Quick Reviews of Books About the Appalachian Trail and Long-Distance Hiking and Lightweight Gear (A Continuing Saga)

I first sat down to write this post a month ago. I decided to write up some short reviews of the many books I had read about the Appalachian Trail or relating to long-distance hiking. But when I actually counted the books I had read, there really weren't many. So I checked out every book at my library that had anything to do with the Appalachian Trail. The list is still modest, but I will add to it when I read more. The list will follow the order in which I read them.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

This is the book that a lot of my friends asked if I have read when I first told them I was hiking the AT. It is the most popular book about the Appalachian Trail, written by renowned travel writer Bill Bryson,  and I hear it is currently being made into a movie by Robert Redford. The book was quite enjoyable, funny at many points with several serious sections about environmental concerns. I have read some thru-hikers and would-be-thru-hikers dismiss it because it does little to offer any kind of insight or wisdom into what a thru-hike is actually all about. However, Bryson knows his audience. He was writing to the masses and they don't want those kinds of details. This is a book that anyone can enjoy. After the publication, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy reports that a spike in thru-hikers followed. This book is a great first exposure to the Trail. It may not be  the best read for someone who has already researched a lot about the Trail, but it should still give you several laughs.

Appalachian Trials: A Psychological and Emotional Guide to Successfully Thru-Hiking the Appalachian Trail by Zach Davis

This was the only book I really wanted to read before heading out on the Trail. The title appealed to me. You can find all kinds of books about backpacking equipment, hiking methods, and the physical hardships that accompany long-distance hiking, but I realized awhile ago that physical strength is only a small fraction of the solution. Emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being play the largest role in whether or not we, as humans, will overcome any given obstacle. The author, Zach Davis, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2011, published this book in 2012 and already you can find rave reviews of it on just about every Appalachian Trail thru-hiking forum, blog, Facebook group, or website out there. Davis uses his own story of hiking the AT to paint an insightful portrait of the tactics one must employ and the mindset one must develop in order to tackle the inevitable onslaught of different difficulties that arise when walking so far and living in the woods so long. He classifies several mistakes thru-hikers (including himself) make and how to avoid them. These mistakes range from big and abstract ones such as embarking without a clear purpose or goal set in stone to small and practical such as beginning in March without a sleeping bag designed for cold weather. He also includes a handy gear check list written by a professional long-distance hiker which I reference often!       

Lighten Up!: A Complete Handbook for Light and Ultralight Backpacking by Don Ladigin

Since I'm in the Marine Corps I know all too well how annoying it is to lug all kinds of superfluous gear around in a bulky backpack. I've always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail with as little weight as possible and as a minimalist, the ultralight lifestyle appeals to me. This book has over a hundred tips on how to minimize the weight in your backpack, but I honestly don't remember very many of them. Some don't really pertain to thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail specifically and others require specific kinds of gear or skills to create DIY items. I probably will only use one or two of the actual practical tips, but the book is really about creating a different kind of mindset. It is about getting hikers to question every piece of gear and to think creatively about finding/making/using gear in as many ways as possible. Overall, this book did well at getting me in the ultralight mindset before I started considering gear options, but I think it would be just as easy to find lightweight hiking tips online without picking up this book.  

Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike Planner by David Lauterborn

This book presents all of the timeless information one would need to get a basic understanding of what thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail is about. Anybody who has already done research about the Trail will find no new information, but it could be a beneficial book for someone  who has just begun to consider thru-hiking the AT and wants to have a general understanding of what it will be like. Of course all of the practical/logistical etc. aspects of the Trail have been written about to death, sometimes in excruciating detail, and websites are filled with highly opinionated people who write endlessly about what one should/should not do so sometimes it is nice to read a straight-forward take on what one needs to know about thru-hiking the AT before traversing that great mess of information online.  

Long-Distance Hiking: Lessons from the Appalachian Trail by Roland Mueser

My wife borrowed this book from a friend who had it as a textbook for a backpacking class in college. I found it quite interesting because the author, who thru-hiked the Trail himself questioned over one hundred thru-hikers about various aspects of life on the Trail. He compiled all the information, calculated statistics, and interpreted the data so one could find out various useful information such as what was the most common injury for certain age groups or what kinds of injuries were sustained by hikers using different types of footwear. Unfortunately, the book is dated. The thru-hikers who filled out the questionnaires hiked in the late 80s. So, although the answers to some questions like, "What are the most difficult aspects of long-distance hiking?' might not change a whole lot, the answer to, "Which brand of backpack do most long-distance hikers prefer?" probably has changed quite a bit over the past twenty years. I think some hiker or some organization should send out questionnaires to thru-hikers every year to see how the thru-hiking culture changes throughout the years. If I heard that an updated version of the book was being published, I'd purchase it immediately. I've also considered getting contact information of the thru-hikers I meet on my own thru-hike so I can send them questionnaires afterward and compile the information on a webpage for future thru-hikers to use as a resource.

The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide by Andrew Skurka

I first heard of Andrew Skurka when I relied on his online article about making your own stove out of a cat food can to make my own. When I saw that he had written an entire book about gear that was published just last year, I knew I should read it. Luckily, my library had recently ordered it for its collection. In this book, Skurka, explains what kind of gear people use for long-distance hiking. He discusses the pros and cons of the different options we have available these days. For instance, he writes about how the various fabrics used to make shirts each have strengths and weaknesses. He also explains how the technology of gear works so you can have a working knowledge of it when deciding which gear to purchase. The book also includes helpful info-graphics that give you a side-by-side comparison of the options for any given piece of gear, Skurka's own picks for several specific pieces of gear, and many small sections sprinkled throughout  the book that contain relevant information such as how to take care of your feet. Although some people might not really enjoy all the technical writing about gear in this book, I think it is beneficial, although maybe not necessary, for any thru-hiker to know.      

AWOL on the Appalachian Trail by David Miller

Since I hadn't read many memoirs of people thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, I decided I'd better pick up a few more. And I thought where better to start than with Dave Miller aka AWOL's, the author of the annually updated A.T. Guide (which, as I've read over and over again, is the best guide out there)? This book does not have the high entertainment factor as Bryson's book, but I don't think Miller was going for that. In fact, I don't think I'd recommend anyone who is not thru-hiking the Trail to read any thru-hikers' memoir, except A Walk in the Woods. That being said, people who are planning to thru-hike love this book. The fact that a middle-aged man leaves his job and his family (temporarily) to embark on an adventure of a lifetime is appealing. We see a lot of ourselves in him, since all of us have to give up our normal lives for a time, to answer the call to the Trail. Miller goes into the kinds of detail that will give the reader a sense of what a thru-hike is really all about: the experiences, the lifestyle, the terrain, the rain, the pain. Although Miller isn't philosophical too much in his recounting, I gleaned some gems from his story. He talked about how important it is to be an inspiration to his children, how he had to go on a thru-hike, because if he didn't they would see that he didn't follow his dream. They could of had a dad who stayed at home, sacrificing his own soul to maintain the status quo 9-5 job that isn't quite fulfilling enough. Another benefit I got from reading this book and other memoirs is a familiarization of the terrain. I now know names of certain mountains and features of the different states. I will know a little bit more of what to expect as I approach different places when I cast off my own work pants and go off to get lost in the mountains.  

