Thursday, September 13, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The End of The Trail
I finished the trail yesterday August 31st when I made my final climb up Mt. Katahdin. Therefore I finished the entire state of Maine in about 10 and a half days. This was pretty fast averaging about 28 miles a day. I went through the 100 mile wilderness in less than 72 hrs even. It has been really amazing to see what condition my body has finally made it into to allow me to do the kind of mileage that I did just these last couple of weeks. Maine was an incredibly beautiful state and even though I did go through it pretty fast I still got to see some great things and get some amazing pictures. I really want to come back another time and do some more hiking up in Maine when I feel like I am able to go slowly and not feel so eager to finish.
This has been such a great journey and I have grown so much from being out on the trail. I really hope that everyone can get out and do something like this at least once in their lives. I am sorry that I am being a bit vague about my last few weeks on the trail but I want to leave you all a little curious my travels, that way when I see all of you we can have something to talk about still. I plan on putting up my pictures from the last few weeks but I will have to wait till I get home to my computer to upload them because my phone hasn't been uploading properly lately.
Thank you to everyone who has been there for me on the trail and to all of you who have been following the blog, without your support and motivation I doubt I would have been able to make it.
-Turbo Zero
Thursday, August 16, 2012
August 16th
As soon as we arrived in New Hampshire we walked right into the middle of Hanover, which is where Dartmouth College is. This was a really nice town and everyone there was extremely friendly towards hikers. There were lots of stores giving away free things such as a pizza place that gave hikers a slice of cheese pizza and a bagel place that gave hikers a free bagel of their choice with cream cheese. The town even had a list of a few different people that would put hikers up at their houses for the night. We stayed at Bill and Betsy's house who were very generous and came and picked us up and dropped us off from Hanover, gave us a shower, did our laundry and gave us a nice bed to sleep on.
The next day we headed out of town after grabbing our resupply for the next few days at the grocery store and heard from a local that we would be getting some rain for the next three days or so. Well that was definitly true! We hiked over Smart mountain and Mt. Cube where we experienced rain both days until we arrived at Glencliff, NH. There we stayed at a hiker hostel so that I could pick up my cold weather sleeping bag the next morning that my parents sent for me to the post office there.
After I got my bag Son and I headed up to Mt. Mousilauke to start our trek through the White Mountains. This was a pretty good climb for us since we were going to be going above 4000ft in elevation again for the first time in a while. However we didnt just go to 4000ft but went all the way to 4900ft to the summit of the mountain. It was a little disappointing getting to the top of Mousilauke because there were so many clouds that we couldn't get a view. Coming down from that mountain was the hardest and scariest hike that I have ever done in my life. We decended about 3000ft in the course of a mile and a half. The entire trail followed a waterfall and went down steep rocks that were completely wet from the rain earlier that morning. I actually slipped one time and was so glad that I had my large pack on my back because I landed right on my backpack on a sharp rock that probably could have seriously injured me. When I got to the bottom I saw a sign that I really wish I had taken a picture of but it said, "This is an extremely tough trail, do not attempt unless you are an experienced hiker." I hadn't realized at the time but this would be the start of a whole nother type of hiking that I would be doing from here on out.
Everything is more difficult now and the next day after getting up Kinsman Mountain, Son and I were completly wiped out. We ended up only doing 11 miles that day finishing at the Liberty Spring campsite. We were beggining to think that this would be the kind of mileage that we would be doing for the rest of the Whites. When I got up the next morning I made it to the top of Mt. Lincoln and was completely taken back by the beauty of what was before my eyes. I felt like I was stopping every 2 minutes to take pictures and I think it took me 45 minutes to make it the half mile from Lincoln to the top of Mt. Lafayette. That day however Son and I were moving pretty fast it turns out. There were so many people on the trail that it was kind of fun going fast because it was motivating to pass people. I think we passed about 50 people that day on the trail and everyone was looking at us with amazement on how fast we were going and commenting on how small our packs were for people who were hiking the entire trail. We ended up doing about 25 miles that day since we knew if we made it to a certain area the Lovgrens would come and pick us up for a couple nice zero days in North Conway, NH. Gary was completely taken back when he picked us up by two things, one being that we were able to do 25 miles through the whites but mainly by how bad we smelled. I noticed that he was having a hard time with the way we smelled when we first got in the car and I said sorry I think we may smell a little bad and he said, "yeah you do could you roll the window down a bit." So I did and then he said, "Why don't you go ahead and roll it down the whole way." This kind of made me laugh a bit because it was the first time that we have really noticed that we had a true stink of a thru-hiker. I think it may have been because we had so many days out in the rain that it really made everything we had smell so much worse.
Since we have been at the Lovgrens we have been having a blast! We have been here for 2 days already and even though they haven't been the most relaxing of zero days they definitly have been a couple of the best we have had. On Monday we got to go out with Gary and explore the town of North Conway. Then he took us to a natural waterslide that was made up of a river that funneled around an area of smoothed granite, when you sat down on the edge it would shoot you into the middle of the slide then down the river pretty fast. When we came back Gary, Son and I made a fire and had a beer and cigar while Holly finished up a lovely dinner for us. Everything she has made for us while we have been here has been so delicious. On our second zero here they took Son and I to Mt. Cranmore where they are both ski instructors during the winter and Gary guides the Segway tours durring the summer. They got permission for us to basicly do all the different activities that they had going on there durring the summer season. I got to ride a Segway for the first time in my life which was really a lot of fun, its really amazing the technology they have in those machines to allow them to react to your movements so easily. Probably my favorite part of the day was getting to go on the high ropes course that they have there and also to do their ziplines. I was really surprised by how difficult the ropes course was. It definitly gave me the upper body workout that I have been needing to go with the leg workout I've recieved throughout this entire trip.
Our plan was to get back on the trail today however I'm not sure wheather that will be happening. It has been raining all morning and we Son and I are completly exhausted from our active rest days we have had here. Plus everything that we have is finally dry and clean that we dont want to get it soaked already on our first day out. When we do get back on we will have a 13 mile climb straight up to Mt. Washington which is the second highest peak on the Appalachian Trail. We would like to have a clear day to get some good views and pictures of those views. So we may end up staying the day today as well.
Well it is only another 350 miles from here to Katahdin and we will be in Maine, our last state, in 65 miles. Everyone we have met on the trail recently have been saying, "So 350 miles, must feel nice to be almost done." All I can think of when they say that is, "Almost done? By that logic you were almost done with your hike before you even started then." I still have probably another 3 weeks on the trail. I'm really excited to get back home however because this is becoming a very long trip and its going to be nice to be home just to veg for a while. I will be posting some amazing pictures that I have taken over the last few days, if you are having trouble finding them what you want to do is click on the slideshow in the top corner of the blog and you will be redirected to the area where my pictures are posted to. Thanks for reading my long post I have finally been able to get to a computer to write this, sometimes it is difficult to write posts through my phone.
Hike Hike
Your
Live Life
-Turbo Zero
Monday, August 6, 2012
August 6th
Just after spending a bit of time in Dalton Massachusetts Son and I entered into the green tunnel of Vermont. Vermont has been a pretty nice hiking state. It feels like I'm finally back in the mountains again. We spent a night I Manchester Center VT and stayed at the Green Mountain House. This was a pretty nice hiker hostel. It was a pretty nice place, very modern and also came with a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
Its seemed like every time we get clean clothes after staying somewhere it rains the next day. Even though the trail in Vermont has been really beautiful the rain seems to have been making the trail pretty difficult. It gets really hard to hike when the rocks get wet and you start slipping all over the place.
We have just recently started running into a lot of south bound hikers which has been pretty interesting. We are meeting all kinds of new people and the trail is starting to get a little more crowded again.
