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The Appalachian Trail: A Heckuva Hike · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know. A production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. And I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: there's Chuck. Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
0:17
Speaker 1: should know to get out there and do. An addition,
0:21
Speaker 1: just a couple of no bos hanging out in front
0:24
Speaker 1: of the mic. M hmmm mm hmm. And if you
0:28
Speaker 1: don't know what a nobo is, prepare to learn. I
0:31
Speaker 1: thought you were gonna give me a trail name. I
0:33
Speaker 1: can think of one. I was, how about starfish? Your starfish?
0:37
Speaker 1: All right? What are you um? You're like, I don't
0:40
Speaker 1: know what he eats a starfish. I'll be jellyfish. Jellyfish, okay,
0:44
Speaker 1: and Jerry will be sunfish. Uh so our little sunfish. Yeah.
0:49
Speaker 1: And it will make sense as long as we hike together.
0:51
Speaker 1: But if one of us gets ahead of the other
0:53
Speaker 1: behind the other, then it'll just seem weird. Finally, we're
0:58
Speaker 1: talking about the appalach and trail. Boy. We've been asked many, many,
1:01
Speaker 1: many many times over the years to cover this by
1:05
Speaker 1: generally by through hikers that like, I'm listening to your
1:08
Speaker 1: show as I hike from Georgia to Maine, and uh,
1:13
Speaker 1: we're finally getting down to it. Mm hmm, it is
1:16
Speaker 1: about time for sure. In a big thank you to
1:19
Speaker 1: Dave Rus for helping us with this one. I don't
1:21
Speaker 1: believe he ever threw hike the A T, which makes
1:24
Speaker 1: this even more impressive all the info he came up with,
1:27
Speaker 1: you ever hiked any any of the eight? I think
1:30
Speaker 1: I accidentally did and maybe Unicoise State Park and didn't
1:33
Speaker 1: realize that's what I was doing. Um, I had no
1:36
Speaker 1: idea I was on the A T. But now I
1:38
Speaker 1: had a friend, um named Mitch who I went to
1:40
Speaker 1: high school with, not dirty Mitch from this Gabies episode
1:43
Speaker 1: of different Mitch and a few years sure, I don't
1:46
Speaker 1: know about that, but still um medium Sure. A few
1:50
Speaker 1: years after high school he he threw hiked the A T.
1:54
Speaker 1: And he was the first and I think maybe the
1:56
Speaker 1: only person I know who has uh my ends older
2:00
Speaker 1: brother hiked the A T with his dog, his sort
2:05
Speaker 1: of regular Doughey black lab, and Dude, that dog came
2:09
Speaker 1: back ripped back like a black lab that was built
2:14
Speaker 1: like a pit bull. Yeah. I can imagine. Because one
2:18
Speaker 1: of the most physically demanding things you can do is
2:21
Speaker 1: through hike the Appalachian Trail, and through hike means that
2:24
Speaker 1: you hike the whole two thousand, one hundred and ninety
2:27
Speaker 1: four point three miles from Georgia to Maine or Maine
2:31
Speaker 1: to Georgia in one straight shot, usually averaging about four
2:36
Speaker 1: to five to six months to do it. That's right, well,
2:39
Speaker 1: not necessarily in one straight shot, as we'll see, because
2:43
Speaker 1: you can do it in leap frogate and do it
2:45
Speaker 1: in chunks, and I think it all counts as long
2:48
Speaker 1: as you do it within the same year. But for me,
2:52
Speaker 1: and I used to want to do this, I had
2:54
Speaker 1: a big, gigantic A T poster that hung on my
2:57
Speaker 1: walls for many, many years, and my time has passed
3:01
Speaker 1: to do this. But I think my new goal is
3:04
Speaker 1: I would like to hike the entire Georgia portion. Okay,
3:08
Speaker 1: at some point I have hiked portions of it in Georgia,
3:11
Speaker 1: but uh, when I wanted to hike the A T.
3:14
Speaker 1: I was always of the mindset and not that there's
3:17
Speaker 1: any right or wrong way to do it, but I
3:18
Speaker 1: wanted to do it just all in one go, and
3:21
Speaker 1: not do it in chunks, and just start out at
3:23
Speaker 1: Springer Mountain in Georgia and end up with some mountain
3:27
Speaker 1: in Maine. Canadain. That's right. Yeah, that's a through hike
3:32
Speaker 1: for sure, and that's the that's you would be a nobo,
3:35
Speaker 1: like you said, going from yeah, from Georgia to Maine.
3:38
Speaker 1: If you went from Maine to Georgia, which is again
3:40
Speaker 1: another way you can do it, you'd be a sobo
3:42
Speaker 1: for southbound. But the thing is chucked. I think three
3:46
Speaker 1: million people hike on the a T every year, some
3:49
Speaker 1: little segment or portion. They're called section hikers. Anyone who
3:52
Speaker 1: doesn't hike the whole thing in one shot as a
3:55
Speaker 1: section hiker. But of those three million people, just a
3:59
Speaker 1: few are several thousand people try it, try through hiking
4:04
Speaker 1: every year, and only one and four of them is
4:07
Speaker 1: successful because it's so hard to do. Yeah. It is
4:12
Speaker 1: the longest hike only footpath in the world. Uh. There
4:17
Speaker 1: are longer trails for sure. Uh. And at some point
4:20
Speaker 1: we might do one on the Great Specific Rest Trail.
