still on the trail

hey all!

It has been a long time since we got the chance to post. We leave the trail a lot less now so  it seems this is the last thing we think of doing. We are almost in Maine with 298 miles to go! This is going to be more pictures then anything else so check it out!

Hiking down our first white mountain

crazy steps

on top of little Haystack in Franconia Ridge

Glory shot

Blaze and Metric

Blaze found the shady spot

Blaze enjoying the view

Franconia Ridge

BLAZE!

The trail has always been full of surprises. We have learned to expect the unexpected all the time. You think ‘hey, I’ll walk 20 miles’ and the next thing you know you have a beer in your hand after only going 5 miles.  Or you look at the elevation profile and think ‘hmmmm, today looks like it’s going to be a breeze’ only for all those small blips in the profile to turn into steep rocky hills. Going with the flow is pretty much the best way to cruise along the trail at ease. Never expect any day on the trail, or in fact the whole trail to turn out as one plans. So with this theme of unplanned and unexpected trail surprises we would like to introduce Blaze.

 Let’s start when Blaze was not yet named. A week ago we were crossing a gap in Pennsylvania. At this road crossing a trail angel had set up a hiker feed. When we saw the cluster of hikers huddled around the food we threw our arms up celebrating the food and drink we were about to receive.  We hustled down and were immediately greeted by a dog. We thought he was either a trail dog we had not yet met or the dog of the trail angel.  We chatted with some of the fellow hikers and learned that he had come running out of the forest an hour before we arrived.  He was scruffy, matted, dirty, and made it quite clear that he was hungry.

As each hiker left one by one we found ourselves alone at the feed with just the dog and the trail angel. We started asking him more about the dog and learned that not only were there no houses for 30 miles in either direction but that people frequently used this spot to ditch dogs. Worse yet, the trail angel showed no interest in helping the dog. As we sat and ate (sharing our food with the polite and well mannered stray) we contemplated what to do. We were going to get a dog soon after finishing the trail (though we were going to wait till we had jobs), though we did not budget to have a dog on the trail at all. 

In the end we decided we could not leave him to the elements. If he would come willingly then we would take him with us, but we would not force him along. Before we left I looked at him and said ‘Buddy, this is your choice but if I were you I would come along’. We started up the trail calling the still nameless dog and sure enough he followed.

As this dog is following us along on the trail both of us fell in love. He is young, energetic, and very affectionate. He is a great trail dog, wondering only far enough ahead to still be in sight and waiting for us to catch up with him. Our first issue of suddenly having a dog on the trail was to think of a name. It actually only took moments to think of the most appropriate name for this dog. We knew it has to represent the time and place in our lives that we found him, something AT’ish. We settled quickly on BLAZE. We follow white blazes the entire length of the trail and our new dog has a white blaze right on his chest. By the end of our first 11 miles with Blaze he had grown fond of his new name as well.

Our first week with Blaze has been great. We still have a lot to learn about caring for a dog and he still have some learning to do himself (like how to walk on a leash). We have experienced some great magic from total strangers. Some of our hiking friends (the Twins and Conner) gave us food for his first days on the trail, Bob gave us a leash and collar, Dave helped out with some vaccinations, Mountain Laurel helped us with some food, another lady in town gave us some money for the vet, and the vet have us 50lbs of food! Amazing!

He is now all vaccinated, fed, decked out in hiking gear (yes he has his own backpack), and loved.

Halfway Done!

Halfway done!...and still over a 1000miles to go. It's an unbelievable feeling - seems like it took forever yet the passed 82 days also seemed to fly by. So much has happened - we've hiked in 7 states now, through the Mason-Dixon line into the north. For those of you out there hiking you know that Harpers Ferry is not the halfway point. Mile marker 1,090.5 is it! And what a beautiful sign it is.


To celebrate this great achievement...we tortured ourselves by trying to eat a half-gallon of ice cream (that's 1.89L). You may think it's awesome those of you at home, as we did originally, but halfway through the challenge you curse the idiot who started this tradition. 10 of us strolled into Pine Grove Furnace State Park just 3 miles beyond the halfway marker - Short Order, Cotton, Bearbait, Rainbow, Firestarter, Maps, Tomahawk, Stearman, Metric and I to take on the challenge. Only 6 completed it. Hats off to Cotton and Rainbow for eating it all under 45min; to Shorty and Tomahawk for choosing fruit flavoured ice cream; and to Firestarter for getting it done when you didn't even want to participate. And though it took me 1hour 28min I damn well did it - consuming the most calories at a whopping 3520. For any thru-hiker about to attempt the challenge - DO NOT PICK MOOSE TRACKS! The fudge almost had me puking a number of times. All in all the challenge was a blast.

Now we are in Pennsylvania making our way through the "rocks" everyone keeps talking about. It actually hasn't been that bad, but there's lots of PA to go still.

