Date: 2013-07-22
To: Preparing to hike
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

This is the first entry for our 2013 Appalachian Trail hike. I was reluctant to start a page in fear 0f jinxing the whole project. Now that we are closer to our start, and making substantial progress in our preparation, it is time to write about it. Let me introduce ourselves to anyone who don't know who we are. I'm Old Goat and I Thru hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2006. I started on March 15th in Georgia and reached the northern terminus on Katahdin on August 28th. My thru hike was supposed to be a team hike with my wife Check 6 but for reasons I will not get into here I changed the plan to a solo hike. I promised Check 6 that we would have a team thru hike so we planned one for 2009. We started hiking in March from Springer mountain ready to hike all the way to Katahdin in the following 6 months. I was certain we would make it all the way because I knew what it would take, unfortunately I was wrong. We only made it to Massachusetts when we realized it could be life threatening if we continued. (Check 6 had 3 serious falls in our last 10 days.) We terminated our thru hike in mid July and went home. We returned to the trail in 2010 at the place where we ended our thru hike with plans to go all the way to Katahdin. We hiked thru Massachusetts and into Vermont that year only to have to terminate our plans due to a knee injury I developed. I eventually had knee surgery that Fall to correct a torn meniscus on my right knee.In 2011 we returned again to Vermont with intentions of completing the trail. This time we finished Vermont, hiked through New Hampshire and into Maine before we went home for a family wedding with the intentions of returning in the following week. While we were at the wedding we learned my father was being admitted into Hospice that Monday. There was no way I would be away in the Maine woods while he was slipping away from us. Fortunately for him and us he lived a little longer than expected and I am grateful for the extra time we had together. Summer 2012 looked good for us until we hit the trail. When we got out there we learned that a Noro Virus was being passed around the trail community in New Hampshire and Maine. We did not meet anyone with the virus but many knew people who did have it. They told stories just leaving Gorham, NH where they left friends who were holding up to get their energy back and get over the virus. The unknown was did these hikers have the virus that would show up later on in their hike. We decided that we could not afford to contract the virus (I have leukemia and my immune system is weakened) so we terminated our hike and took a vacation in Maine instead.Okay that brings us to 2013 and we will be going back to Maine to resume our dream of hiking the entire AT together. Our plan is to get dropped off at Maine 17 (Oquossoc, ME mile 1952.3) with 233.6 miles to the northern terminus (the famous Katahdin sign). Our first goal is to hike to Stratton Maine where we'll assess our progress, if all is good we'll press on to Caratunk, Monson, and Katahdin.Before we start we plan to hide a metal ammo can with food in the hundred mile wilderness. We expect to take 10 days thru the wilderness and the weight of that much food would be staggering. Because we are driving to Maine we'll have our car available to go into the wilderness on one of the dirt roads to stash the cache. As you can see, this journey has had many detours and roadblocks. I'm optimistic now as everything is going as planned and we're making substantial progress toward heading out. We have been hiking The Finger Lakes Trail in New York State to shakedown our bodies and equipment the last few weeks. Our hiking is going well and we are feeling better each day. We have set up our food drops and they are ready to mail or drop off. I think we can say we are ready both physically and mentally. We have another family wedding coming up and after that we will head out.More details of our previous hikes are all here in Trailjournals take a look if you would like more.