Dave's blog

Hazards

2005-11-16T17:18:00.000-05:00

There are many types of hazards that you have to deal with while hiking on the Appalacian trail and i'm going to categorize them as being either alive or dead.

The majority of the hazards that people encounter are of the dead sort. Weather is one of the main things under this category.

Rain, thunderstorms, snow, and cold weather are the main weather hazards. Thunderstorms and snow are pretty obvious, but rain is a big deal on the AT. Rain makes everything slippery. There are a lot of rock on the AT that become very hazardous. This makes people slip, fall, sprain ankles, and much more.

Also, cold weather creates more of a mental hazard than anything else. Backpacking in cold (and especially wet) weather makes hiking not so much fun. It makes many thru-hikers quit and many other hikers not enjoy their time near as much as they should.

In addition, tree roots and rocks create a major problem, especially in the fall. Rocks and roots are two things that you must walk on very regularly, and you have to make sure to get a sure foothold.

One of the main problems with hiking the AT is that many people sprain their ankles, usually as a result of rocks or tree roots, so be sure to watch out and step carefully.

The other classification of a hazard is the "alive" hazards. These hazards can be anything from poison ivy, to rattle snakes, to bears. For some reason, people look at these with much more fear than the dead hazards, but alive hazards are very rare.

The more major alive hazards like bears and other humans attacking people are extremely rare. The bears rarely attack humans (unless they get in between the mother and its cub), they are just there to eat your food. The number of bear attactks over the last few years can easily be counted on a hand or two. With the high number of hikers on the AT, this proves to be an incredibily small chance of happening.

In addition, there have only been something like 9 accounts of people being attacked by other humans over the last 20 years. So that should not be a major concern.

In conclusion, the Appalacian Trail can have its hazardous conditions, but overall, it's a safe place if you are carefull with wear you step. Don't fret yourself with things such as bear attacks and other humans, but it's always good to be aware.

Overlooks

2005-11-11T17:04:00.000-05:00

One of the greatest things about hiking on the Appalacian Trail is the views that you can see while hiking on it. Many of these spectacular views comes from an overlook.

An overlook is an area, usually towards the top of one of the mountains, that has been cleared out by the members of the Appalacian trail and it's pupurse is to create a view over the nearby landscape.

These overlooks often look over streams, fields, and into the nearby mountains. On clear days, you can usually see many, many miles into the distance, and witness some of the most beautiful sights in the United States.

The thing that makes these overlooks so rewarding is that they are at the top of most mountains, or very high up at the very least. This means two things: 1) that the view will be amazing because of how high up you are and 2) you probably just hiked up hill for a long period of time, and nothing is better than taking your pack off and resting at such an amazing sight.

I don't know how many overlooks there are throughout the Appalacian Trail, but there are a lot. I rarely hike for more than a day or two with out coming to one, but each one is unique and awesome.

My favorite overlooks are the ones that have a huge drop off right at the edge, because it is an amazing feeling to walk up to the edge, and just look out and down, to see how far you have walked and how high up you are. It's a great feeling looking down into the valley and seeing where you were just hiking, and seeing how far you have come.

Overall, overlooks add an amazing aspect to the Appalacian Trail. It's one of the things that you can come back from the trip and tell your family and friends about.

Thru-hiking

2005-11-04T13:46:00.000-05:00

This entry is about thru-hiking the Appalacian Trail. As I mentioned previously, thru-hiking means that you hike the whole trail, from Maine to Georgia (or Georgia to Maine) in one trip.

This means that you have to hike around 2,200 miles in a maximum time of 5 or 6 months. Not only do you have to hike this far, in a short period of time, but you must carry everything you need--on your back, over hills and mountains.

Hiking the Appalacian trail from start to finish is one of the hardest things anyone could reasonably set out to do. Many, many people set out each year to do so, and only about 10% of the people actually finish.