Not too much more has really been happening, I am staying at a place called the Long Trail Inn in Killington VT right now. Seems like it would be a really cool place to come stay in the winter to go skiing if anyone is looking for a place to go for the winter. I should be in New Hampshire in the next couple days and the trail.should be looking pretty beautiful from there out.
-Turbo Zero
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
July 31
Its been a little while since I got back on the trail from the wedding and I feel like a lot has happened. I had a really great time getting to take the to go back to Virginia to see a lot of my friends and family. My brother was awesome and came all the way up to pick Son and I up from Connecticut. The trip seemed to be pretty long but not too bad because we were able to stop off in New York and pick up the girl I was telling y'all about and take her with us. It was really nice getting to know her and all the time I spent with her added to the feeling of how special I think she is. The wedding turned out to be very beautiful and a really good time. It was really great to get to see a lot of you and talk a bit more about my experiences out here. Sadly for me however my time in civilization had to come to an end so that I could get back to the trail and get to Katahdin.
It was pretty difficult getting back in to the swing of things from being off the trail for so long. I just kept thinking how everything was so much easier when I was back for the wedding and how nice it was to not be kind of alone and away from everyone. I think if it weren't for Son being out here with me when I got back on I don't know if I would have been able to make it through the transition of getting back onto the trail.
After a few days of not so great weather and scenery not changing so much things started to get a little better. We started making climbs over 2000ft again allowing for some better views and also getting to see some nice waterfalls and brooks that ran along side the trail. Just after we got into Massachusetts there was a really cool spot along one of the brooks that looked like it could have been a really great spot to do a cliff jump, probably about 20ft high. I was really excited because this was going to be the first one I would be able to do on the trail so far. The water was pretty clear and looked like it was about 10 or 12 feet deep so I climbed up and gave my camera to Son to take a video. He said, "hey it not working man." So I went over and checked it out, sure enough my phone had frozen on the video screen so I had to restart it. I figured since it was restarting I might as well climb down there and make sure everything was alright down there before I jumped. So I swam in and that water was freezing cold and by some kind of optical illusion the water was only really about 4 feet deep. Man am I glad my phone crapped out on me there! Definitely checking the water personally now before I think about doing anything like that again.
So the next couple of days were pretty nice and we got to see a couple of cool little small towns. One town in Salisbury, CT actually interviewed us for their town paper and said we were going to be in the issue that came out last Thursday. Massachusetts has been a pretty beautiful state to hike through with surprisingly a lot of really nice people here. Just a couple of days ago we went and stayed at a cabin that was maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club or AMC called Upper Goose Pond Cabin. The cabin is run by a volunteer caretakers who switch once a week. It was a very beautiful place to stay right on the pond. They allowed you to go out on their canoes and in the morning they made all the pancakes and coffee you could ever want.
After leaving the cabin it started off like it was going to be a nice day, however around 10am that story changed. It started raining then and rained all day until we got to Dalton, MA. It was a pretty miserable day however we heard that a man named Tom Lavardi allowed you to camp at his house in town so we figured we would do that and go in and get a bite to eat to try and make the day a little better. To our surprise when we got to his house there were about 20 hikers at his house all just hanging out. As it turns out Tom goes above and beyond to help hikers. He completely opens his house up letting hikers sleep in the middle of the living room, he lets you use the.shower, does all of your laundry and will pretty much drive you wherever you want to go. ALL FOR FREE! He makes it so that his house is a bit of an Oasis for hikers. He doesn't mind how long you stay either. When we asked him if we could stay another day to.recuperate he said well the record is 47 days and your welcome to try and beat that if you want. Supposedly a hiker in the past ran out of money for the trail and Tom let him stay at the house while he got a job in town to make enough money to finish. Anyway we have been at his house for the last couple of days and I think I have finally gotten out of my funk from feeling the way I had after the wedding and am now ready to get back on the trail and experience the beautiful northern states. Be looking forward to some beautiful pictures because I know they will be coming!
-Turbo Zero
Monday, July 9, 2012
July 9
I was really hoping for the fact that when I got out of PA these darn rocks would ease up and give my feet a little break but they are at it again here in NJ. So far however everything about NJ has been pretty awesome. We have finally been getting some great scenery again with some awesome views. There seems to be a lot more creeks and water along the way as well. My plan when I got out of PA was to start doing 30 mile days until I had to go back for my sisters wedding but after the first one and the rocks still not letting up much, my feet just aren't going to be able to take it doing that kind of mileage. It also didn't help that yesterday we came across a nice lake to go swimming in for a while. We came down from what is known as the highest point in NJ yesterday to go throigh some bogs and farmland. Going through the bogs was probably one of my favorite portions of the trail so far. When you hike through them you walk on all these elevated boards so it kind of seems like walking through a rainforest all most. Well right now I'm sitting on the porch of the general store here in a little town called Unionville NY. This has been a really great little town to stay the night at. I got to meet a really cute girl yesterday and talk to her for a while. She seems to be the first girl I have met in a while that was really cute and I could be a bit interested in. She kind of comes off as one of those small town girls that is genuinely nice and I don't think realizes she is as pretty as she is. I really hope that I'll be able to see her again someday. I think its really awesome how one day I may be driving somewhere and pass through one of these small towns and know that I have had some kind of experience there. This kind of thing has been my favorite part of hiking so far.
-Turbo Zero
Friday, July 6, 2012
July 5th
We did our now longest day of hiking just a little while ago. We did a total of about 38 miles, 34 on the trail and another 4 coming in and out of town. I arrived at a really nice view at about 4:30am and decided to set up camp there on rock overlooking the PA countryside. The next morning however I had to get up really early at about 6:30 am because the sun was shining right down on my and starting to cook me on the rock. That day was pretty miserable, the rocks were horrible and I started to suffer from sleep exhaustion. I still ended up hiking about 17 miles that day however.
I had one of the best 4th of Julys I have ever had out here on the trail. I hiked out of town up this mountain, which was one of the hardest climbs that I have had on the trail so far. I had to use my hands to climb the mountain and kind of did a little rock climbing, hikers call this a "rock scramble". After we got to the top of the mountain we had a couple mile walk along the ridge line of the mountain which didn't have any trees on it so we were able to see down into the valley the whole way. We came across this spot where we decided to camp that someone had made a bunch of seats out of the stone that was all laying around there as well as a fire pit. We set up there and were able to have a birds eye view of about 25 different firework shows all over the valley.
The next day we hiked down into Wind Gap, PA and met up with the Dipaolos who hosted us last night and have been taking really good care of us here. We will be finally leaving PA today once we cross the Delaware River and will be getting into New Jersey.
-Turbo Zero
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
June 27
It feels a little weird to have crossed the mason dixon line and now ill be in the north for the next few months. I think it will be pretty interesting to see if we will get as much hospitality from people in the north as we have in the south. I hit the official halfway point of the trail a couple days ago. It seems so crazy to think how long I have been doing this and just now hitting the halfway point. PA is supposed to be pretty rocky however also flat. I've come across a little bit of the rocky and have now been walking through some farmland which is a really nice change of scenery. We arrived in Boiling Springs a couple nights ago and met up with some friends of Robert and Dianne Hall. Jim and Marcia Compton took us in to their beautiful property and I was able to spend my birthday completely relaxed. I was able to sleep in and wake up in a real bed and try all kinds of their homemade wines. Everything they made us to eat pretty much came from their garden and it was all delicious. After dinner we then got to go raspberry picking through their yard and we were able to fill about 4 gallon sized buckets full of raspberries. Its been a great time here and a really nice place to spend my birthday. Well time to get back on the trail, I'm looking forward to hiking through some more farmland today.