On the Beaten Path: An Appalachian Pilgrimage by Robert Alden Rubin

You can tell the author of this thru-hike memoir is an English professor right off the bat by his style of writing, not that it is pretentious or difficult to read by any means. Again, he is a middle-aged man who has left his career and family for this grand adventure. He is very philosophical throughout the book and quite honest as he lets his personality and ultimately human's broken-ness shine through. This is what appealed me to this story the most. He writes about the terrain, the physical hardships, and all the rest, but he has come out on this journey to find something missing, to escape something, and yet he cannot escape everything. He still has his own self to contend with and the end of the story is the end of his hike, not his life. Realistically, he cannot draw any neat conclusions or find some nice meaning tied up in a bow along the way. Perhaps though, he learns (and we learn through him) that life will always be filled with regret, mundaneness, unresolved relationships, room for growth and it isn't about reaching a conclusion or an ultimate solution to a problem.  

The Appalachian Trail: Celebrating America's Hiking Trail by Brian King

This is a beautiful coffee-book table loaded with wonderful photographs of the scenery of all fourteen states in all seasons. The professional pictures showcase the mountains in all their glory, trees on a hillside peeking through the morning fog, icicles hanging off a snow-covered oak, and every other magical kind of scenery you could expect to find along the Appalachians. Included with the photos is the full history of the actual Trail itself, how it came to be from the minds of a few men to the large organized volunteer force who blazed the way. The content itself is quite boring to read, but it did give me a greater appreciation of all the effort that goes into building a trail over two thousand miles long! From organizing volunteers, to fundraising, to assembling leaders to fight for legislation that would give them the land, it really is nothing short of a miracle that in the midst of a highly modernized country is a small continues footpath that spans from the deep south to the far north.

Becoming Odyssa: Epic Adventures on the Appalachian Trail by Jennifer Pharr Davis

This memoir was a refreshing break from the three other memoirs I've read, all written by middle aged men. This one is written by a young woman fresh out of college. It was an enjoyable read just to see an AT thru-hike through a completely different perspective. Her story describes well what the culture along the Trail is like, highlighting trail angels and the different types of thru-hikers one could encounter. I did find the lessons she learned trite, but that is exactly what I would expect from a young woman experiencing post-college, real-world stuff for the first time. It isn't a bad read, especially if you're a young woman who wants to know what it might be like to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.  

The Lost Art of Walking by Geoff Nicholson

This book doesn't ever specifically discuss the Appalachian Trail, but given the title, I thought it might be a good read anyhow and shed some light on the mental, emotional, spiritual etc. beauties of walking. I shouldn't have expected that. I was disappointed in this book, thinking it could have been so much more. Mostly he discusses weird, and sometimes funny, historical exploits involving people walking along with his own personal history of walking in the places he has lived. It wasn't a bad book, especially considering it is about a mundane topic familiar to most human beings. It just really gave me nothing to think about in terms of walking the Appalachian Trail. Maybe if it was called the Lost Art of Long-Distance Hiking or Backpacking it would have been more up my alley.

Southern Appalachian Poetry

This is a great collection of poetry. Including work by thirty-seven different poets, there are several different styles and perspectives in this book, so if one doesn't quite move you, another will be sure to. The poems are uniquely tied together by common elements that reveal the culture of Southern Appalachia in some beautiful ways. Although it is in no way necessary it is nice to get a glimpse of the culture and history of the places you are traveling through. Instead of writing more I will share a poem that seems like it could be written by a thru-hiker.

Shenandoah

Flurries of dogwood, fields clouded with cows,

                                                              Floridians climbing the slopes slower than spring:

                                                              time thins with air, whole hours suspended

                                                              perfect as birds gliding the wind's high ridge,

                                                              the blue earth's turning speed enough. Whole   
                                                              days

                                                              condense to a moment: the flame azaleas

                                                              and cardinals, the soft green curtain ridge    

                                                              pleated between peaks, the vanishing points

                                                              soundless again under the sky's bright tiding

                                                              and remote as the blue relief of the heart. 

                                                              -Michael McFee

Wild by Cheryl Strayed 

My wife picked up this book from a shelter while thruhiking and I read it after she did. It isn't about thruhiking the Appalachian Trail, but about a woman's hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. It is humorous at times like A Walk in the Woods, but also deeply personal, and so much more engrossing. There is a lot about the therapeutic nature of hiking a long-distance Trail and about the general culture and day-to-day aspects of Trail-life. Some of it is specific to the Pacific Crest Trail, but her story is so wild and full, I expect anyone who reads it will feel at least some tug to get out and hike a long-distance Trail for themselves. So if you need inspiration and like a good story, this book is a great, quick read. There is also a movie of the same name coming out in December, 2014 starring Reese Witherspoon. I'm sure, again, both the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail will see an influx of thruhikers this coming season.

Laid to Rest or Put to Death: A Tragedy (Comedy?) in Three Parts

Part I: Insertion Failed

I am quite the film buff. I can spend hours sifting through movie trivia and rewatch certain scenes from my favorite films over and over again until I've memorized every inflection of the actors' words and every movement of the cinematographer's cameras. Since we have no television or DVD player in our living area I have come to rely on the DVD drive of our computer and our library's expansive film collection to fulfill my appetite. Much to my chagrin, our local library dealt with budget cuts by removing the ability of patrons to borrow any kind of media besides books from the interlibrary exchange program. I could borrow any DVD from any library across all of Michigan which pretty much meant limitless possibilities, but now I can only borrow from the thousands of movies our local library owns which is still pretty much  everything I could want except P.T. Anderson's Magnolia. One fateful day, a couple of months ago, I inserted the library's copy of Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys into the DVD drive of our computer and in typical Macbook fashion, it snatched the DVD right from my hand and pulled the disc in by itself with a loud digital noise of unseen mechanisms sputtering to life. The noise grew louder as it attempted to read the disc and then it grew quiet. It rose again and quieted again and after another attempt or two it rejected the disc, spitting it halfway out of its mouth like an undisciplined child. Ever since, the DVD drive has refused to accept any DVD or CD. I have tried to force-feed it, but it remains tight-lipped. Woe is me! Now I cannot watch movies whenever I want! It really isn't so bad. I can still watch movies on occasion when I am not working and the upstairs living room isn't occupied during the week days.  

