Getting Ready for The Long Trail

Welp.  This is it.  We're leaving tomorrow to start this amazing journey about a year in the making.  Neither one of us remember the day we made the decision but it was last year sometime.  After years of day dreaming and watching others complete thru-hikes we decided we just had to do our own.  We both have pipe dreams of one day hiking the AT and maybe we will, but this seems like a good first trial to see if we're really thru hiking people.  (It's not for everyone!)

To date our longest consistent backpacking trip has been 3 days, 2 nights. (We had one longer one with a hotel stay in the middle) So this is new territory for us!  We're going in knowing this is big and we're novices with SOME experience under our belts.  

But we are ready!  Some days will be absolutely life altering and some days.....well they're going to suck.  Suck really hard.

We have all our gear gathered and mostly packed.  We did a test pack to make sure everything fits in in our packs and we're both coming in around 30 pounds.  OOOOF!!  However, our first leg is likely going to be about 5 days so we have a lot more food than we usually carry.  (my food bag is hitting 4.8 pounds currently, and 2 liters of water is close to 5 pounds) and we know we are packing food with a little bit of paranoia so we probably have more than we need, but better more than not enough.  That could be straight up dangerous.  We will be stopping in towns along the way to resupply and likely take a zero day once or twice at a hotel, BnB or hiker hostel. (Hiker term: 0 miles hiked.  In other words, a day off!)

The plan is to leave tomorrow mid day and drive about halfway, to Buffalo or Rochester, get a hotel and then head to North Adams, MA where we have an AirBnB for our last night.  We have a good friend from Boston coming to spend the night with us and see us off in the morning too.  We can't wait!

We're meeting someone Monday morning who is going to keep my car for us for the month.  He lives up by the norther terminus so when we finish my car will be waiting.  What a beautiful and kind human, we cannot thank you enough, Russ!

I plan to make posts here every day via my phone and save them so hopefully I can upload them as we get service.  I'd love a record with photos and a good description of this once-in-a-lifetime event!  I hope you follow along on our journey.

Peace and love!

Nikki and Brendan. 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

8.16.23

Image
Kinda slept in a little.  We slept a little better last night.  Got up and had an amazing breakfast at the inn.  Such an amazing place! We decided to get one more overnight in at one of our most favorite spots, Bromely mountain.  It's a bit of a haul up the mountain and just as we remembered it.  But the ski hut we stayed in last year has some improvements.  A FRIGGIN DRYER!!!  We remembered they have power up here so people can charge their stuff but the put in a dang dryer!  That is a huge gift for hikers.  Lot of AT hikers up here hanging out and drying stuff. On the way up we totally ran into one of the SOBO AT hikers we met giving away soda yesterday!  Late Start.  And later on met another SOBO hiker we'd helped yesterday who's name I forget.  We explored the area a little.   Walking down another path that leads to the ski resort.  We didn't walk all the way down or anything but just around.  It was jus...
Read more

The Long Trail, Part Deux

Image
We're just a few days form leaving to head back out to Vermont to pick up where we left off and get the last 91 miles done!   We're both feeling less prepared and in way worse shape than last year.  So that's fun!!  That said, we have a better idea of what we're in for and have made a few gear swaps to hopefully save us some weight.  And we sat down with the map, Far Out and OnX to make a loose plan of attack for easier days with lower miles, leaving room to get more in if we're feeling ok any day.  With this plan we can finish in about 12 days.  We're planning on 2 weeks but I have a feeling we'll get more miles in towards the end.   There are fewer resupply stops which means carrying more food with us, unfortunately.  And we're also starting at the hardest part of the entire trail.  But we're still excited to have this done. There's something about our names being marked down forever in a log that feels really special. Even though...
Read more

Day 22

Image
Miles hikes today: 6 LT miles: 179 Bamford shelter As if things couldn't have gotten worse yesterday;  a large group of teens showed up and filled the shelter and surrounding area last night.  School group.   We actually slept okay given how loud it was for awhile. Headed up Camel's Hump this morning. Weather once again changed to our favor so no rain until evening!  Camel's Hump was absolutely terrifying.  But amazing too.  You could see forever in all directions.  Once again it took us ALL DAMN DAY to go 6 miles.  But we did have that pesky mountain in the way.  Brutal hike today.  It's our packs honestly.  With day packs we'd have done that a lot quicker and easier.  Having all that weight throwing your balance off really slows you down. And there were places we just could not get through with them on so we'd have to stop, take the packs off, climb up/down/thru, hand off the packs, put them back on....which all takes ti...
Read more