Preparation

Many people are inspired to hike the trail every year. Most people who start, fail to finish because of lack of preparation. Even if the equipment is adequate to meet the challenge, they may not physically prepared, or, even more important - mentally prepared.

Getting Psyched Up

We had nine months to prepare after we made the decision to hike the trail. My first task was to collect all the information I could find on the trail. This included books or accounts of other through hikers. We read everything we could get our hands on. This helped us prepare for the unexpected. Hiking the Appalachian Trail is every bit as much a mental challenge as it is physical. It's not enough to say to yourself that you are hiking to Georgia when you have just hiked a mile in a knee deep bog in Maine. By reading the experiences of others we attempted to prepare ourselves for the highs and lows we knew we would encounter on the trail.

Gear

The journals helped us decide what equipment we needed. We were able to learn what equipment worked or failed for different people and why. With that information we spent weeks reviewing equipment catalogs. The merits of each piece of equipment was debated. What became clear from our reading was to buy the best and lightest equipment we could afford.

Our first emphasis was on footwear. It should be obvious that attempting to hike 2,000 miles would put a heavy burden on the feet. Yet may people neglect to purchase adequate footware. I had already bought a pair of Vasque hiking boots. They were heavy duty and provided a great deal of protection. My only concern was that I had worn blisters on all of my previous short trips. I hoped I could finish breaking in the boots before the boots broke me. To get Linda outfitted we bought a similar pair of boots for her.

One item we purchased early in our trip was a pair of flip flops. We would change into them when we arrived in camp. This provided much needed relief for our trail weary feet. It also gave our boots more time to dry out (except in Maine).

Our L.L. Bean down bags were fine, but we needed good sleeping pads. We settled on some blue closed cell foam pads. They were a bit hard but their light weight made them acceptable. To keep the down bags dry while hiking, we made stuff sacks large enough to hold both the foam pads and the sleeping bags. The pads were rolled up and placed in the stuff sack first. Then we would stuff the sleeping bag in the middle of the rolled up pad. The pads did an excellent job of protecting the sleeping bags and keeping them dry. Occasionally branches would rip the stuff sacks, but the pads provided excellent protection for the sleeping bags. Later in the trip we swapped our down bags for some light weight pol-over bags from REI. These bags had a couple inches of polyester fill on the top and a sleeve in the bottom for the pad. They were rated for temperatures to 40 degrees. We could also use them over our existing down bags for use in winter.

When we started hiking together I had purchased a Kelty Tioga frame pack, but Linda was still using my cheap discount pack. We bought Linda a bright red Kelty Sonora pack. I had read other accounts of hikers putting down the packs to answer the call of nature only to return and spend a hour trying to find them again. Red seemed a good visible choice. A lightweight tent rounded out our major equipment list. Linda's parents gave us a Serria Designs Starflight for Christmas the year before leaving on the trail. At just under five pounds, it was the lightest two person tent on the market. Our only problem with the tent was it was designed and manufactured on the West coast where there aren't any no-see-ums. In Maine no-see-ums could fly through our mosquito netting arm in arm on their way to a delicious meal of our flesh. We spent too many hot nights buried in our down bags trying to escape them.

Clothing

We started out the trail with minimal clothes to save weight. We both carried one pair of shorts and one pair of long pants. We decided to only wear the shorts while hiking and save the long pants for around camp at night or when going into town. This way the pants would stay cleaner and we could look reasonably presentable when we went into town. We carried one long sleeve shirt (that we also reserved for evenings and towns) a couple T-shirts, changes of underwear and two pairs of socks and liners. We washed out the socks each night and would dry them out on our packs as we wore the other pair. Linda carried a light weight nylon wind jacket. In retrospect, our clothing was only marginally adequate. There were times when not having warmer clothing could have been dangerous. We'll do it differently next time.

For rain gear there were only really three options at that time (Gortex had not been invented), waterproof jacket, poncho or nothing. Linda chose a long poncho that covered her and the pack. I chose the jacket with a separate pack cover. We both carried nylon chaps to cover our legs. With any choice you still got wet. It was just a matter of whether it was from the outside or inside. It didn't take Linda long to regret choosing the poncho. She always got wet taking the pack on and off. Plus the pack got wet when she took it off to answer the call of nature, or any rainy time she didn't want to be attached to her pack.

Food and Cooking

It's hard to say what is the most important part of your equipment list, your food or your footware. More than one hiker has dropped out because their food didn't provide the energy to sustain them. When you're sitting around planning the trip, it's hard to know how much you will need to eat. After the first month you've burned off most of your fat reserves. From then on if you don't eat, you don't hike. At our peak of 20 plus mile days, We would consume 4,000 plus calories each day. Each of us lost 30 pounds in the first month of hiking (if only we could do that now). After reading over our journals I am amazed how may times we stopped along the way for ice cream breaks at stores along the way.

