tripping up the trail

October 26, 2006

Plotting

Filed under: preparation — dragons0mother @ 4:16 am

Kari and I haven’t had time to go on long walks together.  And the month of September is absolutely miserably hot here.  Who wants to walk when the ‘feels like’ temp is over 100 and the humidity is approaching or surpassing 70%?

But I have begun walking again on my own.  Last week I walked to Pembroke Pines and back to Cooper City where I called Robert to please come get me.  My feet didn’t want to walk any further.  On Tuesday I walked over 6 miles.  Yesterday I walked over 5.

Yesterday I was reminded why walking a moderate distance in jeans isn’t recommended.  oh, the chafing. 

Sunday is the next long walk day for me.

 

Plotting

Filed under: preparation — dragons0mother @ 4:16 am

Kari and I haven’t had time to go on long walks together.  And the month of September is absolutely miserably hot here.  Who wants to walk when the ‘feels like’ temp is over 100 and the humidity is approaching or surpassing 70%?

But I have begun walking again on my own.  Last week I walked to Pembroke Pines and back to Cooper City where I called Robert to please come get me.  My feet didn’t want to walk any further.  On Tuesday I walked over 6 miles.  Yesterday I walked over 5.

Yesterday I was reminded why walking a moderate distance in jeans isn’t recommended.  oh, the chafing. 

Sunday is the next long walk day for me.

 

September 2, 2006

2nd email from Cowboy

Filed under: reading — dragons0mother @ 1:33 pm

Hey Folks,  Well, I made it to Harpers Ferry in one piece and am done with the southern section of the AT. The weather finally started cooperating after Buena Vista, VA with the heat never getting too bad and I even got an occasional rain to cool everything down and rinse off. A few days after that I found a very unique hiker’s hostel. It’s run by an old guy named Rusty and is the oldest running hostel on the AT. I showed up in the morning and went to church with him (apparantly it was Sunday). The rest of the day I helped him with some chores around his farm consisting of two gardens, a hog, and plenty of chickens. This place is a luxury resort for hikers. There is a 9-hole frisbee golf course, rain water shower, basketball hoop, ping-pong table, skeet shooting range, a handful of natural springs, a full kitchen, and even a wood-fired hot tub. This is all spread out across 19 acres which is completely surrounded by National Forest land, so no neighbors around and only hikers are allowed to stay.  The first day I was there, Rusty spent the whole time ranting to me about how the trail isn’t what it used to be and that all the hikers move too fast these days. Taking his advice, I stayed another day and ended up meeting my next group of hiker buddies. There were four of us that left Rusty’s together: Eagle, Julia, Powerbar, and myself. Eagle is a retired Marine Gunnery Sgt. who owns a desert survival school in western Texas. He’s finishing up his triple crown, which is completing the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Appalachian Trail. I know that sounds like an intense guy, but he was actually quite tame and full of great stories. Julia is a creative writing student from NYC who left Harpers Ferry early this morning to head home before school. The trail seemed to help her realize that NYC is not the center of everything and wants to do nothing but hike from now on. Powerbar was on his first long distance hike and seemed so think he could surivive on nothing but powerbars. And he did, for about a week and a half. After that Eagle, Julia, and I took him in and showed him that it didn’t have to be that rough up there. He was in good spirits, even after nothing but powerbars, so I have to give the guy credit; he’s a trooper.  We all hiked together for about five days or so and split up while in the Shenendoahs. It was odd hiking in a group again after so much solo time and it felt like some twisted hillbilly family, but was fun and we all got along great. Eagle and Powerbar had a slower pace than Julia and I so we split up about halfway through the Shenendoahs. The Shenendoahs are a great range, but it just didn’t feel like hiking since we crossed its scenic highway about eight times a day. Although not the most remote place, it was nice to have blackberry milkshakes at their shops and have the overnight campers donate all of their leftover food. All in all the Shenendoahs aren’t the great outdoors, so Julia and I hitched some rides to a canoeing place that let us camp on their land for a couple nights for free and spent a day floating down a slow moving river under the sun. It was a great change of pace and a much more pleasant mode of travel.  