The trail magic continues - thanks to Fin, King Krawler, and Steve & Doris.

Happy trails!

I love Shennies!

Its day 65 and we have covered over 860 miles (1390 kms) on the trail. We are just finishing our resupply in Waynesboro, VA and heading into Shenandoah National Park. We have been anticipating this park for weeks and will be the first to admit that it is not because of the promise of beautiful views and scenery. In fact our 100 mile hike through the Shennies will cross Skyline Drive (a road) about 30 times! The excitment stems from the concession stands that we have been told are at about almost every road crossing along the way. Apparently the blackberry smoothies are a must have! The park also is the beginning of the "easier" terrain that we were promised in Virgina.  Last week, leading up to Waynesboro had four 3000 foot climbs (not something you want to be doing daily) so the 1000 footers in the Shennies are looking pretty darn good. From there we hit some of the flattest trail till we reach the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Its a good feeling knowing that we have some of the hardest terrain behind us and a month or more of sweet sweet flat lands ahead!

A beautiful foggy sunrise somewhere on the trail.

Low X

A trail shelter.

Always following a white blaze.

McAfee knob! This is a classic AT photo.

Celebrating after a climb to the knob.

We believe in magic!

The trail offers so many amazing things, but this is a shout out to all the trail angels! These are the people who for some reason or another give to the thru-hikers in many ways but mostly through food! You can be walking along the trail, reach a road crossing, and be greeted by a cooler filled with pop and gatorade. Or sometimes you suddenly smell BBQ as you walk and low and behold a trail magic feast! Twice now at shelters angels have brought the trail magic right to us. Rico walked in pizza and a case of beer to our amazement and another angle hiked in a cooler of icecream!

This past weekend was Memorial day weekend and the angels were out in full force! On Sunday we were planning on hiking 25 miles. We woke early and were on the trail by 6:30 to beat the scorching heat we have been dealing with lately. Within 2 miles we had reached a road crossing and there to greet us were past thru-hikers with a delicious breakfast of fruit, doughnuts, cakes, and drinks! We stayed and chatted with them for awhile and learned their plan was to serve lunch as well, just 7 miles up the trail. We set off thinking that it would be great to get lunch as well, but we surely would be well past their planned lunch spot by the time they moved.

We hiked up a huge mountain, sweating and puffing. As we rounded the last corner and could see the top we were met by yet more magic. Another former hiker was camped on the hill with coolers of pop and beer! At this point we realized that 25 miles was not going to happen and we embraced the magic of the day. Beers went down really easily, and as noon approached we headed back down the mountain to the lunch we knew was awaiting us!

Trail magic is one of the unexpected and most amazing pleasures on the trail. It always has the ability to uplift your spirit when you are feeling the most down. The people are out here purely because they love the trail and the trail people. We have already started scheming about how we are going to give back in the future.

Our Community

We have now made it 460 miles (740 kms) into our hike!  Along the way we have been growing as a community of committed thru-hikers making the pilgrimage to Katahdin. Arrow Maker met a hiker one day who was on the trail for the community, not the final destination like most others. He described the AT hikers as one of the last remaining nomadic communities left in North America. I really liked thinking about us this way. Our nomadic community moves northish almost daily carrying our homes on our backs. Sometimes we stay in the shelters left by "ancestors" of our community. We all have trail names (no need for a first and last anymore) and we communicate in a more simple way, through trail journals left in the shelters. We consume excessive amounts of food (about 3x's more then average) yet as a community we probably have the lowest BMI's as a whole. We all smell like swass most days, but hey, if we all smell bad who can tell! Friendships and bonds are solidified over extreme highs and lows that come with trail life. Our community... its GREAT!

Yesterday we walked into Damascus, known as the friendliest town on the trail! Here we are all gathering for a celebration for us, the AT thru-hikers of past and present. It is called Trail Days and is the largest gathering of thru-hikers for the whole journey! We even get to parade through the town (though I am wondering who will be watching). There is free food, gear, drinks and a very "lost boys" type forest party brewing.

In a few days we will head back on the trail. There are a lot of rumours that Virginia is "flatter" then what we have hiked so far, but a huge part of me is scepticle about the whole thing. A famous hated saying among hikers is "It's all down hill from here..." when truth be told you almost always feel as though there is a punishing amount of uphill every day. I hope the same principal does not apply to the "flatter" statement.

A highlight of this section of the trail is the Grayson Highlands where wild ponies run free! Apparently they are pretty tame and will come lick the salt from your hands, but I will be wary knowing that some hikers were attacked by the ponies a few weeks back (this may be a trail rumour).

Hopefully next time we can post some pictures!

Happy Trails!

Life on the Trail

Life on the Trail has set in - it is our life - it's what we expect everyday, well almost everyday, more like 25 days a month. It's what we want to do for the next 4 months or so! As April comes to an end we 'd like to show those of you at home how we roll here on the AT.