4:23
Speaker 1: But um, you can take pack mules and horses on
4:27
Speaker 1: the PCT. Uh, you are not allowed to. You can
4:30
Speaker 1: only take your body and your own feet on the
4:34
Speaker 1: Appalachian Trail. Yeah. Whereas Dave puts it on the a T,
4:37
Speaker 1: the pack animal, as you that's a great line. That's
4:41
Speaker 1: very yakov SnO. So in addition to it just being
4:46
Speaker 1: really really long, Chuck, there's a lot of ups and downs.
4:49
Speaker 1: There's a lot of crazy terrain. There's a lot of
4:52
Speaker 1: dangers that will see. But those ups and downs amount
4:55
Speaker 1: to over that whole distance, four hundred and sixty four thousand,
4:59
Speaker 1: five of hundred feet of elevation gain and loss. And
5:04
Speaker 1: Mount Everest is about twenty nine thousand feet, So if
5:07
Speaker 1: you started at sea level and walked up and down Everest,
5:11
Speaker 1: you'd have to do that eight times to equal that
5:13
Speaker 1: amount of elevation gain or loss that you're gonna walk
5:16
Speaker 1: along the Appalachian Trail in that one straight shot. That's right. Uh.
5:21
Speaker 1: That is not to say I mean those are apples
5:23
Speaker 1: to oranges, but that just puts it into perspective a
5:26
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of mountains you're hiking up and down.
5:28
Speaker 1: I never claimed they were both apples, No, No, I know,
5:31
Speaker 1: I just don't, like, I don't want people that have
5:34
Speaker 1: climbed Everest to be like, dude, you can't even compare
5:36
Speaker 1: the two. That's such a good Everest climber impression. Almost
5:42
Speaker 1: stood up there, bro Um. All right, so let's talk
5:47
Speaker 1: about this history wise. Uh. The original human being that
5:52
Speaker 1: thought this was a good idea was named Benton Mackay,
5:55
Speaker 1: who obviously was a hiker in the New England area
5:58
Speaker 1: and went to High of It, got a degree in
6:02
Speaker 1: forestry and worked as a land use planner and was
6:06
Speaker 1: hiking along in Vermont one day in the Green Mountains,
6:09
Speaker 1: climbed a big tree, looked out upon all the peaks,
6:13
Speaker 1: you know, those nice little rounded peaks of the Appalachian Mountains,
6:16
Speaker 1: not like the Rocky Mountains. We've talked about that. Why, Uh,
6:20
Speaker 1: it's because of wind, and said, you know what, that's amazing.
6:24
Speaker 1: I've been trying to interlink trails in New England to
6:28
Speaker 1: make hikes longer. Is it even possible? Could we link
6:33
Speaker 1: a trail from Georgia to Maine all along this Appalachian Range? Yeah?
6:39
Speaker 1: And that's a great first thought. But then he had
6:41
Speaker 1: plenty of successive follow up thoughts about that idea. UM.
6:45
Speaker 1: He wrote a paper called an Appalachian Trail, a Project
6:48
Speaker 1: in Regional Planning in n and UM he basically said, hey,
6:53
Speaker 1: in addition to this interconnected trail that forms one big
6:56
Speaker 1: trail along the Appalachians, we can also build shelter is
7:00
Speaker 1: for people hiking. We can build community camps, we can
7:03
Speaker 1: build farms that are run by labor unions and basically
7:06
Speaker 1: socialize the woods to give people a chance to get
7:09
Speaker 1: away from the rest of the world. Yeah, it was
7:12
Speaker 1: like a really really grand plan and one that like
7:16
Speaker 1: super admirable I think, Yeah, for sure, I I admire it.
7:21
Speaker 1: And Yeah, the thing is is he was like, as
7:24
Speaker 1: Dave put it, he was the tree hugger who came
7:26
Speaker 1: up with this idea, and he definitely was, and he
7:27
Speaker 1: had a real vision for it. And people came along
7:30
Speaker 1: and said, that has a great idea. We're gonna really
7:33
Speaker 1: trim off this fat about socialism and labor unions and stuff,
7:36
Speaker 1: but the rest of it we really like. And McKay
7:39
Speaker 1: was like, hey, what do you mean fat? And uh
7:42
Speaker 1: that that it just kind of got taken away from
7:44
Speaker 1: him from their well sort off. He still worked a
7:47
Speaker 1: lot with. Uh. This other guy who came along who
7:49
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about named Myron Avery, And this
7:53
Speaker 1: is how Dave put it. By all accounts, Myron Avery
7:56
Speaker 1: was a great a jerk. Here's the thing. Myron Avery
8:00
Speaker 1: was a lawyer, a maritime attorney, a big time hiker
8:05
Speaker 1: from Washington, d C. Who took charge of the project
8:08
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty and everything. I read up a lot
8:12
Speaker 1: about this guy, because anytime I see someone just kind
8:15
Speaker 1: of categorized as a big time jerk, I'm kind of
8:17
Speaker 1: curious because it's probably complicated, and it sounds like he
8:22
Speaker 1: was very stubborn and he was a perfectionist and he
8:26
Speaker 1: kind of just didn't want to listen to other people,
8:30
Speaker 1: Like he would go into a community and that they
8:33
Speaker 1: would have ideas like, hey, why don't you get the
8:35
Speaker 1: community on board with this and get some community support,
8:39
Speaker 1: and he was like no, he was like, we should
8:41
Speaker 1: just make this trail and then they'll see the benefit.
