Location Post - April 30, 2015 resupply box #2

39.673462,  -77.530304
Staying in the same place we did last night.

Box #2    Mailed to Boiling Springs, PA

 

{ed: You feed your kids while they are growing up.  They leave home and you expect them to feed themselves.   Here I am feeding my kids again.  For the next six months.}

Location Post - April 29, 2015

39.673462, -77.530304
Mailed a couple of trail guides.

Location Post - April 28, 2015

39.630650, -77.555252
Taking a rest day tomorrow and going into town.  Everything is OK.

Location Post - April 27, 2015

39.541713, -77.602372
We have decided we have too much food at one time.  Heather suggested splitting restock boxes in half.

{ed: Each restock box is about 13 to 15 lbs. plus additions items that are placed in them as needed.}

Location Post - April 26, 2015

39.461910, -77.639565
Doing OK.  Feeling it in the shoulders and legs.  Have stopped earlier than yesterday.
Hiked 9 miles

Dave & Heather's first encounter with a Bear on the AT trail - April 25, 2015

Dave & Heather's first encounter with a Bear on the AT trail in Harpers Ferry, WV.

Location Post - April 25, 2015 The Start!

Started the trip on foot.
Saturday at Noon 39.329814, -77.681927  Keep Tryst Road

Evening:
39.361042, -77.662895
Rained after we found camp.   Met Moxy and Frog Monkey,  They hiked the A.T. last year.  Super positive people,  a good first day.  Went up 1000 feet in elevation.

{editor: You ever wanted to take your kids and drop them off in the woods?   My wife and I did that to Heather & Dave!}

On the eve of our departure... Part 2

H:
Some how this mass of lists will tomorrow morning be organized.

Right now it looks like this:

And no...we're not taking the oscillating fan, the couch, or the TV tray.

On the eve of our departure..

D:
There are no fewer things to do today than any other day in the last several months. In addition to packing everything properly from 2 or 3 inventory lists, we need to clean up our occupation of Heather's parents apartment for the last 3 weeks.

Probably not the last invention we'll make for our trip, but at least one that needed done while we still had the resources of an electrical outlet and sewing machine. We created a head strap for holding the flashlights we're taking. In fact, two of them.

Weighing in at 14 grams, or half an ounce for a couple of pieces of elastic, will be invaluable for working hands free when it's dark. For those of you who have held a flashlight in your teeth, for any length of time while working on a project, can appreciate this the most.

A lot of people buy headlamps already made but ours is not just a headlamp.  Out setup is rechargeable,  can via a USB cable power a phone or MP3 player... and, with flashlight included it weighs 50 grams, about 2 ounces, less than the store bought ones.

The clever part is we already had the material from the purchases for previous projects. Another feature for the completion of its adjust-ability is a roll of velcro I brought with me. It was free to me, I saved it from being thrown out.

Tomorrow, at an unspecified time, we'll load into the car and head north to Harpers Ferry.

Decadence is a full sized bath towel...

H:
As we packed our gear today in preparation for leaving in a few days these words were said to us,  "So, you're really going to do this?".   My mom has a way with phrases.  She always gets one in when you least suspect it.  I blame it on the fact that she has been substitute teaching kindergartners lately.  

The next one she said though was a classic mother thought, "So, are you going to wear the same thing every day,  day after day?"  This was a reaction to the tiny stuff sacks we had our "spare" clothes in.  No, we have a change of clothes. 

Next came the big one, "Are you taking a change of underwear?"  Leave it to moms to worry about the important things.

With the exception of a cotton t-shirt that will double as a towel when drying off after bathing,  (yeah you read that right), all of our extra clothing fits into a 5 inch diameter bag that is about a foot long.  Total weight is about 4 and a half pounds, including the stuff sacks.  I think my clothes weighed 2 pounds 8 ounces and Dave's were 2 pounds and an ounce or so.

Fully packed, these stuff sacks will double as pillows at night.  Living the good life.