Here's our daily life in a nutshell...

Hiking - we spend roughly 8hrs walking the trail, up and down mountains (not hills), through creeks, balds and all sorts of forest types! We start around 8am and finish around 6pm, depending on how we're feeling. On average we travel about 16mi (that's 25km) - it's like a job!

Eating - we now have 5 meals a day plus snacks! Breakfast first thing in the morning, lunch #1 a couple hours later followed by lunch #2 and a possible lunch #3 all eaten on the trail. Finally we conclude the day with a big dinner (enough to feed four) before bed!

Sleeping - the sun dictates our bedtime for the most part. We're generally in bed by 9pm - hiker's midnight - and up by 7am. That's flippin 10hrs in bed! Though the sleep is never continuous, there's always something or someone making noise like a mouse running passed our feet, buddy beside us snoring (or sleep whispering, ya it's happened), or rain pouring down on the shelter's metal roof!

And that's all folks! Our beautifully simple lives on the AT!

19 days and counting

Today is day 19 of our adventure and we are doing the exact opposite of what we usually do. We are shopping, eating, cleaning ourselves and our clothes, and trying to be lazy and stay off our feet. We are in TOWN! I want to say town is a highlight of the trip, but that would be unjust to all the beautiful things we have seen and all the joys we have felt on the trail. Town is just differnt, and in that it feels great too!

We are currently hiking through our third state, Tennessee, and are in The Great Smoky Mountain National Park. No we have not had a personal appearance from Smoky the Bear, but we have heard from a few hikers that he is around. Yesterday we hiked to the top of Clingmans Dome, which is 6643 ft above sea level! This is the highest we will be on the entire AT journey! There is a road leading to the top of the mountain so it was filled with many many other tourists. It was odd because they took such an interest in us and the other thru hikers. They examined us, our packs, and quizzed us on our adventure. Some people even took pictures or videos of us! We became one of the attractions. On the other side of things us hikers examined them, their clothes, their ability to walk the final 0.5 miles to the top of the mountain, so in turn they were a different sight for us as well.

We have so far covered just over 200 miles (320ish km's) of the AT. Soon we will be hitting the 10% mark! Our small but meaningful victory for us. We will be celebrating! Here are some pictures of our journey thus far. One day we will find the time for a full and proper update!

low X and metric.

Us at the beginning of the trip! Still in Georgia.

Our 1% complete photo on Blood mountain. (makes me think of the you tube video...blood!)

Tent city at Low Gap!

From Left to Right: Keystone, Mr.Natural, Arrow Maker, me (metric), other me (Low X), and Raisins. This is the cabin we rented on our only zero day.

Low X in an old old fire tower in the Smokies.

Clingmans Dome view

Nick and Mel no longer...

One week has officially passed us by! One week of walking, walking, walking, eating and sleeping in the great outdoors! The week has been filled with so many highs and fortunately very few lows! How lucky we feel!

The greyhound to Atlanta was entertaining, to say the least. We were serenaded by no less then three rap shows, and once we reached Atlanta we were shown around by a kind homeless man named "gateway". Shortly after we met up with Hotrock, our first trail angle. He gave us a ride to Amicolola and gifted us our first snickers bar of the trail! YUM.

As soon as we hit the trail we started meeting all the fantastic people we will be seeing for the next six months. Some people, like Arrow Maker, Keystone, and Mr.Natural (aka salad dressing) we keep the same pace with and camp with every night. Others like Raisins, Lost and Found, Fling, John Wayne and many others we run into at unexpected times. Nighttime is hilarious, filled with exhausted people who find the silliest things a riot.

When I say we are Nick and Mel no longer I am somewhat eluding to the changes that are guaranteed to happen to us out here, but for now I am more referring to our new names. Nick = low expectations and Mel = metric.

I am already in love with this trail. There is so much to say but we must get back to walking. Hopefully on our next stop in town we will have more time to update the blog and put some pictures on!

Good-Bye Canada! Hello USA!

Its finally here! All the planning and saving and waiting for this day! Tomorrow we head on down south to Georgia where a kind veteran of the AT will take us to the start of the trail!

So good-bye Canada! We will miss your beautiful summer, swimming and canoeing in your plentiful lakes and hiking your forested trails! Good-bye loons, beavers, and swamp donkeys (aka moose which are aka bucket faces). Good-bye poutine, Tim Hortons, and maple syrup.  Good-bye playoffs, vinyl cafe, and Rick Mercer! And good-bye families, friends, and all Canadians!

We will be back in 6 months before our provincial health care gets cancelled!

xoxo!

We love food!