-Turbo Zero
Thursday, June 21, 2012
June 21
Well we got back on the trail again after spending a couple days at Mountain Man Mark's house which was really nice and relaxing after the boring Shenandoahs. We only hiked about 7 miles before we got back off the trail again to go do a little work to make some money and spend some time with the Higgins. We totally dug up a flower bed and planted some new flowers and mulched it. It was a bigger job than we thought but then we got to jump in their pool after which felt great since it has been about 95 degrees out these past few days.
After our time with the Higgins we were back on the trail again but not for long due to the fact that 8 miles from where we got back on we heard that there was going to be a free spaghetti dinner at the Blackburn PATC cabin. So we stopped in and stayed for the spaghetti and it was delicious.
Today we made it into Harpers Ferry. Harpers Ferry is known as the unofficial halfway point and is where the headquarters for the ATC is. So we got our pictures taken for the book and got.to.see all the people that have hiked in before us (I am so far the 601st northbounder in 2012). I decided that before officially placing my name in the ATC log that I might want to change it to something more appropriate or fitting since most of trip I haven't been wearing my vibram toe shoes. So I came up with something and I think now I am going to go by Turbo Zero since I hike really fast and do lots of miles but take a lot of zero days. I think I have taken close to 30 days now which is about 3 times more than most hikers that I have been around. So it wont be that big of a change since most people just call me Turbo anyway, but I think this will be better explaining my what my name means to people.
Well Maryland tonight and Pennsylvania tomorrow. I think now that I am out of Virginia its going to feel like are running through states. My birthday is next week and I'm pretty excited about being on the trail for it. I'm thinking I'll most likely be in Duncannon PA and I hear thats a pretty nice town so hopefully I'll run into some more hiker friends there and it'll be a good time. Goodnight everyone.
-Turbo Zero
Sunday, June 17, 2012
June 17th
Since I left off there has been a lot that has happened and I will try to let you all in on most of the important things, maybe a few stories and also give thanks to everyone that has helped me out along my way this last few weeks.
After we left off from trail days our plan was to make it to Hall's Hovel by by June 8th. We realized once we left that that would actually be a little too easy of a goal and only requiring us to hike about 12 miles a day. Instead we decided that we would instead try to push ourselves and get there by the weekend before. To do this we were going to have to hike an average of about 21 miles a day. It seemed really tough but we thought we would give it a shot. When we did this we ended up not being able to hike 21 miles a day on a few days due to the fact that we stayed a little too long in a couple of the trail towns gathering groceries and just being a little lazy and not wanting to leave the luxuries of the city. This however meant that some of those days that we hiked consisted of a few 24 and 27 mile days. One memorable day I have in mind is when we decided that we were going to hike 27 miles and Dayglow really had no interest in going that far and said that he was going to only hike 21 and he would see us later. Son and I knew however that even if he says he is not going to do what we do he will just end up doing it anyway and just not be happy about it. So when Son and I arrived at the shelter 27 miles later that particular day we had gone ahead and set up our tents made a fire and started to cook dinner. While we were sitting there cooking we saw Dayglow walk by not saying a word and proceed to set up his tent about 50 feet away from us and then he made his own fire, not coming over to join us. So I say to Son, "I think he is mad at us." Then I called over to Dayglow and said, "Hey Dayglow whats going on, you mad?" Dayglow says, "I'm not hanging out with you maniacs." After a little alone time he finally came over saying, "I'm not mad it was just really rocky over by you guys and I didnt have a place to set up my tent."
It ended up taking us about 11 days after Trail Days to make it to Halls Hovel where we were able to meet up with most of my family and a few friends to finally take a day off. It was a great time I thought, my dad did an awesome job feeding us and organizing the entire thing. All the food was really delicious, this had been the first time that we were completely full since we started the trip. I think my mom and dad kind of took it on as a challenge to have us say we couldn't eat any more. While we were there my Uncle Jon drove us all over Lexington it seemed making sure that we had everything we needed to resupply, and then got us some delicious ice cream. Hall's Hovel was really a different place in the summer than it is when we go up for trout fishing weekend. Thanks again Robert and Diane for having such an awesome gettaway spot and allowing us to use it.
After a nice day of being with family and friends we were back on the trail. We however were so full from the weekend that we had a hard time getting back into our hiking groove and also felt like taking it a little easy now that we didnt have any deadlines. We hiked for about 3 days till we arrived in Waynesboro, right where the Blue Ridge Parkway meets Skyline drive going into the Shenandoahs.
We spent a day in Waynesboro kind of exploring the town since we were staying at a church hostel that didnt allow us to be there between 9am and 5pm. It was a pretty nice town and I was even able to donate blood there. The next day Thomas, Natalies Fiancee, came and picked us up to stay a few days with him in Charlottesville. It was a really nice time for me to be able to get to know him better and spend time with him before him and Natalie get married. When we were down visiting Thomas and Natalie we decided to stay another day there since my mom and Buzzy were coming up to visit. We spent the entire next day with them doing all kind of things including my first wine tasting at Jefferson Vineyards. It was really cool to go there and do that since we sold a lot of their wine when I worked at Taste Unlimited. Before we left Thomas' grandmother made us a delicious breakfast to get us on our way.
Just a little over a week ago we started back on the trail to start our hike through the Shenandoahs. It took us a few days to get back into hiking mode again since we had taken 3 full days off the trail. SNP was not really the most fun time for me I have to admit. I can see how it would be a nice place to visit to do some hiking, however just not on the AT. I was really hoping to see a lot of waterfalls and have lots of fun hikes through SNP except all of that was on side trails, which I didn't really want to take the time or energy to go on. The park was a bit like an amusement park for camping and hiking in the way that it was catered towards people out for weekend trips and people who aren't very big backpackers. All of the stores were expensive and didnt have any selection of food that hikers would actually buy. I did however get to see a lot of wildlife while out there. I saw tons of deer and about 3 bears, however never close enough to get a good picture. While we were in the Shenandoahs we got a lot of rain as well which probably didnt help my experience. We met a few friends while we were there and now have a place to stay in Aspen, CO if we ever want to go which would be really nice. All in all we were ready to get out of there. My dad was able to organize us going over to stay with another old family friend who I havent seen in a long time that our family knows as Mountain Man Mark. Once we were able to get some good weather we decided to b-line it to his house as soon as possible. We ended up doing a 23, 28,24 and finishing 16 mile days to get out of the Shenandoahs and to his house.
The day before we arrived however we saw a challenge in Front Royal that we needed to take part in. Pikes restaurant in Front Royal has a hamburger challenge that consists of 5-6oz patties, 5 different cheeses, bacon, ham, fried egg, 2 mozzarella cheese sticks, lettuce, tomato, pickle and a double order of fries. Son and I were able to complete the challenge and get our pictures added to their legendary wall of fame, then decided to get ice cream after as a reward. The hardest part of the challenge however was the fact that we now had to still hike 10 miles to get to our destination. That was a very fun 10 miles taking us about 6 hours.
We arrived at Mountain Man Marks house yesterday and have been having the most relaxing time. He has been a great host making us feel completely at home. He even allowed us to use his truck to go into REI and return all of our old crappy stuff for brand new stuff. By the way, If you are not an REI member go out and become one, their money back guarantee is well worth it. We'll be getting back on the trail tomorrow and should be arriving in Harpers Ferry, WV (the unofficial halfway point of the trail) in just a couple of days.
Sorry again for such a long time between posts and thanks for all who are following.
-Turbo Toes
Saturday, May 26, 2012
May 25
Today has been a great day of hiking! I started off the day with a great view since we camped next to it that night before. It was kind of our first hiking day without rain or waking up in a cloud. It was really nice having a dry day, however it did turn out that without the rain it was a lot hotter out. We did a 23 mile day today with some pretty steep hills but pished it all yhe way. The last 6 miles or so were really beautiful, all along a ridgeline with a view most of the way.