For now I am waiting in overpriced Harpers Ferry for my friend, Jeremy, to give me a ride to D.C. on his way through. After visiting some monuments and museums I’ll make my way to NYC for another pit stop and find a way to where the AT crosses the CT/NY border. From there I will hopefully make it to Mt. Katahdin by the time it closes on Oct 15. If I start again on the 1st of September that means 734 miles in 45 days, which comes out to 16.3 miles a day. This is very possible, but won’t be upset if I have to skip up to Katahdin and hike down to where I left off. I’ll get there when I get there.    Happy Trails,  Cowboy

Filed under: preparation — dragons0mother @ 6:23 am

“When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact.  He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions; that is the heart of science.”   ~ Dr. Carl Sagan

————–
“You think you can carry this?  What the hell do you have in here?”

I flicked a glance at the backpack my husband Robert was holding.  “That’s Kari’s. There’s only –”

“No way she can carry this.  It weighs at least 30 pounds.”  He stomped a few feet closer to the bedrooms.  “Kari!  Karolyn!  Come here.”

Kari emerged from her room, iPod plugged into her ears.  She threw a questioning look at her dad.

“I want you to put this on now.”

Kari rolled her eyes and complied.  She stumbled a bit as she settled the backpack on her shoulders.  Robert circled around her, noted how she was leaning forward slightly to accommodate the unaccustomed weight of the pack and glared at me.

“You honestly think she can make it up the mountain with that on her back?  She’s going to be stopping every 15 feet to dump something out.”

I sighed, “Robert, the pack weighs less than 20 pounds.  She should be able to carry up to 25% of her body weight, so –”

“This is definitely more than 20 pounds.  Way more.  She can’t even stand up straight.”

Kari was listing a bit to the left, but she usually listed one way or the other.  She looked at me and tried to stand up straight, then she looked at her dad’s frowning face and went back to leaning forward and to the left.

“Go get the scales if you don’t believe me.   Kari weighs 98 pounds and the pack is under 20.”

Robert stomped off to the bedroom to get the scales.  He placed them on the dining room floor and stepped on.  He weighed what he always weighed.  He stepped off and motioned for Kari to step on:  115.2 pounds.  Kari stepped off, and he helped her remove the pack before motioning her to step back on:  98 pounds.

“The scales are wrong.  There is absolutely no way in hell that pack weighs only 17 pounds.  No way.  And no way are you going to make it up the mountain.”

*   *   *   *   *
“Hey, Robert, guess where we are.  Go ahead and guess.”

“Ummm, I’m guessing Kari fell backwards and rolled down the mountain, and you guys are back where you started.”

I held the cellphone away from me and stuck out my tongue.  Kari giggled.

“No.  We are on McAfee’s Knob.  Our daughter is a mountain goat.  She sprinted up the trail.  I could have added another 10 pounds to her pack.”

Kari snatched the phone from my hand.  “Hey, Dad, I did it.  All the way up the mountain.”

“The pack wasn’t too heavy?”

“Ummmm, no.  It was only 22.5 pounds once we added my water.”

“Oh my god, you added MORE weight?”

“And I still made it up here.  You owe me that stuffed penguin we were talking about.  Don’t forget.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

August 10, 2006

grrr

Filed under: Uncategorized — dragons0mother @ 11:41 am

I don’t know what is going on with this, but I am having the worst time trying to get separation between paragraphs.  It’s refusing to do it.

Always.

Unless I beat it or threaten to beat it.

and even then…..