8:44
Speaker 1: The locals will see the benefit and its value afterward,
8:47
Speaker 1: and all we need to do is just blaze forward,
8:50
Speaker 1: no pun intended as you'll see, and and just do
8:54
Speaker 1: this thing. And it sounded like he was just really
8:56
Speaker 1: tenacious and he did burn bridges, and it sounds like
8:59
Speaker 1: he had a big ego and he may have been
9:02
Speaker 1: a bit of a jerk in a bully, but I
9:04
Speaker 1: think it's probably a little more complicated than to just
9:07
Speaker 1: say he was a big a hole, for sure, But
9:09
Speaker 1: he was enough of a whole Are we singing that now?
9:13
Speaker 1: I mean I just did. Okay, So he was enough
9:16
Speaker 1: of one of those that he and mackay had a
9:19
Speaker 1: falling out and McKay stayed away from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy,
9:24
Speaker 1: which Myron Avery led until Myron Avery died at age
9:28
Speaker 1: fifty two of a heart attack. From being such a
9:29
Speaker 1: type a personality. Yeah, I mean they had they worked
9:32
Speaker 1: together for a while and then eventually couldn't sort of
9:34
Speaker 1: see eye to eye, so he backed out. Have you
9:37
Speaker 1: ever read the book A Walk in the Woods by
9:39
Speaker 1: Bill Bryson? No, but I'd like to chuck you will
9:43
Speaker 1: love it. It's Did you read it? Oh? Yeah, it's
9:45
Speaker 1: It's one of those best in your late teens early twenties.
9:49
Speaker 1: But I think you would appreciate it no matter what
9:52
Speaker 1: your age. It's just a great book. And he's such
9:54
Speaker 1: a great writer, and his um, his Companion on the Trail,
9:58
Speaker 1: is just such a great like oil and comic relief.
10:01
Speaker 1: It is just a really good book. But in it
10:03
Speaker 1: he he described Myron Avery is blazing to two trails
10:07
Speaker 1: from Georgia to Maine. One was of hurt feelings and
10:10
Speaker 1: bruised egos. The other was the t uh well for
10:14
Speaker 1: his stubborn efforts. Uh. The east peak of Bigelow Mountain
10:18
Speaker 1: and Maine is now called Avery Peak. Oh it's nice
10:22
Speaker 1: or a whole peak. Oh boy? So Avery did walk
10:29
Speaker 1: the Appalachian Trail. He mapped apparently every square inch of
10:32
Speaker 1: it because again he was in charge of it, and
10:34
Speaker 1: he was such a um, a pragmatic and totally driven
10:41
Speaker 1: visionary that um he got the A T completed in
10:45
Speaker 1: seven years and it opened to the public in ninety
10:48
Speaker 1: seven because of him, that's right. Uh. And after it
10:52
Speaker 1: was completed, everyone was like, this thing is great, but
10:58
Speaker 1: is anyone ever gonna really? I know you link these trails,
11:01
Speaker 1: but is anyone even capable of hiking this whole thing?
11:04
Speaker 1: And we will let you know if that's possible, well,
11:08
Speaker 1: or at least who made that possible. Right after this
11:28
Speaker 1: and drum roll, Uh boy, your drum You need to
11:44
Speaker 1: change your drumhead, my friend, we need to work on
11:46
Speaker 1: our timing to Okay, what does that mean? I finished
11:51
Speaker 1: my drum roll and you were still talking about my drumheads. Sorry,
11:54
Speaker 1: let's try it again. Look, No, that's great, it's really good. Uh. Yes,
12:07
Speaker 1: we know that we can complete the A T we're
12:10
Speaker 1: being coy. Many people have done it, but the very
12:13
Speaker 1: first time that it was done was but eleven years
12:16
Speaker 1: after it opened, and a man named Earl Schaefer, Pennsylvanian
12:21
Speaker 1: from York County World War two Vett who uh you
12:25
Speaker 1: know we what we called this now is PTSD by
12:27
Speaker 1: you know, back then they just you know, called it
12:30
Speaker 1: suffering from war demons. But he clearly had some kind
12:34
Speaker 1: of PTSD and and was quoted as saying he wanted
12:37
Speaker 1: to walk the army out of his system and started
12:41
Speaker 1: at the time, it was not at Springer Mountain and
12:43
Speaker 1: Georgia at the time. It was Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia
12:46
Speaker 1: on April four, nineteen and didn't even have a tent. No,
12:52
Speaker 1: he had a poncho that he slept under, had paper maps,
12:55
Speaker 1: he had a compass. He was wearing Russell Moccasin Company's
12:59
Speaker 1: bird Shooter boots and they still make those. Actually they're
13:02
Speaker 1: nice looking boots, but I would not like the t
13:05
Speaker 1: and them very expensive. They're like fours. But I believe
13:09
Speaker 1: they're so handmade that you can find like fingernail clippings
13:14
Speaker 1: in them. Yeah, that's handmade chuck. That is super handmade.
