Essential Equipment

Looking for and purchasing gear is what soaks up a lot of hikers' time and money.  And take it from me, it CAN get addictive!  However, I've tried to keep in mind this saying that I've heard several times this year: It's not the gear that will get you to Katahdin -in fact- it's you who has to get your gear there!  You can spend thousands of dollars on the newest, best, and coolest products, but the reality is that it really doesn't matter in the end.  You'll probably be just as wet in a $200.00 rain jacket as you will be under a $5.00 plastic poncho. And your chances of making it through to the end are not so much based on what you take, but your mentality.

Stew and I have been really lucky in our search for gear in that we've been able to find lots of the things we need on sale.  I really think we've only purchased one or two things at full price so far.  Still, total gear cost come March is probably going to be in the $1,000-1,200.00 per person range.  Maybe a few of you just screamed out "How in the world can living in the woods with no house cost so much?!" Hah!  I know I just did... Still, it's much cheaper than home-ownership.

So, this morning I laid all of the equipment I'd purchased so far out on my bed.  It looked something like this:

Well, it actually looked more extensive than that, but you get the picture.  We have a lot of stuff!  Surprisingly, though, it really all packs down into just a few cubic feet and a few pounds.  That's the thing with backpacking gear these days (and usually the source of the high price): it's all made out of extremely lightweight material.  Hikers are fond of weighing their gear and their packs often (it really becomes something of a competition!), and you'd be surprised at how the ounces add up to unnecessary pounds after a while.  Stew and I aren't too concerned with being ultra lightweight, but- of course- we don't want to be weighed down if we don't have to. 

The general rule of thumb is that you want to be carrying 30% of your body weight or less.  Some ultra-light hikers bring that number down to 20%.  So, with my normal body weight of 112 pounds, I'm aiming for a pack that weighs between 25-35lbs, including food (food will definitely make up the bulk of the weight I carry).  I stupidly -or heroically- (well, let's just say necessarily) carried a pack that weighed 60lbs for seven days during a backpacking trip in 2005. Over half of my body weight!  Not surprisingly, I'd lost ten pounds in two weeks when the trip was over.  This was during my employment with EYA as a camp counselor.  I had to carry double my weight until another counselor met up with us half-way through the trip and took his fair share!  Needless to say, since I was able to do that, I'm thinking 30lbs won't feel too unmanageable once I set out. 

So, here's a sampling of what I have. (I've included links for those of you who want more information):

Hiking Boots-  I definitely went against the trend of buying lightweight hiking boots or trail-runners as most hikers do nowadays.  Part of the experience I want while on the AT is to have fewer reasons to have to go and buy things.  The lighter shoes that are more popular now (obviously) wear out faster.  Thus, a typical hike will involve two or three pairs of shoes.  Well, I guess I just wanted to try to make it on one pair.  That meant full leather, heavier sole, etc.  Several people on WhiteBlaze told me that they knew of hikers who completed the AT in one pair of boots.  The boots that they hiked in looked a lot like what I ended up buying: Zamberlans.  I really like them, and they'll keep my feet dry and warm if we end up hiking through snow.  Only time will tell if I end up regretting the heaviness of the boot.  If they become a pain, I'll just mail them home and buy a new pair of lighter shoes on the trail... something I'm not looking forward to doing, since that means I'd have to break them in while using them- which could lead to blisters and wasted days off the trail waiting for my feet to heal.  Let's keep our fingers crossed that these boots work out for me.

Camp Shoes-

Ok: Everybody wears Crocs!  So, I said early on "I will not buy Crocs."  I'd never really liked the shoe, for no particular reason.  Well, lo and behold, look what I bought to wear... Crocs.  They're just so lightweight and cheap.  You can use them to wear around camp when the hiking's over for the day, or to wade across streams, or in town if your boots smell too bad to go into a restaurant (!!).  So, yeah, I'll be one of those typical hikers with my Crocs hanging off the back of my pack as I walk down the trail.  Oh well...

