Two-Heel Drive, a Hiking Blog

Sgt. Rock says there’s only one plausible reason for duct tape on the ceiling:

It snowed all night best as I could tell. It also turned out the shelter roof leaks. I woke up at about 0330 to a bag soaked through from a drip on the ceiling. It leaked in a few spots which left stalagmites of ice on the floor but the one over me just soaked through my down bag. Now I understand why there was duct tape on the inside of the shelter on the ceiling as some previous hiker must have tried to stop a leak on himself as well.

Sarge was over 500 miles up the trail at Damascus, Va, on the 27th of February, so he’s making excellent progress. A few hardy through-hikers start out in the winter every year to experience hiking in the snow and having the trail to themselves, and to get as far north as possible before the summer heat hits. Little close to the edge for my taste, but I’m not exactly a Medal of Honor winner in the courage department.

(Yes, it looks like I’m well on my way to falling off the wagon and getting re-addicted to Trail Journals. Only takes one cigarette to get somebody smoking again, same concept.)

Sgt. Rock, keeper of the Hiking HQ discussion board, has retired after 22 years in the Army and is heading north on the Appalachian Trail. I started thumbing through his trail journal when this part from a post in early January stopped me in my tracks:

The plan was to get up early to make up some miles I missed yesterday. So I went to bed early and set an alarm for 0700. But something happened. This morning at about 0200 I heard a rifle shot really close. As I lay there thinking that was too damn close I heard two more with the crack that comes when a bullet gets close to you. Then there were large explosions and I looked into the draw I was beside where a low hanging smoke was drifting. I could see helmets of soldiers in the smoke and moonlight and heard voices yelling at soldiers. Then machine gun fire and someone saying “Up there on the trail”. I was worried it was me so I tried to get out of my hammock as a machine gun opened up. I couldn’t move or speak. I was getting in a panic trying to get out of that hammock so I could hug the ground. Finally I bolted straight up.

All was quiet. There was no smoke or soldiers. No gunfire or explosions. Just a quiet night. I lay there sweating, my heart pounding away. I realized it was just a nightmare and tried to go back to sleep. I lay there for hours playing it over in my mind. It seemed so real – I could actually smell the smoke and hear a radio plus what sounded like voices talking in Arabic. I finally passed back out at 0400, but I ended up sleeping through my alarm and getting up late.

I used to hang around at the Sarge’s site a lot more but had gotten a bit out of the habit … I never realized all the while he was keeping his site and helping out with Whiteblaze.net that he had never actually hiked the AT all the way — though it makes sense, it’s hard to get six months off to go hiking when your employer is the Pentagon, which has better plans for you in exotic climes.

So anyway, here’s to the Sarge living his dream. And hoping the sleeping gets better.

His Trail Journal is here.

Alert reader Jeremiah Kemper pointed me to Ben and Lauren’s 2007 Adventure. Their latest post is from Erwin, Tennessee (mile 338.7), so there’s lots more hiking — and, more importantly, blogging — to go as they travel north. I found this post about their dietary habits interesting:

It’s been our plan to include as many living foods as possible on our thru-hike. We believe that food which comes straight from the earth, eaten in its simplest form, gives the most nutrition, energy and life force to our bodies. So, what exactly fills our food bags?

Breakfast: Dried fruits and nuts, or meal bar that combines them – such as Larabar.
Lunch and Snacks: Energy-packed concentrated meal bars with whole grains, fruit, honey, nuts – Such as Bear Valley’s Pemmican or MealPack Bars – and then more figs!

Dinner: Sprouts, soaked overnight, mixed with instant dried hummus or other powdered carbohydrate. And don’t forget the Texas Pete.

Dessert: (Most Important!) Dark chocolate & countless spoonfulls of almond butter or PB.

At dinner we’ve been eating a combination of 4 different types of sprouts. I specifically chose ones that are complete proteins when eaten together, that sprout quickly (less than 2 days), and can be found easily in towns without health food stores.

We really feel satisfied so far and do not experience AYCE (all-you-can-eat) cravings for meat, bread, and just TONS of food, like many other hikers on a more standard backpacking diet. It’s been amazing, really.

They also have an excellent Flickr photo album of their hike.

Leonard Adkins on the changing terrain, and changing weather, of the Appalachian Trail:

We started in the morning beside the Pigeon River at an elevation of 1,400 feet above sea level. Rising on the pathway that was sometimes going uphill at more than a 25% grade, we gained almost 3,000 feet in elevation to top out on the 4,263-foot summit of Snowbird Mountain. Soaring views of the highest peaks in Great Smoky Mountains National Park enticed us to linger before continuing. We lost 1,300 of those hard-gained feet by descending into Deep Gap before rising once more to 4,629-foot Max Patch Summit.

