Appalachian Trail hiking trip

Appalachian Trail hiking trip

Planning

Three things contributed to my desire to do a 3 day solo hike on the Appalachian Trail

  1. My ex father-in-law did a thru hike when he retired, and I just thought it was the most amazing thing someone could do. It seemed like quite a challenge to walk several miles every day, carrying all your supplies on your back and sleep in shelters or a tent on the way. It takes a special kind of person to do that. Following his journey, I knew that I wanted to do a multi-day hike, just to get a feel for why people do it.
  2. Then I watched the movie Wild , and I decided it needed to be a solo hike. Just to prove that I can. This was back when I still lived in Florida, so planning it became tricky time-wise, since it was quite a drive to the closest entry point and I wanted to make sure I can do it over a long weekend. Then I decided to leave Florida, so that plan never came to fruition while I was there.
  3. A couple of months ago, a friend recommended the book ‘Grandma Gatewood’s Walk‘ to me and after reading that, I have been freshly inspired. I’ve been living in Connecticut for just over one year now, and the trail is just a couple of hours away, so it was time.

I picked Memorial Day weekend, it’s a 3-day weekend for me, and weather-wise, it seems like the best time. I could never do this during full blown summer – the combination of heat, humidity and bugs makes me more miserable than anything you can imagine.

I hopped on the internet and made a list of things I need for this adventure. I already have a backpack – I got one as a gift from Clarese the year I first got excited about hiking – so it’s about time I put it to use.

Packing List:

  • Tent
  • Backpack
  • Sleeping bag
  • Ground cover
  • Sleeping pad
  • Water filter (straw)
  • Water container (Hydration Bladder)
  • Headlamp
  • Wet wipes
  • Shovel
  • Toilet paper
  • Cards
  • Bear bag
  • Food
    • Salami
    • Biltong
    • Nuts
    • Tuna
    • Cheese
  • Socks
  • Shirts
  • Pants
  • Rain Jacket
  • Rain cover for backpack
  • Contact Lenses
  • Hair ties
  • Phone
  • Sunglasses
  • Hat
  • Power bank + charger cord
  • Notebook + pen
  • Map
  • First aid
  • Claritin
  • Toothbrush & toothpaste
  • Compass
  • Chapstick
  • Sunscreen
  • Batteries for head lamp
  • Insect repellent
  • Whistle
  • Swiss Knife
  • Rain jacket
  • Backpack rain cover
  • Underwear & Sportsbra
  • Short exercise pants
  • Chafing stick

Route

I decided to do about 25 – 28 miles over 3 days, starting at the railroad at Route 22 in NY and ending at River Road in Kent – roughly about as marked on the map below. (See an interactive map of the complete Appalachian Trail here)

I would walk about 10 miles the first day, staying over at the Ten Mile River Lean-To. The second day will be a mile or what less, and overnight at the Mount Algo Lean-To. Third day would be even shorter – around 5/6 miles to River Road where my car would be.

I found the number of a guy who shuttles hikers between their starting points/destinations as needed on a hiking message-board and gave him a call. He wasn’t available to shuttle me, but put me in touch with another guy called Frank, which agreed to pick me up after I’ve parked my car and drive me to R22.

LET’S GO!

Saturday morning I was ready. I made a couple of adjustments, I decided not to use the hydration bladder for water, simply because I had no room in my backpack for it – I decided to use a collapsible container that I can clip to the outside of the pack instead. I had the water filter straw if I need to get water from a river/brook or something.

I left for Kent, CT, aiming to meet Frank, my shuttle driver around 10 am. This was my first time driving through that part of Connecticut and I just fell in love with all the charming little towns – Farmington, Bartram, Litchfield, Kent, all of them. I definitely plan to go back and visit again.

I met Frank at the gas station in Kent, and I followed him to the parking area at the trail head at River Road where I left my car and he drove me to SR 22 in NY where my journey began.

But first, what a interesting and lovely man he turned out to be. I knew he was a good person when he kinda choked up telling me he doesn’t like to walk to all his ‘regular’ spots anymore, because his dog, which used to go everywhere with him, died a couple of months ago, and that he misses him so much. 🙁

He also told me that he has been doing research for years and is working on producing Gideon’s Dream, a documentary about the  Schaghticoke Indian tribe who occupied Western and Southern Connecticut many years ago.

