Date: 2006-04-13
From: Spivey Gap

To: Erwin, TN
Miles today: 11.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Today marks one month on the trail for us, so I thought I would give our first "Full Moon Report" (name compliments of Pi). For a description of April 13, scroll to the bottom of this page.Our first month has been amazing. It's been tougher, easier, more fun and more fulfilling than we had imagined it would be. To give some perspective, we have decided to give an overview of our experience in the categories of Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual and also a section on gear and hiking info.PhysicalThe Wingfoot Thru Hikers handbook says that it takes even a fit person 6 to 8 weeks to round into top shape for thru hiking. I am finding this to be true. After a month of constant mountains and miles, we feel somewhat stronger, but not superhuman yet. We are looking forward to 2 to 3 weeks from now when (as Wingfoot says) "your red blood cell increase and your ability to flush lactic acid converge to turn you into a virtual hiking machine". That will be a great day. For now, we are seeing our strength building slowly and our ability to do longer days several days in a row increase. Also, we are not as worried that every little ache and pain will turn into a trip ending injury. We've had friends have to get off the trail for tendonitis, stress fractures, shin splints and knee problems. So far, we are really doing great. We feel that our trail running and Coyotebec's weight training before the trip definitely has paid off. In retrospect, I would definitely advise an! yone that decides to thru hike to dedicate themselves to strength and aerobic conditioning for at least 4 months (preferably a year) before they leave. It takes a long time to build the bone density and tendon strength that is needed. We look forward to our next full moon to let you know more on this subject.MentalA lot of our "mental" aspect has to do with equipment and hiking technique - so I am going to defer some of this section to the Equipment portion (below). Other than that, one thing we have been hearing about that's caught our interest is the subject of organic gardening. Posey Picker has inspired us with his descriptions of their place in Missouri as well as Brian (from Elmers) telling us about Permaculture. We are planning a "kitchen garden" for our house with herbs and vegetables in our heads. We'll start working on the beds when we get home.EmotionalThere have been a couple of emotional issues that we have seen. One is that you begin to form binds with people that you are hiking with pretty quickly. We have had friends have to stay in town for various reasons, and it's tough to hike out and leave them behind. We are aware also that we have to maintain some independence. The reason is that if we are really wrapped up with a group that we are hiking with, and something happemns where we can no long hike with them (schedule, injury) it can be a real emotional letdown. The other thing is the advice we got on the first day at Hawk Mtn Shelter from Glenn, the ridgerunner. He said "Always think like a 2,000 miler". This means to make decisions on hiking distances, rest, nutrition, town stays, everything witn the end in mind. If the thought or action doesn't move you to your eventual goal (or especially if it is destructive to the goal) then reconsider. This is awesome advice for hikng the AT, your spiritual life, your! career and life in general. SpiritualWe have seen a few things in this aspect. Obviously, you can't walk through 350 miles of beautiful mountains, streams, wildflowers, balds and forests without standing in wonder of the One that created it. Our experience out here only reinforces that sense of wonder. Another issue we have seen is when there is some issue in your life, we can tend to pray about it, then constantly "wear the issue out" jabbering about it and fretting over it. We are seeing some prayers answered for issues at home, in ways that are so much better than we could have "manufactured" on our own. Out here, you have to "turn it over to God", and let him work it out. I guess our experience on the trail has shown that we don't do a great job of this at home. It takes patience, trust and faith. Out here we are forced to rely on that - which is great "training" for when we get home.Gear and Hiking StuffThere's a few things we have learned on gear. I will just type in random order. One thing is the Pocketmail device that I am using to send and receive email. It is awesome! It is fairly cheap ($99) and makes email so much easier. Just find a pay phone or use your cell in town and you can send and recieve email. No scrounging for internet access. Awesome. I also use it for doing my daily journal entries which are emailed to Jerry, who then posts them online. Highly recommended.Footwear: Over 90 percent of thru hikers use trail shoes. The other 10 percent are changing over quickly. Good trail shoes are great for all types of backpacking and really save on blisters and other foot problems. One caution: if your pack is heavy (over 35 lbs) stick with boots.Poles: 99 percent of thru hikers use poles. It saves your knees, ankles and feet a ton of abuse. When you get snow and ice, they become essential. If you don't use poles, I would strongly recommend trying them out.Stoves: Lightweight alcohol stoves are the way to go. Fuel is easy to find everywhere and they save a lot of weight over cannister and white gas models. Highly recommended.Tents: Single wall tents like the Tarptent are popular, as are two layer models. Some people (including us) use tarps to save weight. Tarps are a little dicey in snow but they work well. Just be sure to have experience with it in all types of weather before getting on the AT. Also - go as light as possible because you can stay in the shelter almost every night (unless it is full).Water treatment: It seems like the most experienced thru hikers are the ones who purify water the least. The people who we've met that have done the trail before never purify the water. There are little pieces of pipe on most of the springs to make it easier to fill your bottles. Our rule so far is that if it is straight out of the mountain and it has a pipe, we don't purify. Creeks we still purify. This is a personal call - and most people err on the side of safety. Related is the camelbak style water bags. These are really convenient but we have had a lot of trouble with the tubes freezing up. We have switched to bottles with a belt pouch. A 2 liter platypus is essential to go along with your bottle.PacksYou will see all kinds of packs out here. We settled on the Granite Gear Vapor Trail pack. It weighs just over 2 lbs and is comfortable up to about 30 lbs of weight and great below 25. I would buy your pack last, so you can see how much of a pack you need once you see how much your gear weighs.Sleeping bag:Most thru hikers go with down. Many people worry about getting a down bag wet - so my advice is don't get it wet. Be smart with your gear and your tent and you'll be fine. Synthetic bags work well too, but they are heavier and they lose loft ppretty quickly with the hard use a bag gets while thru hiking. That's the majority of the gear stuff - I will add more later as I think of it. Read on for a recap of the 14th.Thursday April 14We got going early with town calling us only 11 miles away. When we arrived at the road, we were studying our book to see which way to go to hitchhike into town. A little pickup pulled up to the stop sign and Coyotebec used her wiles to get us a ride part way into town. They dropped us at a gas station and Coyotebec waved down a mini van and asked if he was going into town. He was, and brought us right into Erwin. We walked up to Miss Janets house (a bunk and breakfast) to pick up our bounce box. Miss Janets was full, so we decided to go to a motel. Leaving Miss Janets, we were able to catch a ride with her sister to the hotel. Then the hotel manager offered to bring us to the restaurant we were planning to go to. Then Miss Janet herself gave us a ride back to the hotel after eating. So- we had amazing luck with rides today!We got a sad email from The Gov saying he had stress fractures and was off the trail for good. We put our feet up, and relaxed and tried to digest the pizza buffet. That buffet was kind of a mistake. I felt kind of sick all afternoon. Next town - no stuffing myself!After supper (yes - I did it again), we visited Miss Janets house and headed in to the hotel and went to bed. Problem was, I couldn't sleep. Not sure if I am too used to the ground, but I couldnt fall asleep till after 2am. More tomorrow...Gumby & Coyotebec