Part II: The Reanimated Man and the Replaced Phone

Ever since living in Grand Rapids I have looked forward to every October so that I can dust off my acting chops and don zombie-garb to do my part in the annual zombie dash downtown. Three miles of downtown Grand Rapids is transformed into the apocalypse for one night as hundreds of survivors attempt to run a zombie-infested course without losing their life-strips (white flags hanging off their hips) to hungry zombies. It is a great event and free if you play a part of one of the hundreds of zombies! This year I went as a zombie groom in a suit and blood-spattered collared shirt and tie. My wife expertly applies my make-up, using her skills to turn me into one of the best looking zombies of the bunch. This year we had to work until just short of the race and we rushed to get me zombiefied and out the door. When we got outside I sent my wife back inside to grab our new cellphone so she could take some photos of me so I could post them to Instagram which I just joined a few days prior with the first Smartphone I've owned since Instagram was invented. Since all parts of my body not covered by my suit were covered with makeup, my wife had to carry and load all of our stuff into the car and open the door for me so I could climb inside. Hurriedly, she snapped some photos of me and buzzed around the car to get our stuff in the car before coming back around to put me in the car. I felt like a mannequin, stiff, with my hands kept hovering in front of me like Mr. Burns to keep the makeup as fresh as possible for as long as possible. It was a really fun night as I hammed up my part as the living dead by falling out of bushes in front of scared survivors and tripping over the curb in my animal-like craze for human flesh. When we got home I looked for the phone so I could post the pictures, but could not find it in any of our bags. So we looked in the car. Then we looked outside where the photos were taken. Then we got flashlights and looked in both places again. Thoroughly. Finally, we decided to drive back downtown to look there. After we made the first turn in our car my wife noticed a small black object in the middle of the intersection where we made our second turn to go downtown. I jumped out of the car and rushed over to the object. There was our new phone smashed in total destruction. In the rush to get downtown my wife placed it on top of the trunk and forgot it there as we drove away. I couldn't believe it at first! Two freak accidents have ended the lives of both the Smartphones I have ever owned within a couple of weeks of purchasing them! Surely this must be a sign! For awhile I really liked the idea of going out there on the Appalachian Trail with no electronics besides a simple prepaid phone, but my wife really wants to be able to take photos out there. So, after thinking through various options we decided to buy another Smartphone to replace the broken one, but to abstain from a talk/text/data plan that would have cost $45 a month. So, we will bring my simple prepaid phone for calls and the Smartphone to use as camera, music player, and Internet browser when there is wifi in town so I can blog. It might not be as convenient as having a good plan for one phone and it will be a little heavier with the extra phone, but it will actually save us a couple hundred bucks in the long run, even after having to purchase our Smartphone twice. And we decided the purchase would count as our Christmas gift for each other. Since the hike seems so close now, we are trying even harder to save as much money as we can before we set out for the grand adventure!

Part III: Take a Hike!

An hour after dropping me off for drill with my Marine Corps Reserve unit, my wife texted with the news that she never made it to work. Instead, she was in an auto shop after being towed there when the two back tires blew not a mile away. The new tires and the tow set us back a couple hundred bucks and the mechanic told her the wheels needed to be realigned. The tires blew because the alignment was off. This was a problem we had no idea we had. I know absolutely nothing about cars, so this just came out of nowhere. We didn't anticipate having a car repair expense. Though, who ever expects this? A couple of days later we brought the car in to get the wheels aligned, but when the mechanic tried to do this he found the control arms were bent on both wheels so they couldn't be aligned until we replaced the control arms which cost several hundred dollars apiece. We decided not to fix it right now and have begun to use the car sparingly. To that end we bought bus passes, coordinated with a coworker for carpooling, pumped up our bike tires, and broke out cold weather clothes and backpacks for walking. In fact, the past two days we walked back from work. One way is 6.5 miles. It is good training for the Trail to be forced to walk like this.

                    

         

The Brave Little Stove

I heard about do-it-yourself soda pop can stoves a few years back and after reading in a few places that thru-hikers of the Appalachian Trail used them, I felt validated to follow suit. I gathered a few soda pop cans kept putting off the construction. I am not the most crafty person in the world with little patience to make sure everything is perfect, but I definitely did not want to spend between $40-$200 for a piece of gear I could make myself for less than a dollar that would work just as well for my purposes. Fortunately for me, since I kept putting off making the soda pop can stove, I came across a much simpler design using a cat food can. I wasn't sure if it would work as well as the popular soda pop can stoves I had heard so much about, but as I read The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide by Andrew Skurka, a professional thru-hiker, I found that he uses the cat food stove for all of his hikes. He even provides instructions on how to make one on his website here. I will also show how I made my stove, albeit a lot less professionally.

So I bought the off-brand cat food can and gave the food to my sister's cat. Then I cleaned the can and borrowed a hole-puncher from my mom. Then came the hard part. I had to punch two rows of holes at the top of the can. The holes had to be equally spaced with the bottom row of holes placed directly below the spaces between the holes of the top row. This was quite difficult for me and my first attempt looked like this:

After this was completed I rushed to our local hardware store to get the fuel. This type of stove runs on denatured alcohol which can be found in most hardware stores or paint stores, as well as in some outdoor stores. Denatured alcohol is cheap and I have read that increasingly, outfitters near the AT sell it by the ounce since it normally comes in large metal containers which would be too heavy to carry on the Trail. I brought the can home and poured some in the stove, below the holes. When I lit the fuel with a match I didn't know that it had lit at first. When I put my hand near it though, I could feel the heat. The flame is nearly invisible, especially in broad daylight. I placed a pot of water on top of the stove and watched the water carefully for several minutes until it finally began to boil. It worked!

I didn't touch it again until a couple of days before our hike of our Waterloo-Pinckney Trail. I bought another cat food can and with the help of my wife made sure the holes were pretty spot on where they were supposed to be. So now our stove looks like this:

I also had to make a windscreen because any kind of wind flow can greatly decrease the effectiveness of the stove. The windscreen was also simple to create, following Skurka's instructions here. I borrowed some aluminum foil from my sister and folded it in half lengthways. Then I simply folded all the edges so they were double thick. I then attached binder clips on the bottom to allow it to stand up more and to attach the two ends together when wrapped around the stove.

We didn't get a chance to actually cook a meal with the stove until our trip. We brought oatmeal, instant noodles, macaroni and cheese, and an onion soup mix. Our first meal was the instant noodles and we had a picnic table to set up the stove on. All of the shelters of the small section of the AT that I had hiked before had a picnic table in front, but the shelter itself could also work as a level ground. The third night out on our hiking trip we had no picnic table and had to cook on the ground. This was easy enough. Our 1.3 L pot does sit a bit precariously on our stove, but as long as we are careful all should be well.

We brought denatured alcohol in a small plastic water bottle, clearly marked so as not to confuse it with drinking water since the liquid is clear. After pouring it in the stove, lighting it, and placing the windscreen and pot in place we left it to do its work on the noodles while we set up camp. After a few minutes we noticed the pot smoking and rushed over to see what was happening. The fire was burning the plastic that cover the ends of the handles I had collapsed onto the sides of the stove. So we pulled the windscreen apart a bit and left the handles extended whenever we cooked for the rest of the trip. I think we just need to make the windscreen bigger so we can pull the handles a little bit away from the stove while keeping the windscreen totally surrounding the stove.

