An Abundance of Goodness

August 25, 2015 / jim fetig / 17 Comments

Four basic tools of the trail maintenance and forest fire trade. From the left: Mcloed, Pulaski, Rogue hoe, pick mattock. Add a five gallon plastic bucket, a shovel, a pruning saw and you've pretty much got the whole set.

Four basic tools of the trail maintenance and forest fire trade. From the left: Mcloed, Pulaski, Rogue hoe, and a pick mattock in front of a brand new waterbar we used them to build. Add a rock bar, five gallon plastic bucket, a shovel, a pruning saw plus an occasional cross cut or chainsaw and you’ve pretty much got all the toys.

Shenandoah National Park, VA, August 15 – 21, 2015 — This was a physically demanding and productive week in the park. I love to sweat, so thanks to the weatherman, we were virtually swimming in goodness.

The itinerary was chock full of fun. Saturday marked our monthly Hoodlums work day. We enjoyed an excellent turnout for mid-August vacation season.

I groaned a bit when the short straw put my crew on a weeding expedition down a side trail that hadn’t seen much love this year. In about five hours, six of us weeded two miles of trail with swing blades because a chunk of it is in a designated wilderness area where motors are not allowed. We also cleaned 42 check dams and six waterbars, and cleared one blowdown!

I removed this blowdown with my Hoodlums crew using a 20 in. pruning saw.

I removed this blowdown using a 20 in. pruning saw.

Note the rise of the tree trunk on the right side of the photo. I knew there was stored energy to be released, but not that much.

Removing a blowdown isn’t newsworthy except for this. Note the rise of the tree trunk on the right side of the photo. I expected a bit of a jump, but not all the way to eye level. It’s a good example of how bucking any down tree can be hazardous.

Immediately after the Hoodlums clock expired I hustled 50 miles toward the southern end of the park to meet up with Lauralee Bliss for a two-day ridgerunner walk, after which I hurried to join the crew I’d be working with for the remainder of the week. I was a day late, so I knew I needed to work extra hard to make it up.

The first project was fixing a mud hole created by a spring further down Overall Run trail than we were able to get during crew week in May.

The spring leaks from multiple locations and undermines the trail tread,

We don’t call Eric Jenkins the human crane for nothin’!

Our solution was to build a culvert drain and a raised turnpike to the upper/dryer side of the trail. We left the muddy part untouched because the water also rises from underneath.

Finished product. It’s always great to work with the National Park Service crew.

The second day on Overall Run we corrected another mud hole using a slightly different solution. Rain ended the day early.

The following day we rehabbed the treadway on the Dickie Ridge trail and built several new waterbars and grade dips to improve drainage. The weather was worthy of a Finnish sauna.

New waterbar under construction.

Side-hilling to level the treadway and move it up hill enough to keep it from causing erosion in some areas.

Compacting a new grade dip.

It was THAT kind of day!

The heat was quickly depleting all of us, so we broke early. I decided to spend the extra daylight checking on my Appalachian Trail Section and I was glad I did.

I found this blowdown on my trail section.

Just after cutting the first branch, another small tree came crashing down. It scared the scat out of me!

Half done.

Finished.

Found this illegal fire ring at an informal campsite on my section. Since destroying the last one early this spring, no one had rebuilt it until now.

Launched the rocks as far away as I could. Maybe planting poison ivy or raspberries in this space might help solve the problem, ya think?

The weather broke on the final day. The temp dropped 20 degrees and the humidity halved. Yea! We worked near the Elk Wallow wayside building a couple of new grade dips and waterbars. We also repaired a huge waterbar where rain cascades down the trail like a river.

Waterbar, one each.

Your August 2015 trail crew: Cindy Ardecki, me, Brian Snyder, Noel Freeman, and David Sylvester.

Blowdown Boulevard.

On A “Blissful” Patrol

August 22, 2015August 26, 2015 / jim fetig / 13 Comments

Lauralee Bliss may well be the dean of AT ridgerunners.

