Busy Week

April 8, 2016April 8, 2016 / jim fetig / 12 Comments

ameShenandoah National Park and Antietam National Battlefield, first week of April, 2016 — It’s about time I complained about the weather. It’s been totally schizoid for the past several days – hot then cold with a dash of sun, rain and wind, frosted on occasion with powdered snow. There’s snow dusting in this weekend’s forecast.

Why weather? Last Saturday Shenandoah was ripped by strong winds. A sleeping hiker was pinned under a tree that blew over about two days hike south of the park at a place called Spy Rock. Trees and branches were down everywhere in our region.

I was supposed to spend Sat. night at Indian Run with a friend I was going to help Sunday clear blown down trees on one of Shenandoah’s 400 miles of side trail called Jeremy’s Run.

After spending a cold night at Annapolis Rock, I chickened out. The wind and cold were distinctly unwelcoming. Instead I showed up bright and early Sunday morning to a greeting by an icy windchill with teeth and a dusting of snow still on the ground.

Jeremy’s Run is located in a designated wilderness area. That means all work must be done with hand tools. No motors allowed.

So off we marched with a junior sized version of the famous crosscut saw you see in antique logging photos. It sports a traditional carpenter saw handle on one end and a moveable vertical handle on the other. If the vertical handle is on the far end, it’s a two person saw. If it’s just forward of the fixed handle, it’s a one person saw. Very versatile.

Blowdowns are a pain in the butt for hikers. Step-overs like this one are not so bad.

It’s the chest high or ones with a ton of protruding branches that are a real pain. You can’t go up or down.

We whacked six and 1/4 blowdowns. One quarter?

This big fella came at the end of the day. It requires two cuts to get it on the ground and two more to cut out the section obstructing the trail. Its height and the adjacent slope make cutting out the center section too difficult and dangerous. Better to lay it down.

Lots of work here, especially coming as it did at the end of the day. At least we were out of the wind. The wedges keep the cut open as the tree’s weight and gravity wants to close the top of the cut and bind the saw.

This guy was too large for our little saw to be fully efficient. It took 45 minutes for two tired sawyers to make this slice. Hence one quarter. A crew with a longer crosscut will finish the job next weekend during the Hoodlums regularly scheduled monthly work trip. At least hikers have a relatively passable step over until then.

Wednesday I joined a group of nine PATC members at the Antietam National Battlefield to disassemble a section of worm row fencing. We got ‘er done in three hours! In the process we dubbed ourselves the Hole-in-the-Ground crew because of the dozens of ground hog dens we occasionally stepped in.

We celebrated a local ice cream parlor in Sharpsburg – no work without play is our motto.

The National Park Service is working on a multi-year project to restore civil war battlefields to the sight lines and condition they were in when the battles actually happened. This fence was not present on Sept. 17, 1862 when 23,000 soldiers became casualties on this ground. It was and remains the bloodiest day in U.S. military history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antietam_National_Battlefield

The week ended with a short trip to Shenandoah so our ridgerunners could meet with the back country office before Lauralee’s first patrol starting today. Both Lauralee and Hal are returning from last year and need no introduction. Chris Zigler is the new back country manager and we wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.

Of note, the park’s trail crews will be beefed up. Better yet, up to six back country rangers will be on the trail and at the huts this year – helping people do the right thing and coaching Leave No Trace outdoor ethics.

On the way home this little guy on my AT section got chopped up with a pruning saw. Did I ever mention that I love retirement. The work is not work. It’s fun!

Adventure Season 2016

March 2, 2016March 2, 2016 / jim fetig / 9 Comments

Kensington, MD, March 2, 2016 — It’s that time of year again when the call of the wild echos through the ether. This is when we plan, pack, lace ’em up and get it on.

The year starts in Georgia on the AT. For one, I’m anxious to see if all the planning we have done to manage the early crowds actually is beneficial. All I know is that a lot of time and energy have gone into the improvements.

Next it’s the National Park Service’s centennial. Shenandoah has challenged folks to celebrate by hiking a hundred miles in the park in return for a free patch. My friend and first hiking partner Mary and her son Ben will be hiking there on a 600 mile-long AT section hike in mid-April. I plan to tag along for all 105 of Shenandoah’s miles.

From there it gets fuzzier. I have my ridgerunner hikes and trail crew week – only one this year. I’m signed up for a Leave No Trace master educator course and a talk on backpacking at Sky Meadows State Park, Va. for National Trails Day.

We’ve hired two returning ridgerunners and four new folks for this season. More on them at another time.

There’s an opportunity to hike the northern half (Oregon and Washington) of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and/or the Colorado Trail. Lastly, once school is back in session, finishing the Long Trail in Vermont is carved in stone after having to miss it last year.

