Date: 2009-01-14
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Miles today: 0.0

Well in exactly one month I will be starting my journey to Georgia and then to the Appalachian Trail.The nice folks from the HikerHostel are picking me up at the Atlanta Marta train station closest to their lodge and then driving me to the trail the next day after a hardy breakfast.I mentioned earlier that I was hiking for "ULSTER PROJECT ARLINGTON" asking people to sponsor my hike by pledging a penny a mile. Well to add to that I am now the subject for a sixth grade class project for a class in Maine. This class will be following my hike and asking me questions by e-mail along the way. Next week the class is studying the relationship of water to the trail and asked about my preparations. The following answers their questions.As far as my preparation concerning water. I have a few water related concerns 1. Drinking water > I need to drink a gallon a day to keep up with the sweat I am expelling and prevent dehydration. I have to either get water on the trail or carry it ..To keep my pack weight down my dinner everynight will be either freeze dried food or dehydrated food, both of which I need to add water to before I cook them. So I probably need a minimum of 5 quarts a day to get by. Since water weighs 2.2 lbs per liter or 8.3 lbs per gallon and sometimes I will be 3 or 4 days from a store I can't carry enough. I will carry 2 or 3 liters so I will need to refill on the way for the rest. I bought a water filter pump (see in Gear section) that removes everything with a micro filter but at the start of my hike it might freeze in the cold weather so I have purchased clorine tablets to add to my water.They also sell iodine tablets but iodine is really not good for people on a long term basis although a little is required by our bodies; that is why we have iodized salt, but a lot can be harmful. It kills the bactria in the water but also kills some of the beneficial bacteria in our digestive systems.( I just saw a news clip on the people in Africa that don't have enough iodine and end up with thyroid problems and goiter). The Appalchian mountain areas used to be part of what was called the GOITER BELT - an area in the United States where people didn't get enough iodine. If people didn't live near the ocean and didn't get to eat seafood they usually didn't get enough iodine to prevent goiter, thus the inland parts of the U.S. was the Goiter Belt. This all changed when we started adding iodine to the salt in the U.S. in the 1920's. 2. Keeping dry,! Rain is a problem with hiking as well as sweating because once I am wet and stop hiking I will cool down very fast and could end up with hypothermia. I have to have a set of dry clothes to change into when I stop for the day before I get the chills.I also have to bring a set of rain gear to wear when it is rainy ( of course this holds my body heat in and makes me sweat more too). Cotton is a fabric that you don't want on the trail because it holds the water and doesn't dry quickly. My clothing will all be synthetics that wick the water away from my body and also dry fast. The problem with the synthetics is that they smell more than cotton when they get sweaty. It is not unusual for trail hikers to be shunned if they go into a small restaurant etc. because they smell. I remember running a Ground Round restaurant in New Bedford,Mass. that was on the waterfront. When the scallop boats came in the fishermen would make us their first stop. A beer and a Steak. For some reason a lot of other people didn't stay in the bar on those nights. Talk about smelling like fish!!!! Anyway,us hikers have the same problem.(Hygiene is a subject for a later entry) 3.Trail condition, Rain makes the trails difficult because the trail automatically ends up being a stream because of erosian. In fact in MAINE most of the trails up the mountains are stream beds that are wet in the spring. I have boots and shoes that are GORETEX lined to be water proof and they have good traction bottoms. The verdict is still out on these as some folks complain about them keeping your feet damp from sweat because they don't let the moisture out. We will see. I have two pair of Northface hiking shoes, lightweight and a pair of Rocky hiking boots, also with GoreTex but heavy, like 3.5 lbs. These are for snow.4. Ice and snow, If the trail gets icy then the hiking will be slow, I am considering a set of clamp ons which act like snowchains for my shoes. To keep the snow out of my shoes I have a pair of gators for my legs. 5. Watersheds, I will be traveling across the tops of the mountains and depending on my location rain that comes down on me could end up either in the Gulf of Mexico and wash up on the TEXAS shore or will end up in the Atlantic Ocean. Well that's all the news about water that I have. As far as being lonely on the trail, I see about 10 people signed up to leave on the same day as me, funny most are 50-60 year old males. I guess as the T-shirt says "All that wander are not lost" but I think a lot of us who wander are also not so sure where we are.> Thanks > O.M.River >