Date: 2004-12-01
To: Concerns
Miles today: 0.0

I suppose everyone that anticipates a 6 month long hike on the AT has concerns about how equipment and body will hold up under the stresses of walking 6-8 hours every day covering as many miles as possible in that time and then using the gear that has been decided on. For me, I think that as far as my body is concerned, I am most concerned about my knees. After walking about 5 miles my knees, most often my right knee, starts hurting and it is difficult to walk down hill. Doing an ascent or walking on level ground does not bother it nearly as much and I can usually pick up speed then. I am thinking of buying a brace to see if that will help on the next practice hike. I also believe that doing some daily stretching excercises could be of benefit. On our overnight that Mike told about in the last journal entry I ached that night in one hip like a toothache but my knee did not hurt. While hiking, my hip did not hurt but my knee did. I am going to have to do some short mileage days starting out due to the knee problem unless the brace works well for me.I have determined that we may need to take 2 tents with us. After that night with both of us in the tent I think I will do better if I have a tent to myself. I often wake up after sleeping only 4-5 hours and cannot go back to sleep easily when Mike is snoring. Also, I wake up with a headache more often than not and I blame it on sinus problems. But that is another reason it is difficult to get back to sleep. Here at home I get up and move to another room or just stay up since lying down only makes the headache worse. In the tent we used on our overnight I did not have enough room to sit up. I think I might have been able to pitch the tent a little higher in the front by extending the hiking pole more but I was so tired when we finally got to our camp spot that I did not even think about it. So we have ordered another tent. This time it is a Black Diamond Lighthouse. I had the website marked as a favorite for some time but ended up buying the Europa II on the advice of someone we trusted. And it probably is a good enough tent but for use by only 1 person. When I read on Ken and Marcia Powers' journal in the gear section that theirs was a Black Diamond Lighthouse and that they have used it on a couple of their long hikes I knew it would be a good choice for us, too. We plan to carry both due to my sleep problems. I think that my erratic sleep is due to my working night shifts. I am hoping that once on the trail the physical exhaustion will force longer hours of sleep. I read about people sleeping for 12 hours at a time, especially in the beginning of the trip when the days are shorter and I wonder how in the world I will ever be able to stay horizontal for that long unless Mike stops snoring and my headaches disappear miraculously. So for now the 2-tent system looks like the best bet. We'll see. I wonder if there are other couples that have to use 2 tents. I don't recall ever reading in any of the journals or books that we've read that anyone has done that. Certainly carrying only 1 tent does cut down on the weight and on cold nights it will be much warmer to zip the 2 bags together.Another concern is the food I am trying to get ready here at home. I have been trying to collect items for preparation of recipes in THE AT FOOD PLANNER but am about to give that up for the most part because I am going to have to do most of the packaging myself before the trip. I think I'll stick to more simple recipes and adding whatever dried vegetables I have already dried to the Lipton packages, mac/cheese, and ramen noodles I have purchased and forget about trying to find all recipe ingredients to the recipes in the book. One thing I am thankful for is that Mike is not a picky eater and like the old cereal tv commercial says, "Give it to Mikey--he'll eat anything!" I think that most of our lunch food will be picked up at stores along the way. Breakfasts, dinners, snacks, and drink mixes will be what I'll concentrate on for our drop boxes and I'll try to minimize those and take advantage of town stops for some meals.Our alcohol stove works ok but I would like to know of a way to keep the cook pot a little more steady on top of the stove. Also, we need to fashion a windscreen of something and that if the material for it is strong enough it may help keep the pot in place. Our boots (Vasque) worked well to keep our feet dry and we did not get any blisters on any of the 3 days we hiked. I think that is good since I have read that many get blisters the first day out. Our feet felt pretty bruised and ached a lot, though. We expected that. Also, our rain jackets worked well. Mike also wore the rain pants but I only had the convertible pants on and they kept me dry. The pants never felt wet at any time. If the weather had been a lot colder the rain pants would probably have kept me warmer. Mike does not have any convertible pants but when he saw how well mine worked to keep me dry he has decided that he needs a pair as well.Today I got my hair cut and made appointments for my next 2 haircuts up to a couple of days before we leave for Ga. I have made a dental appointment and also an eye appointment to have my eyes checked and to get new frames (since after I flattened them in my sleeping bag they are a bit crooked--even though the lady at Walmart did a wonderful job of straightening them without them breaking).Time is getting short and there is much to do. From now until March we'll be busy with getting the boxes labeled with addresses and a list of what to put into each box. Once we start this the basement will be a mass of boxes and supplies spread out everywhere. Christmas is upon us and we find it hard to think about anything but hike preparations and the hike itself. I'd like to be ready to leave now but I suppose that would make the next 3 months difficult to get through if everything was done. Thanks to all who have signed our guest book. We appreciate the advice given and hope to see some of you out there on the trail.