FOOD! FOOD! GLORIOUS FOOD! 5000 - 6000 calories of it DAILY! Never before in our lives have we eaten this much food (minus a few binges here and there), and the fact is we will not be able to eat as many calories as we are burning! The result of this will be seen as our emaciated selves return in six months time (picture Mr.Burns thin!). Food will be the thing we think about most, talk about the most, and dream about the most. What will our next meal be and when do we get to eat. This without a doubt is one of the things we do the most (after walking). As tough as this challenge is going to be we are willing to tackle it with mouths wide open, sporkful after glorious sporkful!

We took a picture of our first six days of food. Missing from the picture is our lunch's (to be purchased at the last possible time before departure), instant coffee (oh so important), oil (only for the purpose of adding calories), and seasonings! In all, we are carrying about 2 pounds of food each day for a total of 24 pounds of food!

                                              Nick dreaming about eating all our food!

A typical days worth of food would look like this:
Breakfast
2 packs instant oatmeal (250 cal) + meal replacement shake (150 cal)
Snacks
2 granola bars (440 cal) + 1 cup of chocolate (~900 cal) + 1 cup of nuts (~800 cal)
Lunch
2 pitas/wraps (400 cal) + a lot of peanut butter (250 cal)
Dinner
one dehydrated dinner pack each (600 cal)

So for the mathematicians out there that is still less then 4000 calories and that is where the oil comes in. Sounds gross but adding oil adds calories without much weight! Along with this we will be binge eating at every possible chance! I am counting on the American style all-you-can eat buffets to fill in some of our calorie deficits!

I am guessing that with food being numero deux on our minds (after walking) we will be blogging about it much more in the future, so look forward to hearing about some tasty concoctions we come up with on the trail! Also, family, friends, and others, feel free to mail us any delicious, tasty, high calorie food you think we might enjoy. Just message us to find out the address of the nearest post office off the trail! Much appreciated!

Today was the official one week mark to our departure. The anticipation has been building for well over a year but as the karate kid reminds us "patience young grasshopper".

 

Our bags are packed and we're ready to go...well not quite yet. But we're a few steps closer to our big hike now...

In prepping for the AT one of our biggest concerns was how to get to the start. After searching every possible flight down, we decided to take the trusty ol Greyhound (woot woot haha) from Detroit to Atlanta. It's a long journey - 16 hours - but luckily it's during the night. And of course the tickets were half the price of the plane tickets - $156.45 in total. So it's booked and we'll be departing April 5th, arriving in Atlanta at 10am April 6th. The next step was getting from the city to the trail, which turned out to be fairly easy to organize thanks to the ATC website. A shuttle will be picking us up right from the Greyhound station and taking us to Springer Mtn. If all goes smoothly we should be on the trail to the Trail (yes, there's an 8 mile hike up to the start of the AT) by 2pm-ish - fingers crossed.

Next was our packs...which we've almost got down to the perfect configuration and weight. So far our pack base weigh is 25lbs each, that's not including food and water. Check out the picture of all we have to carry! Missing from the picture is our tent, towel, and a few other odds and ends.

The Beginning...

Hi all,

this is the page we are going to use to post updates, stories, photos and videos of our 6 month hike on the Appalachian Trail.

So to begin with, a quick explanation of what we are going to try and accomplish in the next six months. The Appalachian Trail (from now on referred to as the AT) is one of several long distance hikes in North America. The trail begins in Georgia at Springer Mountain and ends a fantastic 3500 kms later in Maine at Mount Katahdin! To hike the AT we must follow the official trail marked by white blazes (white paint on trees and rocks) through the Appalachian mountain range. We will hike up and down mountains (including Mount Washington!), over balds, through rivers, farm fields, and even the odd town. We will carry about one week worth of supplies at a time in our trusty (and soon to be) very smelly backpacks!

On the way we are going to meet many others attempting to complete the AT. Every spring (March to April) about 1400 hopeful hikers leave Springer Mountain with the same goal of summiting Mount Katahdin before the end of October when the park closes for the season. By this point in the journey only 350 or so of the previously perky hikers who left Georgia will limp, crawl, or hobble up the final peak and claim victory over the AT! That is a 75% drop out rate!

So now that you know more of our upcoming adventure some of you may question why we would want to attempt the AT and even question our sanity. To that we say 'DO YOU EVEN KNOW US!!??' The challenge and adventure of the AT is enough to get us hooked, not to mention the promise of beautiful views and vistas, waterfalls galore, wildlife encounters, sunsets and sunrises, and new friends! It will be a new simple life where all we are concerned with is eating, sleeping, and hiking.

With that said we do not want you all to think that we are abandoning our friends and family. In fact we would love for anyone who is up to it to come and join us for a weekend, a week, a month, or the whole journey! If our description above has not sold you there is a second option. Live the AT through our page! We hope to update our page weekly with stories, pictures, and videos collected along the way. We also need our families and friends to keep us connected and would appreciate anything you want to share with us on here!

Happy Trails!
xoxo