13:20
Speaker 1: So He did this in a hundred and twenty four days,
13:23
Speaker 1: the first guy to ever through hike the a T
13:26
Speaker 1: did it way above average of what people do today. Yeah,
13:32
Speaker 1: he was making about sixty miles a day on average.
13:35
Speaker 1: So not only did he, you know, set the bar
13:37
Speaker 1: by being the first person to throw hike, he said
13:40
Speaker 1: a really high bar as far as records to break,
13:43
Speaker 1: Like that wasn't just something the second person was going
13:45
Speaker 1: to do better than you know, Yeah, for sure. His
13:48
Speaker 1: advice was carry as little as possible, but choose that
13:52
Speaker 1: little with care. Uh And everyone said duh and he went,
13:57
Speaker 1: shut up, I'm the first one to do it. I
13:59
Speaker 1: get to have my my advice has given out. And
14:02
Speaker 1: he did it again just to prove himself in nineteen
14:05
Speaker 1: and was the first person to do it both ways
14:09
Speaker 1: in both directions, and then at almost eighty years old
14:12
Speaker 1: in the late nineties, he did it one more time. Yeah,
14:15
Speaker 1: and there's other other trail legends, but he was definitely
14:18
Speaker 1: the first. They called them crazy one Earl Schaefer and
14:22
Speaker 1: then original crazy one apparently. Yeah, I guess there was
14:25
Speaker 1: somebody who was just as crazy who came along. Well,
14:28
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people are like oh, I'm
14:29
Speaker 1: gonna be crazy one too. And then you know, yeah,
14:32
Speaker 1: you know it's steal his name. No, that's his trail name.
14:36
Speaker 1: So Charles. Um we said that the Appalachian Trail goes
14:40
Speaker 1: from um Georgia Springer Mountain to Mount cadad In in Maine,
14:45
Speaker 1: and as it as it winds from one place to
14:48
Speaker 1: the other, it goes through fourteen different states, some more
14:51
Speaker 1: than others. Virginia it goes for about five and fifty
14:54
Speaker 1: plus miles. West Virginia, which is very jealous of Virginia
14:58
Speaker 1: in this respect, only has eighteen miles of Appalachian Trail. Yeah,
15:04
Speaker 1: that's what I said to But if you add all
15:06
Speaker 1: these together, a couple hundred miles here, tens of miles here, Um,
15:10
Speaker 1: you have this whole mile trail, and on average it
15:15
Speaker 1: takes a through hiker about a hundred and sixty five days,
15:19
Speaker 1: which again this is today with modern amazing gear people
15:24
Speaker 1: average a hundred and sixty five days, And Earl Schaefer
15:27
Speaker 1: did it in a hundred and twenty four back in
15:29
Speaker 1: nineteen eight with fingernail boots, right exactly. It just makes
15:34
Speaker 1: his accomplishment that much more amazing. Um. But one guy
15:38
Speaker 1: showed up Earl Schaefer like nobody's business, didn't he? Oh yeah.
15:42
Speaker 1: A trail runner named Joe McConaughey in average fifty miles
15:48
Speaker 1: a day to complete the eight and forty five days,
15:51
Speaker 1: twelve hours and fifteen minutes. I had my little blaze
15:56
Speaker 1: pun earlier. If you've ever hiked any portion of the
16:00
Speaker 1: A t um you will know about the blazes. If
16:03
Speaker 1: you've never hiked the A t you may wonder, how
16:05
Speaker 1: do you know that you're still on the A T
16:07
Speaker 1: and you don't accidentally go off on another trail, which
16:09
Speaker 1: is possible. But it is marked with little blazes there.
16:13
Speaker 1: It's a rectangular piece of paint, piece of paint. It's
16:20
Speaker 1: a rectangular swash of paint, brushstroke of paint. Uh. And
16:26
Speaker 1: they're about I don't know, I feel like they're about
16:29
Speaker 1: six by three inches or so. Uh. And they are
16:33
Speaker 1: on trees and rocks about every seventy feet or so.
16:37
Speaker 1: So it is a very very well marked, whale well
16:41
Speaker 1: trod trail. That's hard to say, So don't don't be
16:45
Speaker 1: afraid of getting lost. And there are plenty people on it. Uh.
