! We have spent some time with family in Charleston, SC and we couldn't have asked for a better vacation. We don't have too many pictures to share with you since we don't have our smart phones or a computer to pull images from our cameras. So you will have to wait until June for a few of those.
Vacations never happen without a few mishaps and this one was no different. Most were a few minor things like realizing I forgot my boot insoles in Michigan, and having a rental car with expired license plates. But, one that threw us for a loop was when the mighty Atlantic stole Evan's glasses. For those of you who don't know Evan well, he is essentially blind without his trusty specs, so it made for a pretty rough couple of days. Luckily he did have a spare pair back in Michigan, so we had a family friend overnight them to the rental house in Charleston. Whew! Major crisis averted.
Tomorrow is the big day! It is also May Day- the day when Morris dancers dance the sun up and bring in the summer and, well, Evan and I are pretty avid Morris Dancers. Although our goal is to start as close to sunrise as possible, in reality I am not sure how well it is going to work. We are planning to do a short dance before starting out on the trail as a nod to our tradition of dancing the sun up. Evan's sister (who along with her husband are dropping us off at the trailhead) is hopefully going to post a video of our dance with a few pictures of our first steps so this is the last you will hear from us in the first person for a while.
May 1
Stacy here, Evan's older sister. Unfortunately I'm having trouble posting the video of Evan and Carolyn doing a May Day dance before we sent them on up the trail. We do have photos, but for the full video you'll have to check Facebook.
Even after just a few hours of sleep, the four of us headed to the southern trailhead bright and early on May 1. The sun was shining, but for us Arizonans it was chilly! Evan and Carolyn registered with the Visitor's Center and then they were off.
Goodbye and safe travels!
Stacy here, Evan's older sister. Unfortunately I'm having trouble posting the video of Evan and Carolyn doing a May Day dance before we sent them on up the trail. We do have photos, but for the full video you'll have to check Facebook.
Even after just a few hours of sleep, the four of us headed to the southern trailhead bright and early on May 1. The sun was shining, but for us Arizonans it was chilly! Evan and Carolyn registered with the Visitor's Center and then they were off.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)