A Day in the Life of an Appalachian Trail Hiker (part 2)
Part Two of six, (yesterday was part 1)
I gather my breakfast items and if cool, I heat water on my Svea 123 stove to make the cereal hot and enjoy a cup of freeze-dried coffee. I would already have a quart of water left from the previous night, found near my head or inside the sleeping bag if it was a freezing night. Mixing my granola with just the right amount of powdered milk I add hot or cold water to the mix, stir and enjoy. At this point I know the ratio of water to powered milk; too much water and the milk is weak, too little and it looks like paste. My Sierra Club Cup serves as a cup and a bowl, so I typically eat and drink in cycles.
While crunching on the cereal, I would read over the AT Guide and Maps and decide on the day’s destination. A General Mills Breakfast Squares complimented the diet with protein. This decision was mainly a group consensus if you wanted to stay with the pack. Otherwise, I plan for a solitary camp, further along in order to hit a town for a mail drop, or to get away from unwelcome hikers.
When I get to the hot drink, I begin to gather my gear and start to pack. Stuffing my sleeping bag, that goes into the pack first, way on the bottom of my Trailwise Model 72 backpack. If in a hurry or after (or during a rain), I would employ the Ferussi method of packing the tent and just stuff it in the bag. Later in the day or in a dry LT, sleeping bags, clothes and tents could hang up out of the rain and hopefully dry a bit. Oh yeah, my wool socks also needed airing out!
On later trips, with my newer external frame JanSport backpack, the sleeping bag was still on the bottom of the frame but outside the main pack. My Ensolite sleeping pad was rolled up and stuffed in the backpack unless my weeklong food supply was large and forced the pad to be rolled and secured on the stop. I typically carried food for 100 to 150 miles (or a week to ten days, depending on the terrain).
Now this routine was pretty regular, but depending on the sleeping shelter, things may be a bit different. I slept in a Lean-To maybe 60 percent of the time, a tent or tarp 30 percent, and huts, shacks, fire towers the rest. I rarely slept under the stars since morning dew would dampen the bag. I did have to sleep al fresco one time on a weekend trip on the AT in Pennsylvania when my dog Brindle spooked a skunk and as you know it, she got sprayed. Poor thing!
Brindle was my AT hiking companion in the 1980s and just south of I70 Bridge in Maryland.
In the Lean-Tos, I had company maybe 70 % of the time and that means you had to go with the flow of the others using the facility including the toilet. Solitary LT nights were mainly in the northern stretch of the trail or after Labor Day. Shared camps demanded a higher level of privacy in bathroom tasks, which would take place a short time after my breakfast when I was ready for a number two. If the privy was halfway decent, I would use it. Otherwise, I would seek a fallen tree out of sight to sit on and dig a small cathole. I preferred the sit action since I didn’t need to rush, and it might give me time to ponder over the trail map. My toilet paper was in a Ziplock bag, but if the latrine had some in an old coffee can with lid, I would likely use that.
If raining, cold or the sudden discovery of a hiker approaching, I would hurry the task and move on.
Back in camp, I would take down the tent if used and pack my kitchen and food next. I would make sure I left camp with a quart of water, and more if the days’ hike was expected to be hot or dry. Once my hiking companions were ready and we had decided where the day would take us, we would stagger out of camp. First person out would capture all the morning spider webs positioned perfectly at face level.
This would be about 9 am and roughly two hours after waking up.
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