Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002
From: Northwestern Georgia, USA
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My boys and I are back from a very difficult trip on the Appalachian Trail. At least it was difficult for me; not so much for them and their 20-year-old legs and circulatory systems. Here's some highlights (and I'll post a few pictures later today):
We backpacked 51 miles from near Hampton, Tenn., to Damascus, Virginia. Ordinarily this would have been a fairly tame section of the AT, but a big storm on July 8 blew through the area, knocking hundreds of trees and treetops into the trail (and killing two campers in a tent on an island in Watauga Lake). Most of the downed trees were concentrated where the trail climbs steeply for 0.75 miles up Iron Mountain. It turned this stretch into a brutal obstacle course. The treetops made it impossible to see the trail on some stretches. We had to climb steeply up the mountainside (or sometimes steeply down and then back up) to get around the snarls. We had heard from trail maintainers and two Marines that it was impossible to get through this section, but we took it on and made it. Doing so left me utterly exhausted. It took us four hours to make the four miles from Wilbur Lake Road to Vandeventer Shelter. Most of the difficulty was just on that 0.75-mile climb.
On that particular day, we started backpacking at 8 a.m. I didn't reach the destination shelter (Iron Mountain) until 7 p.m. (the boys got there at 5). I really was give out – tired and thirsty beyond belief. I was so exhausted that I couldn’t eat and didn’t sleep. So I wasn’t fresh to begin the second day. So I got more and more tired. I slept a little better that night and ate a bit of soup, but not enough to recharge the batteries.
It was an exhausting trip for me. The terrain really wasn’t bad. In cool weather and without deadfalls it would be a pretty easy stretch. But it was an obstacle course that tested me.
This was the culmination of the goal we set years ago. We began backpacking the AT at its southern terminus, Springer Mountain, Georgia, in 2007. We made 475 miles in nine years to finally reach Damascus, Virginia. Most of our hiking (probably 85%) was done in July and August, which are tough for heat and humidity, so we didn't make it easy on ourselves. We began when my boys were 12 and 11, respectively. They're now 21 and 19. I've released them from further "obligatory" backpacking trips. From now on they're fee to join me if and when they want to accompany their "Old Man." But I wanted to get them to Virginia so that, 30 years from now, they wouldn't say this: "Me and my dad backpacked the AT when I was a boy. We stopped somewhere in North Carolina or Tennessee; I have no idea where." Getting them to Virginia gave them an unforgettable landmark.
Oh, there was one more trial on this trip. For the first two nights, we had the company of an incredible extrovert a bit older than me. He was also from Georgia and is a very nice man, but he would not shut up. He talked all the time. Anytime anybody said a word, he’d change the topic to something about him and drone on and on. He was a really nice guy, but I couldn’t stand to be around him. It was exhausting to be within 15 or 20 feet of him. So I often wandered away and left him to my sons to handle.
< Message edited by Canoerebel -- 7/19/2016 5:12:10 PM >
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RE: The Good The Bad & The Indifferent - 
) where both players must finish their turn in one half hour. 
He can buy me dinner at his shop. He's only a few hours away.
, that is all we want.
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