The 5th Annual Flip Flopper Festival

[Brian Steinberg]

Greetings fellow hikers and flippers.

Anyone attending the 5th Annual Flip Floppers 2 day Festival?


http://www.appalachiantrail.org/home/community/events/2019/04/27/default/4th-annual-flip-flop-festival

[chknfngrs]

Probably driving my whole family out to see this! Hopefully loads of other hikers will be there



Greetings fellow hikers and flippers.

Anyone attending the 5th Annual Flip Floppers 2 day Festival?


http://www.appalachiantrail.org/home/community/events/2019/04/27/default/4th-annual-flip-flop-festival

[Lauriep]

Are you going to come back O.W.? This year is going to be the best yet!

As always, there will be workshops designed for prospective flip floppers all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday at the Curtis Freewill Baptist Church near ATC HQ. For the second year, there will be a flip flopper reunion and celebration Saturday night at The Barn, open to all. Pancake breakfast Sunday, yes! Flip Flopper send-offs Sunday and Monday, yes!

But the festival is for more than just flip floppers heading out for their 2200-mile journeys:

The festival celebrates the outdoors in the many ways Harpers Ferry can be enjoyed for those who want to spend a day or weekend doing fun things and trying out new ways to enjoy the outdoors in this historic and scenic setting.

REI will be offering clinics again on Saturday at The Barn, and there will be programs on birding both days. For the first time, we'll be having a workshop on Sunday on forest bathing followed by a book signing given by Melanie Choukas-Bradley, author of The Joy of Forest Bathing: Reconnect With Wild Places & Rejuvenate Your Life.

The famous Harpers Ferry Ghost Tour (touted as the oldest in America, with a 5-star rating on TripAdvisor) will be offered both Saturday and Sunday nights. We are also working on lining up a night-sky program one or possibly both nights.

On the historic side of things, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park will offer a program Saturday The Machine in the Garden, set in Virginius (in lower town), and on Sunday, retired HFNHP ranger David Fox will lead an African American History Hike, one of the most compelling ranger tours you'll ever hear, starting at ATC HQ.

This year, for the first time, there will be bands and vendors both Saturday and Sunday. A beer garden will be set up by the town on Saturday. The Barn will be open both days.

There will be a Flip Flop Festival Quest again this year, with prizes, and games for kids.

What's really cool is having flip floppers who participated in the festival before their hikes come back to help out afterwards--those who walked left Harpers Ferry and walked 2200 miles, and those who left Harpers Ferry and walked several hundred miles and are equally pumped to help out future flip floppers.

More details will be posted at www.flipflopfestival.org (http://www.flipflopfestival.org) soon! Photos from past years are there too.

[Brian Steinberg]

Laurie

I'm doing a hike this year and I'm definitely coming to Flipper Fest. The plan is to attend Flipper Fest and hike out with the group sunday morning. Is there going to be a slack pack option to the first shelter in? From there I'll be getting a ride to the Delaware Water Gap to hike to Katahdin. I've sectioned hiked up to Dartmouth, NH and have the NH and ME sections to do, so I figure I need to hike for at least 4-6 weeks to build up to those sections. Also I have to be in Chicago by the end of August for school, so I'll need to be finished by then. Heading out from Harpers Ferry will cut it a little too close to finish by then.

Really excited for the Flip Flopper Festival. It's literally the best send off to hike the AT. Not even sure there is another send off like this from either direction. I guess April 1 is a major set out day for a possible Springer send off, but I guess if they did an AT Fouls Day Festival at that hotel on the approach trail it would be even more crowded and crazier to set out that day.

About 90 days to train and lose a little more weight before Filp Flopper Days

Brian

[Slo-go'en]

Laurie
I'm doing a hike this year and I'm definitely coming to Flipper Fest. The plan is to attend Flipper Fest and hike out with the group sunday morning. Is there going to be a slack pack option to the first shelter in? From there I'll be getting a ride to the Delaware Water Gap to hike to Katahdin.
About 90 days to train and lose a little more weight before Filp Flopper Days Brian
From Ed Garvey shelter you have two choices:

1) Continue onto the next road crossing Or 2) Go back to HF.

The next road crossing is at the War Correspondents memorial (you got to see it!). From Ed Garvey, it's an easy 3.7 to Crampton gap, so you might as well go that way. You could probably arrange to be picked up at the memorial. Or continue north for a few more days. There might be a better place near a major road to meet a shuttle at.


~caution! The water source for Ed Garvey is 0.4 miles (one way) down a steep trail. Plan accordingly ~

I'm not sure jumping north by 3 weeks is such a good idea, but who knows?

[Slo-go'en]

Oh, slack pack options.

The hike to Garvey and back might be a little long for a day hike, just shy of 14 miles round trip from the ATC. The climb out of the river valley is a grunt, but the rest is easy, so it's not totally out of the question. You'd want an early start, probably before most of the FFers, but you'd meet them all on the way back out.

Or just go as far as the first vista, Weverton cliffs. That makes it just shy of a 10 mile round trip from the ATC as a reference point. Once past the cliff, there isn't much of interest the rest of the way to the shelter.

[tdoczi]

The hike to Garvey and back might be a little long for a day hike, just shy of 14 miles round trip from the ATC.

if one were to compile a list entitled "easiest 7 miles stretches of the AT" this would be near, if not at, the top.

and outside of very hard areas such as the white and maine 14 miles a day is few people's idea of a long day.

[Slo-go'en]

if one were to compile a list entitled "easiest 7 miles stretches of the AT" this would be near, if not at, the top.

and outside of very hard areas such as the white and maine 14 miles a day is few people's idea of a long day.

Like I said, going to the shelter and back isn't out of the question. Still a long day for day one, even as a slack pack and as easy as it is. Actual distance depends on where he's staying in HF, TeaHorse is another 1.5 miles from the ATC. Shelter and back with breaks is going to be a 8-9 hour day. The other factor is weather. We're assuming nice spring day. Maybe instead it's cold and rainy?

In any event, once to Weverton cliffs a decision could be made whether to go the extra distance to the shelter or to turn back.

[Traffic Jam]

Mice like books too.