The tricky part about using an alcohol stove is that there is no way to put out the fire so we just let the fuel burn itself out. Hopefully we will learn quick how much alcohol we need for the amount of food we are cooking at any given time so as not to waste as much. We will never want to carry any more fuel than we need to get us to the next resupply point.      

The stove works very well and is extremely lightweight. It will be really nice to have hot meals, especially when it will be so cold the first several weeks of our AT thru-hike. For awhile I contemplated going stoveless as some do on their thru-hikes, but I think it will enable us to have a few more options regarding nutritional intake for our wearied bodies.

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.

 

Just a Few Notes

My wife and I have been quite busy for the past few weeks which is why I have not posted anything recently. We both are working more hours now which is great for saving money for the Trail. We have also been slowly accumulating some more gear.

We both bought shoes to hike in that are expensive and light. There are so many options available out there. We just went with what the experts at outdoorgearlab.com recommended. I am not worried about my feet. I usually don't have any problems with my feet. I wear my shoes out, refusing to purchase a new pair until the shoes get so many holes they start looking more like sandals. I have walked around barefoot a lot, especially in my college days. I went everywhere shoeless, even to a job interview. That was probably a mistake. I didn't get that job. Anyway, my feet are tough. Whenever I go on long treks with the Marines, I end them blister-free while many others are licking their sore, blister-covered feet. Once a friend donned my shoes to make a quick run across the street to get something he needed, and when he returned a few minutes later his heels were worn through, red and hurting. I wore those shoes all the time and never had a problem. After reading about how much thruhikers have problems with their feet and about how no one makes it in one pair of shoes (some burning through several pairs before the end), I want to try making it in one pair of shoes. This isn't really a serious challenge and I know there is slim to no chance of making it, but we'll see how it goes. I read about how we should buy shoes half a size bigger since our feet will swell up with all the walking. I am just worried that won't be enough when wearing thicker socks as well.

We also bought a titanium cooking pot that can hold 1.3 L. Titanium is super light and it really was a no brainer to go this route. It is just more expensive. I have tested out building my own alcohol stove which went pretty well. It is super easy, but I am not the most crafty person. I am also not a perfectionist and have a hard time being patient enough to make something as perfect as I could. So I am going to build at least two more, until I can perfect it. I am also going to cook meals in two different sizes of stove to determine which is more efficient. Once I run though this gamut I'll post about the whole experience.

I was going to write a post reviewing the books I've read about long-distance hiking and the Appalachian Trail, but discovered I haven't read that many. So I am currently scouring my library for every book about the Appalachian Trail. I have read eight so far and will read a few more before I write about them.

We have been planning on taking another multi-day hike on an island for quite some time, but logistically we couldn't make it work until now. We will be going in a week and a half, just in time, as the ferry to the island closes for the season right after we finish. We will be going north to Sleeping Bear Dunes and spend one night in a backcountry campsite near the shore before taking the ferry to North Manitou Island, which is completely uninhabited. It is nearly eight miles long and over four miles wide. The shoreline goes 20 miles around. It will probably be quite cold up there so it will be good to test out our gear in those kinds of conditions similar to the first couple of months of our Appalachian Trail journey.

At long last we decided to buy ponchos instead of the combination of rain jackets and a rain cover for the packs. This decision is the one I am most hesitant about so far, but we will just have to test them out. I read forum after forum of hikers arguing about whether ponchos or rain jackets are better. Both have very obvious pros and cons. The main thing to keep in mind is that when we are on the Trail we will get wet a lot. Nothing can stop that. The ponchos are about keeping us warm enough not to get hypothermia when it is both rainy and cold. Hopefully, it will rain on the island so we can see how well they work. If we stick with the ponchos we will also probably add some rain pants. We didn't buy cheap ponchos at Walmart, but stronger ponchos designed for backpacking.      

Half A Year Til' Zero Hour

At this point I don't think a day passes that I don't think about the Appalachian Trail. I read books about it. I read other people's blogs about it. I watch YouTube clips about it. I am a part of the official 2014 Thru-hiker's Facebook page and a fan of the A.T. Guide's Facebook page. It is easy for me to get excited while reading stories from the Trail or watching endless videos of thru-hikers' gear or of the scenery. My wife and I have also watched the National Geographic video on the Appalachian Trail. A lot of these stories and video may not be very interesting to most people, but for all thru-hikers-to-be they are fascinating! Some days I spend hours perusing blogs and videos. I noticed some bloggers have included a countdown meter on a sidebar which, I can imagine, must be very exciting to see as the numbers dwindle away. My wife and I have decided to leave in March, preferably earlier rather than later, but not the 1st or a weekend so things won't be TOO crowded. Since thousands attempt a thru-hike, and most are hiking from Georgia to Maine, the Trail is extremely crowded at the beginning. Everyone has a small window of time to begin hiking in order to make it in time before Baxter State Park, where the northern terminus of the AT is, closes. Most hikers begin in March or April. We don't have a date set in stone yet though, so we can't have a fancy countdown!

Anyway, in case you've thought I've become too philosophical and serious with my recent posts, I'm posting a video made by a young couple who thru-hiked in 2012. The video is very inspirational and my wife and I have watched it at least twice together. It really excites us for our time on the Trail! Enjoy!

Are You Not Entertained?

A few days ago I told a coworker about my thru-hking plans and he replied in disgust. He said he had a friend who hiked the Trail and after one week the friend had an alright time, but after two weeks he was completely bored. Still, he hiked the entire Trail. I have read about this boredom from other thru-hikers before. After all, each day consists of the same thing: walking from sun-up to sun-down. The natural scenes around thru-hikers might seem wonderful and exciting to see at first, but as it seems to go with all humans, a lot of anything can make us complacent and long for anything at all that appears new. Maybe this isn't natural. Maybe we are taught to easily lose interest with the now because we are taught to want the new toy for Christmas, we want to hear the new music, and see the new television shows and movies.

This brings me to our entertainment culture. We don't have any excuse to be bored in our lives. We have so much we can fill our time with. If we aren't working, eating, or spending time with friends, there are plenty of options for entertainment all around us. In reality, for a lot of us entertainment is a big, if not the biggest sphere of our lives. Perhaps we can see this in the television watching habits of some American families. Recently, a few friends admitted that it seems strange to eat dinner at a table because when they were kids, the entire family would gather around the television set for dinner every night. Perhaps the growing number of young men and women who still play video games well into their thirties is also an indication.    

