For several years, Ashley, Rachel and I expressed interest in hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail. This spring, we’ve decided to make this happen. We will begin our hike just after Memorial Day. Over the coming days, we will document our trip through this blog and over video to share a bit of what the planning for this journey requires and what it is actually like. Hiking the Appalachian Trail, also abbreviated and referred to as the AT, is full of folklore, tradition and real stories. We hope to share a few of them with you along the way.
For those of you who do not know, the Appalachian Trail is a continuous 2,200 mile trail starting on top of Springer Mountain in Georgia and ending on top of Mount Katahdin in Maine. A typical “thru-hike” takes about six months to complete. Of course, not everyone attempts a thru hike, most people do a portion or section of the trail. The hiker community refers to these people as section hikers.
We are planning to hike a 115 mile portion of the trail that runs through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. We begin in Waynesboro, Virginia and end in Front Royal Virginia. We will need to cover an average of 13 miles per day to complete this section.
Why?
This is a common question for anyone to ask. Why push yourself to cover such a long distance where everything you have must be carried in a heavy pack on your back?
Why not? This is an opportunity for each of us to experience the outdoors, away from the “rut” of everyday life, disconnected from technology and from the daily routines of life. Perhaps it is an opportunity to “reset” or decompress or to just do something we’ve never done before.
How Do You Start?
Over the coming days, I’ll be using some terminology that is important to remember. Thru-hikers are individuals who complete the entire 2,200 mile trail inside of a 12-month period of time. That’s not us!! Section-hikers are those who take a portion of the trail and complete it. That is us. Some section-hikers eventually complete the entire trail – spanning many years. The abbreviation “AT” will refer to the Appalachian Trail.
How to begin? You start with the idea. Then you start with determination to “make” this happen. You’ll never complete a section hike that spans multiple days unless you use “grit” to complete all of the planning and of course actually do the hike.
I’d encourage you to pick up a book and read it. Many thru-hikers have documented their trail experience in book form covering their hike from Georgia to Maine. There are also many youtube videos available where others documented their hike in video form.
In the coming blog posts, I’ll cover what we’ve been through in the planning process. As a bit of a preview, the first thing I am going to cover in detail is gear. This is one of your most important steps in planning for a hike such as this. Thankfully we started backpacking about 10 years ago, so I’ve had the opportunity to accumulate some much needed equipment.
Your equipment must be lightweight. The most common mistake any backpacker makes is carrying too much weight. My pack plus everything in it will be roughly 30 pounds. My two daughters will be carrying 23 to 25 pounds. This may not seem like a great deal of weight to you, but hung on your back over many miles, it is. Keeping your pack weight down is incredibly hard. You need to weigh absolutely everything and keep a running tally of what your overall pack weight is. I do this in a spreadsheet which I’ll share later.
The heaviest items are your actual backpack, your tent, sleeping bag, food and water. There are many others things you’ll carry but these are the heaviest. If you are not careful, these things alone can consume 20 pounds or more.
I’ll end my first post here. Hopefully this is interesting information. My next post will cover details about the overall trip and of course gear needed.