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I have had less time to write because we have been hiking a 8-5 “shift” and then I spend my time stretching and doing chores. We have been joking this week that thru-hiking mostly consists of walking and doing chores (setting up, unpacking, cooking, cleaning, eating, packing up, cleaning more, etc.) We’ve had a lovely second week on trail and even crossed our first state boundary into North Carolina!! This was the first time in my life that I have hiked into a new state. However, Strider and I have learned a couple hard lessons since the only way to learn how to thru hike is to thru hike. So for this week I thought I’d share them with you, thanks for reading!
Also, Strider made a public instagram account to update our status on the trail! If interested, check it out! @striders_way
Heyyyy North Carolina
1. Contrary to the name, “Dry bags” have a limit.
This is the biggest lesson learned this week because when I am hiking, food is the most important thing. I am so food motivated and without knowing I have a good dinner or snacks ahead, the day can easily just feel bleh. Well we got our resupply box in Hiawassee, perfectly planned for five days of hiking to get to Franklin, NC. On the third night out from town, we slept in a shelter (thank goodness) during a gigantic rain storm. We had been hearing about this rain storm all week and have yet been able to time our zeroes with rain. So we just decided to hike a shorter day and get to a shelter before the real scary part started. Weather reports were predicting 3.5” of rain overnight. If you don’t know how much rain that is, you’re in good company cause neither did I.
Luckily Muskrat shelter in North Carolina was a deep shelter so the six of us packed in there stayed dry all night. However it was raining so hard outside I genuinely could not believe it. It didn’t let up all night and sounded like someone was dumping a giant bucket of water on the tin roof above us from 3 pm to 9 am. I didn’t even realize it was possible to rain that much, logistically, like where does all that water even come from? We ended up getting 4” of rain and I woke up feeling grateful to be dry. This was pretty much immediately turned to dispair when I grabbed my dry bag from the bear hang and realized ALL of my food had soaked through. Strider and I decided to use a dry bag instead of an ursak that night to avoid soaking our ursak and making it so much heavier. But we forgot one vital component that everyone else in the shelter had. A plastic bag INSIDE of the dry bag. The dry bag has limits and my soaked oats and cold soaked ramen and pasta can tell you that 4” is over that limit. It was such a morale killer after a night like last night, especially looking out at the trail and seeing nothing but a river. We were still 26 miles from a place we could easily get into town and our legs were in no condition to push that in a day.
This is what all my food looked like.
We tried eating a wet Mac and cheese for breakfast to save weight but it tasted like actual vomit so we packed it out. The trail provided though. A woman named Trinity gave us some of her homemade chia seed oatmeal (dry!) and a man named UV gave us all his extra dinners. Without these two meals there would’ve been a night where we actually had nothing to eat. I feel so grateful for them as my hiker hunger has increased so even the food we packed from Hiawassee (if it stayed dried) probably wouldn’t have been enough. All being said, this is a mistake I will make only once in my life.
2. Tight calves are deadly
Since the very first day my calves have been extremely tight. I stretch them everyday but only to a certain point. Earlier this week I realized my arch in my foot was really starting to hurt. It was this sore type of tenderness that I could hardly walk on some mornings until I stood on the cork ball and rolled them out. I started to get anxious that I was developing Plantar Fasciitis already, which is the #1 thing that takes out a thruhiker. Obviously this thought made me start to panic and I would stop multiple times a day to tape my feet, massage them, and give them breaks. (Hard to do in the rain since it’s so cold currently)
Luckily, Trinity, a lady who literally saved our spirits this week is an ultra runner and Iron Man so she has seen her fair share of injuries. I asked her what to do about my developing Plantar and she told me that it wasn’t an arch thing, it was actually a calf thing. See, the calf is so strong that when it is tight, it pulls the foot muscles up which makes them tired and ache. It can turn into plantar but she told me that I should focus on rolling out my calf three times a day and I will see more progress. The man at Outdoor 76 in Franklin (what a sweet store) made the analogy that I went from working a desk job to now being a “professional athlete” working out 6-8 hours a day. I need to eat, stretch, and sleep like a professional athlete now. I’ve been seeing some progress since I developed a calf stretching routine!
Strider using Trinity’s GENIUS roller on her trekking pole
3. 6 oz. fuel does not last as long as you want it to.
This one’s a short one that kind of relates to #1 and is pretty straight forward. Strider kept his fuel from the first week into the second because it “sounded like it had enough”. There’s really no way to measure the amount. I was very graciously gifted a fuel by a man who was carrying six of them and realized that might’ve been overkill. However, Strider’s fuel died almost immediately into the second resupply and we were both using mine. That made it go exponentially quick and we ended up killing my fuel in only a couple days. Again, the trail provided, and many people at camp were willing to let us use theirs for a bit (a lot of people around us are carrying at least two fuels) to have a warm meal.