We are going to really have to push it to get to our goal of meeting up to hike with everyone on the 1st of June. We will probably have to hike 23 mile days everyday to get there. Its going to really take some convincing on my part to get Dayglow and Son to push the mileage but I think I'll be able to get the to stick around.
I am thinking that instead of the staying at the priest shelter Thursday night and hiking with everyone the next day we will probably make it to the spy rock campsite and hike out from there. It will probably be nicer since I am hoping for a big group and it will also mean we wont have to hike 29 miles the day before to get there. Well I am really excited to see everyone, make sure to break out and break in your hiking boots soon!
My Trail Diet
So I thought I would let you all know just a little of what I eat while I'm out on the trail. Just to make it clear a lot of the time I have to keep in mind how many calories something has, is it going to be too heavy to carry and will it last without needing to be refrigerated.
I usually start my morning off with something easy like a pop tart or a cliff bar, something I can eat on the go. I like to be able to get up and hit the trail as soon as I'm packed up. Usually throughout the day I keep a few snacks at easy access on my hip belt such as peanut m&ms, twizzlers, goldfish or fritos honey bbq twists. For lunch I usually do some sort of extra sharp cheddar cheese and summer sausage. It tends to be that the sharper the cheese the longer it lasts without refrigeration. I usually wrap the sausage and cheese up in a tortilla or put them on ritz crackers that I get in the small fresh packs as they call them. Then for dinner I usually eat some kind of Knorr pasta side, mac and cheese, or ramen. Pretty much some kind of pasta. Then I eat a candy bar for dessert. That is pretty much my diet so you can see how hikers are always craving real food all the time and eat so much when they come into town. I just thought I would share my diet, and I know that y'all might think its a little weird but unless you have someone dehydrating foods for you at home and mailing them to you this is pretty much every hikers diet out here.
May 23
It has been a lot of fun hiking these last few days. We were able to get back in to Damascus, Va to be able to go to Trail Days. It took us about 3 hitches to get into town but it really wasn't that hard. What made the trip easy was that a lady named Road Angel decided to take us most of the way there just because that's where we needed to go, we didn't realize she wasn't already going there until we were already on our way. She is a super nice lady and we really appreciated the ride.
Being at Trail Days was a blast. We were able to see all our hiker friends again since they all came back from wherever they were on the trail. We also got to relax a lot and talk to all the reps from all the companies where all of our gear is from. We apent a lot of time "hanging out" at the Eagles Nest Outitters area where they had a lot of hammocks set up. I think Son and I actually ended up selling a lot of hammocks for them. We were hoping they might give us a couple of their pro nest hammocks but no luck. We however did woo over the girl that was selling the hammocks and she ended up giving us all a ride back to the trail where we left, which was a long way away. She was a lot of fun and made me think a little better about ENO then I did before. When I was at Trail Days I was also able to get a new pack and sleeping bag and send some things home to lose a total of 8 pounds off my pack, which is really awesome because now my pack is extremely light.
We have been getting to a lot of really great camping spots and awesome views since ww have been back on the trail from Trail Days. We camped at an awesome campsite near a waterfall one night and had a great fire there. I need to make sure I go back there sometime when its a bit warmer because it looked like a great place to swim and spend the day.
Well I'll have to fill everyone in with more tomorrow because I'm falling asleep while writing. Hiker midnight is 9pm by the way and it is 936 right now. Goodnight everyone!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
May 14th
30 miles yesterday! I don't think that I will be trying that again for a while it is kind of hurting today. Son and Dayglow both did it with me. After 26 miles my body just really starting breaking down. We decided to go 30 because we heard you could ordr pizza at the next shelter from the one we were at when we had already done 20. So when we got there I called up the pizza place and they said their policy was that they couldn't deliver to where we were past 7pm and it was already 845pm. Well with some shmoozing and begging I was able to convince them to come out. The pizza was well worth the 30 mile day.
Today we did about 12 miles to get to Atkins and we stayed in a place called the Relax Inn which ended up costing us about $18 a person. I didn't really want to stay and spend the money but it was supposed to be a horrible thunderstorm later so I gave in. Turns out the weather report was right and all of a sudden water just came pooring out of the sky. All I could think about was man I'm glad I am not in my tent for this.
Well not many more miles till we'll try and hitch back for trail days. I'm getting pretty excited about it, lots of people are saying its really fun. I hope everyone is planning on coming to Halls Hovel to come camp with me for a couple days it'll be really nice to see everyone.
Monday, May 14, 2012
May 12th
Today was a pretty nice day with great weather, first blue sky in a while. I hiked with Dayglow, Son and White Wolf today since I was able to meet back up with them at the shelter last night which was really nice. We had a great day of walking through mountaintop balds again with really great views. We hit some trail magic right around lunch time where a guy was grilling up hamburgers and hot dogs, the classics never get old, which were delicious. My favorite part of the day though was when we came across some wild ponies on top of the mountain. The ponies were actually really friendly and enjoyed licking all the salt off my arms. We came into the shelter where we were going to camp and there were lots of people there and realized it must be a weekend. We camped a little ways past the shelter and made a pretty big fire. Today was a really nice day, a little different that Tabb wasn't with me but I think this alone time will be nice for me.
-Turbo Toes
May 11th
Well I started on my solo adventure today. Tabb and I separated at around 3pm when I headed back on the trail and he decided to finish there as a section hiker. It feels weird withought him being here, a bit like he is still in town and I went too far and now he has to catch up. I ended up hiking a lot further on the trail than I planned when I left, about 6 miles extra. I just got into camp at about 9pm and am now too tired to make dinner so I decided I'm just gojng to skip. The good thing about pushing it further was that I got to meet back up with Son and Dayglow and some of my other friends. Everyone said that they are going to really miss Tabb but understand why he is finishing up now. Well Tabb (Jonathan), thank you so much for starting this trip with me and we will always have great memories from our days of hiking together.
-Turbo Toes
I love meeting and getting to know the fellow hikers on the AT. I love the camping and the views everyday. I love the exploration and living completely in the moment. The problem is that I really dislike the walking.
I came for the adventure but I found that I was bored with the slow pace and lack of variety in my days spent alone trudging through the woods. So I've decided to return to society and begin preparing for graduate school in the fall. I spent this past weekend with my brother getting ready to separate. I gave him the communal gear that I carried, had a goodbye meal with him, then I walked Turbo to the trail head and watched the red backpack disappear into the woods. I am confident in my decision to stop my thru-hike but I had such a longing to continue when he walked away just so that he wouldn't have to do it by himself. Sad moment for me to part from him. I realize he'll be continuing with the 30 hikers we've formed friendships with but this will really change the feel of the hike. He will definitely be faster though not slowing down and waiting for me to catch up every two hours.
I'm spending this week in Charlottesville with my baby sister and her fiance. While I'm here I'll be working on school scholarships and finding a place to live in the fall. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with friends and family in Norfolk next week.
So I still enjoy hiking and being out in nature, but I think I'll limit my future hikes to 100 to 300 mile trips. I'm planning on driving out and joining Turbo for a few especially nice sections. Second week of June doing the Priest and some trail magic for the other hikers. Friends and Family camping with Turbo right after the Priest. Maybe go do Mt. Washington in NH also.
I think some big things I've gotten from this trip is a stronger desire for casual adventures, meeting strangers can be a very good thing, and a bit more confidence in hitch hiking as a legitimate form of transportation.
Thank you for the support you've given to both of us. I'll be turning into a spectator now, clicking on that spot link figuring out how far Turbo has traveled that day. Looking forward to his stories of adventure and what the north holds for him.
