View Full Version : Thru Hiking in 2016 - Fulfilling a life long dream!
susiegear
02-12-2015, 13:15
So, I have finally decided after 20 years of thinking about it that i'm going to do it! I have confirmed the plans with the wife and she is being supportive with my plans to quit my job and life as I know it to fulfill my dream! I have some experience with 1-2 week backpacking trips but this will be by far the longest I have ever done. My first question might sound kinda dumb but what do you all do with your packs when you go into a grocery store or something like that? On other trips I have been on I was with at least one other person. One would watch the gear and the other would do the shopping. I am planning on being on the AT alone so i will not have someone to watch the gear. Is theft a big concern in the trail towns? Do the stores have some system set up for this? Also, what book is the best trail companion to have on the trail for mileage and maps? is April 15th a reasonable start date? My thought was April 15 thru Oct 15 a the latest. Is this reasonable? I have already learned a ton from lurking on here and I appreciate all of your help!
I figure there was a system in place for the packs in stores but wasnt really sure. I am not planning on staying overnight in towns very often so i will typically have my pack with me. I am planning on having $4,000 to play with and do not want to burn thru that too quickly so hostel stays might be few and far between. how many days worth of food are you guys carrying on average? I know some areas will have longer distances between resupply availability but what do you all find is the "average". I read a lot of people saying they recommend 25lb limit with a full load. i am not really sure of my exact base weight but fully loaded for 8 days with food and water with no resupply I am at about 33 lbs. I have gotten my load down to just the necessities and diy most of my own gear. i am not looking to spend another thousand bucks to save 2 lbs. but am looking at how i can diy a bit lighter gear. i use a hammock and all of that. Currently my only underquilt is a winter underquilt so i'm going to make a new 3 season quilt for the trip. That should save a pound or so. Any other tips on how to cut a bit of weight? Again, i appreciate all of your help!
jupiterkn
02-17-2015, 08:35
Good stuff.
Also thinking 4/15 start to fulfill a dream. My wife is not onboard yet however...:-(....but having more convo today.
I know someone who hiked it last year and have gotten some good info from him. Everything I have read is 5-6 days food is good, maybe more up north. Look at doing 8-12 miles a day first few weeks for sure then extend that. He also said Va is NOT flat except Shenandoah area.
My base weight is 11 -12 lbs and I too don't plan on staying in town that often I was thinking 2-3 nights a month max
I have most everything ready except food and mail drops planned
58 days from today...see ya
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You need to get an exact handle on your pack base weight. Go to
Walmart etc and invest $15 in a digital gram.scale.
The less miles you do per day ,the more days you are.out between resupply equals more food. equals more weight.
I would rethink 8 days of food. To each their own, but there are plenty of resupply options that make a heavy carry like that a choice not a requirement.
I only have experience hiking short sections - up to 120 miles.
I started out carrying 10 days of food, but WOW - I LEARNED quickly that if there was ANY WAY to avoid this, I should! Now, I carry only 3-5 days, resupplying at stores, gas stations, etc. - even if it means a 3 mile hike/hitch-hike off the trail. (Believe me ,it is worth it!!).
Regarding your pack: I have always hiked with my friend. I guess we are both naive, but we both leave our packs outside the store while we go shopping. (For a short time - 30 minutes or less).
For your pack weight: I think there are cheaper ways to get the weight down. I am VERY CHEAP! My pack weighs under 25 pounds - including water and 3 days food (but not what I wear: shirt, bra, shorts, underwear, socks, shoes). My guess is your weight is coming in on cold weather items (which are necessary during that time of the year - something I don't deal with) or extra clothing or unnecessary items. Check out the gear lists others are posting. You will find ways to cut down without having to invest megga money.
Good luck!
what do you all do with your packs when you go into a grocery store or something like that?