I’m learning not to predict too much. Plans do not survive contact with reality, and this year reality is holding a lot of face cards. I’ve taken on some executive responsibility with my trail club that’s going to eat time, and have been nominated for a professional lifetime career honor that, if selected, I will accept in person come hell or high water.

Top of the first inning is the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail on Springer Mountain, Georgia. I’ve noted and written about my friend Denise’s plan to thru hike this year. Well, she gets dropped off at the trailhead around noon on March 9. I’ve made the arrangements to be there like a beacon to cheer her on and hike the first 80 miles of the AT with her. She will nail her hike to the wall.

The weather in Georgia has been all over the map. Hey, it’s in the south you say; it’s bound to be warm. Well considering that the entire AT in Georgia is above 4,000 ft., cold weather, sleet and snow are factors throughout March.

I’m packing now. My pack is going to weigh much more than normal. For one, I’m carrying my food in a bear-proof container, not so much for the bears, but to set an example to others who don’t take bears seriously.

As for which sleeping bag, jackets and other clothing, I figured I’d split the difference between zero degrees F and 70F.

Stay tuned for dispatches.

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.

A Romp in the Woods?

July 8, 2015July 8, 2015 / jim fetig / 16 Comments

Harpers Ferry, WV, July 7, 2015 — I was privileged to see a sneak preview of “A Walk in the Woods,” a knockabout comedy staring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. The show opens in 1,800 theaters on Sept. 2.

Redford. Slapstick. No way!!! Indeed, it’s true. The movie was a delightful midnight snack adding a light touch to Redford’s rich acting career. If you recall, Redford and Paul Newman always had a comedic touch.

To my delight, the humor was practically nonstop. The jokes kept coming. Anyone would get them, but there was enough hiker and AT double entandre to evoke knowing nods and smiles from the audience.

From a potty trowel Christmas ornament available on line at www.appalachiantrail.com

Potty trowel Christmas ornaments are available on line at http://www.appalachiantrail.com

Potty humor on the trail isn’t new and this movie doesn’t disappoint. The ubiquitous and sometimes maligned potty trowel makes more than a cameo appearance.

Redford with toilet paper in hand may have been added for shock value, but more likely, the potty trowel scenes are subliminal Leave No Trace messages using a subject not much discussed in polite, read the non-hiking, society.

Yup. Bears aren’t the only ones who do it in the woods and wanna be’s need to know that and prepare to pull their pants down around that and other deeply personal subjects in advance.

To recap for the unfamiliar, author Bill Bryson penned a best-seller in the late 1990s entitled, A Walk in the Woods. It was a semi-fictional and somewhat autobiographical story based on chunks of the Appalachian Trail that Bryson sampled in preparation to write his story. His sidekick, Steven Katz – played by Nolte in the movie – is the foil and comedic counterpoint as their adventures unfold.

This New York Times best seller is credited with driving up the number of AT thru hike attempts by logarithmic factors since.

The screenplay differs a fair amount from Bryson’s original story, but the essence is there. Two old comrades with diametrically opposite personalities reunite after decades of estrangement for one last adventure.

Neither this film, nor the recent movie “Wild” (based on Cheryl Strayed’s best selling memoir) are about hiking per se. In each, hiking is the means to the end. In this case, Bryson confronts career burnout and the remedy is a romp in the woods with his old buddy Katz. Our treat is to go along for the ride and enjoy the laughs.

Kristen Schaal.

The cast is fantastic, especially Longmont, Colorado’s own Kristen Schaal who is brilliant. Her character plays off a classic AT stereotype and the reappearance of her character could have been a hilarious punctuation point near the end of the movie when Bryson and Katz have to be rescued. In stead, the dynamic duo are saved by other stereotypes they first hate but come to love. In reality, it doesn’t happen that way on the AT. No spoiler alert here.

As with any movie about subjects we know intimately and love dearly, this movie has its share of nits to pick and quibble about. Among them, in the movie: Gooch Gap comes after Neels Gap. McAfee Knob appears after Shenandoah National Park. The duo has trekking poles strapped to their obviously empty packs, but never use them. The social aspects of the AT experience are mostly AWOL. The bears that steal Bryson and Katz’s food are grizzlies, not black bears. (We know bears will do almost anything for food, but hitchhike from Montana? That’s a bit much.) Much of the movie was not shot on the AT. That’s dramatic license. So what?

The $64 dollar question is how “A Walk in the Woods” will affect the number of hikers in the future. History is clear. Major media events drive numbers up.

Given that most Millennials barely know who Redford and Nolte are, it may not have much effect on that demographic. Large numbers of Boomers, on the other hand, missed out when they were in their 20s. Like me, they had to wait until retirement to find the time. Could be that this will remind them to get off the bench and out in the woods.