Shenandoah National Park, VA, August 15-17, 2015 — I now coordinate five ridgerunners who patrol the 240 miles of the Appalachian Trail (AT) for which the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) is responsible. While I am a volunteer, they are paid a modest stipend for their summer work.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be walking a bit with each of the five. My objective is to know them better and learn what I can from them about the issues on their respective sections of the trail. Afterall, we’re expecting many more hikers next year. http://appalachiantrials.com/a-walk-in-the-woods-and-its-impact-on-the-appalachian-trail/

Last weekend I walked a section with Lauralee Bliss who is the sole ridgerunner for all 105 miles of the AT in Shenandoah. That’s a lot of territory to cover. To say her hiking resume is strong is an understatement. A former orthopedic nurse, she has thru hiked the AT both northbound and southbound. Her memoir of those hikes, Mountains, Madness, & Miracles: 4,000 Miles Along the Appalachian Trail sells well. She also has published more than 20 books. http://www.amazon.com/Lauralee-Bliss/e/B001JPCEBI

Lauralee’s multi-year tenure and the volume of unsolicited praise from hikers pretty much says it all. I’d heard a lot of good things about her long before actually making her acquaintance at a National Trail Day event earlier this summer.

Last Saturday, after completing my work with PATC’s North District Hoodlums trail crew, I hiked in to meet Lauralee at Black Rock hut located at northbound mile 882.3 on the AT. From there we would hike to McCormick Gap at mile 865.3 with a second overnight stop at the Calf Mountain hut in between.

A very nice couple, former thru hikers, joined us at Black Rock. Lauralee tents. I hung my hammock.

Along the way we swapped ridgerunning stories and performed minor trail maintenance including clearing some minor blowdowns and picking up micro trash.

Our first adventure happened bright and early the first morning. We stopped to snag the TP someone had left next to the deposit they’d plopped just a couple of feet off the trail. As Lauralee shed her pack with intentions of parking it, I noticed a copperhead lolling in the leafy landing zone, perfectly camouflaged as they are. When ole “Jake No Shoulders” slid into a new residence amongst the discarded TP we decided let it be and wait for another time, discretion is the better part of valor you know. That’s the only mess we didn’t clean up.

Lauralee checking in with Shenandoah dispatch. Many ridgerunners are issued radios that connect them to the various forms of support they need. She’s standing next to Skyline Drive which is the primary front country feature of Shenandoah National Park.

The first day was a hot one. Toward the end, my IT band was talking back loudly and with authority, but what the hey, it’s all in a day’s work. At one point I saw a branch strangely sticking out of the ground and partially blocking the trail. I judged it to be a tripping hazard. Wrong! It was plugging a yellow jacket nest.

I got lucky. When I yanked it out only a few of the evil little critters buzzed about to take a gander. Rather than luck, it could have been professional courtesy since I used to work at Georgia Tech. Whatever the reason, I’ll take it. (The Georgia Tech mascot is “Buzz” the Yellow Jacket.)

Along the way we heard about a boisterous southbound Boy Scout troop which had camped at the Calf Mountain hut. Negative reputations travel fast on the AT. We didn’t know what to expect, but experience has taught each of us not to hope for much. We weren’t disappointed, though it could have been much worse.

Trash left by the Boy Scout troop. We only wish they had signed the shelter register. We love return addresses when we find trash. The pot was full of uneaten food.

Of course the trash was right next to this sign.

Lauralee’s purpose for bringing me to this section was for me to see where maintenance is needed. Some parts of this section are overdue for weeding. Weeding is important because weeds are the vector for Lyme disease-bearing deer ticks. http://distancehiking.com/blog/lyme-disease-appalachian-trail/

A contractor mows parts of this section since its distance from population centers makes recruiting overseers difficult. The vegetation alongside the trail is an invasive species called Japanese stilth grass. Stealth grass would be more like it. The stuff sneaks right up on you with overwhelming force!

Other sections need work.

Lauralee, whose trail name is “Blissful,” trims briars.

We stashed our trash at Beagle Gap for pick up later. That’s about three gallons worth.

Many hikers want to become ridgerunners because they think the job is about hiking. It’s actually about education. The purpose of ridgerunning is to help hikers do the right things to take care of the trail and its surrounding environment.

Among other duties, ridgerunners break up illegal fire rings.

Ridgerunners help hikers understand how to “Leave No Trace” that they’ve ever been in the wilderness. https://Int.org .

Ridgerunners pack out other people’s trash. It’s one of the distasteful parts of the job.

Best of all, ridgerunners help hikers. Here Lauralee helped this young novice with a back shakedown that eliminated eight excess pounds of equipment she did not need.

Best of all, ridgerunners help hikers. Here Lauralee helped this young college student with a pack shakedown that eliminated eight excess pounds of equipment that she did not need.

One thing I learned about Lauralee is that she is a bear whisperer. On our last morning we found a young bear ambling in the forest. It probably is his rookie year away from his mother.