On my AT thru-hike I carried a 4oz bike chain with in-line combination lock and chained my backpack to a post on the rare occasions I couldn't carry my backpack into a store on my back. Even with those few instances I kept a regular eye on my chained-up pack when in the store (such as when I was at a wayside in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia or sitting out a cats-and-dogs rainstorm in Salisbury, CT further north). The bike chain is just a deterrent - won't stop someone who's targeted your backpack -- just slows them down enough so they can reconsider.
Datto
I read a lot of people saying they recommend 25lb limit with a full load. i am not really sure of my exact base weight but fully loaded for 8 days with food and water with no resupply I am at about 33 lbs. I have gotten my load down to just the necessities and diy most of my own gear. i am not looking to spend another thousand bucks to save 2 lbs. but am looking at how i can diy a bit lighter gear. i use a hammock and all of that. Currently my only underquilt is a winter underquilt so i'm going to make a new 3 season quilt for the trip. That should save a pound or so. Any other tips on how to cut a bit of weight? Again, i appreciate all of your help!
If you have 8 days of food with some water and are at 33 lbs. you are good to go without fiddling with your gear anymore (unless you like that sort of thing). I think the typical time between resupply is abut 4-5 days, I think the most I ever carried was 6 days of food and that was only once or twice.
BTW, I have been in Iowa a time or two....you will find the AT a bit more hilly than what you are accustomed to.;) If you can find a way to train (steps in a football stadium?), it might be a good idea. i have seen guys show up from places like Fla., TX, the Midwest, etc. and be really surprised at the terrain.
Good luck and have fun!
I apologize as the Enter key isn't working on our work computer. First off, don't worry about experience. The AT is just a bunch of 1-2 week hikes spaced very close together. You really shouldn't be out for more then a week at a time, I always laughed at people staggering out of town with a 45 pound pack saying the next time they'd see a town was 2 weeks later. There's no real reason to kill yourself like that. On average I stayed out 4-5 days at a time. This is right around normal (maybe slightly more frequent) for the AT. Fully loaded I never went above 27 pounds. My dry weight (no food no water) was 13. As for theft, I'm about to contradict myself. My tent was stolen in Catawba, VA. However, this was really the only incidence of theft I ever heard of. I saw people leaving packs unattended outside stores all the time, and I did it a couple times. Mostly though I would leave it at a hostel and go do my shopping just for peace of mind. The exception is sporting goods stores like REI, I would walk around with my pack and they wouldn't care. I once got asked to leave it by the cashier. I only ever used one guidebook, the smaller green one with the elevation map and waypoints marked along the way. I think the SOBO one was red? I was also alone and I never got lost, never didn't know where I was or how far I had to go or had gone already. I would strongly advise to leave as early as possible if your schedule allows. I left Feb 19th, and never ran into a shelter or hostel or hut in the Whites that was full. Any time after March 1st and you'll be surrounded by people all day every day. $4,000 is plenty. I did it on $2,000 comfortably after gear. A hostel stay once a week, and soon that was a zero day every week which meant 2 nights per week. I almost never stayed in a hotel except when trail magic happened, and most hostels are reasonably priced. I'm sorry but most of the advice I see about needing $4,000 or (wow) $6,000 is from -ahem- those chronologically gifted members of this forum whose bodies may need more frequent and deluxe comfort on their hike. I get it, I'm an ignorant yet spry 24 year old kid, but I was fine with $2,000. It's nice to have a cushion, I'm just saying you'll be fine and not to worry.
is April 15th a reasonable start date? My thought was April 15 thru Oct 15 a the latest. Is this reasonable? I have already learned a ton from lurking on here and I appreciate all of your help!
I started my northbound AT thru-hike April 10th and finished October 21st and that finish date way too late of a finish date. April 10th was a very good start date for me and I'd choose that date again as a start date in order to miss much of the snow in Georia/North Carolina. As far as a projected end-date, there's no easy way to project it but if you have to have a date to shoot for when having a early to mid-April start, choose October 1st or earlier.
