ONE YEAR AGO TODAY...

...I started my Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike! I can't believe it's been a year already. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made and even though city life is good, I miss life on the trail so much every day. I think I'll always be itching to get back out there.

MY FIRST WINTER ADIRONDACK HIGH PEAKS

After Christmas and before New Years, Dan and I hiked our first winter Adirondack high peaks! Hiking all 46 Adirondack high peaks is a distinction in itself (I'm at 30), but hiking all 46 high peaks in the winter is on another level.

Ever since finishing my thru-hike in August, I've been keen on getting back to the mountains whenever I can (they don't exactly exist in the midwest) and I've been looking for new hiking goals to keep me motivated until the next thru-hike, so I figured winter break was the perfect time to get my Winter 46 started.

On the day Dan and I hiked, we left early in the morning to drive to Porter and Cascade - two mountains I've actually hiked in the summer before (Porter, 2013 / Cascade, 2013). Even though I've never done any "real" winter mountain climbing, the fact that I'd hiked them before coupled with roughing it in the woods for 5+ months was all it took to erase my worries. My parents felt differently (they acted like we were going to get stranded for days...), but Dan and I knew we were prepared and did our best to convince them so.

The hike itself was super icy and pretty short in terms of miles (6 miles), but it was so good! Given all the physical activity and all the layers, both Dan and I were so warm the entire time and even though the views were limited, the winter scenery more than made up for it. I love the city, but it reminded me how much I love the mountains.

3 MONTHS OUT

As of yesterday, it's already been three months since I finished my Appalachian Trail thru-hike. Life off the trail has been great, but I still miss the trail and thru-hiker life so much every day. A fellow thru-hiker recently made this video and it does an incredible job describing some of the post-trail emotions I've felt.

On another note, the pictures above are a few favorites I took on trail. If you'd like to see some more trail pictures, I posted at least one picture for every day of my trip on Instagram. The blog Appalachian Trials also posts amazing hiker-sourced pictures to their Instagram account year-round. Just look through some of those and tell me that you're not starting to think of thru-hiking!!

Four Adirondack High Peaks

 
















Hi there and happy Wednesday! I'm here today to share some pictures from the hiking trip I took the weekend before moving to Chicago.

My brother Dan and I had wanted to go hiking, but hadn't gotten around to making plans, so when my friend Mountain Goat reached out about hiking, it seemed like the perfect time to make some plans. In less than a week, the three of us had plans made and were on our way up to the Adirondacks late on a Friday evening. The following morning, we started our twenty mile hike over Mount Marcy (which I've hiked twice before), Haystack (which I hiked once before), as well as Basin, and Saddleback.

The morning was brilliantly sunny with comfortable temperatures. For the first six or seven miles, I was going at a brisk 3.5 mile per hour clip and the guys were moving even faster than me! By the time we got to the base of Marcy, clouds had rolled in and our pace began to slow to something more sustainable to take on the climb.

When we reached the summit of Marcy, we stopped briefly to take in the highest point of New York State before the wind got to be too much, and then continued toward Haystack. After Haystack we stopped for lunch, our legs all getting tired. As much as Mountain Goat and I hated to admit it, we knew were starting to lose the trail legs we worked so hard to build on the Appalachian Trail, just weeks earlier.

After lunch we continued on to Basin and Saddleback. We climbed up Basin to find a foggy summit. Then we made our way up Saddleback. I had been warned that it was one of the steeper climbs in the Adirondacks. I had initially brushed it off since my mom was the one the warning came from, but she was right. Saddleback had one serious ascent! It was a pure rock scramble with few spots to grab, but it was one of those times when harder equaled more fun (or that's how I felt about it anyway!). The three of us made it up to the sightless summit after lots of maneuvering, and then down the slides on the other side of the mountain.

We arrived into camp exhausted around 6:30, had a quick dinner, and all retired to our tents by 7:15. In my day-to-day life I can be such a night owl, but early bedtimes and being in tune with the rhythm of nature and falling asleep when the sun goes down is such a nice change. It's actually one of my favorite parts of hiking.