Tent-  We bought our tent in time to test it out this summer while camping in Florida.  (Haha- look how "tough" I'm trying to be in that shot!)  It is an ultralight tent, the body of which is mainly mesh (as you can see) with a waterproof rainfly (which is not pictured).  There's room enough for two, as long as we don't take our backpacks in with us.  I really liked the tent, but on our first day setting it up, one of the poles developed a crack in it.  Uh... this was probably due to operator error- whoopsie!- but it still worked fine.  I contacted the maker, Sierra Designs, and they said they'd repair it for us.  Which reminds me, I need to mail it in for repairs soon if I want the poles back by March 13th.  Note to self...

Backpack-  My pack is the only piece of gear that I already owned.  I bought it several years ago on sale thinking that I'd be using it often.  Years have passed and it's still untouched!  Poor little pack.  I will admit, it's not the "nicest" pack on the market... nor am I even sure that it's the best fit for my small frame.  However, it's roomy and comfortable.  And best of all, already owning a pack means I don't have to go blow $200 on a new one!  Yay!  More money saved on gear means more pizza and ice cream that can be bought on the trail!

Sleeping Bag- I was so so so worried about buying a sleeping bag because the prices on them are really outrageous, up to $400.00 for a really nice one.  Luckily for both of us, we found our sleeping bags on sale online at REI.  For those of you unfamiliar with that store, it is basically the Mecca of outdoor stores.  It's a co-op, so for a measly $25 you can become a lifetime member and receive hundreds of dollars in savings.  I cannot recommend this store enough.  But back to the sleeping bag.  You really have two choices when buying a bag: down or synthetic fill?  Down is lighter and oh-so warm.  Synthetic, however, will keep you warm even if the bag gets wet, while down will not.  I had my heart set on a down bag (they're just so comfy!) and so I bought one, with the intention of keeping it dry at any cost.  I got this beautiful, wonderful REI sleeping bag at almost half price: just $70.00.  Good for me. :) 

Dry Compression Sack-  Haha!  Where'd my sleeping bag go?  Yes, it's all squished into that little bag.  This is the secret to packing a large, fluffy down bag into your pack- and then keeping it dry.  Down is extremely compressible, and a compression sack is designed to do just that- squeeze your sleeping bag into the smallest possible size.  This is a great compression sack as is, but what makes it the best is that it is also completely waterproof.  I could supposedly leave it outside all day in a torrential monsoon and still have a dry down bag to sleep in.  Of course, I won't be testing that out personally (!), but I'll just take their word for it.  Strange story about this particular dry bag: I have had my eye on it since earlier last year, before I'd even bought anything for my hike.  Why?  I don't know.  I guess it just looked cool and seemed to be a great product.  You get strange fixations while planning for a 2,000 mile hike.

Pots/Pans- Stewart and I love this set of kitchen supplies.  At the top left of the picture is the main pot- just large enough to boil water for our noodles/oatmeal/coffee/etc.  In front of that are two insulated "cups" and lids.  You drink out of the sippy-hole on the lids, thereby keeping the drink from spilling all over you.  To the left of the cups are the bowls, and in front of everything are obviously the wonderful "sporks"- America's favorite all-purpose utensil.  :)  The black bag behind everything is watertight and, aside from being the storage bag for the entire set, can also be the "sink" for washing up the dishes.  Ingenious.  Below are some more images. 



Everything but the kitchen sink?  No, we've got that, too. 
On the right, our pots sit on top of our frying pan.
On the left is a can of fuel.



All packed up!



Stove-  A backpacking stove might look a little weird to those of you who've never used one before.  Here you see it attached to the fuel container, supporting the frying pan.  We're so used to our home stoves being these gigantic, massive things taking up a good chunk of the kitchen, but in the backpacking world a "stove" is just a device that gets the energy from the fuel container to your cooking pot.  Backpacking stoves usually weigh only a few ounces, screw directly into the fuel canister, and have folding arms on which the pot/pan will rest while cooking.  They're very simple. 

