My New Tent!!

Memorial Day Weekend!

This certainly was a memorable weekend! This was the longest 

hike yet. I successfully hiked over 40 miles from

 Pen Mar (the upper most part of Maryland)

to Harpers Ferry (the lowest part of Maryland).

I met all sorts of crazy and amazing people! And even fell in love.

I started Saturday evening around 1 o'clock and finish 

Monday at 12 o'clock. There is nothing more beautiful than being one with 

nature, depending on water and food from your surroundings.

My first night I stayed at a shelter called Cowall were I found my love…..

her name I will never tell. I found that you have to be assertive when you are alone 

or people will walk all over you. The moment I walked up to the 

shelter I began talking to the people that were already unpacked there.

They were all from Ohio visiting a friend from Baltimore and 

welcomed me to join their group. 

We played cards and ate together. Then we heard there was a Trail Magic party just up 

up ahead and we went to check it out. Pizza and Beer.

That seems to be the ideal magic served out here.

I hiked over 20 miles the next day and didn't even realize. 

I set up camp at the Crampton Shelter.

It was a little lonelier than the last site but then again

I was super tired and didn't really feel like dealing with people.

The next morning I was up at 7 and left camp at about 8.

I was right on schedule….or so I thought hahaha.

I was going waaayyyyy faster than I intended. At the beginning of 

the hike I didn't think I would be at Harpers Ferry until 6 but I 

met Keith at noon….oh well.

Some of the best views were High Rock, Black Rock and odd places here and there.

But do not, I repeat DO NOT GET EXCITED FOR WHITE ROCKS!!!!!

It may be the highest peak of Maryland but the view

S…T..I….N…K….SSSS.

I packed way to much food. My pack may have only been about 30 or so pounds

but after day 2 it feels like 100000 pounds.

I cant decide if I need gators or not because

rocks and sand kept jumping into my boot and really ticking

me off but I found wearing long socks and 

rolling them down works just as well…..kinda.

My waist is raw, my legs and back are sore, my feet are 

blistered. But it was worth it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I cant wait for the next one!

Some of My Future Roommates

Summary, Grizzly bears are way stupider and can not adapt to changes in their environment. 

Black bears can.

Black bears are thriving.

Grizzly bears are not.

Black bears can climb.

Grizzly bears can not.

There are 750,000 Black bears in North America and rising.

Grizzly bears are dying.

Black bears eat victims alive.

……..So do Grizzly bears.

I will be Camping, Hiking, Eating, and Sleeping with Black bears….

I feel as though they are the scarier of the two.

These are the enormous Moose that I will be creeping around in the woods with.

These guys were so lucky haha. I could feel my own ribs and legs cracking as

I was imagining myself in my tent unable to move…….

……FANGS???????????!!!!!!!!!!!

Turns out they collect in groups where food is?????

Guess who is gonna have the only food for miles????

ME!!!!!

I cant wait to meet my new roomies…...

MAN CARD!

How much of a man are you?

I have done 4…..soon to be 5/6. The appalachian trail (and growing my beard on the trail) is gonna make me that much more of a man!!!!

It Felt Good To Get Out There

Here's a couple videos from my trip this weekend. It was just a little 6 mile overnighter but let me tell you….this was a whole different ballpark from being out back in the woods behind the house…..I've got alot more training to go before i'm gonna even be close to prepared for this thing. But I do have to say I was itching to do this and I finally got on the trail…it was so beautiful, peaceful and the air was fresh. I think its my new drug. In fact when I got home the house smelled muggy and staleish compared to the woods. I already kinda miss being out there. But I defiantly dont miss the constant rain, rabid raccoons and spiders the size of my hand.