I do think entertainment has value. First of all, entertainment can be art. I don't think all entertainment can be classified as art however. A lot may have some kind of aesthetic quality, but a lot of producers of entertainment are simply trying to make money and entertainment is more easily consumed than art. Therefore, humans are more apt to consume television, film, music etc. that is more purely entertaining than artistic. However, if people are willing to put some work into what they view, read, listen to, etc, a lot can be gleaned. Properly engaging art requires work, otherwise a lot that art can give is lost. Surely people can enjoy art viscerally and it well should be. However, in my experience, when I have taken the time to go deeper in engagement with a particular piece, I enjoy it considerably more. Sometimes all it takes is a closer look at the painting, a second look at the film scene, a rereading of the paragraph in the novel a few times. This can trigger the mind to go places it wouldn't at first exposure. Sometimes it takes a little more work. Sometimes it requires asking yourself questions that seem meaningless or easy to answer at first to get somewhere. A good place to start is with your own visceral reactions. Perhaps after watching a scene in a movie you feel sad or angry or happy. Ask yourself why you feel this way? How did the creator of the work make you feel that way? These can lead to greater question and more understanding. Art is, after all, supposed to be saying something. It is revealing a particular point of view about life, love, a certain culture, etc. I have missed a lot if I walk away having only been entertained. But this happens to me often! I want to be lazy and just enjoy it. I want to be entertained. I don't want to work. Sometimes I make myself feel better by throwing on an "artistic" film, and yet do not engage it all in my mind. But this might not be any better than watching a popcorn flick full of the same-old car chases and shoot-outs or the complication in the relationship that ends up working out in the end for the two main characters as they kiss passionately until the credits roll. I think it is pretty easy to steer away from the big-budget, pure-entertainment blockbusters, pop music, and fake reality television shows. It just takes good judgment and the willingness to find ones that have artistic value. After that, it only takes some thoughtful analysis to truly allow the art to have a voice. The hardest part to overcome is the desire to take the easy way out, to be lazy and just be entertained.

That being said, I also think there is a time and place to allow yourself a complete rest. This is time when it is quite right to enjoy entertainment for nothing else, but to be entertained. I just think that people, in general, go to extremes. Some really indulge in entertainment too much. They just consume it and allow themselves to become passive receptors to all the latest movies and television shows. I think I fall into this extreme because I am a lover of film and literature in particular. But I also watch a lot of silly television shows. There can be a lot of psychological reasons why someone would be inclined to allow themselves to sink into entertainment too much. On the other extreme, there are a lot of people who let work consume them. Our culture can put a lot of pressure on people to work a lot and to work hard for the kind of salary that will provide a nice car, a nice house, and all the safety nets available for their families. I know some people who just have a drive to let their work run their lives, even when it is something they don't REALLY enjoy doing. The general desire for or appearance of SUCCESS can be haunting. I see some of these people work themselves so hard that when they do rest, they look like zombies. They may not immerse themselves in entertainment regularly, but when they do, they go deep. I think this is also unhealthy.

Ideally, I think people need to find a nice medium where work is enjoyable, but doesn't consume too much of our lives. Then we can rest in pure entertainment for a tiny bit. Mostly though, we should find ways to rest that are actually beneficial such as a proper engagement with art. Or a walk in nature for silence and solitude. The most important thing that I think entertainment has destroyed is the space and time we need to be with ourselves with no distractions so we can listen to that still, small voice inside us that is trying to tell us the hows and whys of life. How can I live meaningfully? How can I forgive? How can I be truly humble?

We quiet it by turning the knob of our television sets. We become little gods when we sit on our couches with a tub of popcorn. We are immortal as that flickering light dances before us. We do not fear during that time. We do not want. We are not haunted. We have no past and no future. We don't hear a voice asking more of us. We are complete and satisfied.

So I welcome the boredom! I long for it! We run from ourselves too much! We must come back. Come back and discover who we truly are.

A Personal History of Technology

Today I had a day off from work after many days and hours of tiresome retail drudgery. Yesterday, I planned to spend most of my time out of the house. I was going to ride my bike for a few hours, spend some time in the cool summer air, and rest in a coffee house, reading, writing, and sipping a latte. It sounded so glorious. But I didn't get to do any of that. Why not?

First, I wanted to finish the dishes. But as I did the dishes, I decided to watch a couple of videos. So then I had to finish the video I was watching after I was done with the dishes. That reminded me of another quick video I thought would be nice to be able to watch while I had free time. Then I checked Facebook and e-mail. Then I looked something up that I had on my mind and read about it for a little while. By then, the day out would be shorter than planned, but still good. But then I felt tired and thought it would be nice to just relax a little on my day off and watch a full-length film. After that, I realized I didn't really want to bike all the way to a coffee shop, but I still thought I would go for at least an hour long bike ride. But I didn't. I was hungry and decided I would eat first, and watch a couple of funny videos. After eating, I watched a few more. By the time I ended up actually stepping outside, it was 7 p.m. I just went for a twenty minute walk, wondering how I could waste an entire day on pretty useless entertainment and nothing else.

Honestly, I'm mad. Not at the allure of the Internet. Not at the carnival of sights and sounds and information that boasts every conceivable attraction to CAPTURE my mind. I'm mad at myself. Because I could have walked away from it.

As I walked around my neighborhood, I wondered if I even could walk away from it. Do I have that kind of will-power or am I some kind of addict?

I remember when I was young, I saved a bunch of money to purchase a top-of-the-line camera for $800. Five years later, I watched as a photographer tried to capture beauty with his camera, spending more time looking through his lens than anything else. Later he would look at the mountain tops on his laptop in his small bedroom in apparent awe. But how much less was this than if he had sat in the grass, looking with his own eyes at that mountain, the breeze flowing over him and the smell of earth all around him as he dug his fingernails into the ground. I took my camera and threw it against the wall over and over, smashing it into unusable fragments.

I remember when I lived alone in a small room in a city where I hardly had any friends and few ideas of how to make them. I occupied myself with the Internet to unhealthy extremes and I knew it had to be stopped. So I left it at a place I thought for sure it would be stolen and when I came back it was gone.

I remember when I found out that many of the metals used in electronics were mined in African countries where warlords forced women and children to slave away deep in the mines in order to fund their endless feuds. I gave away my iPod. I reduced my cell phone to its simplest form without any bells or whistles. This cell phone was the only electronic I owned at the time.

I am not saying technology is evil. And electronic devices hardly compose an exhaustive list of technology. Windmills and penicillin are technology. However, a lot of technology does create a lot of alienation: alienation between humans and God, alienation between humans and creation, alienation between humans and other humans, and alienation between the human and himself or herself.

How can I truly confront the deep parts of myself when I can simply distract myself with more online articles to read and videos to watch? I am not giving myself time or space to discover how I delude myself, how I can grow, how I can help others, how I can better love, how I can forgive. I can hide in the never-ending hole of web browsing. I can immerse myself in videos and books. I can work long hours and clean up the house. I can do so much to cover up that small, still voice that is waiting to give me direction. That is waiting to show me how I can be used for full potential in this world. I am ignoring that which would give me peace, hope, and love. I am ignoring something that would give me an incredible story to live. I am giving it up it to be on the sidelines, a spectator of stale tricks and cheap thrills.

I cannot wait until the Appalachian Trail to put things in their rightful place. I must begin now. I must make the time to be still. To be silent and alone. To pray. To listen. To figure out who I am and how I can be more consistent and faithful to the person I want to and am designed to be.

