Waterloo-Pinckney Trail (Take Two)

I just noticed today that the original version of this blog post was deleted! This is what I think happened: We bought a Smartphone last week to have for the Trail and I tested it out for blogging Sunday afternoon before we went to a coffee shop. I wrote a paragraph on the phone and finished off the LONG post at the coffee shop on our computer. Today when I checked back at the website, I found only that first paragraph I wrote on my phone. I think I forgot to close the app so after I finished the post on the computer, the Blogger app that was still open on my phone thought its one paragraph was the updated version and automatically saved over the post I had written at the coffee shop. Oh well! I'll just have to write it again.

We purchased a used Samsung Galaxy Glide to function primarily as camera, music player, and blog writing device, as well as for a phone on the Appalachian Trail. We don't know much about Smartphones, but chose this one for the 8 MP camera and slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The only negative thing about it so far is that the battery doesn't last too long while using most apps that require looking at the screen. We will keep it in airplane mode while on the Trail and use it there solely for the camera and music player. Blogging will be done in towns where I can find an outlet. Still, I will always choose a computer over the phone if a computer is available because it takes extreme patience to write on a phone, as I learned in the time it took to write that one paragraph. We plan on using StraightTalk with our phone on the AT since we have no need for expensive service with long contracts. We won't get this plan until we leave for the AT, but for now we can use the phone for a camera and in our home where we have wifi.

Now to our second multi-day hike together! The government shutdown forced us to change our plans for our multi-day hike. The island we wanted to go to was on national park land so it was closed. There will be no more ferries traveling over there until next year so we might just have to go after the Appalachian Trail. It seems strange that in a year from now we will have already completed the AT. At least we better have, since Baxter State Park, where Mt. Katahdin is, closes on October 15th. It seems weird that after almost six years of service in the Marine Corps Reserve, I only have two months left. I can finally leave the Midwest and explore more of America. And after that, I can explore the world! And grow a great beard and ponytail!                                                          

In any case, we decided to hike the only multi-day hiking trail in southern Michigan: the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail. It is 36 miles long. The first night of our trip we slept at a campground before beginning our hike. We brought along my wife's sixteen-year-old brother for the adventure as a late birthday present. The last time we went for a multi-day hike we had a problem with our sleeping pads splitting apart from each other during the night, which is problematic since we share a large sleeping quilt. My wife came up with the idea of bringing along a fitted sheet to keep them together which worked well. As we tried to fall asleep, I noticed my pad was sinking more and more to the ground and I was getting colder and colder. Finally, I took it out of the tent to examine it and we found a small hole. The pads came with repair kits, but we didn't bring them and we didn't have anything else with us that could fix it. So we just made do with one fully functional pad for the rest of the hike.

In the morning the outside of both the inner and outer portions of our tent were soaked even though it hadn't rained. The dew pint must have been quite high. Our inner tent hasn't ever been that wet even after severe thunderstorms all night long. Thankfully, we stayed mostly dry, except my brother-in-law who was shoved to the one side of our two-person tent and was touching the wall. We brought along our new rain ponchos, but sadly never got to try them out. We will have to test them later, perhaps just take a hike through the town next time it rains hard.

I'd say we hiked pretty well. We put in 14 miles the first day, 15 the next and 7 miles in half a day to finish it off. We were really pumped to get to a restaurant at the end. That is one thing I am really excited about the AT: the food we get in towns will taste SO good after a few days of hiking. We'll get to experience that over and over again. In my normal life I indulge in what I love and it becomes dull-tasting. It is hard to appreciate that which I can have whenever I want.

The Waterloo-Pinckney Trail itself was not as beautiful as the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Trail, but it probably looks more like much of the AT will be like. We encountered a lot of horseback riders, mountain bikers, and snakes. I found that I didn't pay much attention to the scenery over the three days of hiking through the woods. I get lost in my own head a lot. Toward the end of the hike my wife and brother-in-law were talking about the dozens of chipmunks they had seen, when I had only noticed one the entire time.

One of the things I was really excited about on this trip was to try out our new pot with my homemade alcohol stove. On all the hikes I have ever gone on I have simply brought leftover MREs from training. They come with individual one-time-use heaters, which are basically some chemicals in a bag that activate with water. I had no need for a stove. But MREs are heavy and what I have wouldn't last us very long on the AT. I will write up a full report on my DIY stove in my next blog post. And now I can post photos with our new phone!

Lessons for the Trail:
Bring all repair kits.
Bring ductape (this would have been useful for repairing the sleeping pad and I've read that it comes in handy a lot for a myriad of reasons from too many thru-hikers not to bring it now).
Take time out to intentionally spend significant amounts of time focusing on small parts of nature, like a view from a cliff or a single leaf, letting the beauty and complexity of this world enrapture me.
Figure out an easy way to clean our pot.