1 for the money, 2 for the show, 3 to get ready...

H:

Just 3 days left before we start our hike!

Our gear is laid out on the sofa and love seat at my parent's place.  We have an inventory list to check off everything as we pack it up to make sure we have, well, everything.  But we just can't seem to do it because every time we get ready to start we think of some other little process or project to do first.  It's not stalling, in fact it's getting things finished so that we can check them off.  

We just finalized how the collection bag for filtering water will hang (it's a gravity filter system), but first we had to find the bag!  Turned out it was in the bottom of one of the backpacks.  We are sealing the seams on the tarp I made (months ago, I know, I know, I could have done it then).  We ordered a digital scale for weighing packages to ship to ourselves.  We initially thought we would use the standard flat rate boxes to make it easy on my parents but by not using the flat rate boxes we save 5 times what the scale costs so it is worth the investment.  

Now I'm just sitting down to design an identification label for putting on the boxes that will be shipped to us.  That way when we go to the post office and say that we're thru hikers, we can also say... oh yeah it's the box with this label on it that has hikers and beans.  

Okay, back to work for a bit!

We went to Virginia Beach on Saturday

 It has been nice for the last 3 months to occasionally take a break from the never ending organizing for the trip. It was only a half an hour drive south too. Lucky for us, we were there for about 2 1/2 hours before the weather moved in.

 

It won't be long before our scenery is radically different..

Thanks for the tip, literally..

A friend of mine, fellow contra dancer and recent thru-hiker Curly J, suggested I make my tent stakes more visible. Tent stakes have been known to be ejected from your sleeping area with a strong enough gust. It's expected to be a little nicer to find them looking for an orange duct tape flag, than a naked tent stake landing on an aluminum colored rock.

One of my favorite times..invention time.

It's never been about feeling compelled to make absolutely everything I own and use, it's more like, "I could make that better and cheaper if I do it myself." Then, attempt to enjoy the process, that's a bonus.
There is a lot more going on than it seems in these next few pictures. At first glance it appears to be a long sheet of metal flashing 6 inches wide, a 3ft aluminium dowel 1/4 wide, and a few hand tools. The portable vice is a nice touch, to be able to move it where your working, instead of being mounted to a work table. I'm also in my wife's parents apartment and we're not on the lease. Keeping a low profile, though a challenge, is a priority.

Not only am I going to make my own tent stakes (tent stakes available to me locally were too short or too expensive) I'm making my own pot stand / wind screen combo, to cook our food on. Making it myself allowed me to use two longer tent stakes that will double for supporting the pot and hold the wind screen together. It saves weight, money and I made it myself ( Insert maniacal laugh)



First order of business, open pliers enough to place the dowel in it's jaws before you clamp the pliers, that aren't normally supposed to be used like this, in place.




Then slowly bend it around the jaws of the pliers to make a shape like this. Aluminum is soft, so to make one of these only took about 20 seconds, then I cut to length with the bolt cutters.

Next on the menu is drilling 4 strategic pilot holes in the sheet metal to place to two extra long tent stakes all the way across. This will not only hold the wind screen in place, I'll set the pot evenly on top of them. The height of the holes were selected to place that alcohol burner I made out of a cat food can a while back. An ounce of gas line antifreeze known as Heet, is all that's required to properly cook our meal for two.

Disregard the purposely deformed can from an earlier burn test, and you are looking down upon a wind screen combo cook pot that is super light.

Here it is, in action with a pot holder being used as insulation to keep the water as hot as possible while cooking. Aluminum is probably the best type of metal for heat distribution through convection. It's also harder to keep things warm as it is quick to cool off. Since it's completion, Heather has already crocheted a more permanent, circular design for insulation. (picture temporarily unavailable)

Before the fuel ran out, I measured boiling temperatures for 2 to 3 minutes. That will be good enough to heat our dehydrated food after it's reconstituted. 

