Date: 2023-02-01
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Miles today: 0.0

Over the past couple of weeks, I¢ve given a lot of thought to what has (and has not) been working for me in the first half of my hike. There¢s not a lot of rocket science here - mostly these are small rituals or hacks that have helped me on a day to day basis. Like my last intermission post on gear, I am sharing my thoughts in the hopes they will be helpful to other AT thruhikers getting ready to start off. As always, YMMV (your mileage might vary).Things I will definitely be continuing:Daily journaling - I happen to use Trail Journals to capture my daily adventures, but I would urge any long distance hiker to make a habit at the end of each day to at least jot down some notes on where you¢ve been, where you are staying, who you met, and the day¢s highlights. It¢s a nice way to wind down. Also - days, shelters, and terrain blended together pretty quickly for me, and those notes will help me relive some of the most memorable moments of my trip months/years later. Early mover - The more time you walk, the farther you get. It¢s as simple as that. If you get moving earlier in the morning, you have more daylight to work with. To make more miles, to smell more roses (there really aren¢t that many roses to be sniffed in camp in the morning), to explore more blue blazes, to meet more people. I am going to try to be on the trail every day no later than 7:30; as my body strengthens I expect to shift that earlier.Hostels - I did not have sufficient appreciation when I started my thru just how important hostels were in the ecosystem. For some reason, I associated them with the grungy student hostels of my youth when traveling through Europe, typically across the street from the rail station and pretty seedy. Not (usually) the case on the AT. Besides being cheaper than other town stay alternatives, AT hostels played a critical role in building my network and picking up trail intelligence while hiking south. While I know there will be fewer, I definitely plan to keep an eye out for good hostels as I move NOBO. Mail drops and bounce boxing - I know this is an unpopular opinion, but mail drops really worked for me. I am enough of a planner that I knew generally which towns and hostels were definite stops for me along the way. At least once a week I was able to collect a mail drop at a hostel, which significantly simplified food resupply for those items that were difficult to obtain in small Southern Appalachian towns. Things like high protein oatmeal, the tea I liked, protein supplements, preferred dehydrated dinners, favorite snacks, etc. Not having to rely on menu planning in the aisle of a Dollar General reduced my resupply stress a good bit and allowed me to have a much lighter load in my pack heading out of town (much less packaging and food waste). I also bounced a box (actually a 5 gallon plastic pail) of items that I might need - repair, first aid, and hygiene items, a nice top for business calls, maps, a replacement water filter, etc so that I had access to those items every couple of weeks. It would arrive at a hostel (along with the mail drop), I would pull what I needed, and mail it down the line. The real hassle with bounce boxes is the remailing - but many hostels seemed to have a process for this that worked well. I am definitely doing this again.Dryers - who would have thought that clothes dryers were one of the greatest risks to my clothing system? But - in a world where you only have 2 pairs of hiking socks, leaving an orphan sock (or dirty girl gaiter, or a zip off leg from my convertible pants) behind in a dryer is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. I never walked away from a clothes dryer before I had physically matched my pairs.Things that are working for me but I am keeping an eye on:Working out - I feel strongly that working out before my start was a huge help in managing my enthusiasm and energy level while avoiding injury during the first couple of weeks last fall. I am committed to toning up in advance of my restart again, but with a couple of changes. I am going to ease off a bit on incline workouts, as the first 3 weeks of my NOBO hike from Harpers Ferry will be (relatively) flat and there is no point in getting ready for 2000 foot climbs if the most I will see is 1200 foot climbs during that period. I¢ll need to count on the trail to get me ready for the Whites and Southern Maine. However, I will hit a climbing gym a couple of times this winter, just to get used to rock scrambling and boulder mechanics. Hopefully it will boost my confidence!Capping my miles in the first two weeks - When I started out last fall, I tried to keep to 10 mile days for the first two weeks to minimize the chance of early repetitive use injury (I also worked hard to get into shape in advance). This worked out great for my mid-60¢s body and joints. Unfortunately, with my choice of splitting my through across seasons, I am going to need to build trail legs again, so once more I will be limiting my miles at the start. This time, though, to 12-15 mile days. I am quite itchy about this: Maryland, PA, and NJ are low elevation states where it is possible to achieve high mile days, but my body won¢t be ready yet. Slackpacks/nearos instead of zeros - in my 10 weeks of hiking the southern half, I took 5 zeros. 3 of those were for weather. I found it was easier for my consistency to walk almost every day, even if I was staying in a town for 2 nights. I would either replace the ¢zero¢ day with a ¢nearo¢ (shorter) day that allowed me to do my chores then head out of town, or stay 2 nights but replace the ¢zero¢ day with a slackpack. Funnily enough, it let me keep pace with some hikers much faster than I who needed zeros to let their bodies recuperate.I am going to try to use the same approach going north, although with rougher terrain, particularly in NH and Maine, I might need to take more full days off for recovery. Also, I know I have a couple of external commitments that will force zeros - so some will be baked into the schedule regardless.Lightweight loadout - I am still planning to have a base weight (excluding food and water) of 12-14 lb, depending on season. I am mulling the ditching of my cooking set-up in favor of full cold soaking, but at this point don¢t expect to make that change. I will probably add in an extra set of underwear (for 3 total) as I expect longer gaps between resupplies and I find that I despise needing to wash clothing at camp in the evenings. And I (gasp) will probably bring a camp chair with me for the first couple of weeks. As I plan to throttle my initial mileage to ease my body back into thruhiking, I know I will be getting into camp by 2 or 3 in the afternoon - making a camp chair much more useful. I¢ll ditch the weight as I pick up the miles.Tenting instead of shelters - Advantages of shelters: better protection (generally) from heavy wind and rain. Faster morning starts as there is less to pack up. Disadvantages: mice, snoring, higher risk from norovirus and respiratory infections. I still plan to stay in my tent most of the time - but recognize that my perspective is tainted by the remarkable number of dry nights we had last fall.  That¢s it. Eager to stop thinking and start hiking.