16:48
Speaker 1: It is not to say you should go into it
16:50
Speaker 1: lightly or without any preparation, but it is. It's pretty
16:53
Speaker 1: easy to find your way along the A T. Yes,
16:56
Speaker 1: it is. And you're gonna encounter plenty of people along
16:58
Speaker 1: a tube because remember three million people a year hike
17:01
Speaker 1: it to some extent. And again, there's thousands and thousands
17:04
Speaker 1: of people who are nobos or sobos trying to throw
17:07
Speaker 1: hike at any given on any any given year. And
17:11
Speaker 1: because of the weather and the distance that you're covering,
17:16
Speaker 1: you're actually going through the A T in different seasons,
17:21
Speaker 1: so there's actually like certain windows, depending on which direction
17:25
Speaker 1: you're going north or south, um, where you can hike
17:28
Speaker 1: the A T. So all of those thousands of people
17:30
Speaker 1: are not spread out over a full year. They're actually
17:33
Speaker 1: kind of condensed in four or five or six month
17:36
Speaker 1: periods on any given years. So you're definitely gonna have
17:39
Speaker 1: lots of companions on the trail, whether you like them
17:42
Speaker 1: or not. Yeah. Well, trail sex is a thing too, Yeah,
17:47
Speaker 1: I saw, it's not nearly as much as you would think. Yeah,
17:50
Speaker 1: I'm sure, Okay, I don't know. I mean I'm sure
17:55
Speaker 1: that these uh, these dirty hippies out there sweating it
17:58
Speaker 1: up for days at a time, don't mind knocking boots
18:01
Speaker 1: under the stars. But no, it's not the sexiest way
18:04
Speaker 1: to do things. I saw that that was saved for town.
18:08
Speaker 1: Oh okay, like your your zero day, like you take
18:11
Speaker 1: a down day, maybe stay in a cheap hotel, take
18:14
Speaker 1: a shower, meet a friend, starfish meat and jellyfish meat,
18:20
Speaker 1: starfish right, and they have sunfish. Sure that this is
18:25
Speaker 1: something weird just happened. I'm glad we planned that out.
18:29
Speaker 1: Uh So, if you are a NOBO, you're gonna want
18:32
Speaker 1: to and if you want to hike the a t
18:34
Speaker 1: there are books out there that like, and websites and
18:38
Speaker 1: and blogs that will tell you very specifically exactly. You
18:42
Speaker 1: can map it down to the day if you want,
18:45
Speaker 1: like day one, day two, um, or you can kind
18:47
Speaker 1: of do your own thing. But generally, if you're a NOBO,
18:50
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna want to start at Springer Mountain in
18:53
Speaker 1: the early spring and like March or April. So those
18:56
Speaker 1: first couple of months, those first few months, actually you're
19:00
Speaker 1: be hiking and pretty good weather h as far as
19:02
Speaker 1: it getting too hot, Uh, it will get elevation. You
19:06
Speaker 1: can get snow still for sure. In March and April
19:10
Speaker 1: in North Carolina and Tennessee even parts of Georgia. So
19:14
Speaker 1: the disadvantage there is that you will have to pack
19:17
Speaker 1: some cold weather gear for your first five miles or so,
19:20
Speaker 1: which you can ditch in mail uh mail home at
19:23
Speaker 1: some point if you want, right, But you have a
19:26
Speaker 1: much longer stretch of time to finish your through hike
19:30
Speaker 1: than you do if you're going from Maine to Georgia
19:32
Speaker 1: or southbound. UM. And because you have a much more
19:36
Speaker 1: limited window of about four to five months UM, you
19:39
Speaker 1: have to cover a lot of miles every day. So
19:41
Speaker 1: being a sobo, if you see a SABO on the trail,
19:45
Speaker 1: this is probably not their first hike. They're usually pretty
19:48
Speaker 1: experienced and can make it over some unforgiving terrain a
19:52
Speaker 1: lot faster than the average hiker, I would guess for sure.
19:56
Speaker 1: And you talked about the amount of people hiking, there's
19:59
Speaker 1: something called the bubble, So early on in March and April,
20:02
Speaker 1: the nobo areas get pretty and when we say congested,
20:06
Speaker 1: it's not like you're surrounded about like hundreds of people,
20:09
Speaker 1: but it definitely thins out as you go. Yeah, but
20:13
Speaker 1: that's a real advantage to being a sobo is far
20:15
Speaker 1: fewer people start north to south UM. So you're going
20:19
Speaker 1: to run into a lot less people at the time,
20:21
Speaker 1: and by the time south and by the time you
20:25
Speaker 1: do start running into those original members of the bubble,
20:28
Speaker 1: they've thinned out because again, remember only one and four
20:30
Speaker 1: people make it all the way through the a T
20:33
Speaker 1: and it's not like they all make it close to
20:35
Speaker 1: the end. People burn out at different spots along the way. Yeah.