-Tabb
Friday, May 11, 2012
Trail To Damascus
We left from Hot Springs about 2 and a half weeks ago and were able to get picked up by our new friends Michael and Debbie Rayl from Sams gap. They picked us up and we had a blast staying with them. They were great hosts taking us all over town taking care of all of our needs with gear and food. When they took us to the REI we were able to return then buy a lot of new equipment. Well I just returned shoes, Tabb returned almost everything that he had. The main changes were that Tabb switched to a hammock and we both switched to quick drying trail runner shoes from what we had before. Debbie and Michael were great sports and waited very patiently at the REI, I think we were in there for about 3 hours. Afterwards we went and picked up a couple pizzas at the Mellow Mushroom, which supposedly is a chain down here we have never heard of, it was delicious pizza. We went to church with them the next day and then kind of just slept all the rest of the day. Debbie took us back to the trail the next day after first stopping in Erwin, TN so that we could pick up some care packages that our mother and sister sent us (Sorry Aunt Donna we heard that you sent us some cookies there but we could not find the package anywhere, I'm sure they would have been delicious though). We really appreciated the hospitality that Debbie and Michael showed us and it was really great to meet them as new friends.
We have been experiencing the most amount of rain on the trail within this last couple week stretch than we have so far on the entire trip. We left Sam's gap and were hiking better than ever now with our new shoes. It took us a couple of days to get to Erwin but we decided that we would skip right over the town since we had enough food to get to the next town following our plan. Its really hard to skip over a town when a cheeseburger is only a half a mile away. It turns out it was a good thing that we skipped that town because we heard from a lot of hikers that it was kind of a vortex and people were getting stuck there for days withought wanting to get back on the trail, and it gets expensive staying in towns like that.
After we left Erwin we were heading into a pretty tough area of the trail with a lot of elevation change making the trail pretty tough. We hiked a couple of days meeting a lot of new people along the way since we were about a day or two behind the rest of our normal group. We left one day from an area named Cherry Gap Shelter were we planned to hike to a shelter named Roan Knob shelter at the end of a very hard climb up a mountain. I had been hiking in front of Tabb for the entire day ended up actually passing the shelter by about a mile and a half. The shelter sign was very hard to see and I hear that a lot of people actually hiked past it. The mile and a half that I hiked past the shelter was all down hill with fist sized gravel which was really hard to walk on. I got to the bottom of the hill where there was a parking lot when I realized I had hiked too far. I waited at the parking lot for about an hour and a half thinking that when Tabb saw that I wasn't at the shelter he would have realized I missed it and hiked down himself. Well, he didn't think that way and waited for an hour and a half before I decided to just hike a little bit further to a campsite that I saw on my map. The whole next 4 miles were walking across mountain top balds and I wanted to camp on top of one of them. As it turns out the camping spot I was trying to camp at was off a side trail that went a half mile off the trail. I wasn't going to do that so I decided to keep hiking. By this time I decided I wasn't very far from a really cool shelter that we had heard about but decided it was too far to get to that day so I decided just to go for it since I seemed to still have plenty of energy. When I got there the shelter was amazing, it was an old red barn that had been converted into an AT shelter and it had an awesome view (you can see pictures of it in the photo album). I ended up hiking an extra 7 miles past the shelter that Tabb and I had planned on staying at and I knew that he would be mad at me, however the view at that shelter made it worth it. I stayed at the shelter until I met back up with Tabb at around noon the next day and he was pretty mad that didnt hike back up the mile and a half to the shelter he was at when I realized I had gone too far. It was all right though because we had another beautiful day of hiking through mountain top balds.
At the end of hour day we hiked into a beautiful bed and breakfast which also ran a hiker hostel called Mountain Harbor. It was a really cool house with horses and goats. They took the top of the barn and converted it into a hostel for hikers to stay at. We ended up just camping there however since the hostel was full, still being allowed to use the showers though. The next morning we had an amazing breakfast which the owner made (there is a picture in our album). We headed out of there around noon since it had rained at about 7am and we were all waiting for our things to dry out. Once we got out we started hiking with a small group who we have actually been hiking with for a little while now. There is Orca who is from Portland, Or, Dayglow who is from Massachusetts or "Mass" as he says it, and Son who is from Washington state. Since the bed and breakfast we hiked through a really cool area with lots of waterfalls.
After a few days we ended up at another hiker hostel called Kincora. Kincora is run by a man named Bob Peoples who is a legend on the AT. He built the entire hostel from logs that he dragged off the property. Bob Peoples is one of, if not the largest AT volunteers our there. He does work projects on the AT every Tuesday. We had a great time there and got to hear lots of stories and good advice from him and Baltimore Jack who was staying there helping Bob out during the busy season. We left there that next morning and headed down to Watuaga Lake. We hiked about 10 miles that day before we set up camp close to a rope swing which some local Hampton, TN boys put up. We had a blast swimming in the lake, going off the rope swing and just chatting with some of the locals.
Once we left the lake we had a quick couple of days to enter into Virginia. We caught back up with some of the group that we had been hiking with before we met Son, and Dayglow (we have kind of been on and off with Orcha since Franklin, NC). We stayed the night at the shelter where they all were since it started raining as soon as we arrived. The next day we decided to push for Damascus. We did our first marathon day going just a little over 26.2 miles, I'll have to pick up my sticker when I get home. It was a hard day doing that many miles, oh and it rained the entire day as well. We stayed in Damascus that night at a hostel called The Place. The next day we were glad to hear that our awesome friend Ray Inman was able to get us a room at the Holiday Inn in Abingdon, VA which is only 10 miles from Damascus. So we hitched a ride into town and man did that hotel feel good!. We were able to walk about a mile down to the cinema in town and see the Avengers which was a great movie and a great break from the trail. Im planning on hiking about 10 miles today once we get back into Damascus.
I updated the care package locations and also posted about 50 new pictures for everyone to look at. My father said that he was going to try and get everyone together up at Hall's Hovel around the weekend of the 9th and 10th of June as I am pushing to be hiking right through there at that time. I wanted to welcome anyone that wants to to come hike The Priest section of the trail with me just before that weekend. I plan on staying at The Priest shelter Thursday the 7th and then do the hike the next Friday, leaving around 8am. If you would like to do the hike with me I would recommend staying at the shelter the night before and hiking out with me in the morning. If you would like to do this try and contact me before and I'll let you know about what you'll need to bring and how we can organize it. Once again sorry for the long post and that its so late but I will from now on try and blog daily.
-Turbo Toes
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Hot Springs, A Detailed Day In A Hiker Town
For dinner that night we went down to the local diner that was highly recommended by all the hikers and by Chuck. We went over there with a couple of our new friends that we met a couple days before this and actually gave one of them his trail name, Solo and 8 O'clock Sharp. We named 8 O'clock Sharp due to when Solo, Tabb and I were playing a game of cribbage in a shelter and he made known that he was going to be going to bed at 8 O'clock, 17 minutes from now, then in 13 minutes, then in 7 minutes. Anyways the dinner at the diner was delicious and we later came to find out that everything we were to eat there would be as well. After dinner we went down to the local bar 500ft away from the diner and had a beer with Solo. Solo is our cribbage buddy who has been playing for about 50 years he says, and has yet to win a game against me. We got to know him a little better and found that he was a youth counselor in Alaska for close to 30 years which was very interesting for my brother due to the fact that he is looking to go into the same kind of field of work.