Finally, to prove that I am not completely perfect, I'd like to point out how I almost completely melted the face of the thermometer. Yeah, that's not steam. In the heat of the moment...

Seam Stress

D:
I figured it out. Everyone thinks it's the occupation of women sewing. Well I think anyone who sews seams has stress. As it happens, my wife is the one occupied with the sewing.
I can do it, I have done it, so I sew so so. (yes, I positioned myself to be able to type that, but it's true.) With the recent addition of a 90.00 sewing machine, Heather has probably spent around 20 hours altering clothing, making food bags, or 2 grams of fabric stuff sacks that will help us stay better organized on our hike by putting like items together.

This morning's break from some sewing was research on how to properly tie your food in a tree so little furry creatures aren't able to chew through your food bag or large furry creatures aren't able to rip it open, bear. Fortunately, bear, for the most part, don't want anything to do with humans, but there is this excellent training video available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dfd18Zfv2U

We opted for using a food bag hanging in the tree as the lightest option. A bear resistant food container is not only heavier, it is somewhat awkward to fit it in your backpack with everything else. Besides, we get the daily challenge of putting a rock in the bag we use for the tent stakes, with a rope tied to it, to throw the rope over a tree limb, to hang our food high enough above ground for the night. Maybe we'll be the only ones that eats our food for the entire trip..that's the challenge.

It's not all work, while we continue to get ready for being dropped off at the trail. Since we weren't going to use a bear resistant food container we might as well see how good they were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn7oayAaf4k

10... no 9... no... 8?

H:
The calendar speaks... we have but 8 days remaining before we finally start our hike.  The last 2 weeks has been spent in highly productive ways.  But it will finally be good to get to the trail and put all of this preparation to use!

We've never worked so hard to carry so little.  But one "extra" item we wanted was an umbrella.

The concept of carrying an umbrella while hiking is that it can act as a windbreak as well as to keep the rain off.  If the terrain is conducive to hiking with it, you can prevent having to put on your rain jacket which can heat you up unnecessarily.  If it's raining in the middle of the night and you need to find a bathroom, and by that I mean just get out of your tent, it can keep you dry enough.  It can also work to keep off the sun.  We've walked and bicycled in rain gear and we know the benefits to staying out of it when working up a sweat, so we're going to give the umbrellas a try, if we could just find the right kind!

You see, not just any umbrella will do.  Most umbrellas we have found are too big or too heavy.  The "dream" umbrella is the folding style, not the telescoping collapsible ones that have a lot of hinges and breakable parts.  It would also be light weight, say less than half a pound.  And it would be cheap.  This combination is pretty much impossible to find.  There are a few "backpacking" umbrellas on the market but at $30 a piece we weren't in a rush to buy two.  We've been looking everywhere for the right umbrella.  I even started hunting for a "kids" umbrella but the few we found were too tiny.  

Today we held out hope when we went to K-Mart.  But, our hopes were dashed by the umbrellas we found there in the clothing section.  Perhaps we just weren't going to be able to get umbrellas.

Dave wandered off to use the ATM inside the store.  Eventually he called to me.  He'd been standing by the ATM waiting for it to process his transaction.  While the computer was spinning, Dave's boredom got the best of him, and he looked around to find himself standing by a wire bin filled with giant patio umbrellas.  I shrugged my shoulders at him as he pointed to what was hanging off the outside of the bin.  Then I realized he was pointing at dozens of small, folding, lightweight, and most importantly... cheap umbrellas!  They were designed to bolt to a table or chair's arm rest.  A quick look revealed that the, unnecessary to us, bolt mechanism spun off the end.  Success!

At $6.99 each and everything we hopped for we bought two.  Final weight after removing the bolt mechanism... 225 grams. Around half the weight of another hikers lightweight umbrella.

There may be a living room in the background, but Dave was checking out the use of the umbrella for the trail in his mind.

Rain drops keep falling... well... everywhere...