20:39
Speaker 1: And then I mentioned at the very beginning the flip
20:41
Speaker 1: flopping technique, that is when you're doing it in chunks
20:45
Speaker 1: to really try and get the best weather everywhere you
20:48
Speaker 1: are at the time. Uh. And there's a leap frogging
20:51
Speaker 1: route where you would start in Georgia in April, uh
20:55
Speaker 1: late April, just as so you maybe don't get that
20:58
Speaker 1: snow that we were talking about out. You hike to
21:01
Speaker 1: West Virginia to Harper's Ferry, and then you leap frog.
21:04
Speaker 1: You can take a car, you can take a train
21:06
Speaker 1: anyway you would normally get somewhere not by foot. You
21:10
Speaker 1: would go to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, then hike north from
21:14
Speaker 1: there to finish up by September before that cold weather,
21:18
Speaker 1: and then you leap frog back down to Great Barrington
21:21
Speaker 1: and hike that southern portion back down to Harper's ferry
21:24
Speaker 1: that you skipped, and there you have if you ever
21:27
Speaker 1: want to hike the a T. Just pack a backpack
21:29
Speaker 1: and listen to what Chuck just said and just go
21:31
Speaker 1: for it. You don't need any other information, that's correct,
21:35
Speaker 1: I think, actually you do need a tremendous amount of information.
21:38
Speaker 1: And luckily there's a lot of information out there on
21:42
Speaker 1: the web, a lot of really good free advice. UM.
21:46
Speaker 1: If if you are thinking about, um hiking the A T.
21:49
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have already found a lot of these,
21:51
Speaker 1: but a good place to start if you're just if
21:54
Speaker 1: this episode inspires you, is probably the subredit for the
21:58
Speaker 1: Appalachian Trail. I know. Just there's a ton of good
22:00
Speaker 1: advice on there. Um and just whatever question you have,
22:04
Speaker 1: just ask it in type Appalachian Trail, and there's probably
22:07
Speaker 1: pages and pages of people who have great advice and
22:11
Speaker 1: suggestions on how to do this. UM. And we'll share
22:13
Speaker 1: a little bit with you right now. I'm about sleeping
22:16
Speaker 1: and eating. Yeah, I used to do plenty of backpacking,
22:19
Speaker 1: so I'm familiar with all this stuff. Now. I'm a
22:22
Speaker 1: car camper mainly, but I am going to get back
22:24
Speaker 1: into backpacking at some point. Um, But I still have
22:27
Speaker 1: all that gear. But boy, it's it's a lot lighter
22:30
Speaker 1: now than when I bought it. Um. You can get
22:32
Speaker 1: an ultra light tent these days that weigh less than
22:34
Speaker 1: twenty ounces. My friend, it's about one point one seven pounds.
22:40
Speaker 1: That's like the weight of a cockatil, a big one.
22:43
Speaker 1: That's right. So leave your cocket deal at home too. Um.
22:47
Speaker 1: So you know you're gonna want an ultra light tent
22:49
Speaker 1: unless you're gonna really really either sleep in a hammock
22:53
Speaker 1: or just you know, sleep under the ground under a
22:56
Speaker 1: tarp or something. But I would suggest an ultra light tent.
22:59
Speaker 1: But there are two hundred and fifty shelters along the way.
23:03
Speaker 1: I've slept in a couple of these there. It's just
23:06
Speaker 1: you know, two walls in a roof and a and
23:08
Speaker 1: a sort of like a small deck that you're sleeping on.
23:11
Speaker 1: And it's first come, first serve, uh. You. Some of
23:14
Speaker 1: them have little outhouses, some of them don't. They're usually
23:17
Speaker 1: near water, like a river or something. Uh. And you
23:20
Speaker 1: can and I have camped on these with strangers, and
23:24
Speaker 1: then it could be a lot of fun sometimes meeting
23:25
Speaker 1: people like that. Oh yeah, if you're gonna throw hike
23:28
Speaker 1: the a t You need to get used to interacting
23:30
Speaker 1: with strangers in close quarters for just for times like this,
23:34
Speaker 1: but also you know, on the trail you run into
23:36
Speaker 1: lots of strangers and a lot of times they want
23:39
Speaker 1: to stop and talk or whatever. But um, I saw
23:42
Speaker 1: that those rustic shelters are um first come, first serve.
23:45
Speaker 1: So even if you meticulously planned your hike UM to
23:49
Speaker 1: hit one of these, did you say they're about eight
23:51
Speaker 1: miles apart? I didn't, but that's about right yet. So
23:55
Speaker 1: that and that's like, you know, that's an average day's
23:58
Speaker 1: walk for a very average ridge hikers. And they purposely
24:02
Speaker 1: spread them out like that, and they're a little further
24:03
Speaker 1: spread out if there's a town in between them with
24:06
Speaker 1: hotels and hostels and all that. But you can meticulously
24:09
Speaker 1: plan your your route so that you hit one of
24:12
Speaker 1: these shelters every night, so you're you're you have shelter
24:16
Speaker 1: without needing a tent. But if there's a lot of
24:18
Speaker 1: people on the trail, you may be s o l
24:20
Speaker 1: when you show up at that shelter because it's full
24:23
Speaker 1: up by with eight people in their sleeping bags and
24:25
Speaker 1: there's no room for you. Yeah, that's when you're gonna
24:28
Speaker 1: want that tent as a backup at the very least,
24:30
Speaker 1: and you can camp right behind the shelter if you
24:32
Speaker 1: still want to hang out with people. Because I don't
24:34
Speaker 1: know if we mentioned this, there are a lot of
24:36
Speaker 1: different reasons people hike the A t Some people really
24:38
Speaker 1: want to get away from people. Um. But for what
24:41
Speaker 1: I'm have read and talk to people who have done it.