The next day we went into breakfast and had another amazing meal at this diner. After breakfast we went over to the public library which seemed like the only place anyone in the entire town was able to get internet access. We spent a couple hours there catching up with friends on Facebook and updating the Blog. Afterwards we went back to the hostel, I overheard people talking about work for stay opportunities that we may be able to do. I talked to Chuck about what kind of specialties that we have and let him know I was good with landscaping and my brother was into house flipping back home. When we went over to start working it turned out that the job he wanted us to do was to lay down click together flooring. When my brother heard this he was like "Awesome, this is what I do almost every day." So we got about half of the floor done in a couple hours and Chuck Norris was so surprised and happy that it looked good and that we knew what we were doing since he had never laid click together flooring. After we did our little bit of work we decided that we were going to do hot dogs for dinner on the grill. So we went down to the Hillbilly Market (that is what its actual name is) to get some hot dogs, buns and pickles. When we got back to the hostel we started to grill them up with Chuck and his wife Tigger who were grilling steaks for dinner that night. We had some great conversations with them while we were grilling and found out that they are actually from VA Beach and lived there for about 30 years. They even said that they knew our uncles and used to party on 50th st with them back in the day. After dinner we went down to the tavern again and hung out with all the hikers and played card games. We found out that the town really did revolve around the hikers when the bar even closed just after "Hiker Midnight" which is 9pm.
The next day we were planning on leaving and found that Chuck Norris really wanted us to stay another day and help him finish the floor and he would let us stay for free again and take us out for breakfast. We figured it couldn't really hurt and we did want to finish the job that we started on the floor. After we got another delicious breakfast from the diner in town we started back on the floor. We finished it around 1pm and still had most of the day to relax. We decided we were going to go down to the market again and to buy some food to cook to save a little bit of money. We ended up actually getting a great deal on some frozen steaks, $7 for two one pound rib eyes. So we picked those up along with some mashed potatoes and a carton of chocolate ice cream and had an awesome lunch. After lunch our plan was to watch the first Lord of The Rings movie and play Wisest Wizard. Some of you older followers may have to look that up to find out what it is. We soon went into a food coma and fell asleep an hour into the movie. Later that night we were able to catch back up with Footloose who we haven't seen in about a week. It was really good catching up with him but he was going to be staying another day and we were heading back to the trail in the morning so we agreed to try and meet back up after we get back from staying with friends in Asheville.
The next day it was raining in the morning and the electricity was even going in and out. We just sucked it up because we knew if we didn't get on our way or we thought we were never going to leave the town. Chuck Norris drove us down to the diner where we were going to have breakfast again before we left hoping that the storm would pass when we were eating. We had one last nice meal with him and then headed out on our way pleased to see that the rain had stopped and we would get to be walking in an overcast day without rain.
It felt really good to be back on the trail but it was sad to leave such a nice little town. I really recommend going there if you are looking for a place to get away for a while. They have a lot of fun things to do there that we didn't get to do such as white water rafting and staying in the natural mineral baths that are offered from the resort for a daily price. Well this is what it is like in a trail town so if you see us not hiking for a little while on the spot tracker I hope you can now understand why.
-Turbo Toes
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Magic, Rain, and the power of Croc's!
This section though some good/tough memories were made.
We were walking down this particularly scenic part of the trail following a stream with the occasional water fall, really enjoying the walk. See some cars down by a road with people meandering about, wondered what the group was up to. Got down to the road and began to walk by the group and said a friendly "hello, how are you?" in which one of the men responded
"you guys thru hikers?"
"we are"
"I know it's only nine a.m. and a bit early but you want a beer?"
look at my brother and smile, "why we would love a beer." he continues to open his trunk and hands us both a cold one.
then he said "we've come here to do a little trail magic"
It was awesome. two thru hikers and one section hiker friend along with two wives came up to North Carolina for a trail reunion and set up a wonderful trail magic for some hikers. Tons of food: candy bars, snacks, these absolutely delicious croissant chicken salad sandwiches, beers, and sodas. Of course Turbo and I stopped for an hour or two and kind of gorged ourselves on the amazing food. Great conversations with MoonDoggy and his wife Kelly. Felt so rejuventated and connected to these people after our hour long visit with them.
We somehow managed to pull ourselves away from the magic to continue the hike and moved on. All we talked about for the next few miles though was how cool the people were and great the food was. Then it started raining.
Twas a cold rain. We threw on our ponchos and pushed our way up and down the hills. After a few hours we hit a shelter and decided to stop there after only a 10 mile walk. The shelter was full of course so we pitched our tent during a lull in the rain, unpacked and joined the people at the shelter for conversation while we ate our dinners. It rained all night and we woke up to the rain in our tents, we tried to wait to see if it would stop, but around 10 a.m. we gave up waiting we got up and packed our tents away wet. It was our first day on the trail leaving during a rain storm. The day started out not to bad, just a steady drizzle and we were staying pretty dry. The weather just got worse from there though. As the day continued the drizzle turned heavier, the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped. The highlight of the misery was walking across Max Patch bald. A bald, for those of you who do not know, is a mountain top covered in grass with no trees to block the view or, unfortunately for us, the wind. Instead of a nice 360 degree view and a chance to lay in soft grass we were bombarded with 20 mph wind laced with 40 degree rain blowing horiztonally into our ponchos. We were hoping for a 15 mile day but Max Patch wiped the energy right out of us. It was a struggle to walk and each of us slipped in the mud once, our bodies were so numb it didn't really hurt to hit the ground but getting even more wet when it was that cold was not good.
We ended up at shelter finally, which of course was full, but Turbo's ingenuity pulled through once again. We ended up staying under the shelter in about a 3 foot crawl space. There were 6 of us down there and it really felt like an adventure. The weather was terrible, cold rain that turned into hail, but we were under cover cracking jokes and getting warm in our 20 degree sleeping bags. We even got offered two beers in town by one of the appreciative guys that we told about our secret shelter under the shelter. (He just bumped into me while I'm typing this, having that beer later tonight.)
The next day was kind of epic. Turbo woke up early and started a fire with ice covered sticks. Lots of bonus points accrued there. The whole shelter slowly woke up and thawed their frozen boots by the fire. My "water-proof" boots were soaking wet after thawing out and Turbo's toe shoes were the same, so that day we left the shelter and hiked in croc's (the slipper shoes), walked 18 miles in the snow and ice in them, and finally made it into hot springs last night for a hot shower and clean sheets.
Taking our 6th zero day today. We're about to go do a work for stay project that the hostel owner allows. We'll work in the garden, clean some windows, or wash some clothes in exchange for a night in a bed. I'll also be picking our my class schedule for William and Mary today. So much to do on the zero day.
Hope the long post was interesting enough to read.
-Tabb
Day 20
The weather was actually decent today. We were expecting rain but it was no where to be seen. There should still be rain the next couple days though sadly. We woke up in a cloud though today which was pretty cool and soon realized why these mountains are called the smokys.
We hiked about 20 miles today and I think I'm gonna give up my vibrams and switch to my low top boots. They were just not very much fun in the rain and after a while I just start to not like hiking due to the fact that I'm constantly thinking about my feet while I'm hiking in them. I suppose I may need to get a new trail name, I guess we'll see its still pretty early on in the trail.
We were able to make it in a shelter tonight which was really nice. We prefer the shelters over having to set up our tents, I think mainly just because they allow more room to move around in. Tonight will be our last night in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It kind of stinks since all the shelters and mileage signs were really nice but maybe it'll be less crowded getting out of here. Goodnight everyone.
-Turbo Toes
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Our visit to Brevard
Wow what a nice time we had here with the Burghardts. We stayed for about three days with them and could have stayed longer if we didn't feel the need to get back to the trail. They were very amazing hosts to us. They drove a bit of a ways to come pick us up which we were surprised they would do for us. Then they took us to a buffet that night and they got to see how hikers eat coming right off the trail. Every meal we had with them was so delicious. Donna took us on a walk about her town and we were able to go to their nice bakery and cool toy store. We just wanted to say thank you so much for your hospitality and a very relaxing and rejuvinating stay. We hope to see yall again very soon.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Day 14
Didn't sleep very well last night due to the cramped camping spots causing us to sleep on a slant. We got up and were on our way by about 845am.