Suggestion -- plan to take at least 30 calendar days off after you finish your thru-hike so you can blend back into society and start looking for another job. When you return back to "normal" society there will likely be a signficant adjustment factor.
If your wife will go along with it and if she's one of those types of people who is detailed oriented with a flexible nature, have her be your maildrop support person. I had one of the best maildrop support people in history and that made life on the Trail so much easier for me (paricularly when I saw other thru-hikers who had terrible maildrop support and the consternation it had cause them to have during their thru-hike).
Also, if your past trips weren't in the middle of days of rain, you might want to deliberately schedule pre-hike trips when it is ranining for days. That will give you a glimmer of what an AT thru-hike will be like during the first month if you're starting from Springer Mountain, GA.
Also, if you're intending to use trail runner type hiking shoes, you might want to get them a size or size and a half larger than normal -- for many hikers (but not all), their feet get larger when they are hiking for long periods of time day-after-day so their normal shoe size needs to increase to accommodate larger feet. My shoe size went from 10.5 pre-thru-hike to size 13 4E today (after about 8,000 miles of carrying my backpack).
You may also want to make sure you carry earplugs on your AT thru-hike -- the shelters are very noisy from other AT hikers who snore. The advantage of staying in shelters when you're thru-hiking is a somewhat easier start the next day since it will be raining quite a bit of the time. Also, there is quite a bit of comraderie at the shelters. Make sure you take an ultralight ground cloth with you (such as a Tyvek ground cloth) since the shelter floors may be messy and that mess will get all over your sleeping bag if you don't first use a ground cloth prior to setting down your sleeping bag. The downside of staying in a shelter is that shelters have mice and other animals -- you'll need to use the mice hangers at the shelter to hang your backpack prior to going to sleep (the mouse hangers usually work but some mice have figured out how to jump onto your pack anyhow, even with a mouse hanger). Also, the shelters will likely be very crowded in the southern states.
You might want to take three or four small screw-in hooks and some twine with you -- those can be use to erect a wind block with your tarp/tent if you frequently stay in the shelter overnight or are using a shelter to get out of the rain/wind during the daytime. I used that combination frequently and it made life much more comfortable for such a little amount of pack weight. Also, you can use the twine and hooks to help dry out some of the items in your backpack that will likely be constantly wet from the frequent rainstorms you'll be hiking in during your AT thru-hike. Make sure your sleeping bag is always kept in an undamaged heavy-duty trash bag so your sleeping bag stays dry. One of the decisions I had made prior to the start of my AT thru-hike was to take an insulated coat that was made of man-made insulative material -- in my case it was a Patagonia Puffball -- that worked well for me since my insulating coat was used frequently under my raingear so the insulation in my coat was wet much of the time during my AT thru-hike (particularly in Georgia/North Carolia and in New Hampsire/Maine).
If you run way behnd schedule for some reason (injury for instance or slow pace in the begining of your thru-hike for instance), the place to make up miles for a northbounder is Waynesboro, VA to Duncannon, PA. You'll likely have your trail legs by that time and you can cruise through that section of the Trail if need be. It's only an easier section of the Trail, not an easy section.
By the way, the challenge of an AT thru-hike for most thru-hikers is the mental challenge -- that's why getting experience with hiking through rain for several days and nights at a time is so valuable prior to the start of your AT thru-hike. Also, many hikers can't stand being alone so much of the time on an AT thru-hike so they leave the Trail because they miss their loved ones or just don't like being alone with themselves for long stretches on the Trail. That's why taking pre-thru-hike week or two hikes is so valuable -- a prospective thru-hiker just starts getting to the point of liking or not liking being alone for periods of time.
Best of adventures to you.
Datto
jdc5294, So sorry to hear that your tent was stolen in Catawba Va. I live in Craig County maybe 10 miles from Catawba and would have thought that would be the last place you would have to worry about something like that! My Grandson & I plan on thru-hiking this coming spring, awful to think I would have to worry about that at home! Take care!