 (Watch, this time it will do it with no problems — forcing me to scream)

email from Cowboy (thru-hiker we met)

Filed under: reading — dragons0mother @ 11:33 am
Hey Folks,
_
Right now I am in Buena Vista, VA. I’m not exactly sure where that is, but I’m pretty sure it’s about halfway through Virginia. The heat seems to finally be letting up, which is nice since it also dries up the springs in addition to making everything uncomfortable. My latest plan is to arrive in Harpers Ferry (unofficial halfway point for the AT) between Aug 20th and 23rd. From there I’ll make my way to New England by way of train and rides from friends. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to hike New England since I’ve discovered long-term plans are useless, but I’ll figure something out.
_
The crazy Alaskan (Moose) is gone. He dropped out the day after leaving Damascus when his boots started to fall apart. I spent the next few days waiting for him to catch up to me, but found out that he left Damascus and went to another town to figure things out. So, sorry everyone, but no more crazy moose stories until I hit Maine. I did get to see another bear though. I was hiking up the trail when I noticed there was a large, black dog on the trail ahead of me. I simply thought it was following its owner on a hike and I never got a clear view of it since I would only see its hind legs before it walked around a corner. It was only until the trail straightened out that I could see whole thing and realize I had been following a bear and was only about 30ft behind it. Not wanting to suprise it, I banged my hiking poles together and it went scampering up the mountain. I, of course, didn’t think to get a picture until after it ran away.
_ 
One thing I forgot to mention in the last update was that Moose and I adopted a puppy for a few days. I was hiking through a down pour during a thunderstorm when a little black dog came racing past me on the trail and then started to follow me. We didn’t know what to do, so we fed him some of our food and took care of him. A few days later we were at a hostel taking a day off when the dog disapeared just as easily as she showed up. We figured she found some other hikers and just spends her time going back and forth on the trail.
_ 
The day after Moose left I got to hike to through an incredible part of Virginia (I’m posting all my pictures at the end of the hike). There was one day when I couldn’t see more than around 40ft in front of me when I came across a group of wild ponies. Some were shy and trotted off while others came right up to me and let me pet them. It was all quite surreal, but a nice touch to the morning. That same night I met up with my second hiking buddy who was a retired chemist. He did well with a patent he sold to Texas Instruments and is just enjoying his time now. He was pretty much the exact opposite of Moose. Instead of being severely under-prepared, this guy had all the high-tech equipment including an altimeter on his watch that was always off and a fancy UV light intstrument to purify his water, yet still borrowed my filter because we would just have puddles much of the time. He was having problems with his heel which was slowing him down, so I pushed ahead and have been on my own for about a week now. But, before I was able to push ahead, he managed to pierce a hole in my inflatable sleeping pad with his bear bag rock. So I had my second incident with a rock used to hang food, but at least this one wasn’t my fault.
_ 
A few days after I lost my sleeping pad, my feet started to swell up and became very painful with every step. With the heat starting to get to me as well, I decided to take a night off and sleep in a motel. While hitch-hiking to the nearest motel, an older man who was towing his lawn mower on his trailor picked me up and told me he could do better than a motel and that he’d take me back to his place where he and his wife would take care of me. I was too tired to even be worried and figured why not. They turned out to be incredibly kind. We went out to eat that night at an all you eat restaurant, which was perfect for me, and they even drove me to a shoe store where I got a new pair. I got a bed in my own room, a clean shower, and got to do laundry. It was much better than a hotel and they would not accept any gratuity. They said they just like to help out a hiker every now and then, but not to mention it on the trail since they don’t want crowds showing up at their door. Jesse, the one who picked me up, said I looked so pitiful on the side of the road that he had to take me in. I guess I was more tired than I thought.
_ 
Well, that’s all I have for now. I’m just in Buena Vista for a little re-supply before the big push to Harpers Ferry. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and best of luck to all.
_ 
-Cowboy

August 9, 2006

Up to McAfee Knob

Filed under: hikes — dragons0mother @ 11:42 am

We haven’t a clue as to the proper pronunciation of the name. Which syllable would you stress? *snort*

The weather was horrendously hot the days prior to our departure. Hotter than even here in Florida. The weather.com assured me that a cool front was going to pass through on Friday evening and the temps would plunge into the 60s during the night.

