Shenadoahs

So as I mentioned in the last post, Virginia goes on forever. But it's broken up into different sections. The first bit was the last of my deja Vu, and then I entered Shenadoah National Park, a rather narrow mountain range that stretches for ~75-100 miles. It was great for wildlife. I saw 12-15 bears, 10,000 deer, some rabbits and turkeys, plus all the usuals. And even though it's wild by a lot of people's standards, there are actually a few waysides (basically gas stations) along the way, as the trail weaves past Skyline Drive, so I didn't have to carry as much food, or had to carry my trash as long, and only had to filter water from creeks once or twice the whole time, as they had running water too. Talk about luxury.

A week or two after the Shenadoahs I got an even more luxurious treat. I went and visited Nicole, a girl I have long-standing feelings for. And that affection is at least somewhat reciprocated, as she was willing to drive a couple hours to come pick me up, and gave me a bed to sleep in and some good food and she showed me around her town in, get this, a car! Plus I got a few showers and a load of laundry, though that was more for her benefit than mine. Nicole works a tough shift at the hospital (she luckily wasn't on call the weekend I came, and I was able to spend a solid 48 hours with her, from Friday evening to Sunday evening. That was best from her schedule, of course, as hikers have no idea what day of the week it is, since we have no weekends. Usually good on the date though (today is Sep 20, day 112 of my trip). Nicole works a job where you really shouldn't go to the restroom, as you then have to thoroughly rescrub before returning to surgery or whatever. I was in a condition where, despite the cold and somewhat rainy weather, we had to drive with the windows down, and my smell really lingered in her house, even after multiple showers. Not exactly the best condition to see someone you have a crush on, and the weekend might have been two steps forward, one step back with her. But that's still positive. I'll make sure to be cleanshaven and superclean and wearing a tuxedo the next time I see her, and she'll forget about that dirty hairy smelly version of me that showed up while I was hiking the trail. About 2/3 of the way done with the whole trail. Yay.

Deja Vu

I've spent the last ~2 weeks repeating the section of the trail I did last summer, although in the opposite direction from how I went before, so I'm remembering everything in reverse order of how I did it. And as much as I dislike the Conquerors who race through areas, I'd purposely planned to cruise through here, since I'd already done it. I have occasionally stopped to say "oh my god, I remember camping here!" pointing at a random patch of ground, but for the most part I have skipped viewpoints and such and done some of my highest (mileage) days. But now I'm entering Virginia. If you add the miles of ME and PA together (the 2nd- and 3rd-longest states, respectively)you get less than Virginia. I never knew it was that large of a state. The AT goes all the way down the panhandle of VA, and with switchbacks and such it's well over 500 miles, or over 1/4 of the whole trail. So I'll be here for a month. Great.

Food and Hunger

Hikers typically burn around 6,000 calories a day, or approximately 3x the average daily human intake. This leads to an unsatisfiable appetite that's a stoned anorexic's dream. You can eat whatever you want and you're hungry again a few minutes later. Some hikers (and some of the towns along the trail) reinforce this, and there are a lot of food challenges, like "eat the whole pizza and it's free". I've passed on most of these, but did do the one that is most famous among the hiker community: the Half Gallon Challenge. At a small store almost exactly halfway through the entire AT (in Southern PA)hikers can celebrate completing half of their journey by eating a half gallon of ice cream. It's over 3,000 calories (or again 1.5x what most people eat in an entire day) and I ate it in 34 minutes. And was hungry again and ate some peanuts within an hour after finishing it. It was actually great fuel and I did one of my highest (miles) days the day I ate it.

Random Story

I realize how tall I am in a way I haven't felt since middle school. If you are first to leave camp (and therefor first to walk that particular section for the day) you get the benefit of an early start and a nice worm in the form of spider webs. Many of which, two feet from the trail, stay up for weeks. But those foolish spiders who, every night, don't learn their lesson and continue to make straw houses that can be destroyed by the hair on a hiker's chinny chin chin. And my chinny chin chin clears the way for fellow hikers. The reverse, however, is sadly not true. If someone else goes first my path is not cleared. It is not swarming with cobwebs but that just lulls me into a false sense of security. I don't even expect it when WHAM I'm hit in the face like clingwrap in Joe Pesci's face in Home Alone. I ~freneh freneh freneh~ my way along, muttering it to myself like Pesci and invariably convinced the spider hopped into my clothing somewhere as I wriggle about. Oh yeah, and it's pouring down rain this whole time too.

Some more States

Whew. Sorry I kind of vented on the last one, it was mainly a reaction to one specific encounter with just about the last Northbounder. And all of a sudden I've had shelters to myself, for what feels like the first time since Maine.