How I Make My Meals

The Beautiful Morning After a Long Night

The Washington Monument

What A Great View

On My Way

The First Steps

The Drive To The Trail Head

War

The greatest wars in history were fought over a woman. Helen of Troy, an entire city destroyed and thousands killed, Penelope the woman who drove Odysseus to survive during his epic journey home, Joanna and Elizabeth's hand in marriage couldn't even be stopped by death during Bill and Ted's bogus adventure. To find your love there is a journey first. An Epic if you will. For the past year i've been fighting. I didn't know for what but in my gut I knew not to stop. I know crime doesn't pay, hard work is the best medicine, no one is crazy they just aren't perfect and someone always loves you. I've got one more fight to face before I can have my Helen. In a year and a half i'm going to do this trail as my 12th labor (Hercules). Hopefully my Helen will be there and Paris, prince of Troy, will not have take her from me. Love conquers all and hey! Odysseus was gone for 20 years and his wife stayed faithful……so I may have a shot hahahaha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO0keYA21oI

My Bachelor Pad

As far away from home as I can get while still being home.

Living the dream baby!!

Easter M&M's

The delicious color of camping.

Video Log 2

Out Back

First Video Log

Out Back

No Excuse

So this weekend was super busy. But I have no excuse for not hiking this weekend. I should have and could have gone. My planning abilities are terrible. This skill is something I need to learn before I can go on this hike. This week I will plan for this weekend and will camp every night. I need to stop copping out.

Food

I ate the Beef and Bean Chili freeze dried dinner…….best meal ever. k thats all.

Living Hell

I am dead. Dying. Soon to be extremely exhaustedly dead. 

Sunday I hiked over 20 miles. No breaks. No stops. Ran out of water and food. 30 pound pack. I was racing against the sun. 

(Back story)

My step dad drove to Gaithersburg then took a bus to the airport. So there sat his car in the middle of a parking lot 20 miles away. Since I swore to myself that I would hike/camp every weekend I accepted the challenge. After church and eating at grandma's I set off on my first long distance hike. My first mistake was I left super late. I left at 2 in the afternoon. This gave me 5 hours of day light. Keep in mind I have no idea what my hiking pace is and im completely hoping that i'll make it to the car before dark. Gaithersburg isn't a safe place at night….So im hiking along the side of the road dodging cars and hoping that I dont get hit. I'm carrying over 30 pounds of full gear as if I was hiking for 2 days. Hours go by and im doing an excellent job staying motivated and just being by myself. All was going well until hour 4.5 came……..all of a sudden im out of water and food….I had drank all 4 liters and eaten all my food…."Ok thats fine we're almost done….Easy." Then my feet start to hurt. Once something starts to hurt it never stops…ever….it only gets worse. Now my feet and knees are hurting from the stress, speed and distance i've gone. Every second seems like years and every step feels like a marathon. My legs shake from the weight of my body and pack. But I have to keep moving so I can get to the car before dark or else i'll have alot more than hurting feet to worry about.

At this point im probably 4-3 miles away and a homeless lady starts to walk with me. She is talking to me about anything she thinks and I mean anything. She kept asking me if I was homeless and showed me all the 'good' places to sleep are. Now the question was, who was the crazy one? The guy walking for hours by choice or the one who didn't? 

The closer to the end I got the more impossible the trip seemed but once I saw that shine of Keith's silver car I swear I couldn't have been happier haha.

6 hours of a pace of 4 miles per hour, i'd say that was a good pace. I couldn't rest because I left to late and needed to race against the sun as I said. I realize now that breaks are key in survival while hiking. There is no one to impress, no one to beat and no one to prove anything too. Once your out there it is a matter of keeping yourself safe and healthy so you can continue the next day.

This was once again an excellent learning experience.

I drink like a camel, eat like a horse, walk like a champ but plan like action movie hero.

Time to heal and prep for this weekend.

This Weekend

I was planning on going hiking this weekend right after work today but I agreed to helping my boss tomorrow at his house doing some work. I think I am going to be fixing it up to help them sell it. (My boss is a multi millionaire) I think i'll still do the hike i'll just start on saturday afternoon then finish late sunday. This will be a fun weekend though. Working for cash, camping and hiking. What else does a boy need.