Day One

I started day one at around 11am, the first part was through through grasslands and probably somebody’s farm(s) is my guess. There were horse/cow tracks and manure all over the place and at one spot I walked by a farmhouse where children were playing outside. There were a couple of fences to get over, but fortunately (since it was marked as ‘electric fence’) there was a little ladder contraption to get over. It was warm, but not unbearable and the trail ahead me looked pretty flat. It started out good.

I walked for about an hour before encountering the first group of hikers. Well, I guess I should call them hikers, because they were on the trail and hiking, but from my point of view, it was just a group of loud, annoying 10/ 11- year old kids under the very loose supervision of two adult women. (If you don’t know me well, let me just say I’m not a fan of kids, unless, of course it’s the one I have created, or if they belong to someone I like. Hypocrite, I know. But whatever). They were taking a break under a tree, and I hurried past them, hoping they were about to turn around and I don’t have to see them again.

After about 2 hours of walking, I was sure I have lost them, and took my first break to have a snack. I wasn’t halfway through my first piece of string cheese before the little bastards emerged from the woods and disturbed my peace and quiet. They were very happy to see me (these kids were oblivious) and one girl very proudly told me ‘We have survived THREE hours of walking!”. Really, little Debbie?? You weigh like 20 pounds carrying a small water bottle and I JUST SAW YOU RESTING under a tree. Get out of here, kid.

After this break, apparently the ‘easy’ part was over. Suddenly the trail produced these little bursts of uphill, but then, as if to make up for it, it’ll spit me out in to this serene, magical place in the middle of hundreds of tall green trees, where there were no other sounds than my heavy breathing, birds tweeting and maybe a plane or two in the distant.

The first ‘wildlife’ I encountered, was this little frog which occupied the space on a log where I wanted to sit after an especially tough uphill battle. Now, I have the biggest frog phobia you can imagine, so for me this was the equivalent of a bear encounter. The frog jumped, and so did I! My first instinct was to grab my emergency whistle to get somebody to come save me, but being in the midst of frog fright mayhem, I couldn’t manage to find it (note to self: re-assess location of emergency whistle). The frog decided to put an end to my misery, gave me one last shameful look and happily hopped away.

My destination for the first night was the Ten Mile Shelter – I assumed it was named for the 9.7-ish miles it’s supposed to be from where I started, but I think it was named for the last 3 miles to the shelter, cause that was ROUGH and felt like 10 miles right there. First I had to go UP the “Ten Mile Hill” – which was steeper than what I wanted it to be – and it took me way longer than it probably should have, I had to rest to take a breath every couple of steps. WHY DO I HAVE SO MUCH STUFF IN MY BACKPACK!!???

Then I got to go DOWN this hill. In theory, this seems like it should be easier than going up, right? WRONG. Suddenly my knees were like – wtf is this, I thought we’re done and they responded by producing shooting pains every time I put one foot in front of the other. My backpack did it’s part to help by trying to push me forward, add the force of gravity to that, and I had to really concentrate to make sure I don’t lose my balance and roll down the mountain. In this process of stop-n-go, my toenails reminded my that I forgot to trim them the night before, and they don’t like this part where I put the brakes on and they hit the front of my shoes on every step. This is where I was wondering, why do we have toe nails anyway? They have no use??

After what felt like an eternity, I finally made it to the shelter. There was an older couple sitting at the table, with blank stares just looking off in the distance – my guess is they just had the same struggles I did. I headed to put my pack in the shelter, just to find that a young couple has decided to occupy the whole damn thing by putting up their tent INSIDE the shelter, and took up half the space. Their dog and backpacks took up the rest. WTAF, how inconsiderate is that? I went to get some water from the well, thinking that I’ll give them time to notice there are other people around and you know, maybe just do the right thing and make space for the rest of us?

No such luck. Two more people came, and we all ended up just putting up our tents next to the shelter, so that Mr and Mrs Inconsiderate can have the shelter for themselves. On my way to get water from the well, I tried to make eye contact with them, to give them a chance to – you know, at least ASK if I want to share the shelter, but no such luck. They just sat there as if they owned the place. I was too tired to start an argument.

At this point, I REALLY wanted to have a cup of coffee, but quickly realized that I did NOT bring something to boil water in, duh. I’m very creative though, and decided to just boil the water inside my stainless steel mug. That worked quite well, until the point where the water was boiling and I just casually grabbed the mug, completely oblivious to the fact that, you know, the handle of the mug may be a tad warm as well. My coffee came with a side of a blister.