In addition to the mental and physical shape that a person must be in, they must also be aware of the weather. If you start in Tennesse and go to main (which most thru-hikers do), you have to deal with the snow in the mountains of Tennesse, and finish before it gets to cold up north. If you start in Maine, you have to wait longer to start due to cold weather in Maine, and you must hustle down to Georgia so you don't get caught in a blizzard in the mountains of the south.

One of my friends who attempted to thru-hike from Maine to Georgia made it all the way to Tennesse, when he got caught in a blizzard that dropped 2 feet of snow on him and he had to stop.

In addition, the trip must be very well planned out. To hike the whole trail, you must have all the right equipment and you must have your food and what not sent ahead to the post offices to pick up every week or two. This makes for a lot of planning.

As you can see, these are just a few of the obstacles, but it is very difficult to thru-hike the Appalacian Trail.

weekend trip 101

2005-10-27T19:27:00.000-04:00

For college students, weekend trips are the most practical thing to do. I don't know about the rest of you, but every now and again I have to get away from Newark. The lights and noise and lack of nature gets to me and the best way to get away to is go backpacking.

The trip will usually go from friday afternoon till sunday night for a weekend trip. To start your search, do a google or yahoo search to find a place that is good to go backpacking. Once you find this spot, you must begin to compile the list of things that I put together in my last entry. Your best chance at renting this stuff is by going to EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports). There is on in the Christiana Mall and while their stuff is expensive to buy, it's fairly well priced to rent for a weekend.

The place that you find should be close by for a weekend trip. Assuming you have classes on friday, they should be done by the afternoon, and then if you head out you should be able to get to your start point by early evening. Thus, you're not going to want to travel more than 2 or 3 hours.

The reason for arriving early evening is so you can park and hike a mile or two with all your stuff to arive and set up your tent for your first night. To do this, it is most helpful for it to be light out at least untill you get to your campsite.

This will allow you to have all day saturday to hike. If you are a beginner, I would suggest that you stick to under 10 miles on any given day, even less if it is a mountainous stretch. Enjoy your night saturday night, and wake up and hike for a half a day on sunday. This will allow you plenty of time to arrive back and be ready for classes on monday.

Most places on the AT are areas that you start your hike at one point, and end it at another. For this reason, it is usually best to get enough people to reasonably take two cars along on the trip. If you take two cars, you can drop one off at your end point to avoid hitch-hiking. While hitch-hiking may have been widely accepted in the past, it is now frowned upon - so take two cars and enjoy your weekend trip.

what to take (continued)

2005-10-24T17:58:00.000-04:00

For this entry, I am going to pick up where I left off with the last entry and talk about the following things: tent, sleeping bag, mat, clothes, tooth brush. These are the last of the essential items that you need, and technology plays a big part in many of these categories.

First, the tent is an item that must be kept light, but must also keep you warm and dry. If you are hiking by yourself, there are many good one man tents that have recently come out with. However, it is idea to have two people share a two person tent and each carry half of the tent. This usually minimizes weight because the tents for more than two people get extremely heavy.

For sleeping bags, you don't want just any sleeping bag - you want a mummy bag. A mummy bag is similar to a sleeping bag, except it's made of a lighter and warmer material, and has an exta part that comes up around your head. The mummy bags have different degree ratings. for example, my mummy bag is a 20 degree, but it goes as low as negative 20 degrees before you start paying a lot of money. A good mummy bag makes for a much better backpacking trip.

Next, you need some type of mat to sleep on so that you can be comfortable and well rested for the next days hike. There are two kinds of mats - the old and the new. The old are more durable, less comfortable, and more cumbersome. This is two negatives to one positive. The better option is a self-inflating mat. All the outdoors stores like EMS and northface sell them, but I prefer to buy mine from L.L. Bean.

The other things you must take are clothes and a toothbrush. For the toothbrush, I usually take along one of those that fold in half and stores inside itself. In terms of clothes, it's good to take something to hike in, and then a warm and cold set for night. Take along light clothes, like fleece material, not heavy stuff like jeans.

Good luck with packing, let me know if you have any questions.

What to take?