Learning About My Body

Well turns out im disgusting haha. These past two days in my tent i've woken up to a pool of snot and drool hahahahah. Oh my poor future wife hahaha. That is if I get married with my gross sleeping issue haha. Any way I fixed it by having my bandanna as a pillow just to soak up the nastiness hahahaha. I also get really hot in the core area of my body. It my be just the warm weather at night but even sleeping outside of my sleeping bag I was really sweaty. It may be my body warmth is insulated by the small area of my tent then I smell like BO when I wake up…ew. (my poor poor future wife haha) other than that the nights were fine. I've rested well and haven't woken up at all during the nights.

First Dried Foods

I'm still a little sketched out by these dried foods that you just put water in and then boom!!! Gormet…….Ya right…..but i'll try them this weekend and actually see how they taste and work out for me. They are super light and have lots of food in them but if they taste like chalk…forget it.

Cooking Junk For Now

K so my stove and fuel weigh waaayyyy to much and the fuel doesn't last long. Gotta fix that. Other than that there is just a simple small pot, small light lid, a spoon and a frying pan. Easy. Although I could use a lighter frying pan but this is good for now. 

Food Bag

I bought this bag to keep all of the food together in a uniform shape and weight. This makes it easy to access my food and evenly spreads the weight of everything in my pack. It was a pain before because the food moves around and throws you off or you don't pack it up right and it totally messes you up. Good investment.

Camel Back

This is a whopping 4 liter camel back….huge….but rugged. It feels like it is made of that backpack material stuff and most likely will never rip open. The bite nozzle thing is nice too cause it has an on/off switch and also is very rugged. Very nice pick. It is super heavy though. Bad.

My One Man Tent

This is my home away from home. Its about 2 lbs. and has just enough room for me and my pack. For the past couple days i've been sleeping in it and learning more about how to function in such a small space. Its hard but i'll learn fast. The trick to this is to have the tent fly super super tight so that the rain water runs off or else the water will drip into your tent onto you and your sleeping bag…..very bad. Another thing i've mentioned before is that in the mornings the door to the tent fly is dripping with water from the morning dew. I've brought a bandanna to wipe the door down before I open the door in the morning or during the night. This will take some getting used to.

Sleeping Liner

This is a completely and utterly impulse buy! It will be nice though to have on really cold nights. Think of this as stretchy under armor but for your whole body like a Snuggy….but manly….and for a sleeping bag.

Sleeping Pad

This is a fold up pad…with space shiny stuff…..coughcough….yaright. But anyway, im just testing this pad out cause im sick and tired of having to roll up my pad over and over again. Folding the pad up is just so much easier and faster, plus it's wayyy lighter. The only thing im worried about is, that the places where the pad folds, it may rip and i'll have half the pad I used too haha. Its super springy but hard enough that its not an air pad. Very nice overall.

Sleeping Bag Compressed

This is the sleeping bag compressed. It is about half the size of a soccer ball!!!!! INCREDIBLE!!!!! 

Sleeping Bag

This is my 15 degree Lost Ranger sleeping bag. Its amazing. It weighs half of what a 30 or 40 degree bag would weigh. This is cause it has down, which is lighter than synthetic material, and the down is only on the top half of the bag. If you think about it this is pure genius. When your in a normal bag your flattening the padding under you so its not insulating which is a waste of material, weight, and space. With this bag the sleeping pad is slid inside of the back of the bag all the way down. This is good for three reasons, it prevents you from falling off your pad, adds space down by your feet, and the what would be wasted down is moved to the surrounding part of the bag and increases the insulation ability. Also it wasn't to bad of a price because no one likes these kind of bags for some silly reason and the model is from 2 years ago or so.

New Ideas

I was thinking about natural foods on the trail that I could eat from the trail itself. Obviously there is squirrel, chipmunks, rabbits, snakes, fish, crayfish, bugs (if I get desperate) and other little things running around. The catch 22 is that I need to learn how to clean and prepare the different things i'll be hunting. I have and will be practicing with different hunting methods. I've tried a slingshot (which i'm not to bad at now) and a bow (which i'm not to bad at either). The next thing i'd like to try a blow gun, fishing pole and some basic snare traps. I'll try them all and see which gets me the most meat so I don't have to carry any in my pack.