  • If you look closely, you can see the tent inside of the shelter
  • Water well

According to all maps, today’s hike was supposed to be 9.7 miles, and according to the Apple Health app on my phone I did a total of just over 11 miles for the day. All that zig-zagging down the mountain added up, it seemed.

Day Two

I was sure that I won’t be able to walk the morning after that grueling walk up and down the silly mountain, but surprisingly enough, my muscles didn’t complain too much. I packed up my stuff and left the shelter just after 8am. My next stop would be the Mount Algo Shelter, and the hike is just under 9 miles.

Day two brought a lot of day-hikers, snakes and hills. And not necessarily in that order. I jumped the first time I saw a garter snake, but more because I was startled, not scared. For the most part, I believe in the good side of snakes and that if I don’t bother them, they won’t bother me. Unlike frogs. They always seem to want to bother me. By the 7th time a garter snake blocked my path on the trail, he/she started a staring contest with me instead of rustling away like the rest of the clan, so I it was time to bring out my negotiating skills. Apparently this little guy has not read ‘The Art of the Deal’, cause nothing I said convinced him to move. I was trying to explain to him that he has the whole forest to himself (well, him and all the other animals), and that this path I’m on, is obviously meant for human animals and to let me have it. He finally moved – not because of my negotiating skills, but after a firm ‘Shoo snake!’ accompanied by a pretend-kick in his direction.

The only other snake encounter I had, DID scare me some. I was just happily(?) trotting along, when suddenly RIGHT next to me, was the rustling of leaves accompanied by a loud ‘TRRRRRRRRRRRRRR’. Mr Rattlesnake did not appreciate me passing so close. I quickly, VERY QUICKLY, moved forward a couple of steps and stopped to turn around to see if I can snap a photo. Obviously no one will believe me if I don’t produce proof. He didn’t like that idea one bit and gave me another loud ‘TRRRRRRRRRR’ which I took as my cue and got my ass away from his spot.

I have decided to take more breaks during day two’s hike, because according to the map, there was even more elevation awaiting me than on day one. And boy, they were not wrong. For the most part, the trail is covered in shade, every now and again there’s a spot of sun. However, those spots of sun combined with climbing a mountain with 30lbs on your back in a blistering 84 degrees definitely adds up! The trees are tricky too, you can’t see how much mountain is left, and just as I think I MUST have reached the top, the trail made a sharp turn and mother nature is like ‘HAHAHAHAHA, I think NOT!’ and produced another freaking mountain to climb.

The dayhikers were not helpful either. As they were coming down the mountain, all cheery with their 3lb backpacks – I dared to ask one girl: “Am I almost at the top”. What did she say? “Uh no, there’s quite a bit left”. WTF. Have you not learned to lie??! TELL ME I’M ALMOST THERE! LIE TO ME, BITCH!

About half an hour later, I ran in to another girl who told me (without me asking, mind you) – “Almost there!!”. Clearly she has learned how to lie and I loved her for it. Only turned out she didn’t lie, and I loved her even more for it. A couple of minutes later, I made it and the view was AMAZING.

I was hot, sweaty and drained. Thank goodness there was none of Florida’s humidity here, it was just HOT. I mixed some NUUN with my water, and silently thanked myself for that last minute addition to my packing list.

After a well-deserved rest and some snacks, I continued. There were several more mountains to climb as it turned out, but there were also several little creeks/brooks/streams (wtf is the difference??) under plush green trees to make up for it.

When I got to the next shelter (at Mount Algo), there was only one person there and she hasn’t put up her tent in the shelter, so I liked her immediately. As it happened, this shelter didn’t have a well like the previous one, and I was kinda stuck with no water. All I had was a water filter straw, which I could use to drink water that I got from the stream, but when you’re tired, sucking that hard on something to get anything useful, is not what you want to do (lol, yeah yeah, I know, get your mind out of the gutter).

The other girl obviously was smarter than I was, and had a water filtration system. She offered to filter some water for me with it, and right there she became my new best friend.

Next arrived an older couple, they introduced themselves by their trail names – OneWish and JetPack – and I immediately liked them. They were thru hikers and both of them also were ultra trail runners, which meant that I instantly had a lot of respect for them. She was just shy of 70, and he probably a year or two older. Lovely people.

