Welcome to my blog.
Expect reflections on long distance hiking, hiking culture, nature, creativity and my undying love for backrests.
All tagged backpacking
Heads up, nutrition sticklers! We'll need more than PopTarts to fuel this thing known as a thru hike. Here are the nutrition powerhouses I'll have with me on my 2,000 mile stroll.
I'm going to need all the help I can get!
Just a few shots of the last day of our eight day traverse through the White Mountains.
What a blessing the Ethan Pond trail is to knees that have refused to bend for the past three days.
Good times!
A big part of preparing for a thru-hike and setting oneself up for success lies in getting your head right.
Once you’re prepared mentally and you’ve wrapped your head around the fact that it’s going to be tough--maybe even the hardest thing you've ever done--then you can make some choices about what you’ll do, or what you’ll carry, to vanquish misery.
Some of it fits in your pack. But some of it doesn't weigh an ounce.
This was our first overnighter in the White Mountains this season. Steve Smith, the guru of all things White Mountain hiking, called this one “the most grueling section of the AT in the White Mountains.”
Oh, goody!
This should be fun.
Mt. Guyot transformed from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll overnight.
Today, we got skies parting, angels singing and a glorious day for a walk in the wood.
Plus, cornbread.
It doesn't get any better than that.
Way back at Liberty Springs Tent Site, we chatted with Quinn, the Caretaker, a lovely young woman who didn't seem to mind answering questions she'd probably been asked a thousand times about what it's like to spend the summer using a privy that "flushes" with mulch.
She asked me to deliver a message to a boy at the Guyot Shelter. Of course I said yes! What fun to play a tiny role in a White Mountain love story.
She entrusted me with a tiny square of paper folded a couple of times with "Jimmy" penned elegantly on the top.
I tucked it into my hip belt where I knew it would be safe and off we went. It would be two days before we reached the Guyot Shelter.
The question was: would the note survive the trek?
And Ruby’s hips gonna hafta be happy when she's sleeping out in the woods.
So when I bought a sleeping pad sight unseen off the interwebs, I didn't hold my breath.
But I'm really pleased with my new Klymit pad. Keep reading to find out why and to see how it compares to the most popular ultralight sleeping pad on the market.
I'm training for my upcoming Appalachian Trail thru-hike and I'm fortunate to live in a place that makes training easy, mostly fun, always beautiful.
Black Balsam Knob to Shining Rock is a ball buster. But it's also one of my favorite training hikes in my lead-up to my thru-hike.
Which I'm certain will be the mother of all ball-busters.