I've also been thinking about bringing an animal companion with me on this trip. I'm down to two ideas. A goat or a dog. I'm stoked.

Learninggg

This was a much more successful trip. I packed smart, had lots of food, and wasn't miserable at all but I still learned alot of junk. In the foil dinner I made I need to remember to CUT THE POTATOES SMALLLLERRRRR. Its like having apples in my dinner haha. I was going to make a Swedish Fire Log but then I realized that you need to split the log into 4 pieces and im not going to bring a wedge and a sledge hammer on this trip haha so I coped out and used a simple small propane stove…..greatest thing ever. You can control the temperature, it burns clean, and cooks super fast. The problem is that the fuel is large, heavy, and expensive. I learned about a block of fuel (kinda like a bar of soap) that burns constant and is smaller lasts way longer supposedly. Well give that a shot this weekend coming up. It was super foggy this morning and the fly of my tent, when I woke up, had water beads all over it. My fly has 2 or so inches separating my tent from the fly so my stuff and I didn't get wet. The door to the fly was super wet though so when I touched it water beads fell everywhere. I need to bring a bandanna so I can wipe down the door in the mornings. Other than that the morning was good. It took me about 2 and some change hours in the mornings to pack up and eat….that is way to long. I was reading and what I need to do is wake up, pack up, hike about an hour then stop for breakfast. When I did it all in one shot I dragged out leaving cause didn't want to leave haha. Once I left then everything was good. My mom joined  me for the beginning of the hike for about 3 hours then I did another 2 by myself. The hiking was good. My boots are broken in but I did have one issue. Packing in food is way different then carrying kitty litter. Food items are awkward shaped, different weights and is a pain cause it makes it hard to bring the weight of the stuff in my pack close to my body. I think most of my problem is that my sleeping bag takes up more than half of my bag then pushes all of the weight higher up on my pack. Then the top of the pack pulls on my shoulders and makes hiking less comfortable. I need to get a new sleeping bag and a compression bag and totally shrink that thing as small as I can. An old friend told me, "The most successful camper isn't the one who survives, its the most comfortable one."
I'd call this one a success. I was exhausted, full, and learned. This is going to be the last weekend at Little Bennett. In two weeks there is a trail that goes from Damascus to a part of the C & O Canal or i'll go the other direction. We shall see. 22 more weeks till the big one…HECK YA!

Round Two

Off work. Tired. Hungry. Perfect. Lets go hiking!
This weekend is my second trip training towards the big one….super excited. I didn't plan as well as I hoped I would but after last week I know just about what I need for this trip. I got home from work then packed my bag up immediately and all that is needed now is food. I have a little left over from last weekend so i'll bring that but im going to need more. I'm planning on hiking for about 5 or 6 hours tomorrow and I promised myself that I will not be hungry on any trip I take. I'm psyched! Only 23 more hikes!!!!!

Fun Stuff

So im learning lots lately. Every Wednesday I have been teaching my little squirts (scouts) a few camping tricks. This week I showed them how to make a swedish fire log. This is when you burn a log from the inside out. This makes it so you can move your fire by grabbing the outside of the log. Easy. Also you can put your pot/pan/cooking thing on top of it like a actual stove. Two weeks ago I taught them how to make and use soda can alcohol stoves. This cooking device works very well and lasts a super long time. The only problem is that it gets a thick black film on it and then stains everything it touches. Any way something fun i'm trying to learn is using a sling shot. Why you may ask? So I can hunt squirrels!!!!! Why buy beef jerky when you can have fresh meat for the entire hike. My neighbor is going to teach me how to gut and skin and cook smaller animals. This will save me lots of money and i'll also learn a pretty slick skill. Thats all for now butttttt we shall learn more soon.