At some point we were all sitting at the picnic table why they were cooking their dinner in their cute little backpack-sized pots and pans (which made me think, if we all cook our food in those size containers in every day life, we may not have the obesity epidemic that we have) – when she (OneWish) suddenly started laughing and pointing at some thing. It was my candle. My citronella candle. I tried to explain to her about bugs and stuff, but she just shook her head and kept laughing and asked if it’ll be ok if she takes a picture of me and my candle and make fun of me on a closed FaceBook site. Lol, I was all for that, cause come to think of it, I really did NOT need any extra ounces of stuff to carry with me. And that’s how my trail name became ‘Candle’.

The older couple and my new best friend all set up tents for the night, but I decided to sleep in the shelter. Mostly cause setting up and taking down a tent, albeit a small one, always seems like a daunting task to me, and also, I had the shelter all to myself. After every one retreated to their tents, I was getting ready to go to sleep, when I heard some rustling and from outside. My first thought was omg, it’s a bear, I should have put my toothpaste in the bear bin like they told me! Thank goodness, it was just another hiker. In no time, this young, good-looking early 20’s guy is rolling out his sleeping bed bed a couple of feet from mine. We started chatting and I learned that he is from Germany, has been on the trail about 3 months and haven’t had a shower in two weeks. No kidding. I haven’t had a shower in 2 days, and I was worried about MY smell. Immediately the sleeping bag a couple of feet away seemed a lot less exciting.

Day Three

I was excited about my last day. According to my map, I have parked my car about 3 miles south of the shelter where I actually wanted to finish, so I estimated that my hike would be around 3 miles, which was just about enough to not put me over the edge. My knees and toes were done, they wanted to go home.

Day three didn’t fail to deliver. And by deliver, I mean hills, not joy. They lyrics of Miley Cirus’ song ‘The Climb’ haunted me as I struggled up and down the rocky mountain …. ” There’s always gonna be another mountain …”. No shit.

I was keeping a close eye on the map, knowing that my car is parked right there where the trail meets the road, and with every excruciating step, it got closer. Finally, I came around a bend and HALLELUJAH, I saw some parked cars.

But… something was off. I parked on a dirt road, and this was a like a real, asphalt road, wtf? And my car wasn’t amongst the parked ones.

My heart sank when I consulted my map again and realized that the road I’m looking for, was… wait for it.. yes, it was over yet ANOTHER MOUNTAIN. There was another 3 miles between me and freedom. Now, if you know me, you won’t be surprised at this at all, it’s common knowledge amongst my friends and family that I am geographically challenged.

I started walking. And cursing. Not necessarily in that order. At this point, with my perfect planning, I was also out of water. After a couple more rock climbing exercises, I finally reached a stream of water, and it was time to pull out the straw and get down to business. The water was ice , ice cold and I didn’t even bother of filling up my container and drink of out that – I just got down on my knees, put the tube in the water and sucked that straw in a way that would put Stormy Daniels to shame.

Those last 3 miles felt like an eternity, but finally, like a dream come true, I reached the road and have never been happier to see my old Honda.

What I’ve learned

When you’re alone with your thoughts for hours and hours at a time and no electronics or other distractions, you will be amazed at the thoughts that go through your mind. Apart from the obvious deeper therapeutic ponderings, I also wondered about the following things –

  • Do fish feel pain? And why do I not know the answer to this question?
  • Does animals have emotions? Or do they just act purely out of instinct? Are emotions just heightened instincts? Wtf ARE emotions?? What de hell. I need to go home.
  • What do snakes DO all day? Sleep and eat? Waiting on me to scare the shit of me? Do they pee and take a dump? Again, WHY DO I NOT KNOW THIS????

Stuff related to hiking:

  • Pillow. I need a pillow. Not a random bag stuffed with clothes, a pillow. Looking for an inflatable pillow never crossed my mind, nor was it mentioned in any of the many articles I’ve read while researched, but apparently they exist.
  • Hiking poles – a MUST. This would have been extremely helpful while I was doing my Cirque du Soleil balancing acts on rocks and through muddy spots.
  • Put contact lenses in before using your hands applying insect repellent . Not after. You’d think this would be a logical thought. Some of us learn the hard was.

The nice thing about hiking is that time becomes irrelevant. Oh, it’s getting dark? I guess I’ll go to sleep. Birds chirping and sun rising? Time to get up and walk.

I need to do this again.