The following morning we woke up with the sun and only had a quick three mile hike out. Once in town, we gorged ourselves on breakfast at The Noonmark Diner and then were on our way home.

As for my quest to hike all 46 Adirondack High Peaks (those over 4000'), I'm now at 31. Given that I'm now in Chicago, it might be some time before I hike another, although I'm really hoping to try out some winter hiking in the Adirondacks this year, so you never know!

Trail Tuesdays: What I'm Planning To Eat On The Trail

Two weeks until the trail. For those of you who binge-watched Fuller House this weekend, HOLY CHALUPAS.

Since my last pre-trail update, I've ordered a backpack and a waterproof phone case, put in notice at work, arranged my transportation from the airport to the trail, starting weighing my gear, and stocked up on a whole lot of food stuff.

Things I have yet to do? Test out my tent. Figure out how to hang my food bag. Decide which pair of shoes to take. Put together boxes for mail drops. The list goes on...

As for today's post, it's going to be about food because food is the best.

So food... Everyone seems to have opinion on this universal subject. Here are some of the guidelines I followed in deciding what to bring:

1. Bring on the fatty foods
Weight for weight, fats have more than twice the number of calories that carbs and proteins do. This makes fatty foods (nuts, oils, chocolate(!)) the best option to reduce pack weight and keep you full.

2. Have easy/no prep options
From past experiences in hiking, there are times when you just don't feel like cooking. I guess that's kind of life in general, except in hiking there's no bag of chips in the cabinet (so guilty of this one).

3. When in doubt, bring on the vitamins
To avoid stress fractures, anemia, etc.

4. Go for variety where you can
Partly for nutrition, partly for keeping spirits up.

5. What I'll be eating on the trail
Breakfast (aka: easy carbs in the morning)
- Pop Tarts
- Granola
- Lara / Clif / Kind Bars
- Oatmeal with brown sugar

Lunch (aka: quick no-cook meals)
- Cheese and crackers (to be eaten for the first few days after any stockup)
- Tortilla and peanut butter
- (I could probably use more help on super easy lunches here if anyone has ideas!)

Dinner (aka: a little hot sustenance) 
- Couscous with lots of olive oil
- Lentils (also with lots of olive oil)
- Mac & Cheese (maybe with some olive oil)

Snacks (aka: things I can eat while walking)
- Lara / Clif / Kind Bars
- Chocolate Bars (I read somewhere to bring twice the amount of chocolate you think you'll need and from past hiking experiences, that's the thing that always goes first)
- Nuts

Vitamins (aka: things to help prevent bad things like anemia and stress fractures)
- Iron
- B12
- Calcium

Trail Tuesdays: Preparations

Four weeks to go. Yikes! I know I'll be saying that every week day until I hit the trail. I just still can't believe this is happening. I mean, it's 100% my decision to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, yet it still feels unreal to be carrying out this crazy dream I've had for years. Everyday, I count the days forward until I hike the trail and then I count back the same number of days, which brings a huge amount of perspective into the impending situation as everything I look back on is so incredibly recent.

I don't know what I expected when I officially decided to do this, but checking out of the real world takes a lot of work. I've already made so many preparations, but I still have such a long way to go. Here's a little glimpse into

Preparations Made So Far...

• Told family and friends about the journey (this happened forever ago, but it still counts - also I couldn't be luckier to have the all around support that I have).
• I purchased a plane ticket to Atlanta for exactly four weeks from today! To correct myself, I was stupid and didn't read and bought one for the opposite way but thankfully noticed half a day later and didn't incur any charges... still major facepalm).
• Bought 80% of my gear (e.g., tent, sleeping bag, jacket, air mattress, water filter, etc.). Figure I should clarify that the majority of it is used since minimizing my footprint is really important to me    and the stuff I bought used has all been super high quality (I cannot praise eBay enough).
• Ordered lots of bulk food ordered off Amazon (including fourteen of these!... which will inevitably be eaten during the first fourteen days on the trail). 
• Done lots and lots of research - Dan gave me a book about the A.T. for my birthday and I've been reading a little every day since. 