2005-10-17T09:40:00.000-04:00

Last entry I talked a lot about weight, and this entry directly ties into weight. For this entry, I will discuss the items that you need to take on a backpacking trip if you are going for a two day trip or longer. In addition, I will briefly speak about some things that you do not have to (and should not) take along.

The key to deciding what to take along is to think, "Is this wieght worth taking along?" When backpacking on the AT, the main things that you need to take are the bare essentials: food, stove, tent, sleeping bag, mat, clothes, tooth brush.

First off, food is key. You need to have food that will keep you nourished, but it must also be light (usually dehydrated food is best), and come in disposable containers. For example, oatmeal is an excellent food to take along with you for breakfast because it is light, filling, and you throw the paper wrapper into the fire when you're done with it. You want to avoid taking along items that come in glass containers and that are heavy or cumbersome.

Nourishing food will help you get through a day of climbing up hills like this one. =====>

Next, you must take a stove with you when you go back- packing. Stoves are one of the areas of technology in backpacking that have improved greatly over the last ten years. The weight and size of stoves have drastically decreased (excellent for backpackers). You want to take a stove that has enough propane to get you through your trip, but not too much in that you are carrying excess. The main purpose of the stove is to heat up water, which will then be poured into your oatmeal, hot cocoa, or a dehydrated dinner. Sometimes, the stove is even used to bring water to a boil to make it potable.

I will discuss the other items to take along in my next entry. (To be continued)

Weight is key

2005-10-07T23:39:00.000-04:00

Now that you all have a good base for what backpacking is, I want to go over what makes a good backpacker. There are three main things to being a good backpacker: 1) physically in good shape 2) mentally strong and 3) someone who can pack their backpack light.

The first two I have briefly touched on before. If you are going to backpack, you obviously have to be in good physical condition. This means both in good aerobic shape and have some muscle mass to you. In addition, you can not be a good backpacker if you can not mentally fight off a little bit of pain through out the day.

The part that I have not yet touched on, and that I want to spend the rest of this entry talking about, is weight factor. Of all the factors of backpacking, keeping your pack light is the most important.

So, what you're thinking is, "how do I keep my pack light?" Well, there's two things to this. First, is that you must have technological and somewhat up-to-date equipment such as stoves, sleeping bags, and mats specifically for backpacking.

In addition, you have to be willing to give up certain things such as: deoderant, amazing meals, clean clothes, etc.

I understand that this seems like a lot to give up, but you will be so thankful for the light technology and for giving up those things I just listed when you are hiking up a long incline or it is winding towards the end of the day and you are exausted.

This light pack not only keeps you from tiring as quickly, but it also helps your back and legs. When you have a heavy pack, it puts a lot of strain on both these parts of your body, and you will wear out quickly.

Remember, the lighter the better

The Appalacian Trail

2005-09-29T11:40:00.000-04:00

Above is an example of how the AT is well kept, but still a somewhat rough path.

So I’ve been referring to this Appalacian Trail a lot and I’m realizing that perhaps most of you who are not regular backpackers do not know what it is. Thus, I will explain what it is. The key thing to know about it is that it is a well maintained trail that extends from Maine to Georgia. That’s right, Maine to Georgia.

The AT (Appalacian Trail) is approximately 2,200 miles long and I believe it passes through 13 states. So as you can see, it’s no short hiking trip. The greatest thing about this trail is that people backpack (or at least attempt to) the entire trail in a row. The only problem with this is that it has to be done in the warmer months of the year. This allows for about 4 or 5 months to hike 2,200 miles, with a 35 to 40 pound backpack on your back.

In addition, the people who created the AT decided that they wanted it to go over just about every mountain top they could find. When you’re backpacking on it, it seems like they could very easily have taken the trail around many mountains, but decided it would be fun to go directly over it instead.

The reason there is such a short period of time to hike the whole thing (referred to as “through-hiking”) is because up north in the Maine area, has a relatively short summer and it snows quite frequently in the mountains of Georgia. Many people attempt to through-hike each year, but only about 10% actually finish.