We actually had kind of a hard day today I was feeling pretty sick earlier with some stomach problems but I started feeling better after a quick rest at a shelter along the trail. We hiked about 16 miles to finish at a shelter. This is the first time that we were abke to sleep in a shelter. I was pretty much running on the trail to make sure we could get a spot. I even went about 3 miles without water towards the end since Tabb had the filter and he was behind me. It definitly paid off though because there were only 3 spots left in the shelter when I got there and I passed 4 people on the way. We get to fall asleep to a fire in the fire place tonight and someone playing Native American sounding music on their wood flute. We are getting picked up tomorrow by Craig, my dads old college roommate, and we'll get a chance to relax and get cleaned up. I think we may go a little slower when we get back on the trail to wait for some of the guys we were hiking with before, we are actuay kind of missing all of them.
We should be able to have service tomorrow night if anyone wants to call us, have a goodnight everyone.
-Turbo Toes
Day 13
We had a nice start this morning. We ended up camping with a few guys from Maine who are pretty cool guys. We left the campsite and hiked about 10 miles to get to Fontana Village, NC.
Fontana was a pretty nice town, a bit of a resort town. While we were there a Honda 2000 convention was in town and there were about 40 of them driving all over the town. We stopped and had a nice BBQ sandwich at a restaurant there in town. Once we ate we went back on our way to the trail.
The trail kind of went through the town a bit and we were able to meet a bunch of nice people. After eating at the restaurant we got a ride back to the trail by a man named Jeff who was in town with his family from St. Luis. They were there just enjoying all the outdoor recreation that Fontana and it surrounding areas had to offer.
Once we got back on the trail we had a hard hike up to start off the Smokey Mountains. We did a total of about 15 miles today. We are starting to realize if we want to ever stay in a shelter or get a good camping spot we need to show up earlier than 3pm! It really stinks that we hike hard long days and get really crappy spots to camp because some people are only hiking about 6-10 miles a day and then setting up camp. We are really looking forward to the point when the groups start thinning out. Thanks for listening to me complain a little tonight everyone, goodnight.
-Turbo Toes
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Thanks for the Trail Magic!!
Just before we arrived in Franklin we received a message from our Father that there was a package waiting for us at the post office! When got to town we couldn't wait to see what goodies we were to receive. They sent us all kinds of things from candy bars to rice and noodles. We also got our favorite thing as well, homemade chocolate chip cookies made by Mrs. Manion! There were even enough cookies too share with other hikers. We just wanted to say thanks and we loved the package.
We also really appreciated the beers that Dan and Ray left for us at the road crossing. Sad to say though we weren't able to find them. Another hiker may have grabbed them or probably just some kids that dont care. We still appreciated the thought.
- Turbo Toes and Tabb
Day 11
This morning was freezing!!! I felt really nice in my sleeping bag but when I got up it was pretty misserable putting away the tent. I was actually pretty warm mostly everywhere but my hands. Everything I did had to be in incriments of 45 seconds before I needed to put my hands back in my pockets to warm them up again.
We did a 17 mile day today ending in a place called the "NOC" (nantahalla outdoor center). Its a place where they do white water trips and the AT goes right through the complex.
During our hike I was in front of Tabb for a while when I saw a sign for a side trail that went off to a view, I decided to go up there and left a note for Tabb drawn on the ground in really large letters to let him know where I was going. When I came down it didn't take me long to realize that he didn't see my sign and thought that I was still in front of him. Needless to say we didn't see each other again for eight miles till we both arrived at the NOC. He arrived 2 hours before I did partly to the fact that he thought he was trying to catch up to me and also because I was having a problem with my knee due to a very steep downhill that went on for about 5 miles. I told another hiker that was walking in front of me that I was having some knee problems and if he saw my brother to tell him to wait up for me. He however didn't see my brother until he arrived at the NOC. Tabb decided to get a room for the both of us at the hostel here when hearing about my knee problem so that I could get some better rest.
After a while on the trail with my knee gurting I realized that I had not been adjusting my straps on my backpack for going downhill for some reason. Once I realized that and adjusted my straps I was now leaning back on the downhill instead of forward taking a lot of the pressure off my knees and I stopped getting the pain. Hopefully this was the only reason for my knee pain and I don't feel it tomorrow.
Anyway after a nice shower and hanging out with some friends I'm gonna get some sleep and do it all again tomorrow. Have a good night everyone.
-Turbo Toes
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Day 10
We stayed in Franklin North Carolina last night. It aas a pretty neat little town. A man named Ron Haven took especially good care of us while we were in town. He drove us pretty much anywhere we needed to go and gave us all kinds of good advice as well as good stories. We started our hike a little late today, around noon. However we still were able to do about 15 miles before 630pm.
My favorite part of the day today was eating lunch on a bridge with a waterfall right in front of us. Also we packed in a few hot dogs from town and were able to cook those on the fire tonight. Well not much more than that happened today, it was kind of a boring hiking day.
We did however get a nice view in one spot towards then end of the hike. It is supposed to get in the 20's tonight so I'm gonna go ahead and curl up in my sleeping bag.
-Turbo Toes
Monday, April 9, 2012
Trail Names
Moo and Gordo - our first encounter with trail magic, a feast in the forest, one keg per day as much food as you want
Chatty Kathy (that's kathy with a K!) - funniest person i've met in a long time, told the most ridiculous stories and had me laughing uncontrollably about 7 times in a twenty minute rant of his.
Zig Zag- given the name zig zag for the way he runs downhill. skinny twenty year old with long dreads and hikes about twice the speed of everyone else.
Pebbles- zig zag's compatriot, had the craziest blisters i've seen yet, one on the back of each heel 1.5 inches across, looked like a 3rd degree burn
Crocatoeahh (Croc)- gave him a "nice beard" business card, he has a 10 inch goatee and a penchant for wearing crocs
SandStorm- former marine and all around good new englander (patriots fan). good conversations.
Diesel- old ripped dude who loves hiking
Baltimore Jack- thru hiked the trail 9 times, yoyo'd twice (that's up and back twice). worked at neel's gap mountain crossing and everything he said I paid attention to
Footloose- our first hiking companion and still with us
The Hiking Viking-hiker from Denmark, and super cool
there are more and more, but i must get off the computer now.
I made it into William and Mary!
I think i'm going by just my middle name now until I'm dubbed something else that rings true. not feeling jack danger anymore.
-Tabb
Day 8
Biggest day yet so far! We hiked over 25 miles today. It was such a beautiful hike as well, almost all of it.through tunnels of hydrangeas.
We had a big burst of energy come our way this morning when there was a group doing easter morning trail magic breakfast that we stopped by. We each got a 6 egg omelet with bacon and sausage as well as a sandwich and snacks for later on the trail. I've decided to hike the entire trail with my vibrans and will be sending my boots home when I get to Franklin. I've also changed my name a little and am now going by Turbo Toes. We did a far hike today so that we could spend most of the day in Franklin. Well I'm cold from typing so goodnight everyone.
-Turbo Toes
Day 7
We left town today to get back on the trail. It was really nice to have a rest day. The shuttle took us back and we started the hike at about 945am. We hiked for about 12 miles today and I experienced what I thought waz the steepest climb so far. We finished our first state today and crossed into North Carolina at about 2pm. We are slowly getting closer to the smokies. Its been getting a bit chillier at night than it used to which is nice because my sleeping bag has been getting really warm.