    



Top left: folded up. Top Right: Attached with arms
extended. Bottom: Our stove sitting next to the fuel,

 with a nickle for size comparison.



Clothes-  Obviously, we're only taking the minimal amount of clothing on our hike.  When items need to be replaced, we'll replace them- either by purchasing them along the way at outfitters located in trail towns, or by ordering from an online supplier and having them mailed to towns in which we know we'll be.  Hikers use a layering system when dressing for the weather: a base-layer (when needed) of long underwear, a mid-layer of quick-drying, lightweight pants and a shirt, and a top layer (when needed) usually consisting of rain gear.  In the colder months you might want to bring along an extra layer for insulation, such as a lightweight down jacket.  Stewart and I both have most of our clothing, though we still need one or two items here and there.  Oh, did I mention that we're only taking TWO pairs of underwear?!  Ha!  Don't worry mom, you wash tomorrow's pair the night before, and so on.  Most of our clothing is also anti-microbial, to resist (only slightly!) the inevitable bad smell that all hikers' clothing certainly gets.  Oh, and as a rule, none of our clothing contains cotton, which just retains water/sweat/rain and may lead to blisters, hypothermia, staying wet for days and days.

I know this is a long post, so I'm going to end it for now.  You'll pick up on more of the gear we're taking as we continue to write the blog.  We'll also post a final gear picture before we set off.  Hope this post helped some of you to understand what we'll be taking.  It really will only be the very basics.

Till later!





The Basics: When, Where, How... (and a little bit more of Why)

I didn't feel satisfied for my reasoning of why I wanted to hike the AT, so maybe this will help:
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I remembered something last week that I had nearly forgotten.  When I was in Middle/High-School, my friend Abbey and I would ride past a certain small creek while on the bus from school.  The water was usually never more than a foot deep, but something about the way that the it tumbled over the jagged limestone slabs forming the creek bed made it seem more formidable, or wild, than it really was.  We joked that we would get on an inner-tube with our few belongings and ride the creek to where it joined the Little Miami River, and then onward into the Ohio, the Mississippi, and in the end we'd come to oceanic freedom in the Gulf of Mexico.  It was only a dream, but I for one liked to believe we'd really do it.  I just wanted to go, to see.  I think that is the drive of any explorer, any wanderer- to find out the world for themselves. 
And so, today it's not the little creek I'm dreaming of, but a big trail.  And I want to hike it just to see the world for myself. 

 

But enough of that- onwards!

 



Do we look ready or what? 

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Let's talk about "when".   Obviously, the trail can be hiked in either direction- Maine to Georgia or Georgia to Maine (Thus, hikers are either known as ME/GA or GA/ME).  Probably 80% (don't quote me on that, I'll give real statistics later) choose to "hike with spring" and start out in Georgia in March or April.  The trail will be crowded and full of excited hikers for a few weeks... that is, until the AT enters the Smoky Mountains.  I think something like over half of the hikers drop out here!  It's trial by fire... and you can either walk everyday or you can't. 

 

