How it Went Since I did not take diligent notes throughout our trip about how things went, I decided to ask Zoe what she thought. What follows is what she said about our month on the AT. I then heavily edited it, so you know, for everything bad blame me, everything good, credit her. Socially It was great. It met expectations, which is a good thing. We had a more social hiking experience, which was one of our goals. On the PCT, we ended up very socially isolated and that made things all the more difficult. We learned what a thru hike of the AT would be like, if we wanted to do that. One thing that was good that we didn’t plan on, was trying out different styles of hiking. On the 3rd day for example, we did 9 miles and then just hung out. Overall we got to try out a more relaxed style of hiking, where we weren’t only concerned with a time goal. On the PCT on the other hand, we were constantly measuring things against the October 1 “deadline” to get to Kennedy Meadows South. ...

Rolodex, Ultra, and Townsman camped with us last night. It was great having company again. Somehow not only did the number of women increase, but Townsman and I were outnumbered. I think that was a first for Zoe and I on trail. Rolodex, Ultra, Zoe, and I all planned to do the Damascus marathon tomorrow: 26.2 miles from the shelter to the center of town. We talked about when we’d leave in the morning. ...

Is today really over at 2:45pm? It seems unlikely, but that’s the plan. Last night we got a message from Rolodex, the Damascus marathon is on for Thursday. Well, so much for spreading out the distances. We’ll do one last day together. Moving away from the meth heads last night was a good call. Zoe said she still heard people shouting in the night. Sunrise this morning was nice. I stayed in bed an extra 30 minutes because I knew today would be short and tomorrow we’re likely going to start early. But it was warm early. No need for layers anymore. I said to Zoe, “remember when we were sleeping with our filters?” Not long ago it was near or below freezing at night so we’d sleep with our water filters in our sleeping bags to prevent them from freezing which renders them ineffective against bacteria. ...

I slept in 30 minutes today which made all the difference, I think. Blue Man camped next to us. He arrived when we were in the tent getting ready for bed at 7:00pm. Zoe calls him Old Man GPS because he started the same day as us at Springer mountain, we didn’t know his name, and the only thing he told us about himself was that carrying his Garmin InReach (satellite SOS device) was “one of the compromises he made with his spouse.” When Zoe asked what else he compromised on, he said that was it, really. Zoe carries one for us. Out here we don’t even turn it on anymore. One less thing to charge. ...

Well we really crammed the ramps into the pot in last night. I even tried making some tea with them after dinner. The tea wasn’t good but the ramps were nice. I heard a weird noise outside last night and shined my headlamp out to find a dog exploring the camp. I shouted at it and it ran off. We must have been by a neighborhood because there were a bunch of dogs barking. I struggled to fall back asleep until I put my earplugs in. The 6am alarm went off and I didn’t feel well rested. ...

What a great campsite we had last night: flat, quiet, shaded, creek access, and all to ourselves. The ramp addition to the ramen bomb was a great success. Well it didn’t change much but added some green to our meal which was great. The plan for the day was 17 miles, which was the closest good campsite we could find to 15 miles. At the front of our minds today though was our exit strategy. We planned to rent a car when we finish and drive back to Michigan. This was going to be the most economical option for us, given it is about a 9 hour drive. Our original end date was Friday, so we planned to rent a car on Saturday and drive back all day. Well now it looks like we will finish a day earlier but the car renal prices doubled ($200 vs $100) now when we looked to make the same reservation a day earlier. We did some tweaking and found something that will work for $137 for Friday. ...

We did it: a 15 mile day. And we are done by 2:30. Zoe found us a beautiful quiet campsite that’s in a spruce forest and right now we have it all to ourselves. It’s still early but I suspect it’ll stay that way. We woke up at 6 and Ultra beat us out of camp. We camped with Ultra, Speedy, Swanson, and Magic Man. We might have been the only ones sleeping with our food. Bear storage isn’t required on the AT, only recommended. And if our bear bags weren’t in storage in Seattle, we’d be using them. I’m not sure how I feel about hanging food, I think I’d rather just sleep with it so that’s what we do when there aren’t bear lockers or established bear lines at our campsites. Ultra though, she was doing everything. She had a bear bag and a bear canister. I suspect she added the canister when the bear bag wasn’t enough to hold all her food. Most people just use a grocery bag for overflow and sleep with it, at least on the PCT. ...

Well today we were supposed to do 15 miles. We did 20. The terrain was rough and slow going today. We had to take a detour due to some damage from Helene (a new one from the one in town yesterday) and the detour didn’t have much info on it. We started the detour at 14.25 miles. It was 5.7 miles long. We walked the whole thing before finding a campsite. At first on the detour, it was too early despite there being both water and passable campsites. Then the detour became a road which had water but no campsites. Finally it diverted away from water and roads, and the campsites reappeared but we weren’t carrying enough water to camp. So we ended up doing too much. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll do less. ...

Ok first off, the pound cake was much better than it felt. However Warren, tell Lauren (his wife) they’re over baked. Maybe she knows that and instead of throwing them away, gave to Warren to eat but he gave them away and accidentally besmirched her reputation as the Bald Mountain Baker. It was cold last night because of wind but by the morning it had stopped. I still started in gloves because I had been burned twice by not starting in them. Our 6am alarm has been timing our departure well with first light. After starting out, we first went back by the campsite we rejected yesterday, and down quite a bit. Today was supposed to be mostly down, but nothing is really that simple on the AT. ...

Last night around the campfire we ended up swapping Johnathan stories. It started when someone said they don’t like being around him because Johnathan gives him so much anxiety. Johnathan is too unpredictable and that unpredictability makes him feel anxious. Someone said when they first met him he had smeared coals from an old fire on his face, had constructed a small tower of stones and was hopping around like a frog. Someone else said when they met him, he tried to shake his hand and when the recipient said uhh no thanks, germs, Johnathan proceeded to rub the top of his head on the guy’s chest saying, “I don’t mind germs.” Then there was the last night where we all camped with Johnathan who received a beer from Skywalker, vigorously shook the can over his head and opened it over the fire, spraying several folks in the process. He then proceeded to sloppily drink the beer all while spilling it down his front. ...