Material Things

Lots of times that I tell people about hiking, they are interested in the kind of stuff that is necessary for such a venture. Well, actually, they want to know what we'll eat, and are inevitably disappointed by the fact that I will not be finding my own food. Here's the deal everyone: the fact that I did Survival Living and know in theory how to find *some* food does not mean that I can find food that would be even close to the kind of food necessary for walking up and down mountains all day every day. As far as I can tell from hiking website, through hikers burn 5000-6000+ calories per day, depending on pack weight and mileage.


Food

The food situation looks a little grim, considering that it will be going on for about three months. All meals have to be boiled in our one pot on the sort of camp stove pictured. We don't want to have to carry too much fuel (we don't want to have to carry too much of anything!) so we're focusing on foods with a short cook time. Here are a few menu items:
Cream of Wheat, pastina, minute rice, packets of tuna, mac and cheese, beef jerky, fruit leather, cliff bars, candy bars, peanut butter, pepperoni, and so on...



Packs
Backpacks are going to be our constant companions, so I think they are extraordinary important. We spent about three hours trying on all sorts of bags, adjusting them, filling them with weights, comparing, contrasting, agonizing. In the end, I chose an Osprey pack, made specially for women (apparently, I have a very short torso). I like the pack because it is light, built to carry a lot of weight (up to 60lbs, which it better not every actually have to do), and it has a hip belt with soft panels so that my hip bones don't get (as) bruised.

My pack is the Ariel 65. I almost got the Gregory women's pack, the Deva, but it was heavier, and I was worried about my hips getting really bruised really fast. In case you don't know how this whole backpacking thing works, you carry about 80-90% of the weight on your hips and only a little on your shoulders. If one's hips get so bruised that you can't clip your pack on, things would get difficult. AJ says that when I am wearing my pack, I just look like a pack with legs when viewed from behind. These things are big!

Shoes
Shoes are to be determined soon. Obviously, they are also important.

Clothes
The long and short of the story is that we will be styling on the trail. We're only suppsosed to bring 2 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of underwear, 1 short sleeve shirt, 1 long sleeve shirt, 1 sweater, 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of shorts, maybe long underwear, and rain gear.

The rest is gravy, and I am happy to be able to gratefully report that some very generous outdoorsy folks have offered to lend us all sorts of camping stuff.

The Backstory

This is a blog about a hike. Blogs are, of course, self indulgent enterprises, but it seems to me that this sort of undertaking could prove amusing to a wider audience. Even if you are not very amused, you will probably be more amused than I will be, as I will most likely be in great discomfort.

What's going on here?
In short, we are going to walk a long distance. The route is not set in stone yet, but we have some ideas. The current plan is a two stage venture. Part 1: Walk from Harper's Ferry WV into some part of Massachusetts via the Appalachian Trail. It's 486 miles from WV to the MA border, so let's call that leg of the trip 500 miles.

Part 1 makes me think of this song. The A.T. is really long, we won't have even covered 1/4 of it! It'll still be a long way for us, but on the bright side, the walking isn't supposed to be too hard through the midatlantic states.



After a few days, we will start part two of the trip: The Long Trail. The Long trail runs the full length of Vermont from the MA border to the Canadian border for 272 miles across the Green Mountains. This means we're going to be hiking up and down a lot of really big mountains! We plan to be in shape by then though, having already done 500.

And then, exhausted, disgusting, uncivilized, and having walked (we hope) almost 800 miles, we will go home. In theory we will be super fit and have a new outlook on life.



Who's we?
No, I have not yet gone crazy to the point of referring to myself with the royal we. Nor do I want to spend such a long time all alone in the woods. I'll be hiking with AJ, who will, I hope, join in the blogging. AJ's awesome and has all sort of life saving skills, which I hope we won't be needing.

There we are. We don't look like hikers just yet... but we will!