Stewart and I have decided our official start date will be March 13 or 14.  I wanted to start on my birthday, which is the 11th, but these were the closest days in which we were able to score a ride to the trail head in northern GA.  Our friend, Windsor, is wonderful and volunteered to drive us to Amicalola State Park. 
Stewart and I have chosen to hike without a set itinerary as to where we will be at any given day.  We don't need or want the stress of having a daily schedule.  What if we love a trail town so much we'd like to stay an extra day?  What if we find ourselves hiking at a dramatically different pace than expected?  Our only real "time goal" is to finish the hike around mid-September, preferably on our 2-year anniversary, which is the 17th.  Hikers going north have to finish before Baxter State Park (in which is located the last leg of the hike) is closed in October for safety reasons.  Maine has some rough winter weather, and they don't want hikers perishing on Mount Katahdin.
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Where: Any quick Google search will show you the exact path of the trail.  For those of you really interested (or who love maps, like me), there's a really cool interactive map of the entire trail at the official Appalachian Trail Conservancy website where you can zoom in and see every nook and cranny of the trail, even showing you the individual shelters along the way.  I encourage anyone who reads this blog regularly to check in on the map from time to time to get a sense of where in the heck we are! 
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I guess the easiest/hardest question to answer is "how"?  How in the heck are we going to do this?!  I'd be lying if I told you I had it all figured out.  The easy answer is to say "By walking."  The harder answer is a question not so much of physical ability, but mental.  Most hikers who've completed the trail say that your body gets very used to the routine of hiking long and strenuous miles, but it's your mind that you need to exercise in order to carry on day after day.  Hikers quit for many reasons, but a lot of it boils to they just can't -or won't- go on anymore.  Can I say that Stewart and I won't be two of those hikers?  Not with certainty, of course.  None of the hikers who drop out in the Smokies (or anywhere else) expect to.  You don't spend thousands of dollars on gear and food without really believing you're going to get to Maine.  But only about 20% of those hikers actually do... only one in five.  So the odds are high against us making it. 
Oh joy...  :)

 

So here's a cute, clean, pretty picture of what how we're hoping to do this (when in fact we know it will actually be a lot uglier and dirtier, both literally and figuratively):

• March 13/14: Drive up to northern GA, stay the night at Amicalola Falls State Park, and begin our trek in the morning up Springer Mountain.  The actual Appalachian Trail begins at the top of the mountain. 
• Spend the first couple of weeks getting acclimated to the hiking.  There's no better way to "prepare" for long-distance hiking than to actually do it.  We'll probably be doing less than 10 miles a day while getting used to the daily routine.
• Supplies and food will be bought along the way whenever we come to a town near the trail.  Sometimes that means the trail runs right through the town, other times it means hitching ten miles into town and back.
• After crossing the Smokies and getting into Virginia/Pennsylvania/etc., the terrain should ease up a little and we should be able to do some good miles every day.  Hopefully we'll be meeting up with Windsor again near Roanoke, VA for a day out on the town!  She's promised us a shower and dinner.  I promised to show her my hairy armpits!  I think we're both already excited. ;)  Should hopefully also meet up with Dad and my Grandparents around North Carolina and Pennsylvania. That will be so amazing!  Please know that I will smell horrible.
• Things start getting hard again (or so I've been told) once we get up into New England.  The White Mountains are said to be some of the hardest on the trail.
• In Maine we have to cross through the "100-Mile Wilderness", which I'm really excited about, and then finally there's the strenuous (but probably incredibly satisfying) final hike up Mt. Katahdin. 
• We will hitch/bus our way to Bangor, Maine, where we hope to hop on the Amtrak that will take us to Columbia, SC.  Here we'll meet up with friends, pick up our pet toad, and move on to Arkansas, Ohio, and finally Oregon.  We need to be in Portland by the start of Portland State's spring semester (January).

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I think that's a pretty good skeleton of a plan we got there.  Too many details and things start to look too much like an itinerary.  We'll have a better idea of where we'll be once we actually get out and start walking, so if you'd like to meet up with us in any of the towns along the way, we will let you know when we'll get there as we get there.

 

This post is quite long, so I'll end it for today.  Maybe I'll share some of our gear in my next post.

The Basics: Why do I want to hike the trail?

Appalachian Trail Map.
About 2,200 miles.

I think while growing up I just always knew what the Appalachian Trail was.  There was never any big revelation- no "ah-ha!" moment when I was introduced, or when I was awed and determined to someday hike it.  My family (on my dad's side) is Appalachian in heritage, and several family members have day- or section-hiked the trail.  So I don't really know when my fascination began.  All I know is that it has always been in the back of my mind, and sometime after college, it became a goal I had to realize.