Obviously, no one could hike the whole trail with over four months of food. So we faced the problem of resupply. There were several popular methods discussed in the trail logs we read. Some people went out in advance and placed food caches along the trail where it crossed roads. There were several major negatives to this process. First it takes a lot of work to place all of the caches. Second if you take a dislike to the foods you have prepackaged, you are stuck. Finally there is no way to dispose of the cache containers unless you drive the whole trail at the end and remove them.

Another method was to mail yourself packages to the Post Offices along the trail. This was easier than caches except you still have the problem with unwanted food. The final method is to just resupply at stores along the route. This might involve hitch-hiking several miles off the trail and the stores may not have a good supply of light weight foods.

We chose a combination of the last two methods. I identified some 32 Post Offices and 45 Stores located within a reasonable distance from the trail. For the first leg of the trail we opted to prepackage all our food. In New England, the trail travels through less civilized areas than further south, with fewer easy opportunities to resupply. I purchased enough primary food items for the first 500 miles of the trail. These were separated into different boxes which would be mailed to us at various stops along the way. Each box to be mailed was labeled with "AT Through Hiker" and the approximate date we were due to arrive. My parents would mail the appropriate package about a week before each arrival date.

This turned out to be a good method for us. It didn't take too long discover which foods tasted fine at home but would not cut it on the trail day after day. The instant mashed potatoes and pressed meat bars quickly became a dreaded sight when we opened our care packages. We were delighted when we ran out of our prepackaged food and began to resupply from stores along the trail. We still got some food from home, especially food that couldn't be found in most local grocery stores. My mom made a fantastic trail mix that we looked forward to each time we stopped at a Post Office.

For cooking gear we carried a Svea 123 stove, a 1.5 quart pot with lid, a 1 quart Sigg container for gas, and 1 pint tupperware container to make pudding. Both Linda and I individually carried a Serria Cup, a plastic cup and a spoon. In all it was pretty minimal for equipment. We tried whenever possible to use Colman fuel for the stove, but most of the time we just purchased unleaded fuel at a gas station. This seem to work well. The stove worked fine until North Carolina when the generator failed. The next morning we walked right by an outdoor store on the Nantahala River and were able to replace the generator. What were the odds of that happening? We carried 2 nalgene 1 quart water bottles for hiking. In addition we had a 1 gallon collapsible plastic containter for water. This came in handy when we wanted to camp in areas that had no water. We could carry enough water for our evening meal and breakfast. The extra weight was not too bad once we were in shape.

Photography

For pictures we settled on a Rollei 35 S camera. It was a small camera measuring around four inches wide and two inches tall and weighed about 12 ounces. With its built in light meter, it made for a compact unit. We purchased 20 rolls of Kodak Kodachrome 64 film with prepaid processing. Several rolls of film were placed in each mail package. When we got to town we would mail the exposed film to Kodak, and after processing it would be forwarded to my parents. This arrangement allowed our families to share in our adventures as we progressed along the trail.

Pack Weight

In the months prior to the trip I had become almost fanatical about pack weight. We bought a kitchen scale and weighed everything. Guide books were taken apart to remove the South-North descriptions, maps were trimmed to remove excess weight. My goal was to get both of our packs to around 35 pounds. I had read too many stories of people killing themselves by starting with 50 to 60 pound loads - then once on the trail tossing out equipment to lighten their load. After completing the trail I was glad that I had worked hard to keep the weight down. Especially at the start of the trail. Once our bodies had become conditioned we could easily take on larger loads with little impact on our pace.

Physical Conditioning

For the months preceding our hike we had little opportunity to prepare physically for the trip. Linda was taking a full course load at school and I was working two jobs. My only real preparation was climbing to the observation deck of the Richmond City Hall from the sub-basement several times a week. I would also cycle to work several times a week. We tried to get up early and jog in the morning. That lasted a week before we decided that running was not our cup of tea.

We took a three day shake down hike over spring break. It was designed to see how our new equipment would perform, and to test some of the food were carrying. We planned for a 50 mile hike from the crossing of Highway 60 to Rockfish Gap in Virginia. After three hard days we bailed out at Reeds gap, 15 miles short of our destination. Our equipment had performed flawlessly; however, we didn't fare so well. After the trip we weren't sure if we would make the 115 mile section from Baxter Peak to Monson. There would be no real opportunity to bail out along that section of the trail. But at this point we were too committed to change our plans. We simply hoped the trail would get us into condition. Either that or kill us.

Fortunately the former proved right. Please read on as the adventure begins.