While my dad was waiting to pick me up the previous night he talked to several thru hikers and a “trail angel” as well. Trail angels help hikers along their journey providing free food, rides, and a variety of other support. He met a pretty famous one by the name of Mrs Janet. She’s been a trail angel for years. She actually drives up north to Maine from Georgia alongside the AT as the “bubble” hikes north. The bubble is a group of thru hikers all heading up the trail at the same time. She does this so she can help a lot of people at the same time. As they are generally in the same location on the trail. My dad told me she was really nice.
He also told me he met an older gentlemen with a British accent. I said “was his name Mighty Blue?” He said, “it was, how did you know that?” I told him a new friend of mine was just telling me about him. He’s got a great podcast called “mighty blue on the Appalachian trail – the ultimate midlife crises”. He hiked the AT several years back and is doing it again this year. I just missed both of them. It would have been nice to have met them both. Maybe I will somewhere up the trail.
My dad talked to both of them for some time. He told them he was waiting to pick me up. Explained what had happened over the last two days. Getting caught in the ice storm, the 20 miles a day we hiked, etc. They said we should be hiking 8-12 miles this really in our hike. Not 20+ miles. They recommended I take 2 days off to rest and regroup. They said so many people get burned out or injured doing that many miles this early on.
So other than resting, the other main reason for my zero days was to reevaluate my pack so I could drop some weight. After the first two days on the trail with my real pack I’ve realized that every ounce counts. I need to drop some ounces. Ok a lot of ounces:)
A lot of hikers just throw their extra stuff away they don’t want anymore in what they call hiker boxes. These can be found at shelters and hostels. I guess I could have done the same but I’m not a big fan of throwing away perfectly good stuff. I mean, surely someone would taken whatever I threw away. But being so close to home, I just figured it would be best to offload what I don’t need for now. It’s very possible I’ll need it later down the trail. After reviewing everything more closely I was able to get my base pack weight down from 35 lbs to 20 lbs. Base weight is what your pack weights before food and water. This was a pretty substantial improvement.
I’ve been having issues with my feet swelling. My boots can only expand so far, so the more my feet swell, the more they hurt. I noticed on my last hike, I stopped and drank more water. And the day after, my feet weren’t as swollen. Could it really be that simple? I haven’t been drinking enough water, I’ve been dehydrated, and my body has been retaining water in my feet? We shall see. I’ll be drinking more water moving forward for sure.
You may recall my tent setup debacle in the ice and rain storm. Well I certainly remember it. It was a nightmare. So I decided to setup my tent for real this time. Not in the house. Outside, fully setup. It’s amazing how much easier it was on a nice day with the sun shining and no wind. Easy peasy. But basically you don’t want to have to set this tent up in bad weather. It’s not quick— not a pop up tent. I may need to consider swapping this one out for another. As I’m bound to get caught in another bad storm, of two, along this journey.
One of my goals with hiking the AT was to lose some weight. At 6’ 2” I weighed 235 lbs before I started the trail. This is the heaviest I’ve ever weighed. Not that this was a bad weight, I just thought it would be nice to get back down to about 215 or so. After my 1st week of hiking a weighted myself. I was down to 230 lbs. So I lost 5 lbs my first week. After my 2nd week on the trail I weighed 225 lbs. I lost another 5 lbs. So 10 lbs in 2 weeks. Not bad. I guess only eating about 500 calories a day and burning 5000 will have such effects. I call this the AT Diet.
I mapped out my week based on how many miles I plan on doing each day, checked elevations, shelters, the weather, etc. I helped my dad with updating some of our custom handmade wood bowls on our Withrow Woodworks Etsy store. I miss wood turning. I caught up on some of my company, NicheLabs, work items which included some proposals, project reviews, financial reports, and client marketing reports.
I’m excited to see how my lighter pack feels, how drinking more water helps my feet, and of course what the trail has in store for me this week!
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