Preparations To Make...

• Buy the other 20% of gear I need (e.g., backpack, poles, shoes, etc.)
• Put together mail drops to pre-send to multiple towns so I have supplies to pickup along the way.
• Weigh all my gear and pare down any non-essentials so I have a max of 40 pounds to start with food, water, clothing, and shoes.
• Cancel my things that automatically renew like my gym membership and Netflix.
• Put in notice at work... I'm planning to give three weeks this Friday. Aah. I'm cringing just thinking about it.
• Test out my sleeping situation on a wet night to make sure it works.
• Test out some of the meals I'm planning to make (couscous, split lentils, etc).
• Figure out how to set a password-protected Find My iPhone app so my parents, Dan, and Joe can track me for their own sanity or whatnot.
• Book a shuttle from the Atlanta airport to the start of the trail.

I'm sure there are a 100 things I'm forgetting, but for now that's a little bit of the process.

P.S. The pic above was taken by my friend Lee in 2014 on Macomb Mountain in the Adirondacks. 

Trail Tuesdays: Why I've Decided To Hike The Appalachian Trail

I've decided to start a new blog series: Trail Tuesdays!

As I mentioned the other week, I've finally decided that I'm going to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail this spring. As of today I only have five weeks until starting. Well, wow. I'm so incredibly excited to take on this opportunity, but I know that as I sit shielded from the elements and with the comforts of modern civilization that I can't even begin to comprehend the thousands of challenges before me in the coming months when I hike the trail.

To kick this series off, I'm going to talk about the basics including:

- What the trail is

- How long it'll take to hike

- Why I've decided to hike it

What is the Appalachian Trail? 
That's it above. It's a super long, continuous hiking trail extending from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. It extends ~2200 miles and goes through fourteen states (Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine). It also only has a 25% finish rate, and only 25% of the finishers are women. I'm looking to help bump that stat up a little. ;)

How long will the trail take? 
I'm hoping about 4 months, but it will probably be closer to 5 or 6 months.

Why hike 2200 miles?
The big kahuna of a question right here... Many people have asked if it's because I was inspired by the book Wild. I loved that book, but it's not where my inspiration is from. I've wanted to hike the AT since high school. (If I ever decide to hike the PCT you'll know why though!) I don't remember where exactly I got the idea from, but the little bits of information I heard about the trail growing up and over the years and my love of wilderness and adventure made me unable to stop thinking about it.

Why now?
Because I don't know when I'll have the chance to hike it again. I've saved up money working the past year and a half. I've done my NYC thing. I'm planning to move out to Chicago to live with Joe and get a job there while he finishes medical school. Maybe I'm crazy? What it comes down to is right now just feels right.

My Next Adventure...

If you follow along, you probably know that I really like hiking. You already maybe already read it here, but I'm now saying it freaking out about it officially:

I'm going to thru-hike the Applachian Trail.

(And I'm planning to start fifty days from today!)

More on this to come. I've been dreaming of this since high school.
I can't believe it's finally going to happen.  

Hiking Weather

This Christmas was certainly  a unique one with the unseasonably warm weather. The day we got to the Adirondacks, it rained and rained and rained. It never really stopped raining actually.There was no snow anywhere in sight and I still can't believe I didn't ski at Christmastime this year. This is the first time in twelve years that I haven't skied at Christmas. Quelle horreur indeed! 

Instead of skiing, we decided to make the best of it and enjoy the outdoors by going off for a hike up Crane Mountain. The fog didn't do much in the way of providing the spectacular views which Crane Mountain is known for, but it was still beautiful in its own dreamy way. Something about fog is so romantic to me in that olden days kind of way. What do you think?