24:45
Speaker 1: Even those people, when you're out there for five and
24:47
Speaker 1: a half months, can enjoy talking with someone every few days, right,
24:52
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Even though weirdos want to
24:55
Speaker 1: talk to people sometimes or you may not. They they're
24:57
Speaker 1: probably names for everything. They're probably named for people to
25:00
Speaker 1: don't want to socialize, like a little a t uh,
25:03
Speaker 1: sort of made up name they give them sure, trail
25:07
Speaker 1: hermits all bad. Yeah, termits termites, Yeah, termites is what
25:13
Speaker 1: they call them. We've been a cockney rhyming rhyming slang. Um.
25:18
Speaker 1: Food is another thing. Obviously you're gonna be eating a
25:21
Speaker 1: lot of calories, or at least burning up a lot
25:23
Speaker 1: of calories and ideally replenishing those calories with food. Um,
25:27
Speaker 1: you will lose a ton of weight hiking the A
25:29
Speaker 1: t if you're through hiker and you need about two
25:32
Speaker 1: pounds of food a day and you want to resupply
25:36
Speaker 1: generally every three to ten days, depending on kind of
25:38
Speaker 1: how you want to plan it out and how much
25:40
Speaker 1: weight you want to carry. Uh. And there are great
25:43
Speaker 1: books again that you can tell you exactly how to
25:45
Speaker 1: do this. But you're either going to be replenishing on
25:47
Speaker 1: the trail when you hit a town, or a lot
25:50
Speaker 1: of people mail or have family members mail their stuff
25:54
Speaker 1: ahead of time to post offices that you'll hit. Yeah. Um,
25:57
Speaker 1: some people mail their own stuff or they have some
26:00
Speaker 1: family do it for him. And there's a lot of
26:02
Speaker 1: a lot of websites dedicated to teaching you how to
26:05
Speaker 1: do that successfully and giving you the addresses you need
26:08
Speaker 1: and where you can it can't send send stuff. But
26:11
Speaker 1: the off shot is you're not gonna have to carry
26:14
Speaker 1: your five months supply of food with you the whole time.
26:17
Speaker 1: People have figured out how to not do it, and
26:19
Speaker 1: there's no shame whatsoever. And going into town not only
26:22
Speaker 1: to eat or to resupply and restock up on food,
26:26
Speaker 1: but also to sleep to like people take zero days
26:29
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned earlier, where you just you just
26:32
Speaker 1: take the day off or maybe even two days off
26:34
Speaker 1: if you're particularly burned out, and you just kind of
26:37
Speaker 1: recuperate and recharge and get back on the trail after that.
26:40
Speaker 1: So that's definitely part of a t culture that's not
26:43
Speaker 1: like cheating or anything. Yeah. Absolutely, uh And apparently it's
26:48
Speaker 1: a tradition to uh to go on a feast and
26:51
Speaker 1: when you're in a town just to really eat just
26:54
Speaker 1: a bunch of high calorie junk. Uh, to load up
26:59
Speaker 1: on calories and think to maybe satisfy a certain urge
27:03
Speaker 1: that's not being met on the trail when you're eating, uh,
27:06
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. Dave calls it gorp. I've never heard
27:09
Speaker 1: it called that, but like trail mix and and freeze
27:12
Speaker 1: dried food and stuff like that, even though that stuff
27:14
Speaker 1: has come a long way and how good it tastes,
27:16
Speaker 1: I will say that I looked it up. GORP stands
27:18
Speaker 1: for good old raisins and peanuts. Okay, gn't that delightful.
27:22
Speaker 1: That may be a regional thing. I've never heard anyone
27:24
Speaker 1: call it that here. Yeah, I have never heard it either,
27:27
Speaker 1: which is why I was like, what is this gorps stuff?
27:30
Speaker 1: I didn't I'm glad you, Uh, I didn't know as
27:32
Speaker 1: an acronym. It definitely it does not accurately convey what
27:37
Speaker 1: it's talking about because gorp sounds disgusting, but raisins and
27:40
Speaker 1: peanuts are not disgusting. Yeah, Dave also hasn't here. The
27:44
Speaker 1: average cost of gear that you buy is about a
27:46
Speaker 1: thousand bucks. I think that is, uh, can vary wildly.