H:
Dave keeps saying, "It was a good idea to delay our start because I don't know how we would have gotten all these things done in time."  As we were already supposed to be hiking for at least 5 days by now, I completely agree.

Today we spent time at the fabric store looking for material for last minute items.  There seems to be so many of them that we need!

We found water resistant, coated, stretchy, polyester fabric (a lot of adjectives there), at 50% off a 50% off price!  Not bad.  Actually, all the fabric we bought today was reduced, and reduced again, thanks to a sale on the Red Tag table at JoAnn Fabrics.  It's a dinky little JoAnn's here in Newport News, but they had the goods.

What I bought today actually coordinates nicely, but it doesn't go with anything else we have!
We'll look a bit like walking rainbows when we're hiking.  

Today we talk about rain gear.  A drawback that everyone talks about with rain gear is that it works so well to keep out the water that it keeps in the sweat and you end up damp on the inside anyway.  Not a problem when you're walking, just something to be concerned about when you stop, as you can get chilled. 

Now, a poncho allows for ventilation and movement and also keeps your lower half mostly dry.  It's easy to toss over yourself and pack and cheap.  But they may not last all that long and can be problematic when walking through some overgrown areas. 

And if you're interested in reading all about it, there's a lot more pros and cons out there and strong opinions to go with them all.  In the end though, it all comes down to your preference and that is derived from your experience.

That said, we're going hybrid on rain gear.  We have our clearance rack Patagonia rain jackets for our upper halves. 

We found these on clearance at Dick's Sporting Goods.  For whatever reason they were marked down 50% off of the sale price.  Originally $129, marked down to $99.97, and we paid $49.99... times 2, one for each of us.  That's a pretty good buy for a really great jacket.  We've worn them several times now for rain and wind protection, as well as added warmth. 

For the lower limbs we're going to wear a rain skirt (or kilt) over either pants or shorts.

A rain skirt and rain kilt provide the same coverage, there is only a difference in design.  My observation is quite bland in that "skirts" are a tube with an elastic or drawstring waistband, "kilts" are flat and wrap around the body.  Of course it could also just be semantics, or even gender... women wear "skirts" and men wear "kilts".  A Google search of "rain skirt" and "rain kilt" does bring up an array of photos of all genders.

I have come across skirts/kilts commercially available, ranging in price from the ULA rain kilt at $30 to the Rainskirts.com skirt at $142.  I have seen homemade ones that are as complex as a skirt sewn from Tyvek house wrap or as simple as a trash bags cinched around the waist.

In essence, both are a poncho for your lower half, but we'll be making kilts no matter which one of us is wearing them because they will be of a wrap around design for ease of putting on while hiking.  I can just see me with my pack on my back, hopping on one foot, trying to get my skirt on.  Add in water to this scenario and it's starting to look scary.  I will be using the lightest colored waterproof fabric in the photo at the top which in real life is a light blue.

My fabric purchase for this project is 100% polyester that is waterproofed.  It's very lightweight but seems quite durable.  We considered taking a lightweight poncho apart and making the kilt out of that, which would allow for replacement along the way if it was damaged and very little money would be invested.  But the fabric that we purchased today would probably not need to be replaced for the duration of the trip and, due to the amazing sale price, our skirts will be about the same price as a few cheap-o rain ponchos. 

I just have to make them!

I will also be making gaiters to be worn around the ankle and strapped to the shoe to prevent trail grit from getting into the shoe.  I bought the fun fabric for that.  However, after getting the dark blue and green fabrics home, I realized they may work very nice as waterproof gaiters and I have a good bit there to work with.  The plan with the taffeta is to make stuff sacks for clothing, food, and little ditty bags.

Now, off to the sewing machine!

Easy as a walk in the park..Newport News Park

H:

Today's training day involved taking a hike at a local 8,000 acre park. 

My mom dropped us off at the Welcome Center, and while she played 9 holes at the adjoining golf course we hiked the nature trails through Civil War battlefield.  It's a bit hard to see but the dark area running through this picture is the bottom of the trench dug out by soldiers.  To the left and right there are high mounds.  The trench is around 5 feet deep.  