Kari and I went to REI to pick up Stacy’s pack. The lovely customer service rep there informed me there wasn’t a pack rented by Stacy, no paperwork nothing. So I called Stacy and she let them have it. Michael at REI even gave her my discount to make up for the mistake. After picking up the pack, Kari and I went off to Enterprise to pick up our rental car. I chatted way too long with the customer service rep there because he was interesting — he worked for the Detroit Pistons until his fiancee began her residency at UNC hospital.

The next morning off we went to SW VA. Now you have to understand that I ALWAYS get lost in Christiansburg VA which is next to Blacksburg. My mother told me not to humiliate myself again by getting lost there. I complied. Instead I got lost in downtown Blacksburg and Stacy had to direct me back to her house.

You so should have seen Stacy’s face when she saw the size of her pack (and then again when she went to lift it). Kari’s pack weighed in at 22.5 lbs. Mine was in the mid to upper 30s. Stacy’s was somewhere in between.

Warning: post is heavily laden with pictures

(more…)

June 1, 2006

she didn’t cry

Filed under: hikes — dragons0mother @ 7:06 am

Despite not having quite enough sleep (what teenager ever gets enough), having to walk 4.4 miles to enjoy a Starbucks’ frapaccino, the threatening rain, the South Florida heat, Kari didn’t cry.  She has picked up her pace and is now averaging just shy of 3 miles per hour on flat ground.

Our favorite barista wasn’t working yesterday, but the store manager was.  She is the one who fixed our coffees for us.  Mine was delicious.  Kari definitely enjoyed hers.  I think if she hadn’t had that drink, she would have jumped right into the fountain outside the doors.

Here are photos from yesterday’s trek around town

May 29, 2006

another month

Filed under: preparation — dragons0mother @ 8:52 am

Yesterday I hiked for 8 miles. 

Hiked is not quite the right word.  Strolled.  Walked. Those are better words for what we do here in South Florida.

Anyway it is all in preparation for starting my shorter hikes later in the summer.  The walking I do here in the flatlands of South Florida.  Kari and I did manage to stroll across the highest point here — 29 feet above sea level.  I think the elevation change was all of 10 feet.  Pathetic, but there you have it.

Wednesday is our next ‘hike’.  We’ll leave the house at 7am before the temps hit the mid to upper 80s.  We’ll wander across the Ridge through Tree Tops Park (if the gates are open), down Orange, across Griffin, eat breakfast, then meander down Pine Island, up Sheridan, over Nob Hill, down Stirling to our favorite coffee haunt — Starbucks.

If our favorite barista isn’t there, Kari may cry.

May 28, 2006

towards the end of 8 miles

Filed under: hikes — dragons0mother @ 4:53 am

I was thirsty. The air was hot and heavy. The sun was beating down on me, finding me despite my leaning against the shady side of the tree. But I was too tired to find a cooler spot.

I drained the last of my water and stayed still. Enjoying the not moving. Enjoying the wet sliding down my throat. Enjoying the feeling of knowing I was almost home.

Something fluttered in the air to my left. I ignored it. I assumed it was more dragonflies mating rapturously in the spring air. The fluttering came again from my right. I still didn’t look. I was too comfortable to move.

And then something landed on the top of my head, somewhere in the vicinity of the Miami Dolphins’ logo. I could feel tiny feet trying to maintain a balance. Two tiny feet.

I leaned against the tree in the dappled sunlight with something on my head. I was curious, but I didn’t want to disturb whatever it was, whatever was taking a short rest on my baseball cap.

A car zoomed by. The slight weight shifted on those two tiny feet. Startled, an unbelievably loud noise came from whatever the creature was before it pushed off from my head and winged away.

A red-winged blackbird had taken a brief rest on my head.

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