Only one thing changed when I moved from MA to CT. The dayhikers had Yankees hats on instead of Red Sox. Conn also had some of the flattest sections of the AT. I'm actually not as good at cruising through these spots as other hikers. You can shift up into a higher gear on the flat and easy ground, and you can do some big mile days. To do the most miles you need to be cold, calculating, and somewhat disengaged. Being a conqueror helps, but it's even better to be almost inhuman, like a Terminator or Cyclon. Normal hiking is usually about 2 mph, and if you're hiking very fast you can get up to 3 mph. But on this kind of terrain you can even reach the superhuman speed of 4 mph. But there's no way I (or anyone) can maintain that speed all day. But when I was hiking in Maine I would hike all day long and do 12 miles. Now I do that before noon and find myself bored with nothing to do after cruising through 20 miles in just 7-8 hours.But it's all about pacing. Doing 20 miles in a day is easy. Doing 40 in two is harder, and 60 in 3 is even harder, and et cetera.

New Jersey was surprisingly my favorite in a while. I had the misconception that it'd just be suburbs of NYC like Conneticut. I forgot that it's the Garden State, and it was quite nice. I told the State I wouldn't judge it solely on Jersey Shore, as long as it didn't judge me solely on Reno 911. I have had my Nevadan pride renewed on this trip, and it's been my ongoing campaign (and, alas, it's been kinda a war of attrition) to get people to correctly pronounce Nevâda.

Methods

A thru hike is interesting because there are several ways to do it. It's a term officially used to describe someone who walks the whole trail in a single season. You can do it northbound, southbound, flip flop (middle to the north and then middle to the south, or something similar). Some people even do what they call a thru hike over two calendar years, but under 365 days. But the methods people use through their hike mean more than what direction they're going. The AT is marked with white blazes, and purists walk every step on that trail. Some will take a blue-blazed trail, which are various side trails. Actually all take blueblazed trails, even if it's to a water source and then back to all the whites. Some take the "yellow blazed" trail, roads, and cheat a bit. Many people "slackpack" which is having someone else carry (drive or hold) your stuff while you crank out a few miles with, say, only a water bottle as opposed to your 40 lbs of gear. Many hikers are scandalized by other hikers' actions. The point is, by somebody's rules, you've cheated. And by someone else's you haven't. There's no rulebook saying what is or isn't allowed to call yourself a thru hiker. It's all an honor system, and no two honor codes are identical. The trail is significantly different (read: easier) if you have unlimited resources. This is the East Coast we're talking about, and the trail is more a tour of small town Americana than it is "the wilderness". You can do fairly well going hotel to hotel and restaurant to restaurant, especially if you have a faithful friend or spouse to drive you around in a car. I have been walking through 5 different states since the last time I was even in a car, or any other train, plane, or automobiones. I got a ride back from a town in MA, then walked the rest of it, CT, NY, NJ, and am now in PA and haven't even hitched into town. I walked off the trail to the close ones. This couldn't have been done, in my opinion, in Maine, where the towns are so few and then it's several miles from the road crossing to the actual town, where dammed near everyone hitches or gets a prearranged ride to town. As far as I know, no one has thru hiked without at least using a car on a sidetrail to resupply, even if they still walk every white blaze. Again, by someone's rules you've cheated. I haven't paid for lodging since the day after I crossed my first state line, from ME to NH, back in June (Full Disclosure: I've stayed with friends, which is even better than a hotel). Hoteling can change the experience, obviously. But the common expression here is "hike your own hike" and I have and do plenty of things others look down their noses at (21st century titanium pot, safety meetings, mail drops). I really dislike slackpacking but I have mailed things to and from people, which is arguably the same thing (although my retort is that I don't mail it to myself farther down the trail to alleviate weight).

All this comes from where I am in relationship to Northbounders at the moment. I'll do another post later about the locals and the terrain lately but I'm reaching the end of the traffic going the other way. The stragglers I see now are the Nobos who have just partied and yellowblazed their way along so far, and frankly won't make it to Katahdin (northern terminus in Maine) before it closes for the season, usually around October 15. I had heard the AT was more of a party thing than a wilderness trip before, and starting Northbound in March/April is, as there are 15 people in each campsite every night, usually drinking, smoking, etc. Most drop out within a few days, or weeks. Really, the yahoos I'm seeing now are at least dedicated enough to get this far. But asked what insightful lessons about life were learned in their time in the woods, the reply is vague, or if truthful it's "nothing philosophical, I just learned how to do a lot of drugs". This yahooification (definitely also my own term) is also a lamentable byproduct of Burning Man, which a lot of my friends are now prepping for and is in many ways an AT thru hike sped up and compacted into a single week. In both you have the good and bad of a world with no rules, where people help each other in ways that renew your faith in humanity and which seems to come at a cost that's difficult to describe but is painfully obvious from certain perspectives. It kills me that every privy has posted somewhere "please do not throw plastic, cans, or other trash in the toliet."

7 States Down, 7 States to Go

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey are under my belt, with Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia remain. The actual halfway point is still 200 miles from here, but I'm pretty excited to reach PA. I'll write more the next time I'm at a proper computer.