When Lauralee talked to the bear in her soft blissful voice, his head cocked from side to side while his ears twitched in every direction like radar searching for UFOs. Maybe to him that’s what we were.

I just know this: He left us with a gentle heartbeat and in the good spirits that reflected the extraordinary person with whom I was fortunate enough to share the weekend.

Flash Forward One Year

August 6, 2015 / jim fetig / 13 Comments

Aug. 6, 2014. I took summit photos in two different shirts.

Home Sweet Home, August 6, 2015 — I wasn’t going to write a one-year-retrospective. Most of them are boring and trite. As I have often said, being a successful thru-hiker doesn’t make you special. It only means that you were fortunate enough to have a special experience.

Okay, so what happens when it’s over? You go home and then what? Post hike depression is well documented. Of course, I thought it could not happen to me.

When your hike is over, if you’re lucky, you have to get back to work. That’s true for most hikers. If you have something lined up – say going to grad school – you’ve got it made. But even if you have to job search, you’ve got a defined focus for your time and a purpose to pursue.

If you’re retired, that’s another story. Recently retired people are the second largest, albeit, small category of thru hikers. A lot of them shut the door to their offices and open the front door to the AT with little transition time. I met a hiker in Georgia this year whose time lapse was four days!

I prepared for ten months, but it’s almost the same. I’d done nothing to prepare for retirement itself other than to know that I’d have to “keep busy.”

Boom! The hike ends. You take a victory lap. The the crowds stop clapping. For months on end you’ve had a routine. Wake up, eat and hike. Following the white blazes was my job. Where is the next white blaze?

Aside from the daily trail routine, hiking is heavy exercise that bathes your brain in a heavy flow of endorphins all day long. Like distance running, the craving doesn’t stop when you end your journey.

Endorphins act like opiates. These chemicals, manufactured by your body, make you feel really good. When they go away, the funk can get very deep indeed.

I thought that returning to a strenuous exercise routine and increasing my volunteer activities would help me avoid endorphin withdrawal and the mental depression that goes with it. NOT SO!

I did all these things, but in between, I sat in my easy chair and stared out the window or zoned out with ESPN on the idiot box. My reading habit evaporated. In the past year I have completed exactly one book; that compares to my 3 to 4 per month lifetime average. My motivation meter was pegged at zero.

There’s more. My weight began to creep up. I did switch back to healthy foods from the ultra high calorie trail junk, but I ate a lot and drank more beer. I’ve regained about 75 percent of my lost weight.

After my voluntary stint as a ridgerunner in Georgia this spring, my mind began to get a grip. Maybe returning to the scene of the crime helped.

I remembered why I retired in the first place. My retirement routine couldn’t replace my previous career as an adrenalin junkie. The 60-hour plus work weeks needed to be left to history. The new normal needed to be new.

Now my volunteer time is structured around specific goals. I’ve found opportunities with much more responsibility – to the point where I supervise five paid employees in one of the gigs. Best of all, I’m beginning to have a lot of fun.

For now, one year after my hike, retirement has become a never-ending process. I’m contemplating more hiking adventures, but I’ll tackle them differently. For example, I’d love to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. (“Wild” by Cheryl Strayed is set there.) But if I do, it will be over three years in sections rather than all at once.

If I learned one take-away from hiking the Appalachian Tail it is that thru hiking takes a long time. While I loved my hike and would do it again, I got tired of being out there “forever.” Moreover, making “forever” so is not a reasonable expectation.

Looking ahead, I’m hoping to better use my time because at this stage of life, you truly have to do more with less.

Post card I sent to those who helped along the way.

One of the best parts of my final day on the trail was to share it with my friend Karen (Tie) Edwards.

Here’s a link to a one of several videos I’ve made in support of speeches I’ve made this past year.

https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D3624411_94596663_12582

On the Road

July 29, 2015August 10, 2015 / jim fetig / 14 Comments

Chainsaw sculpture at Bears Den Hostel, Va.

Northern Virginia, July 17 – 28, 2015 — In deference to Garrison Keillor, it wasn’t a quiet week anywhere around my town. It was busy as could be.

We had the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) biannual meeting at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va. where I led two hikes – more to come on that, followed by a trail construction day with an environmentally oriented youth group from Yonkers, NY called Groundwork.

In between a small group of North District Hoodlum sawyers schlepped our chainsaws up to Bears Den on Saturday to buck two large dead trees that were felled by professional arborists.

