My Trails

7/7/12 – 1175 miles
At present I’m not carrying many extra clothes. In warm weather, all you need is two shirts and two pairs of shorts. One pair I always keep clean so that I have something clean to put on in town after I take a shower. I have three pairs of socks that I rotate after two days on each. Two pair of underwear (eww! ). I keep my puffy jacket just in case there is a cold snap.

For rain gear I’m trying out an emergency poncho. Anything else is too hot. I do use a pack cover even though the rain will eventually enter the pack in an all day soaker.

For a sleeping bag I try to use the lightest material that will keep me warm. Some hikers are using a light flannel blanket now but I have a light bag that weights only one pound. Sometimes I just sleep on top of it if it is warm weather.

My air mattress is a Neo-Air Extreme, one of the lightest (and most expensive) blow-up sleeping pads made. Some of the first Neo-Airs were noisy and puncture prone, but I’ve had good luck with this one. It gets used every night I’m on the trail.

I will tell about my shelter system next.

7/6/12 – 1159 miles
There have been some questions about the gear I’ve been using. It’s still a work in progress but here are some details on what I carry and why.

My pack at the present time weighs about 22 pounds base weight. That means that with no food and water I’m one of the lightest hikers out here. There are a few that carry no tent. When you add food and water the weight will increase depending on how far it is to the next resupply. The most I usually carry is 30 pounds.

I started out with an alcohol stove. The weight of alcohol is almost the same as a canister of iso-propane so I switched to my MSR stove (4oz) for the convience of quicker cooking. When that was stolen, I replaced it with the same thing. Most of us have one pot for cooking. I also have a cup for coffee in the morning. I still make things that you can eat by boiling water, but the mre are too expensive for a steady diet. I will sometimes boil noodles, then transfer them to a baggie, add cheese and butter, wait about ten minutes and eat. I also make oatmeal in a baggie, too. Then I have no mess to clean. Other foods I eat include: Knor rice and pasta sides, Oriental noodles, tuna, chicken, jerky, pepperoni, summer sausage, and mashed potatos. For lunch I usually have peanut butter and fluff(I started this) on bread, thins, or tortillas. For snacks I eat a lot of granola bars, dried fruit, and lots and lots of Rice Krispy treats. Next post will be about sleep system.

7/5/12 – 1140 miles
I’m at a place called the Doyle Hotel in Duncannon, PA. It’s kind of dirty, kind of ancient and run-down, kind of a fire-trap, but it is a thruhiker tradition to stay here. For $26 you get a room and a shared bath, shuttle to town, and an amazing cheeseburger at the bar(extra) . There is no A/C and no screens on the windows so I have many bugs in my room. I hesitate to do laundry because one mile out of town and my clothes will be soaked with sweat anyway. I will probably just rinse my shirt in the sink.

Tomorrow I enter the streatch of Pennsylvania trail famous for being filled with rocks. The trail is so rocky that many hikers leave the state with sore knees and bruised ankles. One hiker described the trail as if someone “sharpens” the rocks at night. I’m sure I will slow down for awhile in this section.

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