My Experiences

2005-09-22T15:22:00.000-04:00

My backpacking adventures began in 7th grade, with my church youth group. Our youth pastor was big on backpacking and introduced us (my youth group and I) to the Appalacian trail. As it turns out, most 7th graders, like myself, were not physically or mentally strong enough to hike very far with a 35 pound backpack on our back.

The first lesson I learned was not to overpack. When we arrived at our church, the youth pastor proceeded to lift up each of our backpacks, and began to rummage through our bags and throw items out of it. For example, we lost such items as: deoderant, food in glass bottles, books, etc. Fortunately for me, i had two older siblings who had previously backpacked so I had packed pretty well.

In addition, I discovered on my first backpacking trip how difficult backpacking was. I also discovered how much I enjoyed these dificulties and the thrill of being in the middle of nature, with society many miles away. Everything seems to be so peaceful and tranquil, a place where you can really think about what's going on in your life.

Perhaps the main thing that I realized on that first backpacking trip (and it's not as bad now as it used to be) is that while ascending a mountain, you have never hiked as far as you think that you have. Each time you reach a ridge, you believe it will be the top of the mountain just to find that it's only flat for about 20 feet and then another steep incline follows. This is the main time that you just have to convince yourself that you're not actually tired and procede on.

As you can see by the picture up and to the right, you climb incredibly high; even to the point that you are above other mountain tops. This is why it sometimes seems like you are inclining for hours.

Since 7th grade (about 9 years ago) I have backpacked a few times each year, and hiked about one third of the appalacian trail in total. In addition, i have backpacked a few other trails as well, but not near as often. In the next entry i hope to talk a little bit more about some of these experiences, but I will primarily discuss what the Appalacian Trial is.

what is backpacking?

2005-09-15T14:57:00.000-04:00

I figure that for my first main post, i need to go over some basic concepts that are involved in backpacking. First off, what is backpacking, and how is it different from hiking? Backpacking is a form of hiking; walking from point A to point B for a purpose. However, the main difference is that I consider backpacking to be a longer extravaganza in which you need to carry materials to live on, along with you. For example, you can go hiking for 2 hours to go and look at a waterfall; but when you go backpacking, you need to carry your food, tent, water, and so on - so that you have everything you need to live and it's being carried in a pack on your back.

To the left, you can see a backpacker, with all his equipment on his back.

So what makes backpacking so interesting? Why is it challenging and what is the difference between a good backpacker and not-so-good backpacker?
For me, backpacking is interesting because i love to be in the wilderness, far from civilization. In addition, it is a great physical and mental work out. On an average day of backpacking, i hike between 10 and 15 miles. This may seem difficult at first glance, but if it doesn't - picture yourself walking up and down large hills (mountains even) with a 35 pound backpack on. This is where it becomes both physically and mentally challenging.
In addition,

2005-09-08T14:00:00.000-04:00

This blogger is for a Business class at University of Delaware. I was "debating" writing about backpacking because there are two basic criteria for this blog; 1) I must be passionate about it, and 2) there must be enough to write about. I have concluded that the subject of backpacking does both of these for me and I believe it's a fairly interesting topic.
I Hope to cover many different aspects of backpacking and my experiences and future plans which involve the subject. I have hiked many miles with a rather heavy pack on my back, mostly on the Appalacian Trail, but also some in the Adorondac Mountains and a few other places. In addition to sharing these experiences, i want to help to inform my readers of some of the things that go into backpacking; from the mental aspect of it, the amazing sights to see, the equipment involved, places to hike, and different pro's and con's that come from backpacking. These topics are just a few of which i hope to cover.

For those of you who are commenting on my blog, please let me know things such as:
-your experience with hiking/backpacking
-what are your interests in it?
-what are some of the specifics that you want to find out about and/or want me to talk about

I will do my best to make my responses and my posts so that they answer your questions and keep your interest.

2005-09-01T14:20:00.000-04:00

i'm debating writing about backpacking.