I learned this week that Mac and cheese will cook if you dump it into boiling water and turn off the fuel and let it sit. I learned oatmeal is actually more edible to me dry. And i stopped drinking coffee for a couple days thinking maybe it’s time for my caffeine cleanse. Fuel lasts about 6 days. That’s all.
4. Hiking your own hike can be lonely.
Since I last posted, everyone in our original squad has gotten shuffled around. Some people are pushing big miles, some got off in the rain storm, a couple even got sick with the flu. All these variables meant that for a couple days, Strider and I were hiking virtually alone. We would get to camp and no one would be there and would see like 3 people on trail all day. We were laughing that we thought the AT was supposed to be the trail of anti-solitude, what’s happening!? I feel lucky to be hiking with Strider, but we miss all our friends. We are still finding our trail legs and are in no rush to push 20 mile days right now as 12-14 is perfectly enough at the moment.
As I mentioned in a previous post, my #1 goal this hike is to slow down. I have forever had that New England energy of “how much can I possibly do in one day” and even though I love being productive, I have noticed that my competitiveness can actually be detrimental, especially on thru-hikes that should be so personal. I know from the Colorado Trail that big mile days will come in Virginia and Pennsylvania and there really is no use is increasing the risk of hurting myself right now just to prove that I can. I’m in no rush. My only deadline right now is Trail Days in Demascus, VA on May 14 and when Katahdin closes in October. Those are so far away! I want to slow down and notice the baby flowers poking through, the buds in the trees, bask in the wet smell of dirt, and marvel at the look out points. I’m in no rush!
April showers bring ….
Climbing all the fire towers and enjoying views when we get them!!
5. Noro is a forever looming threat.
Well, one of the biggest reasons why me and Strider were hiking alone is because the “giant” bubble that started on March 31 and April 1 have been plagued with norovirus. Or so, that’s what rumors from people we met on trail who have met a few lucky ones who avoided it and lived to tell the tale. If you don’t know what norovirus is, congratulations. Perhaps the best way to describe it is Strider and Iceberg said in the Marines they call it “double dragon”. Three days of not being able to keep any nutrition in your body as it’s coming out one way or another. From my understanding, it spreads from feces and it is so contagious in groups of people. It’s a real danger in elementary schools where kiddos aren’t washing their hands properly.
Now enter the Appalachian Trail, where most people are using privvys next to the shelters to do their business and a lot of people probably don’t realize hand sanitizer doesn’t kill viruses. You HAVE to wash your hands with soap. Once I learned that norovirus is looming closer then we thought, I became the hand washing demon. It’s a double edge sword though because once you start thinking about everything you’re touching, cause viruses can live for days on surfaces, you realize you’re screwed. I’m trying to reduce my risk though! Not eating while I read the log book, not touching a single damn thing in the privvy, no more sharing food, and washing my hands before I touch anything on my face. I’m trying!! Ahhhhh
6. Don’t send home your cold clothes until you experience a cold day.
Maybe another, okay duh, one. I have been carrying some warmer layers (leggings and a wool long sleeve) to wear to bed if I need to get out of wet clothes or if the night is extra cold. It’s been so hot for the first week and a half of hiking I was looking forward to shipping them home in Franklin and dropping some weight. However, as if God wanted to prove a lesson to me, one night the temperature dropped down to 34 degrees, 24 with wind chill, and taught me no way should I drop any layer. I’m not even in the Smoky’s yet which I heard the weather can have a high of 25 degrees. Lesson learned, I won’t send anything home until May. 😀
7. It’s okay to say no to trail magic.
Last one for now. We have been so blessed to have been getting trail magic at virtually every other gap. We are in one of the “bubbles” now and that means people are cooking for us and setting up beer and burgers at random spots. It’s so awesome especially because it’s completely free! The problem is though, I’m such a budget hiker that I have a really hard time saying no to free stuff, especially when the trail angel is encouraging me to take more. I’ve left trail magics carrying beers, burritos, four veggie burgers, almost a whole box of Emergen-C, and more. And then I get to camp two days later like why the hell is my bag so heavy and not getting lighter? So yeah, I need to get better at saying no and taking only what I need at that moment. It’s just not worth all the weight.
Fruit is such a luxury. So grateful
Imagine seeing this after a long shitty day. Nothing better
Everyday is a learning experience.
Thank you for reading all my fails this week! I want to end this blog post by saying that I am continuing to have the experience of my life. Meeting people from all over the country and the world who have the same dream as mine is so magical. I started this hike to find some hope in humanity again and it has been doing exactly that. Trail angels who set up magic for no reason, people in town who picked up Strider and my breakfast bill and beer tab, The Grove Hostel shuttle drivers who shifted their busy days around to help us out, and other hikers offering their food and fuel to virtual strangers. Everyone is looking out for each other out here and I feel my optimism that has been sucked out of me the past few years slowly creeping back.. Now that’s some trail magic!
Jimbo and dog selfie at the Lazy Hiker brewery
Scooby blessing us with some ukulele
Cheers !!!
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