Did I mention that the daytime temps averaged over 90 F with high humidity the whole time? So there I was, producing infinite amounts of sweaty washing while our still-under-warrenty washing machine awaits a new motor. No, I have not sublet any space at our house to anyone named Murphy.

The first hike was a strenuous 16-miler from the Reno Monument on Maryland's South Mountain south to Harpers Ferry, WV. The heat took its toll.

The first hike was a strenuous 16-miler on the AT from the Reno Monument on Maryland’s South Mountain south to Harpers Ferry, WV. The heat took its toll.

Monument to Civil War journalists at Maryland’s Gathland State Park.

The second hike was a five-miler on the First Manassas civil war battlefield on the 153rd anniversary of the battle to the day. It was hard to imagine what it was like for the soldiers who wore woolen uniforms in suffocating heat and humidity. This is at the “stone bridge” for those familiar with the battle.

We started the morning with a preview of the battle in the visitors center.

This stone house and former tavern served as a hospital during the battle. The battle’s culmination point on Henry Hill is just above this structure.

At Bears Den. The sawyer was approximately 80 feet in the air. Couldn’t pay me to do that. This dead tree plus another threatened to block the access road if blown down in a storm. The need to preempt that is self evident.

A severed branch smacks the road with a big boom!

Wearing my sawyer hat. I need to iron my neck and maybe use some spray starch.

Head Hoodlum Janice Cessna briefs the young folks from Groundwork.

Working Hard! It’s important to make the experience hands-on. Here the kids are building a check dam which is a structure designed to slow water.

Completed waterbar – a structure designed to direct water off the trail.

Ridgerunner Coordinator

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 / jim fetig / 9 Comments

Yours truly with the 2015 Potomac Appalachian Trail Club ridgerunners.

Blue Ridge Summit, PA — No good deed goes unpunished. In my case, the “punishment” is really a delightful reward. Last month I was asked to manage the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club’s (PATC) ridgerunner program. I couldn’t wait to be thrown into that briar patch!

Although I love being a grunt on the Hoodlums trail crew and overseeing my AT section, I’ve been searching to expand into a leadership role within PATC and this one is perfect for me.

These ridgerunners are highly trained, independent, experienced and motivated. Serving them is a high honor. If you could meet them in person, you’d know exactly why. You’d break your pick for any one of them.

The Ridgerunner’s primary role is to be an ambassador from the trail to those who use it. They are there to help and encourage, especially desired behaviors such as practicing the Leave No Trace ethic. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridgerunner for more. Ridgerunning is a rewarding experience as readers know who recall the blogs I wrote while ridgerunning in Georgia this past March.

Each ridgerunner patrols a defined section of the PATC’s 240 miles of the AT. The length of their service is dependent on the where their patrol section is and the funding provided by the partner agency responsible for that section. They aren’t paid a lot, but that’s not really the point.

As for the good deed — I prepared a report for various senior AT leaders about my experiences and observations in Georgia. The report was widely circulated, and I think someone thought, “Okay wiseguy. You brought it up. Now step up!” I accepted in a nanosecond.

Here is a link to that report: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D3624411_94596663_20574 Those who read it will learn a bit about what I leave out of my family-friendly blogs.

Looking ahead to upcoming challenges, the number of AT thru hikers and visits to the trail is expected to dramatically increase next year in response to two Hollywood movies — Reece Witherspoon’s “Wild” which involves hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail and Robert Redford’s “A Walk in the Woods” which is based on Bill Bryson’s popular book about hiking the AT. “A Walk in the Woods” opens Labor Day weekend.

Historical data tells us to buckle up and expect a huge increase in the number of inexperienced and inadequately prepared hikers. For my part, I’d rather be part of the solution than be part of the problem.

Meanwhile, I look forward to hiking with these great ridgerunners on patrol in, what for us, is the real world.

Several friends and acquaintances have congratulated me on my pencil drawings lately. I can draw, but not nearly that well. The featured image for this post was taken with my iPhone and processed by an app called Pencil Sketch. I’ve used this artful feature for more than a year and absolutely love it. I created the renderings that follow just to show you some of the tricks it has up its sleeve.

This is the original photograph. The various renderings follow.

Reunions

May 28, 2015May 28, 2015 / jim fetig / 14 Comments

Harpers Ferry, WV, May 26, 2015 –There I was doing my best Captain Kirk impression as I sat in the command chair behind the counter of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) visitors center when the door opens and I hear a cheery, “Hi Sisu!” (Sisu is my trail name.)