More likely, we may expect the number of weekenders and short-distance backpackers to increase along the trail. After all, Bryson himself didn’t hike the whole thing. For those without the where with all or inclination to thru hike, sampling chunks of the trail is a viable alternative.

Hordes of uninitiated hikers can have a disproportionate impact on the environment. That’s why the potty trowel metaphor is an effective vehicle to communicate the larger Leave No Trace message. It creates awareness and opens the door to a broader discussion of appropriate behavior and practices.

Viewers come to movies like this with a truck load of preconceptions. They’ve read the book, tramped around on the AT or other trails, and have their own inventory of intrepid experiences. Hikers want a hiking movie with which they can self-identify and reinforce the attributes of the hiking experience as they understand it.

In other words, hikers will tend to want a certain label and vintage of fine red wine, e.g. perfection. For some, this won’t that movie, and I’ll submit that there’ll never be one. So, this flick may not be what you hope for, but it will still make you laugh because if you haven’t been there and done that, at least you’ve seen it.

As a feature film, this treat is tasty, but definitely lo-cal. It never intended or tried to be an opulent double Dutch chocolate delight. In other words, here’s little to satiate the uncontrollable urge known as hiker hunger in “A Walk in the Woods” the movie, and unfortunately the lack of high caloric content may be unfulfilling to a few of the usual suspects out there in hiker land who never seem to be satisfied anyway.

By its end, “A Walk in the Woods” is a light comedy based on our favorite pass time with a sprig of deeply personal revitalization for the two main characters garnishing the end. They all lived happily ever after.

When you think about it, isn’t that a big chunk of why any of us lace ’em up and grab our trekking poles?

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/

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.

Eating the Elephant

March 29, 2015March 29, 2015 / jim fetig / 9 Comments

Springer Mountain, Georgia, March 21 – 26, 2015 — My volunteer period is complete. I’ve hauled my last load of hiker trash out of the North Georgia hills. It’s now up to someone else. Some end of tour observations follow.

It’s a free country. You can tell that from the range of people and their degree of respect for nature, the environment and the hard won Appalachian Trail infrastructure. I just wish more hikers would come to the trail better prepared.

The overwhelming majority of people naturally do the right thing. They practice “Leave No Trace” outdoor ethics by taking only photos and leaving only footprints. Everything they truck in, they haul out from cigarette butts, Charmin flowers, and uneaten food to unwanted gear that’s unneeded or too heavy, excess clothing, or used dental floss.

My pleasure was being with these folks. They’re plumbers, pipe fitters, surgeons, teachers, nurses and bus drivers. They share a common love and respect for the outdoors and are excellent students of how to do well out here. They love being outdoors and live to be one with nature.

A lot of hikers come to the AT overwhelmed. They struggle to grasp all 2,189 miles at once. It’s like the old aphorism about how you eat an elephant – one bite at a time. The average AT hiker goes to town every five days. If that’s so, hiking the AT is simply 35 consecutive five-day hikes. Put that way, it’s much easier to get your arms around the magnitude of the task ahead.

My hope is that more hikers would better prepare themselves. I follow a blogger from Colorado who wrote an interesting post this week about Colin Fletcher who wrote some of the seminal books on hiking including the all time favorite, The Complete Walker. His post can be read at this link. http://www.pmags.com/the-complete-walker-iii-colin-fletcher I just wish more people would read Fletcher, or at least check out the enormous amount of information available on line.

Here’s a fellow dressed in cotton (cotton kills). He also could learn a thing or two about packing.

Others are far less attuned to ethical behavior in the back country. They do what they do back home. Twice hikers even tried to argue that I was hiding the trash cans from them. These would-be-thru-hikers had a hard time appreciating that thru hiking is supposed to be a wilderness experience. You pack it in. You pack it out. No trash cans. End of story. I was ignored more than once.

Food containers do not burn completely.

Nothing should go into the fire pits or privies that’s not supposed to be there.

Bill Bryson had it right in his book A Walk in the Woods. It’s been made into a movie which will be in theaters later this summer. Bryson wryly observed the unprepared throwing their gear overboard and much more. Why people come out here so poorly prepared is beyond me, and a hellova lot of others too. You don’t have to look far for classic examples. It’s a topic of continuing conversation among the properly prepared.

This was my final trash run. The load included a discarded tent, new boots, wet cotton clothing and uneaten food. Total pack weight was close to 70 lbs.

Considering how much excellent information is readily available on the internet or from recent books, there’s no excuse for being unprepared. Some self-identify with so-called survivor show heroes and want to give it a whirl. Others are just clueless. Somehow almost all of them manage to learn one thing – that is to wind duct tape around their hiking poles. A precious few don’t even find that out.

