I work at a university and will be off for Spring Break during the week of March 17-21. Probably the first part of that week, while it's still officially Winter, I'd be climbing in the Whites. So my AT hiking days would be Thurs-Fri 3/20-21 and Sun-Tues, 3/23-25. If hiking on the 25th, we'd have to be off the trial early because I need to drive home and be at work 7:30AM the next day.
We'd be starting at Tyringham, Mass and heading north. Tyringham is about 9 trail miles south of I-90 and US 20.
I want to continue working my way up the AT through this deer tick/Lyme disease infested stretch. I just haven't heard anything good about Lyme disease,and don't want to mess with it. The ticks are supposed to be dormant at temps below 35F, so I'm only going to do this if the forecast says the maximum daytime temp will be below 35F.
-I'd like to day hike as much distance as possible. With light packs, a faster pace, and having a car at each end, we can do 12+ mile sections each day. There's one 18 mile, +2500' section from US 20 north to Dalton that I'd like to do as a day hike.
I'm 53 years old. After a 10 year lapse, got interested in accumulating more continuous AT mileage. I've done 4 of these trips in Dec. or Jan. Twice solo, twice with a partner found on this forum.
I prefer to do sections S --> N for the sake of continuity.
I'm in pretty good, though not excellent shape. I hike year round and have done 81/NE115 4,000 footers in Winter, including 11 in Maine December '06, and 6 in NH this January. This past December I hiked about 42 miles of AT from Salisbury, CT to Tyringham. Some was solo backpacking, 25 miles was dayhiking w/Dingus Khan. See trip report at http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/show...t=30694&page=4