To my delight, in walks Emily Leonard. At least that’s who she was when I camped next to her and her husband on Springer Mountain, GA in early March. Now she is “Black Bear,” an awesome thru hiker who remembered me promising that I would take her ‘half-way photo’ if she reached ATC HQ on a Tuesday, my volunteer day. Well, she did and there I was wearing a giant smile in salute to her presence and accomplishment.

Emily is a former teacher and soccer coach who lives in Maine. She sounded and looked strong. After the formalities, I treated her to a healthy, read leafy green-colored, lunch at a quirky local restaurant. Our conversation quickly established that she’s having a wonderful time walking in the woods. You can follow her blog at: http://happyhiking.bangordailynews.com/category/home/ I really hope that Black Bear goes — ALL THE WAY!

By way of additional insight, I wrote about Emily anonymously in one of my blogs from Georgia. She was a hiker with the ultra light Cuban fiber tent pitched with so much slack that I worried might blow away in a strong wind. After staying the first night, her husband returned home to Maine and work while Emily hiked on. That wasn’t the first time I learned to never judge a pack by its cover.

Of note: It turns out she ditched that tent for a range of reasons and is using the one her husband had. So much for hi tech.

Separately, a hiker named “Bonafide” aka “Winter Walker” phoned me from Bears Den hostel last night. I first met him in Tennessee in December 2013 during my thru hike. That year his doctor told him to lose some weight, so he walked from his home state of Vermont to Tennessee and back to Harpers Ferry. This year he decided to thru hike and I met him plowing through the north Georgia snow back in February.

Sisu and Winter Walker in Mount Rogers Outfitters, Damascus, VA in Dec. 2013

His call was to check in being that he was nearby. When I mentioned that the movie, “A Walk in the Woods” would be out in September, he unleashed a tirade about hikers who mess up the woods and don’t follow Leave No Trace principles. It was instructive to say the least. It seems like time and distance don’t weed out all the bad apples.

The “Walk in the Woods” trigger was this: The Bill Bryson book features many scenes like the ones I reported from Georgia with people tossing trash and worse all over the trail.

He asked me what I thought the answer might be. My response was one word: Babysitters. That’s what you get when you act like a child.

Here’s the trailer for “A Walk in the Woods:” It promises to be a fun movie.

http://news.moviefone.com/2015/05/27/robert-redford-walk-in-the-woods-trailer/

Karma Comes to the Back Country

May 10, 2015May 10, 2015 / jim fetig / 12 Comments

Gene from Brooklyn gets a “Trail Karma” award for picking up other people’s trash.

Appalachian Trail, Sunday May 10, 2015 — People are loving our national hiking trails to death. The Appalachian Trail (AT) alone is estimated to see up to three million visitors per year.

Looking at it one way, that’s enough boots on the ground to bruise the rocks rather than the rocks having the opposite effect on the hikers’ feet. It’s sort of like hammer vs. nail in role reversal isn’t it?

The collective environmental impact generated by all these people is enormous. They generate human waste, leave trash, trample vegetation, erode trails and mark their passage in many other unwelcome ways. There are many means to mitigate this impact, but before we talk about that, here’s the back story.

Most people experience our national parks and forests in what is known as front country. Front country is civilized, distinguished by infrastructure such as roads, picnic tables, flush toilets, trash cans, concessions and parking.

You know about more about front country than you may think. That’s where Yogi, Boo boo and Mr. Ranger did their Jellystone schtick. You get the idea.

The back country is a very different animal. In contrast to front country, about the only evidence of civilization are the marked hiking trails. The AT’s primitive shelters and privies are a notable exception. Otherwise it’s supposed to be a “wilderness” experience. (Not to be confused with designated wilderness areas. That’s a separate matter.)

Most people never see the back country and hardly realize it’s even there. The primary reason may be that a lot of muscle power is usually required to get into the back country. In other words, you have to sweat.

Been to the mall lately? Observations suggest that fewer and fewer Americans are up for back country excursions. Supersize soft drinks aside, nevertheless there’s no shortage of back country hikers.

The problem comes when people show up in the back country and don’t know how to limit their impact. Within my experience, they fall into two primary groups.

One group fancies themselves as romantic throwbacks applying their survival skills and living off the land in ways promoted by Jack London, the Boy Scout Handbooks prior to the 1970s, or the Bear Grylls TV series today.