Reviews: Hilleberg Anjan 2 Tent, Thermarest Neoair Xlite Sleeping Pad, and ZPacks 20 Degree 900 Power Down Twin Size Quilt

As promised I will now present brief reviews of the three pieces of gear that will make up the shelter portion of our Appalachian Trail Thru-hike. Really, these are not comprehensive reviews, but a few thoughts and observations we made while trying them out for a short three-night hike. I will let you know how they hold up over the course of the six-month trek across America. That will be the true test, but as for now, I am quite happy with our selections. Really, if this were any kind of review I would take all kinds of photos to show you what I am talking about, but right now we are camera-less so I'll just add some photos I found online.

Hilleberg Anjan 2 Tent

First of all, this tent is quite easy to set up. Previously in my life, I had only set up super easy tents and hadn't ever even bothered to stake them down. I always figured since I would always be inside of my tent, I would be heavy enough to hold it down. From now on, however, I will always stake down my tent as this is very important when the weather turns bad. This tent is staked at each corner and twice in front and back. Additionally, guy lines are provided at each corner. These offer extra stability for strong winds and I will always stake them in, just in case. At 3 lb 12 oz, this tent is quite lightweight. Although there are several lighter options, it is certainly lighter than the more cheap and mainstream options out there at your local outdoor store. Most of the structures that are ulta-light are really just tarps and you have to buy an additional floor if you want one and use sticks or hiking poles as poles. This tent has everything you would need for a three-season tent. It easily fits in its stuff sack and slides neatly in even the smaller of backpacking packs. The tent also has two storage pockets and a clothesline inside. We really got to test out the weather resistance of our tent during our trip because during our last night out it had to endure a powerful thunderstorm. This tent is actually two tents, one inside the other, but you still set it up as if it was one because they are connected. This helps break up the wind better, keep out the cold, and also provides a buffer for condensation buildup. Morning dew will always build up in temperate climates and coat the inside of the tent. But with this tent, the outer layer takes the hit and the inside tent stays warm and dry. This is important in ensuring our down sleeping quilt does not get wet since it takes very long to dry. During the storm the rain pounded on our tent, but we stayed dry inside as the storm ran its course. We did get some splash-back along the edges, but I have read no tent is completely free of this. It was no significant amount and the downpour was fierce. It was so fierce that it quickly flooded the ground our tent was resting on so that the water was actually rushing beneath the tent floor and it felt like a waterbed. Still, no water leaked through the floor. The winds were also extreme, but the tent withstood it all. I am quite confident that we will have no problems with the weather while we are in the tent. There in enough space inside the tent to fit two people fairly comfortably. We can sit up and stretch out alright, but we wouldn't want to spend too much time inside when not actually sleeping. We did have to spend many hours inside during the evenings to escape the bugs and we read books without feeling claustrophobic. I think this tent will serve nicely for the duration of our trip because it was rated highly for being durable, weather resistant, and it is a nice plus that it is easy to set up and take down since we will be using it most nights for privacy in lieu of spending nights in the shelters.

Thermarest Neoair Xlite Sleeping Pad

I never liked to use sleeping pads. In fact, we have to bring a sleeping pad with us for every field exercise we do in the military, and yet only once or twice have I actually unrolled it and used it. I always just go without. For several years of my life, I chose not to sleep in a bed, but on the ground to practice living without that luxury so sleeping on the ground without a sleeping pad wasn't difficult. I thought the only use of the sleeping pad was to cushion you. After researching for the AT, I realized a sleeping pad has another important function. It keeps you warm. The ground gets very cold and no matter how thick the tent floor of the sleeping bag is, cold penetrates a lot better to your body from the ground than the air. A sleeping pad creates that distance from the ground so the cold has to first go through the pad. A lot of pads are bulky and roll up so you have to attach them to the outside of the pack. This pad is really light at 12 oz and rolls up as small as a water bottle so you can stick it in your pack. It does not lose its effectiveness though. It was really warm and is fashioned in some kind of way that the air chilled from the ground circulates at the bottom of the pad and back down to the ground while the air warmed by the body lying on top of it circulates at the top, staying warm. The pad is easy to blow up does not reqire any device besides your own lungs. It only take a minute or two. We both are using the woman's pad because they are lighter and I am short enough to use it. The pads fit us just right, so if I were to purchase them again I might upgrade a size just for some extra wiggle room, but it isn't really necessary, especially since we are trying to shave off every ounce of weight we can. When I read reviews of these pads everyone talked about how loud the pads were when you tossed and turned on them. Any movement and the pad makes a crinkly noise like aluminum foil. I was expecting far worse. The noise didn't really bother me. It really wasn't all that loud and on the AT we should be pretty tired by the end of each hiking day and drop right to sleep. I really think this pad does a great job while being both light and packable. I couldn't ask for anything else in a sleeping pad.

 ZPacks 20 Degree 900 Power Down Twin Size Quilt 

I already explained in an earlier post about how down sleeping bags are really light and warm and advantageous if you are backpacking with a tent because it doesn't work very well if it gets wet. The true test of this bag was to see how warm it was. It is extremely warm! In fact, we could barely use it. We sweated in it and used it merely as a cover for our legs most of the time. It is really going to work well on cold nights, especially at the beginning of our thru-hike. It is light, compresses down pretty far, and will keep us nice and toasty. However, since it is built to fit both of us, it is quite snug in there, which might be fine for someone like my wife, but I sleep very hot and need space to feel cool when I go to sleep. But all that might change on the Trail! I might be so dog-tired by the end of each day that I might very well become the snuggler my wife wishes me to be. We will see. Now, this isn't so much of a sleeping bag, as it is a quilt. It fits over you like a blanket and you tuck the sides under you to keep the air out. So it doesn't wrap completely around you like a mummy. This makes owning a sleeping pad essential, but we found out that having two separate sleeping pads under our single quilt made the sleeping pads split apart. We are going to try using a fitted sheet to connect them, but if that doesn't work the company that made this sleeping quilt also makes some velcro straps specifically created to attach the sleeping pads together. I might find myself wishing we had two separate quilts on the trail if it gets too hot for me, but for now the lower weight and cost of purchasing one sleeping quilt instead of two makes this the right choice for us.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Hike

After attending a wedding up north, my wife and I decided to spend a few days hiking in the Upper Peninsula. This was my wife's first multi-day backpacking trip and of course our first long hike together in preparation for the Appalachian Trail. We hiked the 42-mile long Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore which turned into more like a 50 mile hike since we took a few detours, some on purpose. Since this was my wife's first backpacking trip I thought this hike would be a big indicator of whether or not she can make it on the Appalachian Trail. I never told her, but I saw it as kind of a trial hike and I wanted to see how she would react to certain aspects of trail life such as walking many miles in one day, carrying a weighted pack, lack of comforts, and severe weather. Once I found out it might rain while we were out there, I must confess, I kind of hoped it would just so we would get soaked and uncomfortable. I wanted to see if those kinds of things would make her feel miserable. Often times we can choose how we are going to let external forces in our life affect us. Breaking a leg is not one of these times, but when you have no dry clothes and you are dirty and sweaty and thirsty and hungry and tired and mosquitos will not give you a break and you still have five more miles to walk, you can either break or not. One can practice to build up the ability to not let these external factors affect one's will to carry on with what must be done.