I've hiked two strong days in my five fingers and feel like if im still liking them by the time I get to Franklin I will mail my boots home. Right now I am just carrying them in my pack and they are just weighing me down. If I send them back I can loose 3 more pounds in weight, which will feel great! I also won our first game of trail cribbage using dice instead of a board. It worked but didn't really give us the aspect of the chase like the peg boards do. Well I'm gonna get to bed, it feels weird going to sleep at 9pm every night but feels good to start the day off early
-Turbo
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Day 5
Footloose decided to head to town this morning because he was feeling really bad and needed some relax time to get himself healthy again.
So JD and I headed down the trail. We came across the trail magic place we heard about the day before and realized it was a lot closer to where we camped than we expected. We were a bit dissapointed that we missread the maps due to the fact that we could have a nice dinner if we would have hiked just a little bit further. We were able to get some hot breakfast however which was amazing! We had eggs, potatoes and spiral ham. This was just the boost we needed.
We went on to hike a bit further than we planned to today and went all the way to the road to Haiwassee, 15 miles down the trail. We were not able to get a shuttle so we had to hitch a ride. This is the first time either of us have done this. After about an hour and a half someone coming from town pulled into the parking lot. Seasdog and his wife were bring another hiker back to the trail on there way out of town and decided they would go back and take us to town since there were no more shuttles coming and we had already been trying to hitch for an hour and a half with no success, a lot of people waving at us and giving us thumbs up. Seadog and his wife were great, as soon as they pulled up they gave us an ice cold beer.
We got to motel and it was already filled with thru hikers. Once we set our bags in the room we heard, "hey we're driving to a buffet down the road if anyone wants to come." Naturally JD and I looked at each other and said, "yeah we're in!" Six big hikers piled into a a little honda civic and pulled into the buffet. At the buffet I had 4 whole fried hicken winges, a rack of ribs, about a half pound of mashed potatoes, some corn on the cob and a piece of chocolate cake. Even all this just felt like how I feel when I eat a cheeseburger and fries when im at home.
After dinner we decided to walk back to the motel and get some beer on the way home. When we got back we just sat on the porch of the motel with a handful of other hikers just chatting about, drinking and relaxing.
I just headed into bed a little while ago and found out it was a really good idea we decided to come into town today. It is pooring outside right now.
We are going to take a zero mileage day tomorrow and let our bodies rejuvinate a bit so we don't wear ourselves down and get injured. We'll be back on the trail Saturday morning. We'll have our phones on tomorrow if anyone wants to text us. If you want to call and chat call us after 9pm so that our minutes don't run, if you just want to give us a quick "hi" durring the day that would be ok though.
Have a great night everyone!
-Turbo
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Day 4
We heard of our first bear encounter today. About five miles away from where we camped two groups had their food bags taken. They were able to recover a fuel bottle that had punctures in it.
Other than that prretty much all we did today was hike, and hike some more. We completed 18 miles today before we set up camp. JD and Footloose are feeling pretty horrible. Footloose has a bit of a cold or allergies right now and if he is still feeling bad tomorrow morning we might part ways for him to go back to the road and hitch to town for rest. On the plus side though we hit our 50 mile mark, which is pretty good for less than 3.5 days. They actually give out a patch for that in the boy scouts.
We hear that there will possibly be some trail magic tomorrow and there will be someone 2 miles or so from where we camped who will be cooking breakfast for hikers, which would be amazing! These are the kinds of things that push us up the trail. After we can some breakfast hopefully we will only have a 13 mile day tomorrow and then on Friday... Hiawassee!!
-Turbo
Day 3
I feel like we are starting to get the hang of the hiking. We really seemed to pick up the pace today. We completed over 11 miles easy by about 5pm with a long lunch at mountain crossing lodge. The lodge was a great place to hang out for a bit. JD and I were able to send back a lot of the things we didn't need while we were there even though we wanted to keep them, 12 pounds of things between the two of us. There were a few things that we really didn't want to part with including my throwing knives and his hat. Also while we were up there we met Baltimore Jack who told us lots of cool tips about the trail (he has thru-hiked 9 times). After a couple of hot dogs we were back on the trail.
We encounted our first thunderstorm and found out that our ponchos really seemed to work well. We were glad to hear from an oncomming hiker that we just missed a hail storm by about 15 minutes. We are camped out now and still have Footloose with us. Even though it rained we were able to get our first fire of the trip going.
JD and I seem to be doing really well and are having a blast out here. We are about a day ahead of schedule so if anyone was planning on sending us care packages push the ETA forward a day. Good night everyone!
-Turbo
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Day 2
Today was a great day! We saw tons of great views today and even got a great picture of buzzards for buzzy. We ended up hiking an additional 7-8 miles than what our planned day was, so about 16 miles today.
We met a few awesome people today one awesome guy in particular that seemed to be going our pace and was planning on stopping at the same place as us to camp. His name is Footloose. He seems to really click well with jack and I. He taught us how to play yuker and we invited over the prettiest girl we have seen on the trail yet. She seemed pretty cool and its too bad we probably wont see her again anytime soon after tonight because she is not at our same pace.
The one bad thing that happened today was that the food I made last night had a good dose of vegetable oil in it thanks to jack. It was a little too much and I ended up feeling really bloated all night and couldn't sleep past 330am. I got him back though because he was behind me most of the hike and walked into all of gas traps I left for him.
We go to our first hostile tomorrow but will probably only end up staying for lunch because we have another 5 miles atleast to hike after that to feel productive. At the hostile we will be able to eat a few hot dogs and mail home any of the gear we don't need so we are pretty excited to get there.
-Turbo
Day 1
So I think that today was a great first day! We got to the trail a little late but ended up still finishing our first day's goal. We had to backtrack about a mile from the parking lot to get to the top of springer mountain (trail start) and then ended up hiking about 8 miles from there to the hawk mountain shelter. The shelter and everywhere sourounding is packed probably around 40 people here. We saw something kind of interesting also, there were a lot of military men and women hiking around near the entrance to the shelter. I suppose they hiked a little further down (not actually on any trails) and I suppose now they are doing some sort of war game due to all the gunfire we can here in the distance. Hopefully I can get some sleep through it. We have another short day tommorrow, only hiking about 7 miles. Tomorrows hike shouldn't be too bad I think since we have the entire day and we hiked about 9 miles today in about 4 hours. We'll see maybe we'll push past our goal. I have been using our tracker so you should be able to see our progress if you check the link. Good night everyone.
-Turbo,
Sunday, April 1, 2012
The morning before we go
My pack is too heavy. I am not sure if I overpacked or my body just needs to be tougher. Even though we tried to go as light as possible all of my gear, 5 days or a bit more of food, and 3 litres of water adds up to 42 pounds. I was hoping for 35. I'm sure we will streamline as we go on and mail the extras home or delightfully toss them off a cliff.
Although I am hopeful, realistically I am expecting myself to summit the beginning hills slowly and painfully. I'll notice that pack every step I imagine, good thing it's mostly weighed down with delicious food.
It is hard to separate from my friends and family for so long, but I am hoping some great things will come from this walk. Today is the day I begin a new adventure and take another step (pun?) towards continually maturing myself. We have an 8 mile hike to the top of springer mountain today to get to the southern terminus of the trail. Then 2186 miles to finish. How do you eat an elephant?
-jack danger
The cat on my mind
Thursday, March 29, 2012
On the bus!
We just got on our bus heading to atlanta. We have a 2.5 hour layover in richmond which will really stink. I think a little cribbage will be in order. If anyone up in rva wants to come hang out with us at 1am give me a call or shoot me a text. We should be arriving in Norcross, GA around 5pm Friday.