If everyone behaved this way in the back country, it wouldn’t be long before they’d turn paradise into a denuded moonscape. When you spy someone with a axe, hatchet, machete or (the very heavy) Bear Grylls brand gear on a national hiking trail, you might be looking at one of these folks.

Machete damage. Green trees don't burn by the way.

Machete damage. Green wood doesn’t burn by the way.

The other group is simply clueless. Finding no back country trash cans, they just drop their garbage where they stand because they don’t come prepared to carry it out. They befoul water sources with human waste. They trample vegetation. Overall, their practices put the back country environment at risk.

Ignorant people leave their trash in fire pits. It doesn’t burn completely.

Unburnt trash.

When the backpacking craze developed as boomers came of age in the late 1960s, it threatened to overwhelm the environment. Minimal impact techniques emerged as ways to mitigate the damage generated by the hiking hoards of that era.***

In time, minimum impact morphed into the Leave No Trace ethic. Leave No Trace is based on seven principles designed to help not only to minimize human impact, but also to maintain the highest quality wilderness experience possible.

Principles were developed for both the front and back country. Much more at: https://lnt.org/ These are the back country principles:

Plan Ahead and Prepare: Poorly prepared people, when presented with unexpected situations, often resort to high-impact solutions that degrade the outdoors or put themselves at risk. Proper planning leads to less impact.
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces: Damage to land occurs when surface vegetation or communities of organisms are trampled beyond repair. The resulting barren area leads to unusable trails, campsites and soil erosion.
Dispose of Waste Properly: Though most trash and litter in the backcountry is not significant in terms of the long term ecological health of an area, it does rank high as a problem in the minds of many backcountry visitors. Trash and litter are primarily social impacts which can greatly detract from the naturalness of an area.^[5] Further, backcountry users create body waste and waste water which requires proper disposal according to Leave No Trace.
Leave What You Find: Leave No Trace directs people to minimize site alterations, such as digging tent trenches, hammering nails into trees, permanently clearing an area of rocks or twigs, and removing items.
Minimize Campfire Impacts: Because the naturalness of many areas has been degraded by overuse of fires, Leave No Trace teaches to seek alternatives to fires or use low-impact fires.
Respect Wildlife: Minimizing impact on wildlife and ecosystems.
Be Considerate of Other Visitors: Following hiking etiquette and maintaining quiet allows visitors to go through the wilderness with minimal impact on other users. (Wikipedia)

Leave No Trace plastic tag at bottom right. (Click on any photo to enlarge.)

Fortunately most hikers are aware of Leave No Trace. It’s promoted everywhere. Unfortunately these principles are practiced selectively and conveniently. In other words, hikers reason their one insignificant transgression won’t have any harmful effect.

The reality is the opposite. The impact of small Leave No Trace lapses grows exponentially when “everybody” does it.

Now back to the reason for this story.

Too many younger hikers were not following Leave No Trace ethics, yet hikers 18-24 make up the majority of AT thru hikers. More challenging, the traditional messages and delivery means were not working with this group.

Trail Karma awards and promotional stickers.

Enter Trail Karma as a new outreach program: http://www.trailkarma.com. It is a website targeting younger hikers. The Trail Karma awards component of this program allows ridgerunners and trail ambassadors to reward good behavior on the trail when it happens in real time.

The Trail Karma Award is a nice AT medallion with a serial number on the back. Hikers can register the award on the Trail Karma website and even pass it along when another good turn is observed.

The idea is to reinforce the positive. I thought the two Trail Karma Awards I was able to present during my time in Georgia had a positive impact, both on the hikers who received them and those who observed the presentation.

Yesterday’s mail brought a CARE package of new Trail Karma awards and promotional stickers. I can’t wait to find good behavior to reward.

***The trails weren’t pristine before the boomers showed up. In the earlier era, hikers and campers built lean-tos, cut pine bows to make beds, chopped tent stakes every night, disposed of food cans willy nilly and practiced a multitude of other sins. Their smaller numbers helped limit the damage which was was eventually cleared up.

Rembrandt I’m Not

April 19, 2015 / jim fetig / 9 Comments

Shenandoah National Park, Sunday April 19, 2015 — Patomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) North District Hoodlums Trail Crew gathered Saturday for its monthly outing. As usual, we divided into several work groups to clear, clean, repair and improve the trails in the park. We got a lot done.

A few of us camped in the park in order to get early starts on our individual trail sections this morning.

