Most of our time out here is spent climbing and descending the many mountains and hills that make up the Appalachian Trail. But as the trail can be pretty harsh on the body and we have a wedding to prep for, every once in a while we need a day off or a “zero” in trail speak. Typically Jess and I only take zeros every week or two, but what we’re going to do on our next zero is a daily topic for us and the rest of the hikers out here. Remember how excited you were as a kid when summer was approaching? Yeah, that’s how we feel about zeros.

What we do on our zeros:

Eat food

If our ever shrinking waist lines are any indication of our need for calories, getting high calorie meals on a zero is a top priority. On trail I burn 6000+ calories in a day of hiking and Jess isn’t far behind at 4000+. Jess’s favorite zero day food so far is Bo-tatoes (hash browny things) from Bojangles, but other food staples include pizza, sparkling water, and kombucha.

Rest and relaxation

The trail is nice and all, but who doesn’t like a nice bed and a dip in a pool every now and then. Today for instance, we were supposed to start hiking again, but there’s a pool at the hotel we’re staying at and it’s hot outside. Can you say zero?!

Errands

It feels like we spend about two hours at the post office every time we have a day off. The USPS gets us food resupplies, new gear, and our bounce box (a box, almost like a trail closet, that we send from town to town so we don’t have to carry clippers or laundry soap).

Wedding tasks

It turns out that wedding planning takes time and requires the i n t e r n e t these days. Zeros give us a chance to get online so that we can finalize our wedding website (almost done as of today), figure out guest addresses, and make sure we have everything running smoothly so that we’re ready to go at the end of October (yeah, it’s going to be tight, but as they say “Winter is Coming”).

Not all hikes are created equal. Here is a short list of variations on the traditional backpacking hike.

For some, there is only one way.

Backpack: to lug a pack (usually 15-40 pounds; my pack is between 20-25 depending on food, John’s is 25-30) on your back up and down the trail with food, gear, and supplies so you can tent or stay in a trail shelter. Maybe you make the occasional excursion into a trail town for a shower, food, and a hostel or hotel.

We backpack most of the time. John’s last post shows backpacking in blue and special days in red. Through the first 500 miles, we backpacked 419 miles and filled 81 miles with other “hiking” variations.

For the non-purist, the AT offers a lot of other options. I’m only going to detail the two we’ve used.

Slackpack: to have your pack transported down trail and walk blissfully light and free. Imagine yourself 20-30 pounds lighter. The slackpack is especially useful when injured, recovering from illness, catching up with trail friends, and on rainy days.

Our first foray into slacking was when John was injured out of Nantahala. Then for no good reason but to kick up some higher mileage days out of Hot Springs. (We did our first 20+ day slackpacking.) And then out of Damascus to avoid too many rainy days in a row.

Slackpacking requires some money and coordination, so we try to use it only occasionally. When the mouse at Carter Shelter chewed a hole into our original dry bag, we replaced it with a Sea to Summit daypack that multitasks as one of our food bags. When we slack, we take turns with the pack.

Aquablaze: to use a water source to progress on the trail.

Outside of Hampton, TN, we rented kayaks and paddled across Lake Watauga. Instead of walking around the lake, we paddled 8 miles across the lake bypassing 20 miles on the trail. It gave our legs and feet a much-needed break and tested the strength (weakness?) of our atrophying arms. We swam and floated along in between paddles; it felt like a true summer day on the lake.

This option isn’t available often. There is another spot in the Shenandoah National Park where you can follow the current of the Shenandoah River. It’s a longer stretch (50 miles) and takes 2-3 days. Undecided yet if we will do it!

We are not too proud to say we slackpack or aquablaze. One goal on our trip is to enjoy our days and moments as much as possible. Some days leaving our packs behind has allowed us to achieve just that.

Reach out to John or Jess if you’ve forgotten or lost the passwords to view our progress and most recent posts.

I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more (and then another 1200 miles) just to be the man (and woman) who walk a thousand (really 2200) miles to fall down at your door. Da da da (da da da) Da da da (da da da) Da da da dun diddle un diddle un diddle uh da

(Flashback to 1988 here)

We crossed the 500 mile mark (our 43rd day on the trail) in the Grayson Highlands. The highlands are known for their wild ponies, and today while walking through a downpour we got to meet some ponies.

