Two-Heel Drive

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.

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.

A couple of southbound Appalachian Trail hikers are U.S. Air Force veterans, one of whom was shot several times during a rescue mission overseas. Several surgeries later he’s in fine hiking form; he and his traveling partner created trailtorecovery.org to raise money to help in the recovery of other injured veterans. Their blog is here; they’re in VIrginia now and hoping end up at Springer Mountain on Veterans Day. An excerpt:

As word spreads we are also hit with tougher and tougher questions. Questions such as “What are your views on the war?”, “What are your political motives”, and “Why should we donate”. I personally feel that these questions take away from what we are trying to do. Regardless of your views on the war, regardless of your political affiliation, the reality is that we are there and people are getting hurt. I figure there are enough people analyzing, second guessing, and pointing fingers, that I can focus my attention elsewhere. In the long run, politicians, political analysts and outspoken citizens will work out what they feel needs to be done. In the short run, we have brave Americans who could use our help.

Their fund-raising site is here if you’d care to donate. They’re about a quarter of their way to their $100,000 goal.

Conductor, at Mile 2160.9 on the Appalachian Trail:

In reality it’s just a climb, only five miles, over in mid afternoon. In our dreams it is the finale, the place we have hiked so far to reach. After all, it’s Katahdin and it’s a mile high. There were times on the trail when just the thought of Katahdin would cause me to choke up. As I write, I’m positioned at the foot od the “Greatest Mountain.” Tomorrow, I will stand next to the sign that is the northern terminus of the A.T.

That post is dated Monday; he finished the trail yesterday.

A correspondent from a small-town paper in Tennessee shares reflections of family members who spent five days on the Appalachian Trial in Maryland.

It’s 6:30 and I am wrapping another layer of duct tape around my feet to keep my blisters and broken skin from rubbing against my boots. By lunchtime, I’ve already gotten another hot spot, and I have to put more duct tape on my feet. My right hip hurts because of tendinitis and my left knee is stiff because I pulled a tendon the day before. I’m miserable and wondering how on earth I got myself into this mess. But then I’m walking in a piece of forest and see a deer in the path, or I stop by a stream with my dad for awhile to enjoy its beauty, and I can’t help but think, “God, I really am having the best time. Everything is so beautiful.”

Their granddad, trail name Model T, was in the White Mountains on the AT at last report.