There are two basic hiker types out here. There are the thru hikers. They are self-evident. Only one in four will finish. Still, this is their season. They’ve got until mid-October to climb Maine’s Mt. Katahdin before it closes. They’ve got to get going.

Some folks are old school.

Then there are all the shorter distance hikers, sometimes called section hikers. Of them, about half are on spring break – families and college students alike. This is one of the only times during the year when they can come. They identify with the AT brand and are in Georgia because it’s where the southern terminus of the trail is, it’s warm and the logistics are easy. They’re not going away.

There’s an interesting subculture among section hikers. A significant number of these hikers want to share in the excitement of the great spring migration – to be there, to rub shoulders, to share the thrill and/or to relive their own adventure and reignite memories of years past.

Some come every year. It’s muddy form of March Madness where they get to be on the court with the actual players themselves. Later they will follow hikers they’ve met and root for them. It’s hard to beat.

The challenge is that, in the first 30 miles of the trail, for every 10 thru hikers there are 8 section hikers. The infrastructure is taxed to the max! Even the privies fill up – ugh.

This is the second shift cooking dinner at the Gooch Mountain shelter. These were some of the folks tenting in the rain.

Overcrowding has its downsides. Earlier in the week, the Georgia Health Department issued a noro virus warning. A case had been reported in the state. Funky hikers who don’t know how to stay clean in the wilderness, living in close proximity, form a perfect petri dish. In spite of the beauty, it can get really ugly out here. Nevertheless, it’s worth it.

Blood Mountain on Saturday morning. Some of the thru hikers showed me the trash they’d collected.

Many hikers are tuned in to Leave No Trace practices and collect trail trash as the hike. I gave one hiker (from Brooklyn, NY no less) a “Trail Karma” award for carrying out discarded clothing and other trash.

Gene from Brooklyn gets a “Trail Karma” award.

Someone creatively tried to hike the space blanket they no longer wanted.

Someone creatively tried to hide a space blanket they no longer wanted.

Still, hikers are excited to be on the AT whether the trail viscosity matches a hot fudge sundae on a summer day in Georgia or it’s frozen over. In many cases they are living their dreams.

Drying out at Hawk Mountain.

Her dreams are one step away from becoming reality.

During my stay the seasons changed – at least twice.

This year the Appalachian Trail is 90 years old. It was built by volunteers and is maintained by volunteers as originally envisioned by its founder Benton MacKaye. It’s thrilling to play a small role in that legacy.

Springer Mountain memorial to Benton McKaye who envisioned a hiking trail along the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from Maine to Georgia.

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.

After meals, we hang our bear canisters or food bags to keep them out of reach of critters.

Bears must think of this as a food bag tree.

“Mouse hangers” keep field mice away.

After dinner, some folks like a camp fire where they wile away the stress of the day.

At the crack of dawn we reclaim our food from the bear cables or when in town (about every five days) go to the supper market to buy more.

Now you know a little bit more.

The First Patrol

March 8, 2015 / jim fetig / Leave a comment

This tree was snapped off like a match stick

Hiawassee, GA, Top of Georgia Hostel, Sunday March 8, 2015 — My first patrol was over late Friday night. The hiking was energy intensive at times, especially in the snow early on. The ice and wind inflicted some serious damage on the trees, especially along the expose saddles between mountains.

Overall, the trail treadway is in good shape. The water is draining properly and the mud is minimal under the conditions although my clothes were covered with it by the time I’d reached the summit of Springer Mountain.

Along the way I was able to clear several blowdowns that impeded navigation.

The hikers seemed strong and determined for the most part. I did notice a propensity for them to hold at shelters or dive into town when it rained. I can’t say I didn’t do some of that during my hike. Hiking in the rain is miserable.

My patrol pattern will be changing for the rest of the time I’m here. From now on, I’ll be hiking south from Neels Gap to Springer where I’ll spend two days while the caretaker there is off. This makes sense since most of the need to help hikers occurs in the first 30 miles.

Naturally, Murphy was lurking over my shoulder. I didn’t get back to Hiawassee until 11:30 p.m. Friday evening. I was so tired that I locked my car keys in the trunk. I had to go to Atlanta to get a new one. Lesson learned!

This weekend was spent at the Appalachian Trail Kickoff. It’s a hiking seminar at Amicalola State Park. The presentations ranged wide and far from bears, to hostels, to lightweight gear. It’s designed to help hikers learn what would be helpful for them to know prior to starting their hikes.

It was a special privilege to meet and talk with Gene Espy, the second person ever (1953) to thru hike the Appalachian Trail.

Next week we do it again.

A fork in the road

Yogi said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." So I'm following the white blazes.

backpack