As a recovering strategist, I can think of no better way to celebrate our first 500 miles than to create a chart… not the best chart I’ve created (bear with me though, I did this on my phone), but what you should be able to see is that we’re speeding up! On average we’ve walked a little under 12 miles per day now, and over the last two weeks we’ve actually been doing just over 16.2 miles per day. Included in these numbers are four zeros (days off) and a few special days (that Jess will explain in a later post). We’re speeding up!!

Here are a few glimpses of what I’ve seen recently.

Bye for now

Here is a handful of highlights from the last couple of weeks.

Fontana Lake

We arrived at Fontana Lake when the dam was releasing water into the Little Tennessee.

Great Smoky Mountains

John’s parents visited us one last time and provided lots of trail magic. Here we are at Newfound Gap along with Brian.

They brought the beard trimmer for John.

Before

After

Max Patch inspired lots of napping and cartwheeling. One of our favorite spots so far.

200 mile marker

Memorable trail magic

We walked for six hours through a torrential downpour to Stecoah Gap to find a woman in a pickup offering up rides and food to hikers. Despite our best efforts at staying dry, we were cold and wet. She offered us warm pasta and snacks while we warmed up in the car. This is Janelle from North Dakota.

Big trees

With every year about 4K new people try to hike the AT. While each of us will hike our own unique hike, one ritual that touches us all is the granting/receiving of trail names. Since being on the trail we’ve met Turtle, Thor (x2), Dropsy, and Chuck Norris. We’ve also been hiking with Brian… who refuses to take any of the different names we have given him (chainsaw, audible, pontus, soap box, and french press). The ritual is special and sacred as a name means a lot both to those we interact with as well as to ourselves and who we wish to become.

Jess-

I tried a lot of different names out for Jess over the last four weeks. “Hey Rocket, ready for a snack?” (She learned to snot rocket on the trail and also requires an astonishing amount of fuel to keep going), “Hey Wonder, what do you think about this flower?” (For about an hour of every hike she’s in literal awe of every flower, bug, and person we meet), “Have you guys seen Wild Flower? I can’t find her anywhere” (yeah, obviously the school connection, but she really really likes the flowers out here), and there were a few others but none really stuck.

The one that finally had legs (well not really legs…) was Turbo. You see Jess really really really likes snails, and she’s also much much faster than I am. Snails and speed = the fastest snail I could think, Turbo (a close second was the racing snail from the never-ending story) . She’s even developed her own song: “Turbo Snail, she’s faster than all the other snails and John, she’s going all the way to Maine…”. Okay, so the song is still a work in progress, but none the less, Jess is now Turbo.

John-

My name doesn’t have its own song yet (Though we did start saying it very loudly one day when we heard what sounded like a very large animal in distress from an even larger animal). We were walking through a cloud one morning in Georgia. It was hard to see even 50 ft out in any direction, but as the other hiker approached he knew exactly where we were from well beyond because of the highlighter green pack cover that I was using for the rain. “Hey Lighthouse!” rang out as his greeting… That moment combined with my extraordinary good looks… okay, okay, my height, made for a sticky trail name. John = Lighthouse

Many of you will have now heard about the attack that occurred on the trail the other day, so we want to quickly let you all know that we’re safe and sound. We are sad and still trying to wrap our heads around what happened, but our thoughts go out to the hikers and families who were impacted. Tomorrow we’ll continue along, hiking with heavier hearts.

John here. Battered and broken (I needed a shower and a mustache trim… Jess doesn’t smell or have facial hair) and craving sustenance (Jess wanted a salad) we stumbled down the hill to our shelter (a pre-reserved cabin). After five grueling days (including the days Jess just posted about), countless miles (probably around 40 miles), strange animals, and being trailed by a dog and a guy

(Craig, thanks for bringing Muffin out to see us for a couple of days!) we made it out of the woods and onto Gainesville Hwy in Neels Gap in North Georgia.

Trail life has really been pretty great so far. We have had some blisters (Jess’s was full of blood) and some aches/pains (I’m still a little chubby), but up until now we’ve been having a great time. Our little trail family for the last few days has included a couple of brothers (David and John), a lone wolf from Missouri (Chadd), Candice from Detroit, Craig, and Muffin.

We’ve walked through slopes of blooming Trillium,

and yesterday we crested Blood Mountain (the highest point on the AT in Georgia @ 4,500 ft… Colorado people stop laughing).