Date: 2009-01-12
To: Just a few facts....
Miles today: 0.0

We are still camped out at Joe & Pat's in GA...and waiting for the eviction notice any day. Actually they have been quite accomodating and great company but we are itching to have our own space & give theirs back. Finding a job has been more difficult than hiking the 2175 miles over 5 months! Seems all the effort and emails through Craigslist, Monster, Jobs.net, Career Builder, etc. go into some "blackhole" only to never be replied back. Now that it is the start to a new year hopefully some magic will occur and offers will start rolling in. In the mean time I take breaks from job searching and work on our journal. I also want to cronologically arrange all our hundreds (maybe thousands?) of pictures and lable them. Anyhow, it has been a slow process but I did figure out the following...We stayed in the tent (the excellent, trustworthy, never fails MSR Zoid II) a total of 88 nights (32 of which were "stealth" sites)We stayed in a shelter 28 nights. (preferred not to but sometimes you had to)We stayed in a cabin/hut/hostel a total of 15 nights. We stayed in hotels/motels a total of 18 nights. (this # surprised me...we are wimps)We stayed in someones house 5 nights. (The Mayor's 2 nights, a trail angel in Salisbury 1 night & Hungarian's parents 2 nights)We took 9 zero days. (Technically 8 but one day was the day we hiked less than a mile out to Skyland Drive when Cracker became ill....so 9 zeros)That is a total of 154 nights on the trail making an overall average of 14 miles/day or 15 miles/day excluding the zeros.I will try and post each days mileage & start to finish at some point. As far as equipment goes we had luck with most of what we used. BOOTS - I believe the soles of my boots wore out prematurely but Asolo was excellent in sending me a new pair. I retrospect though I do not think i need such a big boot. I had zero problems with my feet till the very end but i think I could have done just as well with a hearty light hiker. The Salomon's I finished the last 135 miles were definately not sturdy enough but something inbetween the two would be perfect. I'm trying a pair of Garmont Flash XCR's now. Colleen did well with some Asolo Magma XCR's for most the way. They were very durable for a light hiker. She did OK with some North Face trail runner's and a pair of Salomon's (which had ZERO traction and poor durability). SOCKS - We tried Ingenius, Darn Tough, Smart Wool, Bridgedale & Teko's. The Teko's take the cake! They were awesome socks...hard to find though.STOVE- The Jetboil died just before Harper's Ferry and they were excellent in providing us with a new one but something that cooks better would have been nice. The Jetboil worked well for us but coooking on that flimsy cook ring was horrible. If we were just boiling water it was perfect but we got to where we were cooking alot and I wish we had our Pocket Rocket or Whisperlight. TENT- The tent was excellent but we might have lost a few pounds with something else (but what is a few pounds when everything is working so well???). SLEEPING BAGS - Our winter sleeping bags were awesome but the summer bags were horrible! The Mountain Hardwear Fairviews were too restrictive & the hood did not fold all the way out. The zippers kept getting stuck and it was damn near impossible to get an arm out if it was zipped up all the way. BACK PACKS - The backpacks were excellent but maybe a tad too big. Also having a lid was a pain. I used the lid to sinch down a 3 liter of wine or 12 pack a few times but other than that I could have stuffed everything into the pack. Cracker sent hers home in NH I think. CLOTHES - Our clothes were all fine. In particular Collen loves her Patagonia Merino Wool long sleeve shirt and Montain Hardwear skirt and I loved my Montain Hardwear Mt. Kilt and Patagonia Capilene longsleeve zip top. FOOD? That will be an entire journal entry in the future. POLES - Poles were fine except Black Diamonds were hard to find on the trail and Lekis were everywhere. Cracker broke her BD's and bought Leki's because all the outfitters carried them. The BD flick locks are FAR SUPERIOR to the Leki twist locks though. I think the handle on the BD's is better too. WATER FILTER - The MSR Mini-Works never failed us and only needed a replacement cartridge at the end of the trip...it is excellent and far superior to damn chemicals. SLEEPING PADS - The thermarests were perfect (as well as our thermarest seats). WATER BLADDERS - The Nalgene hydration bladder is the WORST designed bladder ever. I went through two (the replacement leaked on the very 1st fill-up!). The MSR bladder I bought in NH lasted the whole trip and is worth its weight in gold. As you can see MSR rocks (tent, filter, stoves, bladders). Cracker used a Platypus (actually two but they were excellent in replacing the 1st) which had no problems other than difficulty zipping the Big Zipper in cold weather. All in all we would do just a few things different and lucked out most items worked so well (although we had plenty of experience before our "thru-hike"). I'm eager to do some weekenders with my new Garmonts and want to find a good deal on some Western Mountaineering warm weather (40 degree) sleeping bags. We might check out a new tent like a TarpTent but i want to try B4 we buy. All this talk is making me eager to get to Mexico to start the PCT!