Being in Newport News we are on a peninsula.  Everywhere you look there's water of some sort, lakes, swamps, streams, rivers, and if you get to the very end and maybe use binoculars... and it's a really clear day, you may just see the ocean 30 miles away.  Today we mainly dealt with swampy boggy type of water. 

We met a new friend along the way, but he's very shy and didn't really want his picture taken. 

It was a fantastic day for a hike and we put on about 4 miles.  We loaded our packs with many items that we will hike with, we packed snacks, and even wore some of our official hiking gear.  

Below we are decked out in our clearance rack clothing.  The shirts are the ones I bought for a couple bucks each and the pants were 75% off at Dick's sporting goods,about $9 bucks each.  They are "golfing" pants.  At least that's the department I bought them from.  100% polyester and amazingly lightweight.  They're a bit baggy on both of us.  Dave's were hemmed tonight when we got back to my parent's and we're planning on cutting into the waist bands on them to add a drawstring, better than a belt and not as easy to lose.  

Aren't we stylish?  Yeah, yeah, we sort of match but clearance rack pickers can't be choosers.  

Ah, resourcefulness..

While Heather and her mom are at the grocery store, I did a little investigating. It turns out another resource for the trail has revealed itself, with the proper key words and Google. Remember those kml files? I found one for parking. Not a big deal if there is only one or two parking spaces. When there are hundreds of known places along the trail you can help someone to meet you, is a special thanks to the creator of this file. 

If you like to hike or hunt, there may already be a file out there for you.

What else can you find to do while waiting to start the trail..

You teach someone, who wants to learn, how to knit.

So, what happens to an avid motorcyclist when they're off their bike for a while..

They dream about them, of course. Literally dreaming of riding..then I wake up. I made a comment to Heather, "If we hadn't gone on this hike, I was ready for this kind of adventure somewhere." She didn't object that much after I told her she could ride it too.

p.s. You would be measured as an extremely nice person 

if you bought this to give to me when I return.

Making the most of your gps enabled phone

MAPS.ME, Sygic, and Maprika are a few of the apps I have on my phone. They're all free, which I like, but they will all be used in different ways while hiking.

Sygic is better for what's in the area when we're in town.
MAPS.ME for entering latitude and longitude coordinates I'm sent for meeting up with someone or someplace where I know the coordinates.
Maprika for user uploaded maps, with a red line where the A.T. runs through all of the Eastern states.

A lot of these apps will have you download different states to be able to navigate offline.

To top it off, add a KML file (Keyhole Markup Language) and we have even more useful information for when we have no phone signal.  A KML file can be used to generate a series of landmarks that will appear on a map.  We downloaded two to use so far, one is for the shelters on the A.T. and the other denotes the available post offices near to the trail.

This picture was taken from MAPS.ME.  The red line is the A.T.  The pinpoints along the line are the shelters along the trail.  The green dot represents where I pressed the screen to show which post office is available in the area.

If we were actually on the trail you would see a blue triangle representing our location.

We visited Sandy Bottom Nature Park today and liked the environment. While we walked on the longest trail, 3+ miles, we talked about coming to this park to walk every day. It's only 3 miles away and there isn't the danger of walking on neighborhood roads with traffic. While the paths are wide, the scenery made us imagine ourselves out on the trail already.

Because all of the apps use a downloadable file for reference, it doesn't matter if my phone doesn't have a signal to make calls.
During our walk I opened MAPS.ME to show a screen capture example of my navigation resources while we're on the trail.  I already had the Virginia state map on my phone since the A.T. runs through the whole state.  I turned on the GPS and waited for a lock.

These two pictures are about 3 minutes apart showing are progress, counter clockwise, around the trail.  You can see the blue triangle representing our position.

Had a good laugh when I got this..

"No motorcycle Dave !
Missing you & your motorbike around the VA !!!
Good luck on your ventures dude."