This vast change in elevation permits us to experience two seasons in just one day. As we drop into the gaps and valleys, we see evidence that spring is on its way. Some of the trees and underbrush have small leaves spreading their fingers out from the branches to catch bits of sunlight. Thousands of spring beauties spread across the forest floor, almost giving the impression that the ground is covered by a light dusting of snow, while bloodroot, rue anemone, and trillium line the pathway in fewer numbers. Ramps, those Southern Appalachian delicacies that have spawned a multitude of stories about their heady taste and odor, are growing in such quantities that large patches of hillsides are covered by their distinctive green fronds. However, once we rise back onto the ridgetops, the flowers are nonexistent, the trees are winter bare, there is little hint of green, and temperatures are definitely a few degrees cooler.

Leonard’s newsletter is well worth bookmarking. Looks like he’s posting an update every couple weeks.

In other AT News, the Free State Hiker has another tenant.

Ken Berry, the first Class o’ 2006 Appalachian Trail northbound thru-hiker to reach Mt. Katahdin, got it in his head that he so loved the trail that he’d sell his home in Maryland and buy one near the AT, also in Maryland, and start a hiker hostel. Here’s his first Trail Journals entry. That was last September; now he’s got his Free State Hiker hostel essentially ready to receive hikers. This would be the year to check it out, before the bunkbed mattresses start to reek.
More on Ken’s adventure at this Whiteblaze thread.

Leonard M. Adkins is about to begin his fifth thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. The Charleston, W.Va., Daily Mail has a nice profile. It’s his wife’s fourth time, and his dog’s second. He made it 900 miles on the first try before packing it in.

“I was in for a real shock,” he recalled of his first days in Georgia. The beginning and end of the trail are the most difficult to traverse, with rough trails and huge altitude changes.

“I intended on doing the whole thing. But I only did 900 miles.”

“Because I didn’t know what to expect, in lots of ways I sort of fought the trail,” he said. “It defeated me.”

The story could have ended there, but that trail stayed in Adkins’ head. He returned to Charleston and his job at the electronics store.

“March rolled around and I started to get the urge to finish what I started,” he said. He asked his boss for time off — and got five months. He began where he’d left off the year before, and this time he succeeded.

“It was like something had really changed in me and I’m not sure how to describe it,” he said. “Something had happened to me over the winter. I started thinking every day is a day hike. And I’m having fun. And the next day is another day hike.

“The next thing I knew, the trail was over with.

“It was a total difference. And from then on, I was hooked.”

Leonard’s Web site is here: He plans to hike 10 miles a day this time and spend most of 2007 taking his time along the trail.

From a recent Akron Beacon-Journal report:

Josh Wengerd is taking steps — millions of them, in fact — to raise awareness about a Stark County group that helps people who can’t afford their prescription medicines.

Starting next month, the 23-year-old Hartville native plans to spend six months hiking the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, a 2,175-mile path from Georgia to Maine.

As he traverses mountains and valleys through 14 states with only a backpack and walking sticks, supporters of the Stark Prescription Assistance Network (SPAN) will use Wengerd’s journey to raise money and educate the public about the group’s efforts.

“If I’m going to take six months of my life and go walk, it’s definitely a good idea if I can do something good with it and help others,” Wengerd said. “There is a need for it.”

I think everybody who thru-hikes ought to consider a fund-raising component — not just because it’s a good thing to do, but so they can have a reply for the standard “what the hell?” questions from the unwashed (well, washed, actually) masses.

Old Goat put together this video slide show of his Appalachian Trail adventure last year.

Pretty cool!

This story from the Washington Post earlier this week tells of a project to monitor the health of the Appalachian Trail, the idea being that as the ecosystem along the trail goes, so goes the whole Eastern Seaboard.

An example of the environmental changes along the trail is smog in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina, said David Startzell, executive director of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harpers Ferry, W.Va.

“People will read that on 25 or 30 days in a given year, it’s considered unhealthy to walk on the Appalachian Trail, and we think that’s going to grab people’s attention more than if they just read about air-quality trends in general,” he said.

The project will be volunteer-driven, which gives all you AT hikers an excuse to do some good deeds while you’re gawking at the scenery. Find out more on the project here. There’s an e-mail address at the bottom to find out how to help.

Bone Pac, the guy who was the first to finish the Appalachian Trail this season, has something trailworthy going on:

Upon arriving home after the thru-hike I quickly submerged myself into to routine goings-ons of my pre-hike life (which I have thoroughly enjoyed). The trail comes and goes in my thoughts and I was back on the trail for a day hike last week. But in a major move Jennel and I have decided to set off on another Appalachian Trail Adventure – the adventure of running a hostel on the AT here in Maryland!

We submitted a contract on a house near the trail contingent on the sale of our current home. After a week on the market our home is now under contract and we are hoping to have a new, warm, friendly, convenient stop on the trail for fellow hikers up and running for the 2007 season.

I can see the run-ins with the local constabulary: “honest, they are NOT homeless people, and no, they did NOT steal those packs from weekending Congressional aides.”