I was also excited for this backpacking trip since it was the first time we got to try out our three new lightweight pieces of gear: our tent, our sleeping bag, and our sleeping pads. And it was supposed to be a beautiful place, right along the southern shore of Lake Superior with pictured rocks, dunes, cliffs, waterfalls, and a lighthouse along the way.

I was a bit concerned with how the hike would turn out once I discovered we had to pay a fee for each overnight stay and reservations for campsites were recommended. I had to fill out a form and list my three top choices of where we would camp each night. It was difficult to make three congruent lists that did not overlap. It all seemed a little too bureaucratic to me. Being in nature is supposed to be an escape of this kind of thing and it seems odd to have to pay to spend some time outside. On top of that we had to schedule a shuttle to pick us up that left only at certain times. So now we also had a time schedule to adhere to. I am glad the Appalachian Trail is free and requires no reservations and does not have so strict of time limits. When our reservations were confirmed I saw they gave us our third choice which was all kinds of messed up. We were now required to walk 4 miles the first day, fourteen miles the second, three miles the third, ten miles the fourth, and ten miles on the last day before our shuttle would leave at 10 in the morning. This schedule seemed absurd and unnecessary and honestly made me quite angry. I just hoped my wife would be willing to break these crazy rules if it came to that. So I started out on the journey a little sad that we wouldn't be totally free.

The first few miles I could not focus on nature or the hike itself. I was not fully present even after my wife pointed out a swimming beaver in a lake and I almost stepped on a bright green snake. In all we saw many chipmunks, deer, and birds, a couple of rabbits, three snakes, and that beaver. At the end of that short hiking day my wife wanted to climb up a large sand dune right behind our camp site. When we slowly reached the top I felt a sting on my legs. I looked down and about twenty biting flies covered my bare legs. I danced a little, but they still attacked so I ran ahead toward Lake Superior to shake them. That is when the beauty struck me. That feeling of sublime you might have read about in books when someone reaches the top of the mountain. In front of me were hills rolling to the east and the west  at the edge of the vast expanse of water. Not a single manmade thing in sight. Pure nature. Behind me were the tops of the trees from which we came. From above they looked like a sea of green during a storm. The green crested randomly like choppy waters as the wind blew through them. And the beauty calmed my mind like a-- OUCH! Another fly bite! Nature is unrelenting in beauty and power, even the small parts of it.

Every time we were on or very near the beach, which was most of the time, the flies would not stop pestering me. Hiking, usually a leg workout, also became an arm workout as I had to constantly swing my arms up to my face and down to my legs as I walked with my wife hiked behind me snapping them away from me with a rolled up shirt. For some reason the flies liked me a ton better than my wife, at least one reason being because she wore pants while I wore shorts. Every time I have hiked anywhere I have read warnings about how bad the bugs are and to be prepared, but they have never been that bad so I decided a long time ago to ignore these warnings whenever I came across them. BIG MISTAKE! My wife knew. She had been up to the Upper Peninsula before and just as I had no idea what pasties were (when I first encountered a huge sign that read PASTIES, I confess, I thought they had made the unfortunate mistake of misspelling PASTRIES and didn't have the money or sign space to fix the error)  I did not know how big of a problem the stable flies were. So I wore shorts and paid the price. And if we were further away from the shore the mosquitos were just as bad. Our DEEP WOODS DEET bug spray was useless against them all.

On our third day, we experienced another side of the awesome power of nature. Since we were alone at both of the campsites we had reserved we decided to hike further than our reserved camp site on that third day so we didn't have to hike so far the next two days. Earlier, we decided to walk all the way to the end of the trail on the fourth day so we wouldn't have to hike ten miles before ten in the morning. Instead, we would hike to the nearby town and get a nice meal, and a nice hot shower, and a nice bed at a motel. After hiking those few miles on the third day and arriving at what would have been our campsite for the night, my wife said we should move on, for which I was extremely grateful. So we walked on and came upon a large rock that jutted out so we could see into the vast expanse of Lake Superior, which has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in the world. Distant booms floated by us as we saw one large storm off to the far east and one large storm off to the far west. We seemed to be aligned with the middle where no storms were and I casually remarked that we might be spared the storm. Ha ha ha. Within minutes the sprinkling began, and then the heavy downpour and the incredible BOOMS. It felt good to be wet . . . at first, especially because the bugs went away. But it rained and rained for hours and the trail quickly became one large muddy puddle after another. We were soaked through and through in no time before the storm passed. We arrived at another campsite with one space left for us and set up our tent, everything damp and mud-smeared, still hearing the distant booms. Just as we finished setting up our small living quarters, moments after we both crawled safely inside and on our pads a BOOM as loud as any I've heard and a light fierce enough to be seen through two layers of tent cracked simultaneously. My wife whimpered something about wishing she was home and I kept imaging a giant tree blasted by lighting above us and crushing our tent. The rain struck our tent like it was hail and I sat up to peer out the one mesh side of our tent where our shoes and backpacks lay on the ground under the outer tent fly. Rainwater flooded around them. I've never seen water accumulate so fast and they were almost covered. Everything not already in the tent would be wet and remain wet for the rest of the hike including all of our clothes, our shoes, and our camera and my cell phone that I forgot to put back in the waterproof bags I so thoughtfully brought along. In fact both of these items are currently resting in a bag of rice, but I have little hope they can be rescued. This is why none of the beautiful photos we took along the way are included in this blog post. But this isn't too disconcerting because the phone was a cheap pay-as-you-go phone which can be replaced for ten dollars and the camera was already broken as it could not read memory cards and so could only store about thirty photos at a time. When I set my hand down on the floor of the tent it squished and I realized that water was amassing beneath us, under the tent. Even though we were on the top of a hill, the water quickly formed beneath the entire length and width of our tent so the entire bottom felt like a water bed. Despite this, the inside of the tent remained dry, except for the inevitable splash-back along the edge, a testament to the quality of the tent. In my next post I will review the tent, sleeping bag, and sleeping bags. After a couple of scary hours the storm finally subsided and we fell asleep.

The next morning we put back on our wet clothes and walked the rest of the way to the end of the trail. My wife decided to walk in some non-hiking shoes that weren't as wet and tied her cheap hiking boots to her pack, dangling. At some point when we had a break from hiking she noticed only one was dangling there and we laughed knowing someone would come across one hiking boot on the path and wonder what had happened. We hiked around fifty miles in seventy-two hours.

