30 Jun 2016 Back on the trail

Elish took me to the post office this morning to pick up a package of gear and then drop me off at the trailhead. It was very sweet of her. The first few miles on the trail were easy and smooth and I was moving quickly. That changed as the trail became Steve been very rocky. Much of the day I had to use my hands to get up and down the steep inclines and large boulders. At one point one of my tracking polls got caught in some rocks and snapped in half. Total bummer. It is field repaired for now and a replacement is coming. The big difficulty of the day was the shortage of water. Almost all of the water sources were dry. Fortunately trail angels left gallons of water at road crossings. At the end of the day I walked a few extra miles because I could not find water. I eventually went off trail to a lake. Thunderstorms are forecasted for tomorrow. Although I do not like walking in lightning, I hope that it rains.

29 Jun 2016 Not As Planned

29 Jun 16.  I hope I would make it to the Greenwood Lake New York post office before closing today, so that I could get on the trail this evening. However, when I arrived at the Asheville airport this morning I found out that I had purchased a ticket for 8:05 PM, not 8:05 AM. A little scrambling and I was on a flight at 9:17 AM with plenty of time to make it to the post office. After my flight was delayed in Charlotte for one hour there was a little chance that I would make it to the post office, especially since I had some tight connections in New York City. Fortunately Caylie went onto couch surfer and found me a place to stay in West Milford NY, near Greenwood Lake. I am staying with Achmed and Elish, Who have warmly opened up their home to me. we had a great supper with Middle Eastern flavors and great conversation. They are both schoolteachers, well-traveled, and well-informed on politics, international issues, culture, and more. They are warm and generous, and very relaxed. It has been a real treat to crash here this evening. Tomorrow Elish will take to the post office and out to the trail, and I’ll be walking. But this has been a great evening of conversation and warmth.

28 Jun 2016 About to get back on the AT

I’ve done a couple of 3 day backpacking trips, over the last two weekends.  The first was on the Appalachian Trail hiking from North Carolina down into Georgia.  About 55 miles.  It was fun to be trail I hadn’t seen for several years.  Like many parts of the east, there is a bit of drought in northern GA, so many of the water sources were dry.

Last weekend Caylie and I went up to Virginia and hiked through the Mt Rogers area, the Grayson Highlands, and down into Damascus.  It was a great hike.  The Grayson Highlands are like the Switzerland of the southeast.  And there are wild ponies that show up occasionally.  Even though it was June, we had night time temps in the 40s when we camped on Mt Rogers (the highest mountain in VA).

I’ll attach a few pics of the Grayson Highlands.

Tomorrow I start out what has become an annual tradition, the long hike.  I’ll be hitting the Appalachian Trail in south New York state, and hiking 817 miles to the end of the trail at Mt Katahdin in Maine.  Evidently New York has had very little rainfall this year and many of the water sources are dry.  That adds a little intrigue and extra work.  I am really looking forward to getting back out on the trail for a long hike.  Especially excited about the White Mountains and Maine.  This will be new for me and there are some unique challenges to hiking those mountains, which often includes using the hands to scramble up and down steep rocky trails.

I’ll be trying to use technology to improve my blogging.  Instead of writing at the end of the day, when I am tired and lazy, I’ll be trying to record on my phone and use talk-to-text to upload to wordpress.  I think it will be better, although it may introduce some of the talk-to-text mistakes we already know about.   And in case the blogging isn’t scintillating, I’ll be uploading pics with an app that reduces file size.  Large file size pics on an iPhone has been a problem in the past where connectivity was weak.  So hopefully more pics.

This blog only goes to a few friends and family, so I hope you will all enjoy it.  And feel free to comment–it’s nice to get those.