Date: 2007-05-15
From: Watauga Dam Rd.

To: Dennis Cove
Miles today: 14.0

Today is a great day. I've hiked 14 miles on this great day and I'm exactly where I started this morning. I've gone swimming in a lake and next to a waterfall. I've climbed up and down 1500 ft. and my legs aren't sore a bit. I consumed about 6000 calories to top off this wonderful day and never felt better. How have I done all of these things? Because I have discovered the joys of slackpacking. The concept is simple--take only the food and water you need for half a day and put it in a child-size backpack. You get dropped off and hike right back into your starting point to spend another night at a palce you really like. So, my pack today weighed in at a slim 4 1/2 pounds and my energy rose to uncharted levels. I've nnever hiked so fast. I even started to pick the pace up to a jog, just moments before picking myself up off the ground when I tripped on a root and busted my tail. My excitement got the better of me, but I soon learned that today is not about speed, but about enjoying what the trail has to offer. It becomes much easier to do so when your pack weight is reduced by 80% to a mere 3% of your body weight. It is the female's purse for hikers. It has everything you really need, but you feel like it should have more. You just HAVE to be missing something, it's not heavy enough. There is one catch to slackpacking, though. Can you live, as a thru-hiker, knowing you didn't carry your pack the entire way in one direction? At first, I thought no. I gave so much flack to those guys slacking back into Erwin, but last night it hit me like a brick in the face--"Hike your own hike." It doesn't matter how you get there, just THAT you get there. I don't have to prove anything to anyone except me. I've hiked over 400 miles WITH my pack over much tougher terrain. I know I can do it, but MUST I?? I say no. If you disagree, by all means, come and tell me that I'm not a thru-hiker when I get to Maine. Tell me I didn't hike the same miles everyone who came through before me did. Slackpacking isn't even a relevant term anymore. With the technology out now, a 30 pound pack is considered heavy by many. Just 10-15 years ago, that was the minimum. The ways to hike have changed with the trail. I am now back at my favorite spot yet, Kincora. Bob Peoples is an incredible guy. It is hard to decsribe Bob, so I'll start by describing the atmosphere of his place. A quarter mile off the trail is a driveway and a mailbox with generic Wal-Mart stick-on letters spelling out "Kincora". "Could this be it?" is the question I asked myself when I started up the driveway. I walk in and nestled in the forest is a log cabin home stained with the old style dark brown and white with another huge 2 story building connected to it in the back. Several hikers are always on the porch relaxing. 2 bathrooms with toilets, 1 shower with great water pressure, laundry room, family room, 2 bunkrooms with space for at least 16 2-person bunks. Books and magazines are strewn everywhere, most of them hiking related. The kitchenette has communal food left over from previous hikers stockpiled on countertops and in the fridge. Every wall in this place is covered with pictures and postcards from past thru-hikers who sent a thank-you back to Bob. The earliest I saw was '97, but they may go back before that. It's a live-free, come and go as you please, do you what you need to do kinda place. After talking to Bob, I learned that Kincora is Celtic for "kinship of the heart". Nothing could be more appropriate for how "at home" I felt. Home IS where the heart is and there is much heart in this place. Most of it can be traced to the owner. Bob is about 5'8, late 50's. Thinning gray hair, gray moustache. He always wears jeans, a big belt buckle, the tan HardCore Crew hat, and some sort of AT trail maintenace shirt, which is almost always green. He's friendly and has a million and a half stories that he's been picking up and sharing with hikers for years and the best part is his accent. He's Scotch-Irish with a lisp and the only way I know how to put that on cyber-paper is Elmer Fudd. He's the voice of Elmer Fudd to a tee, so you can't help but laugh when the guy's telling jokes. One of my favorites was the story of how a girl got her trail name. The name was "meltdown" and at first thought, you're probably thinking exactly as I did...this girl's a nutjob. But the truth is she learned an important lesson in camping the hard way---don't cook inside your tent on a rainy night...ouch! Bob had so many stories that I would love to retell. You get to hear all the great legends and storied from guys like Bob because they've been a part of it for SO long. It takes perseverence to make it from Georgia to Maine, but it takes HEART to keep going after you get there. Thanks for everything Bob.