What I Learned

PLANNING PLANNING PLANNING PLANNING PLANNNNNNIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The most important part of camping, hiking, travel, or anything you are and will ever do (epiphany). So I put off preparing my gear till the night I was supposed to go out to camp, bad idea. but with the help of my family I was able to get off and get outside. First thing I set up my tent and started a fire so I could cook my foil dinner. My first mistake, not checking which direction the wind was blowing. I should have put my tent on the side of the fire where the wind was coming from. I could have put my tent closer to the fire and stayed warmer during the night without the worry of ashes burning my tent. Second mistake, I should have brought a spoon instead of a fork. It is easier to scoop the last bits of food out of your meals. Third mistake, I should have slept with my alcohol for my alcohol stove. In the morning when I tried to make breakfast the stove would not light because it needed to be warmed up and I didn't bring a warming plate. Forth mistake, I should have brought another plate or bowl so I wouldn't eat out of one pot and wait till I finished eating out of the one pot before I could start boiling water again.

I was impressed with myself though. Today I hiked a little over 7 miles in 3 hours with a 40ish lbs pack and lunch break included in that. I was not hungry at all and was constantly eating. I had brought plenty of food. I need to gain some weight though my pack is a little big for my waist but thats just cause I have a tiny butt. The boots did very well except my heel is acting up which stinks so i'm gonna look into a insert that you can put in your shoe to support my foot better. Keith said it is just growing pains but we shall see. Over all it was a good trip, I learned alot and i'm not as much of a wimp that I thought I was! Next stop make money so I can buy an actual sleeping bag.

Realization

Everyone tells you that the hardest part of the AT or any hike at all is the mental battle against yourself. I now know what they mean. Even though I know this is only a one night hike I am coming up with all these stupid excuses why I should wait to go…..till tomorrow….then tomorrow…then tomorrow. You get what I mean? So i'm exhausted from work today with no lunch, baby in the house which seem to be energy life force suckers, I keep over packing then getting rid of stuff and am just being so totally lame! Im glad I realized this cause now i may not be able to keep my eyes open I have to do this first hike or the rest of this training will be 1000000000 times harder. Im packing now and finding food…..adios.

Found This One in the Achive….

Weather for First Hike 3/9/12-3/10/12

Friday: Windy
High 55 degrees, Low 26 degrees

Saturday: Sunny
High 51 degrees, low 28 degrees

My First Outing

Tomorrow, Friday, after work i'm thinking i'll go to Little Bennett Park and do an easy over nighter just to get a nice 15 or 20ish mile hike in and take all my gear for a test and see how it actually feels. I've done a couple 3 milers around the neighborhood but that was just to see how much of a wimp I am…..(im a huge wimp). Tonight is to pack up my gear and see what food, sleeping stuff. clothes and stuff i'll take. Im soooooo excited!!!

My Boots…..I Think

Im not to sure about these boots. 

They are very light, only 2.5 lbs…but I donno

I still have to break them in then we shall see

My Pack!

This is my new REI brand Flash 62 Liter pack.

I probably went through 40 packs to find it.

I nearly cried….

(named Ralf the Barfbag by my sis Jessica)

The Plan

Im planning on hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT). Am I crazy? Ya I must be haha. Im doing this because I have no idea what i'm doing with my life. I have no direction whatsoever. This 5 month, 2000 mile, journey will help me decide. For the past two years i have had my head held underwater with no chance to relax and step back. I plan to start my trip in early August. (If you do the math i'll finish in January). In 5 months I will be free of normal and all the stress and junk I got myself into.The trail extends from Maine to Georgia but I may keep walking all the way to Savannah, GA. I could go into the military, go on a mission trip, go to trade school, go back to college….., or stay at the fabrication plant I work at now. Im completely clueless. This trip will teach me what I as a person need to survive on. I plan to do allot of soul searching and maybe find God. However this trip goes I hope I come out just a little stronger, smarter, and maybe a little better.