The trail itself has was created in the late '30s, and only really gained popularity about thirty years after that.  The first man to hike from end to end (thru-hike, as it's known) said he did it to "walk the war out" of him.  And, true, a lot of people choose to hike at a transitionary time in their lives: after graduation, between jobs, etc.  Well, I'm not going to hike anything out of me, nor am I hiking to gain anything.  This is not a spiritual journey of any sorts, though I know it will indeed be very emotional.  I'm hiking because I love the outdoors.  I'm going because I feel there's a difference between the way I'm living now and the way I want to be living.  I'm going to walk myself up to Maine because I do not believe that dreams are things that just sound nice in theory.  And for some reason, spending six months of my life hiking an average of 15 miles a day through snow and rain and mud and paths strewn with snakes and stones and holes only to end up spending each night huddled and cold with only the blue flame of a propane stove to keep me company as I wolf down soggy ramen noodles before submitting myself to the unguarded whims of a nighttime in the howling wilderness has become a dream of mine.

Just kidding.  But you get the idea. 

Not my picture, but I hope to take on like it someday.

When I was young, the sun would set behind our house and fall into a shallow valley filled with dense green forest.  Many evenings of standing out in the fields and watching the sunset filled me with a wonderment at what might be down in that valley, or over the furthest tree tops.  It looked so pristine and unexplored.  A few years ago while I sat visiting with my grandparents in their home, my grandpa said something very interesting about his childhood in West Virginia.  Standing on top of a wooded hill, he'd stare off into the distance and wonder what was over the next ridge.  So he'd walk over to that ridge, stare off into the distance, and wonder what lay behind the next hill.  So he'd walk hike over to the next hill, and so on.  It sounded exactly like the same feelings I'd had when I was young.  And so I'll have to blame some of my draw to Appalachia, to the allure of the unknown mountain valleys and peaks, on GENES!  Ha!

Speaking of genes, I seem to have definitely inherited the wanderlust of the Harbert family. My grandpa set off from home at age 16.  My dad famously (in our family, at least) hitch-hiked across the country in his 20s.  And here I go, taking my turn now, at the (nearly elderly!) age of 29.  So, in honor of family heritage, and the drive that seems to keep us Harberts wondering what lies over the next hill, I've chosen "Eugene" to be my trail name while out on the AT.  Being both my grandpa and my dad's middle name, it will be a way for me to honor that heritage and also take a part of them with me on a hike I know they'd both like to do themselves.

Hello (and three months to go).



The journey of 2000+ miles begins with a single list.
 Everything else follows after that.



With only three months and a scattering of days left until our hike begins (shooting for March 13 or 14), I've just set up what I hope will be our main means of sharing our Appalachian Trail hike with family and friends.  I love writing.  I love photography.  Therefore, I *hope* I love blogging.  

:) 

Most of the items on the list are crossed off by now.  Which, of course, is a good thing.  I estimated a couple days ago that I'd already spent $850 on gear for the hike.  I think I have another $350 to go.  I hope I still have enough money to get me to Maine after all the gear is purchased! 

I'm only half-joking.  And, yes, (for all you responsible people out there) that does scare me.  Money is a huge factor and stress issue while planning this adventure.  A voice in the back of my head (the one that usually leads me to make the decisions that parents shake their heads over) is saying "Well, the uncertainty is part of what makes it an adventure."  But too much uncertainty can also ruin the fun of planning.  Selling my car would take a huge load off, because Stew and I decided that whatever we get for the car is automatically going to the AT fund.  I'm also hoping to get some money back on my tax refund.  But of course, that, too, is uncertain.

So what kind of planning have we done?  What is our itinerary and how to we plan to resupply?  And some of you out there may be wondering in general about the trail itself... Well, I'll talk more in detail about the specifics of our hike next time, as I promised to myself to keep this entry short. 

Till then...