Trail maintenance can be pretty mundane. Today was painting day, but not just painting any old thing.

No sir. Today I was painting almighty white blazes. These are the very symbol of the AT and the center of attention for hikers. Miss the wrong one, and you could wind up in Rhode Island sometime.

Some blazes have faded over the years.

I thought this spot needs a white blaze.

A blaze had once been there, but its host tree died after a 2011 fire burned through the area.

So I picked a close neighbor to be its new forwarding address.

Now nobody gets lost.

Could Rembrandt have done it better? I’m not so sure of that. 😊

Walking in the Woods

April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 / jim fetig / 12 Comments

Kensington, MD, April 1, 2015 — Bill Bryson wrote a wonderfully humorous book entitled A Walk in the Woods almost 15 years ago. It is a story about two totally unprepared old pals attempting on a lark to thru hike the Appalachian Trail. When I read it, I thought it was humorous fiction. After ridgerunning in Georgia this March, I know it’s not. It is as true as true can be, and Bryson was an astute observer.

The movie of the same name, starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, will be out this summer. I can’t wait to see it, but I worry about those who do and then think they’re going to jump on the trail without a care in the world and hoof it up to Maine. Not that there aren’t plenty of folks hiking this way already. I just worry how many more of these unprepared innocents will join in the frolic over the next few years, and more importantly, what their impact will be on the trail and its environment.

This blog has noted the incredible number of clueless hikers observed last month as they attempted to foible themselves through Georgia. How anyone could jump into the woods having never set up a/their tent before, or show up with packs stuffed with so much that they can barely carry them – with all their gear still hermetically sealed in the original boxes – is beyond any level of sanity I can conceptualize.

How people can forget that the sun doesn’t always shine, that the days and nights are not always warm, and that rain or snow can be bitterly cold is beyond me. Misery does not love company on the trail.

Under the wrong weather conditions – cold rain sleet for example – you could become hypothermic and cease to exist or be seriously injured in the southern Appalachian spring. It’s happened recently.

Four components of success defined themselves as I observed both the prepared and unprepared go about their business. I thought a lot about them, comparing what I saw this March with my previous experience on the trail and elsewhere. Some may disagree with my priorities here they are anyway.

FITNESS. Being fit, especially cardio fitness, can cover a wide range of other deficits, particularly in older and female hikers. I couldn’t count the number of late middle age guys (mostly) who, for decades had been chained to their office desks until the week before they started, when they were suddenly paroled to pursue their retirement dreams on the AT. Too many of them went from zero to 60 and back zero in less than a week.

Guys, your high school sports days were close to 50 years ago! Take a year to get yourself in shape. Couch potato millennials fall into this same category. What did they think would happen when they rushed to Springer Mountain with little or no prep? That’s why about a third of hikers don’t make it past the first 30 miles.

As I hiked my patrol route, I’d watch the out of shape hikers sweat their way up hill chipping tiny step by tiny step up the trail, their wheezing breath hissing like dying steam engines suffering from leaky piston seals. Pure panic defined pallid faces as the harsh realization sunk in that they were in for more than they bargained. Their knees quivered under both the oppressive weight of their bodies and the clutter of unneeded gear strapped to their backs. Their fun meters were pegged at zero. So much for a walk in the woods.

Some folks are old school, but they’re in shape and prepared to go.

Being fit helps prevent common orthopedic injuries, not to mention that you can hump more weight on your back. Would anyone think that it might be smart to at least attempt lose some weight and/or get into shape before day one?

EXPERIENCE. Knowledge. Know-how. Call it what you will. Knowing how to live in the woods, and what to do if and when, can be priceless. Traditionally we might consider learning what’s in the Boy Scout Handbook a good starting point, and it is if you have an up to date copy, not the ancient one with which I grew up. Excellent information is available on line or in a range of recent how-to books. Then there’s the confidence born of having been spent a little practice time living outdoors.

Experience is the best teacher and makes for fewer goof-ups in the woods. AT hikers should know how to hike in the rain and stay dry, stay warm and above all, stay clean. How about pitching a tent in a storm so it won’t be flooded or blown down? How big a knife does one need, not want, but need? First aid anyone? What do you do if you tear your ACL or impale yourself on a protruding branch? You should know ’cause 911 response is several hours, if not a day or more away. Leave No Trace anyone?

How about them bears, anyway?

GEAR. You can buy your back weight down if you can afford it, but more folks are on tighter budgets than I would have thought. They simply can’t afford to equip themselves with hyper-light gear.