My wife did great. She did better than I expected her to. I shouldn't have been surprised because she also did well on our first two-day bike ride together. All in all, we did walk faster and longer than we should have and in the very end she did have a difficult time with each step, and I was hurting as well, but I am not very concerned about this because on the Appalachian Trail we will not walk as far or as fast for the first several weeks, until we are in shape and used to the ups and downs of the 270 mountains we will encounter along the way. We will have few time restraints since we have decided to give ourselves about seven months to complete the hike. She never let the weather or discomfort or lack of bed and shower get to her, except for that one moment when the huge storm suddenly burst on top of us. I am confident that we will both do well on the Trail and make it to the end at Mt. Katahdin.

Lessons for the Trail:
Ensure all gear is waterproofed at the very first sign that it might begin to rain.
Figure out a way to attach the two sleeping pads together so they do not slip apart (we already have an idea).
If setting up the tent on a slope, place pads so that our heads will be closest to the top so we don't keep slipping down and crash our heads into the back wall of the tent.  
Keep up with reducing weight in our packs since all of the other long-distance hikers we came across had packs that looked a ton heavier than ours were and hiked slower and probably were in a great deal more pain.

          

   

Mt. You

While I was baking in the Californian desert, I had a lot of time to read. I finished the book I had brought within the first few days of training. I thought I might just have to sit around without anything compelling to do for the rest of my time there, or borrow another Marine's book which no doubtably would have been an intense action or spy novel which isn't really my cup of tea. To my surprise, a Marine in my squad brought a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig and thankfully this Marine was also very social and allowed me to take his book away from him most of the time we got a chance to read. I had heard about this book just recently from a friend who recommended it, so I eagerly read it, just finishing before boarding the plane to come back home from training. The book at its basic form is about a man who took his son on a motorcycle trip across America one summer. It is also a philosophy book.

As I was reading it, a few things really struck a chord with me and reminded me of several of the statements I wrote about why I desire to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. These statements are: 

- To spend a significant amount of time away from many of the conveniences of the modern day.

- To be away from the irksome obligations of paying bills, keeping schedules, etc.

- To have a time away from many of the temptations and distractions in my current life.

- To get away from the many apathy-creating and life-destroying ways of life that hallmark today's standard living.

One of the big issues that Pirsig tackles in this book is the way technology can make people feel detached, irritable, and even dehumanized. I am not sure if everyone feels this way about technology at some point or other in their life, but I am willing to bet that deep down if everyone were honest with themselves, they could find some technology that disturbs their inner-lives, the quality of their spiritual, emotional, and intellectual selves. My wife really enjoys her mornings as a time to be quiet, deep, prayerful, and contemplative, but when the computer is on and I am scrolling fast-paced through Facebook and obnoxious YouTube videos are playing, this sort of environment is threatened. 

Pirsig certainly wouldn't say that technology is inherently bad just as say, money and guns aren't inherently bad. Sometimes their power and ease of use simply makes it irresistible for humans to use them in ways and for reasons that arguably diminish the quality of one's and others' lives. I find myself using that word 'quality' a lot and that is because the book is fundamentally trying to answer the question, 'what is quality?' That question is inescapable when talking about these things, and I will not venture to answer it in this small blog post. Read the book if you want to know more about that.

At the beginning of the book Pirsig writes about the normal modern life and how our consciousnesses might be affected by the technology of today, such as the television and radio. Unquestionably, the Internet would be added to that list if the book hadn't been written in the 70s. He writes: 

We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone. Now that we do have some time, and know it, I would like to use the time to talk in some depth about things that seem important. What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua—that's the only name that I can think of for it—like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, […] an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated. "What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and "best" was a matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for.

 It is mainly this shallowness of web-surfing and Facebook and television that I find so difficult to break away from most of the time. It wastes my time without seeming necessary or edifying and hiking the Trail will be a nice break from it. However, I would like to develop a character that does not succumb to the temptation of spending countless hours online watching funny videos. I would like to be someone who more readily prays for three hours straight or decides to devote a few hours of thinking about what makes something quality. If you have made it through reading this far I congratulate you. Most of the time, if I saw a blog post this long, I would skip or skim it. And that is revealing of a problem within myself. Once I got rid of my computer and for several months I was limited to an hour online at the library if I wanted to walk there. I read a lot more books, but I didn't do a lot of the things I  thought the computer was keeping me from. This is because it was not the computers fault. It was my own. I can use the computer to develop as a writer by writing blog posts or I can mindlessly play Angry Birds. I can watch a YouTube clip about building a DIY camp stove and actually detach myself from the couch and do it or I can watch another clip of somebody falling of a table or pulling of a really great prank. 

I was going to include a lot more quotes about how technology cuts us off from becoming people of greater quality, but I will leave it at that because I can provide quotes or my own story as a testament of my ideas all day long, but in reality, you have to see it in your own life if you are going to agree with me or attempt to struggle against the kind of conscious technology may have created in you as in me. 

I will transition now to something else Pirsig wrote about, but it is really all the same thing since it is all interrelated just as all my reasons for hiking the Trail are interrelated. Besides the ones listed above and one about becoming physically stronger, the rest are spiritual reasons. But the spiritual and technological one go hand-in-hand. During their motorcycle trip, Pirsig and his son hiked up a mountain just as my wife and I will do on the Trail for six months straight. The way we relate to technology creates us as a certain way and when we are hiking the trail we will still be this certain way and so technology can still have an adverse affect on us while we are hiking even though we are away from it. We may be largely detached from it for six months, but the fact is that for over twenty years it has permeated our worlds in a big way.  

Pirsig says, "Mountains . . . and travelers in the mountains and events that happen to them are found . . . in the tales of every major religion. The allegory of a physical mountain for the spiritual one that stands between each soul and its goal is an easy and natural one to make. Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardship."

I definitely do not want to live all my life with that mountain staring down at me and so we will climb. We just have to be careful about the way that we climb. Pirsig writes about two kinds of climbers. One selfless and the other an ego-climber who is trying to prove something to himself/herself and/or others. Pirsig writes:

To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one foot in front of the other. Both breathe in and out at the same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that’s out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He’s likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step shows he’s tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what’s ahead even when he knows what’s ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He’s here but he’s not here. He rejects the here, he’s unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then *it* will be “here.” What he’s looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn’t want that because it *is* all around him. Every step’s an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant.

It will be difficult, through the aching legs, the rain, and the monotony of seeing one tree after another to be truly in the present and not long for the next resupply town when we can get cold drinks and hot showers. It will be difficult not to picture us standing on Mt. Katahdin at the end or what we will do after we are finished hiking the Trail. It will be difficult to enjoy each and every step along the way and to realize that this whole thing is not about that ending moment, but about each and every part of the Trail itself.  

In closing, I will leave you with another quote. For those of you hiking a mountain called Katahdin or Everest take heed, for those of you hiking a mountain called Josh or Sarah also take heed.

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow. But of course, without the top you can't have any sides. It's the top that defines the sides. So on we go . . . we have a long way . . . no hurry . . . just one step after the next . . . with a little Chautauqua for entertainment. . . . Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV it's a shame more people don't switch over to it. They probably think what they hear is unimportant but it never is.