My Trails

7/4/12 – 1137 miles
First, I just want to say what a great time I had when Nate and Karen joined me on my hike. I think we did too many miles for our section hike – it would have been more enjoyable for them to take it easy and avoid blisters. I’m pretty sure Karen was worried about slowing me down instead of her health. A few miles either way wouldn’t have made any difference to me in the big picture and I will know better from now on. I don’t feel like I hike any differently but I guess 1000 miles of walking has given me the endurance to keep going all day.

Hiking across the Cumberland Valley was brutal. The trail skirts many fields along hedgerows and cuts straight through in the boiling sun on others. It makes you appreciate the cooling canopy of deep woods like no other time. The only saving grace is the fact that you are walking level ground and not climbing hills.

I found a new strategy yesterday for hiking in the heat. I stop about 2:00 pm and rest for about three hours, resume hiking and then stop about 6:00 and fix dinner, and continue on in the cool of the evening till just before dark, throw up my tent and go to sleep. That, or some similar variation helps me beat the heat. I will probably use early morning and late afternoon to my advantage in this mid-atlantic region.

Thank you Karen and Nate. I love you.
Dad “Castaway” Grandpa

July 4th

As we were getting settled in our tent on the last night, Nate turned to me and said, “Grandpa sure kicked our butt today, didn’t he?”. I laughed and responded, “Indeed he did, indeed he did.”  It’s humbling but oh so cool to have your butt kicked by your 63 year old dad or grandpa especially when:

He has hiked over 1000 miles in 3 months!

He loves the adventure of the AT and interacting with everyone he meets along the trail.

He says things like “I don’t have far to hike today, ONLY 15 miles”.

He eats 3 peanut butter and fluff sandwiches as a mid-morning  snack every day.

He has morphed into a lean mean hiking machine. 

Many thanks for letting me share our brief adventure on the AT with you. It was so much fun reading your comments. Now Nate and I are going to go sit on the couch and avoid walking anywhere while we await Castaway’s next blog post. 🙂

Karen Meehan

July 3.

OUR HIKE ENDS
When I woke up this morning, I knew that trying to hike 13 miles with my 30+ pound pack and aching feet was not going to make for a very enjoyable day.  So, we devised a plan. We would hike a mile down the trail to where it intersected a road. Nate and I would stash our backpacks in the underbrush and mark the spot on our map so as to return for them later with the car.  We would carry water and lunch stuff only.  Nate would even be able to wear his toed “camp shoes” to hike in instead of boots as he had some blisters forming on his heels too. 

Once again, the weather was hot and sunny.  The trail took us through giant boulders and rock formations, up and down hills, and across meadows and fields.  Nate and I were able to keep up and enjoy the day.  Castaway hiked with his full pack on as he has no need to “slack pack” for ONLY a 13 mile hike.  🙂  As we were climbing the one giant hill, I started singing “I don’t miss my pack…not even one little bit” and I could hear Castaway chuckling behind me.

  We arrived at Boiling Springs in time to enjoy a meal with dad before dropping him off at the bed and breakfast, retrieving our packs, and heading for home. To help me rest my feet, Nate shared in the driving on the 4 hour drive home. When I saw a sign for a rest area 2 miles ahead, I said to him “I’ll switch with you in 2miles.”. He glanced over in mock outrage and said with  a panicked voice, “In 2miles! But it will take us an hour to go that far!!” ….and it would’ve if we were still on the AT. 

July 2 BLISTERSWe broke camp early as we had planned a long day. We hiked hard and after 10 miles reached Pine Grove Furnace Park around noon.  There is a hiker challenge at the concession stand in the park. The challenge is to eat an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream in one sitting. I’m pretty sure Castaway could have done it but since we planned on hiking 7 more miles he settled for 2 cheeseburgers, an ice cream cone, and a bowl of ice cream. Castaway grabbed some pastries and snacks for the road too.However, we did get to see two other thru hikers, Banjo and Two-Thirds take the ice cream challenge.  They did it, but later told us they took a three hour nap before they could continue hiking.  When we left the park to continue on, Backpacker and Jack had arrived and were ordering their half gallons too. Unfortunately, I have developed a pretty severe blister problem, 7 blisters in all.  I taped them today and pushed thru until about the 16th mile when I could barely walk because of the pain.  I did “surgery” once we reached camp tonight and they are all drained and bandaged now. The plan is to try to hike out tomorrow but if I can’t take it, we will come up with an alternate plan. I have to say, Nate’s been an amazing hiker.  I’m enjoying the time with him on the trail and he’s been really helpful now that I’m “injured”. He polished off two hamburgers pretty easily at the concession stand and I think a few more days on the trail and he could match Castaway’s appetite.  Nate has a trail name now. It’s Seeds. Castaway named him on account of the sunflower seeds he’s been eating on the trail….after Nate rejected his initial idea of Sunflower for his name. Haha. Aunt Donna…we did 15 miles on day one, 13 miles on day two, 17 miles today, and have 13 miles left for tomorrow. Karen Meehan