The reality is that most of us cannot afford a $600 – $800 Cuben fiber tent weighing mere ounces, much less the full boatload of gear made from this miraculous fabric – rain gear, food bag, pack, etc.

So, what do people do? A good set of lighter weight gear costs between $1,000 and $1,500 depending on how much of it you can buy on sale. This type of gear, with five days food and a liter of water, will get your total winter pack weight under 35 lbs. or less depending upon what you think you need to bring.

Properly fitting light weight and flexible boots or trail runners along with dry feet help prevent blisters, the scourge of any hiker.

Unfortunately even that much money is too much for many people. Their alternative is to buy heavy gear from Walmart or army surplus, either that or they repurpose older but much heavier gear from previous generations. They pack canned food because they cannot afford the lighter dehydrated meals. This route alone doesn’t deny success, it just makes everything harder.

Some hikers don’t know what to buy, even if they can afford it. That’s what produces the over sized 70 lb. packs stuffed with all sorts of useless trinkets.

Binoculars, camp chairs, bear bells, heavy stoves and stainless steel cooking pots, Carhart canvas jackets and other detritus is what finds itself strewn along the trail. Folks start sinking under the tremendous weight and desperately heave it overboard in hopes of staying afloat as did Bryson’s sidekick Katz in A Walk in the Woods. Remember: Are you on the AT to camp or to hike?

ATTITUDE. Like the Little Engine in the storybook, if you think you can, you can. Self-confidence and a bit of bravado can take you a long way. Yet, self-doubt racks too many hikers. The most common question is: “What have I gotten myself into?” That’s when I want to roll my eyes and intone “Duuuuuude! What were you thinking – that is if you were thinking at all?”

Positive attitude!

Being trail ready on day one is priceless. Showing up on the starting line fit, knowledgeable, properly equipped and confident isn’t a guarantee, but it gets you off to a great start.

Sneak Peek

March 20, 2015March 17, 2018 / jim fetig / 2 Comments

My gear set up in Woods Hole shelter in Georgia.

North Georgia, Friday March 30, 2015 — None of us who love being outdoors could ever be accused of living he lifestyles of the rich and famous. We’re not even trying. But, we are living life in the simple way we love. A sneak peak into the way it is out here follows.

It’s always fun to write about the drama whether it’s snow, mud, rain, wind, heat, bears, snakes, and the like. But reality is much more mundane. So what it is that we really do? Here are a few questions and answers.

Where to we sleep? Some people sleep in shelters. These three-sided structures were part of the AT’s original vision. A precious few of the original log structures still stand, though most are infested by field mice and the critters that eat them. (Read Jake No Shoulders: aka snakes.)

An original shelter from the 1930s at Cable Gap.

Wood Hole, a more contemporary shelter.

Shelters offer safe haven in stormy weather and enable quick get-aways in the morning. The accommodate from six to 16 of your best friends, at least that’s what you become after sleeping cheek to cheek with people who were formerly perfect strangers. Corner locations offer privacy on at least one side.

Former strangers. Friends now!

Tenting or sleeping in hammocks are alternatives to shelters. Hikers tend to favor tents, at least until their need for speed trumps aversion to strangers.

A peek behind my mosquito netting.

Tents offer privacy and control of your gear. Most makes are comfortable and weather tight. They do add up to an hour each day to pitch and strike them.

Cooking? There are as many ways to cook as there are hikers. Some cook over an open fire. This method has multiple disadvantages including sooty pots, the time spent gathering wood and building the fire, not to mention the extra weight of fresh food that’s much cheaper than branded dehydrated meals.

Hikers tend to cook near their tents or in common areas associated with the shelters.

Hikers love high calorie, low volume foods. Breakfast often consists of oatmeal, coffee, hot chocolate, pop tarts and granola bars. Lunch can be tortillas and peanut butter, salami on bagels, or Snickers bars. Many folks don’t stop long for lunch, if at all. After all, time equals miles.

Almost everyone eats a hot dinner. One all time favorite is Ramman noodles with peanut butter. That passes for haute Pad Thai in these parts. Otherwise meals dehydrated at home or manufactured by companies such as Mountain House are luxurious at the end of a day harder than woodpecker lips.

Some folks love a few creature comforts, especially at the onset of their hikes. However these extras add weight and tend to disappear rather quickly as the reality of a 2,200 mile trek sets in. It’s sometimes amazing what come out of the huge backpacks you see out here.