Thoughts as I get myself geared up to Thru Hike the Appalachian Trail

First, the decision to start on March 18, 2007 was totally and completely my idea and not anyone else. My original start date was April 1 or 2. When it turned out that one of my friends couldn’t hike this year and was postponing her hike until 2007, I asked her if she wanted to start hiking the same date I start. She said yes and had no date set but didn’t want to start in April. So I backed up my start date a week and then backed it up some more. I don’t want to start hiking on a Saturday as that’s the day of the week that the hoards and masses usually choose. I didn’t want to be caught up in a slew of hikers racing to achieve a spot to set up camp. Then I decided to honor my Dad by starting my hike on his 83rd birthday. And that’s how the start date of March 18, 2007 came to be.

Second, gear changes. I’m torn between my Integral Designs Salathe’ bivy and my (as yet un-seal-seamed) silbivy. There are good reasons to take either one and I’m now shifting back to the 5x8 siltarp and the silbivy. I’m buying one more pair of shorts which I’ll wear with my Hawaiian shirt to sleep in and for town use. I don’t have my boots or hiking shoes or whatever I wear to hike in yet. There’s plenty of time, so I’ll keep my options open.

I have just about decided to leave behind my ‘thin blue sleeping pad’ and use my pack under my legs and feet and my “uber micro” under my torso. I’ll have to check it out to see if it works when we have our shake down hike in October. I’m thinking I’d like to hike Standing Indian Mountain and Albert Mountain for our shakedown hike or maybe Hot Springs to Erwin, but we’ll make a decision as the time grows closer.

Third, technology on the Trail. I know I don’t want to use the pocketmail. I will probably just pen and paper my journal. Why, you may ask, since it’s obvious I type well. Well, here’s my thinking: pocketmail is just one more chain to the “other” world (this one, not the one I’m going to enter on my Thru Hike). I want to leave most of that behind when I hike. Oh, yes, I’ll have a camera and probably a 2 gig card and I’ll have a little cellphone to call my support person and my family, but there’s only one use for a pocketmail – you can’t draw with it and you can’t use it for emergencies (like ordering pizza or making reservations at one of the Huts in the Whites) and you can’t capture the moment or I guess we can now say ‘digitize the moment” with a pocketmail. I’m giving it away: it already has a new home. I want to write and draw and jot down words or phrases that I can later play with to write a poem or a piece of prose for my trail journal. I can do that discretely with a pen or colored pencils and paper. But to have to pull out a pocketmail and go through the motions – it’s just not “me.”

Fourth, hiking with someone versus hiking solo. Just because my friend and I will start on the same day at the same time doesn’t mean we’re hiking with each other. We are two solo hikers who are hiking at the same, in the same direction. Hiking “with” someone, means that the hikers take on some responsibility for the other. It means that each hiker is there to make sure that the other doesn’t get lost, sets up camp in a dry spot out of the rain, has enough to eat, has enough treated or filtered water, etc, etc. As friends, I’m sure we’ll make sure neither gets lost (unless we both get lost at the same time) and one of us may comment to the other about the depression that will puddle with water in the rain and offer some food if it appears that the other has run low and maybe even haul up extra water for the other to treat or filter. BUT neither of us is “responsible” for the other. We are each responsible for ourselves. Each can set up camp independently of the other. Each could be hiking alone but chooses to have the company of the other at the end of the day. There is a difference between being responsible for someone else and being responsible solely for yourself. We choose to be only responsible for ourselves but to enjoy each other’s company at the end of the day.