Date: 2016-01-24
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

When I was eleven years old, my Dad sent me to a summer camp in Bradford, Vermont. It was called Challenge Wilderness Camp. He never really gave me a choice. He planned it and one summer day drove me up there. I hadnt ever been to Vermont before and I wasnt all that excited. It was a wilderness skills camp right out of the 70s. We lived in lean-tos, cooked over an open fire twice a day (They cooked us a hot meal at lunch every day so we wouldnt starve. It probably made our parents feel better too!). We were only required to do three things when we were in camp. Do an hour of PT every morning at 7:00am, take swimming lessons, and hew an axe handle out of a peice of Ash and make an axe which we would learn to use... well. We also took trips every week. This was my first introduction to backpacking. We slept under tarps. No tents allowed. As mentioned, no stoves. All food cooked over an open fire. It was an all boys camp, slightly reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. While I was mostly miserable there, I got to visit places like Evans Notch in New Hampshire, hike on the Long Trail north of Mt. Mansfield, and canoe the Allagash in Maine. The capstone project for the month was an overnight solo. We got to take our axe, a knife, two matches, two potatoes, two brook trout, and all the clothes we could wear. We were expected to make a shelter out of logs and boughs, cut our own firewood, and build a fire to keep warm overnight. No small undertaking for an 11 year old. I froze my ass off and was hungry that night failing to get my fire going. Ill never forget that. While I cried thru much of the first summer, I went back for a second. In my thirteenth summer I asked if I could go to a hiking camp. Dad got me on a twelve day backpack trip through the White Mountains. After bagging a bunch of 4000 footers and successfully navigating trail life for almost two weeks, my interest and love of the hike was firmly and permanently ingrained in my being. I started planning my own section hikes on the AT. When I was 14, I hiked most of the 50 miles in Connecticut by myself. I also hiked all of New Hampshire ending at Grafton Notch in ME. The AT became my obsession. I read the Rodale Press books on the AT. I read the Garvey book. I also read Eric Ryback's books about his trips on the PCT and the CDT. Eric also had a chapter in the Rodale books about his AT hike. At the time he was an icon to me. At 15, I planned a 900 mile hike from Erwin, TN. When I got to Damascus, just 110 miles up the trail, I bailed. I cant really remember why now. I wish I hadn't. In five short weeks Ill start out again. I now have everything I need. It time to practice packing my pack and figuring out the food. I have a lot of respect for the folks that are already on the trail especially in light of the recent snow that fell as far south as Georgia. My daughter told me that Chapel Hill was paralyzed from three inches of snow! Here in ski country, that storm never came close. You can still find bare ground through thin snow cover at the summits. Very unusual for late January. Frankly I hope it'll all be gone by the time I get down to GA. Here is a picture from my ski day today. Had spectacular views of the Adirondacks to the west and the White Mountains to the east. See you soon!