These guys helped me look a lot better during total joint procedures.

They are standing in front of the place where I used to park my motorcycle when I was working at the VA.

Today's Riddle:

D:
What begins in the middle, is the middle at the end, starts over in the middle, and ends at the beginning?

The answer: the way we're going to hike the A.T.

It was after 11 p.m. 3 days ago.  It had been a particularly “busy” and challenging day, when Heather offered a "brain buster". Just the mere mention of the term and being satisfactorily drained for the day, I entertained the notion. "I'm ready" I said.

As a surprise, to both of us really, Heather suggested hiking the trail “out of order”.   When you haven’t done something like this before why not do what is recommended by the experts?  Heather discovered an excerpt at the A.T. Conservancy's website:  http://www.appalachiantrail.org/hiking/thru-section-hiking/when-where-to-start.  You can read the part about half way down the page titled HEAD-START FROM HARPERS FERRY (Recommended by ATC)

A few of the reason’s that appealed to us from the list given on the ATC’s website were:

·         The appeal of starting in the “middle” and hiking North puts hikers on some of the easiest terrain to begin, then progressively gets more difficult to Maine.  After finishing in Maine, where the terrain is most difficult”, the second half on the trail, you will be in excellent shape to return to the middle and hike South. 

·         The weather is the most appealing.  Nice weather to start, no black flies, and fall colors as you hike South. 

But bigger reasons were the personal ones:

·         We need more time to get ready.  While we've been working on getting ready for the trip for the last six months, our life just isn't buttoned up enough to start in a week.  If we hike an alternate thru-hike we can start after a few additional weeks of getting things in order.

·         We have more time at the end than right now.  We can hike into November if we hike South for the second half.  We have no end date we need to return by, we just need to be done when the weather is too inclement. 

·         The last 2 months we haven't walked nearly as much as we would have liked due to working and spending most of our time getting "everything", ready and still trying to have some social time with friends and family, (i.e. we could stand to walk for 3 weeks to get into better shape before we start hiking steeper terrain.)

·         Heather would like to relax before going hiking and several months of stress getting ready needs to be separated from running right to the trail.

·         The “crowds” we will avoid are the people we’d probably want to avoid in real life anyway.  We seek the woods for what the woods have to offer, not what people do.

I was so tired, but from the presentation leading up to starting this topic and the inflection in her voice I thought “I’d better try to listen” but I was also thinking “We’re starting in a week, why are we talking about hiking in ways we had not even entertained up to this point?  We were going to start at the “arch” at the “beginning” and hike ALL THE WAY to the mountain top at the “end”. 

Heather was quick to say “you don’t have to give an answer tonight.”  But as she presented the bullet points of ideas listed above I thought, “If we’re still going to be on the AT, I don’t care where we start.” 

In the end, we are starting in the middle at Harper's Ferry, hiking to Mount Katahdin at the end, returning to the middle at Harper's Ferry, then hiking to the beginning in Georgia.  It’s still all the miles, and we figured if the original designer of the trail never expected someone to hike the whole thing in one go, we were free to do it however we wanted.  When talking about the AT it is said “Hike your own hike.”  And we intend to.

Weary Travelers...

H:

We attempted to sneak into my parents' apartment when we arrived early this morning, but we made too much noise.  We sent my mom back to bed and were finally resting our own bones on an air mattress by 1 a.m. this morning. 

 

You can't tell from this photo, but we just crossed under the Appalachian Trail as we are driving Hwy 64. Will be a few months before we're back here again! 

Just a little more.

Dinner is over and we are back to the road.  A delay yesterday made us wait a day to leave but now we're almost done with a slow day of driving. Soon we see the ocean!

  We're making good progress, not bad for a nearly 16 year old car with a hundred twenty eight thousand miles on it. There's probably 250 pounds of dried food going with us too. 

We finally left Seymour Indiana around 10, a quick stop in CVS for some sunglasses and we're on our way.