Journal Entries

Back on the trail together

Meeting and reorganizing gear before taking one car south to start the trail. But first, we need to get coffee in Rutland.

A pile of gear and the first five days worth of food... fine tuned and ready to be stuffed in a pack. We head to Vermont tonight!

All packed and ready to hike. My packweight with 5 days of food, no water, is 22.5 lbs. That includes my hiking clothes.

The pack feels great, less weight than I took on the AT, no camera or iPad.

My gear for our trip and my 5 day food bag. I’ll be also carrying a pot&stove, or the tent (and maybe a few other items @toesalad currently has in his packing bin). But other than that I’m packed! Gear mended, gear purchased, gear cleaned, checklist completed... ready to go.

Filling in the spreadsheet @toesalad prepared as our packing list and weight list for 2 weeks of backpacking. Can’t believe we leave tomorrow! So much to do!

Don't be dramatic, kid. It's really not that bad at all haha.

My bros...I broke my phone, won't have it back until I finish Sept 15 and pick it up in Seattle. Not gonna lie, between that and all my other errands that failed...this is a kinda low point in the trail for me, only 200 miles from the finishline. Before trail, these combined set backs would have destroyed me. Now, I'm just grinding through hoping I get to stay in Skykomish tonight, but even that's only possible if I get a hitch from this pretty bad town for hitching. Might be sleeping on the side of a highway tonight folks, will fill up my water bottles at this library just in case. I'll be totally pumped once I get back on trial and can use Bang's phone to for maps, but until then, wish me luck, folks!

It started regularly freezing over night when we were just south of Lincoln. This meant that often in the morning our tent would have fine sheets of ice all over it, and we would have to pull it out in a sunny moment during the day. It also started getting so cold that it wouldn't warm up until the sun had been up for several hours. The winds picked up, and we would often hike on and off all day in our rain jackets in a vain attempt to stay warm whilst we walked. My gloves got a massive work out, and so did my buff and my wool headband. It felt important to share a photo of just how trendy thru hiking is.

Just North of Lincoln we were hoping to sleep in a Yurt that is right beside the trail (trust me, on a thru hike you get excited about these things). Sadly, we got there and the yurt was locked. So, naturally, I sat and enjoyed the view and ate crisps with a spoon. #traillife heh.