27:52
Speaker 1: I think it really depends on how much gear you
27:54
Speaker 1: already have, because that one pound tent that I was
27:58
Speaker 1: talking about is a seven all our tent. Oh yeah, No, definitely,
28:02
Speaker 1: Like you can also like buy your stuff off of
28:05
Speaker 1: like eBay or Craigslist or something like that probably save
28:08
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of money compared to going to are
28:11
Speaker 1: e I and buying everything brand new. Um. And also,
28:14
Speaker 1: especially if you're a first timer, you're definitely going to
28:17
Speaker 1: over purchase, over plan, and overpack. So I would guess
28:22
Speaker 1: if you're if you're a first time through hiker, you
28:24
Speaker 1: were going to spend substantially more than you would on
28:27
Speaker 1: maybe your second attempt. Yeah, and I think at the
28:30
Speaker 1: beginning of no matter where you start in Maine, And
28:33
Speaker 1: it's weird that he can do this in both places.
28:35
Speaker 1: But Sam Elliott is at the front at the trailhead
28:39
Speaker 1: going through your pack and saying, you don't need this,
28:42
Speaker 1: you don't need this, get rid of this, why would
28:44
Speaker 1: you even have this, and just tearing your pack apart
28:47
Speaker 1: basically until you're down to you know, that ultra light
28:50
Speaker 1: tent and some gorp. Yeah, and by proxy tearing you
28:54
Speaker 1: apart psychologically. Yeah. He was kind of a jerk lately
28:59
Speaker 1: about that power of the dog. Maybe I forgot about that.
29:02
Speaker 1: What do you mean he was a jerk? What do
29:04
Speaker 1: you do? He the power of the dog came out
29:06
Speaker 1: and he was just kind of like, well, do you
29:09
Speaker 1: know what these candy butts in their homosexual cowboyd notions?
29:15
Speaker 1: And that's that's not the West. I knew what's problem. Yes,
29:19
Speaker 1: he knew he was born in nineteen fifty or the
29:22
Speaker 1: crotchety old guy, homophobic, crotchety old guy, which was very
29:26
Speaker 1: disappointing because all that's great, Sam elliott Um. But getting
29:31
Speaker 1: back to the money, Uh, you're gonna spend about a
29:34
Speaker 1: grand a month. They just say that at least plan
29:37
Speaker 1: on about a thousand dollars a month, So between five
29:40
Speaker 1: and seven thousand dollars, depending on how long you're gonna
29:42
Speaker 1: take to hike it. Yes, so cough up the smoleans.
29:46
Speaker 1: Everybody are prepared to and also prepared to listen to
29:51
Speaker 1: some commercials because we're gonna take a break real quick.
30:18
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's talk weather. If you're hiking the
30:20
Speaker 1: a T we mentioned potentially, potentially the snow at the
30:25
Speaker 1: beginning of the northbound route, or you know, Maine is crazy,
30:29
Speaker 1: you might you might get a late snow and in
30:32
Speaker 1: May or early June and May and even at elevation,
30:36
Speaker 1: so you're gonna have some cold weather to contend with
30:39
Speaker 1: for a little while at least, right, yes, one way
30:42
Speaker 1: or another. And again, um, if you have cold weather
30:45
Speaker 1: stuff that you need to eventually ditch, you don't have
30:48
Speaker 1: to plan on carrying it the whole time. You can
30:49
Speaker 1: go to one of those same post offices that you
30:52
Speaker 1: pick up your mail drop at and mail it back,
30:54
Speaker 1: mail back your cold weather gear, a little lead, a
30:57
Speaker 1: little trail magic for someone, you know what I'm saying.
30:59
Speaker 1: There you go, I wonder, I'll bet a lot of
31:01
Speaker 1: people do that. To tell you the truth, you think, Yeah,
31:04
Speaker 1: and then hypothermia because there's cold weather associated with the
31:08
Speaker 1: um hike. It's a real problem and it's not just
31:11
Speaker 1: from being snowed on. It's actually much less likely from
31:14
Speaker 1: being snowed on. It's more likely from being hit by
31:16
Speaker 1: a cold rain and being soaked and then hit with
31:19
Speaker 1: some very cold wind, which can happen at high altitudes,
31:23
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, your core temperature is dropping
31:25
Speaker 1: very quickly, so you have to get naked and try
31:28
Speaker 1: to warm up as fast as you can. That's right.
31:31
Speaker 1: The clothing that they make these days is amazing. It's
31:35
Speaker 1: very lightweight. Uh, these synthetic weaves that with the water away,
31:40
Speaker 1: they dry out super fast. Uh. It is not like
31:43
Speaker 1: the stuff in the shapeer days. And this other wonderful
31:46
Speaker 1: hero that we're going to talk about in a little bit,
31:48
Speaker 1: this woman. I cannot wait to get to her. H
31:51
Speaker 1: But you're also gonna hit really hot, humid, balmy weather
31:55
Speaker 1: in the in the thick of it in the summer,
31:57
Speaker 1: in the middle of that hike. Uh, you're gonna you
32:00
Speaker 1: depleted of your electrolytes and your salts. You could suffer
32:03
Speaker 1: from cramping and heat stroke and heat exhaustion. So they
32:08
Speaker 1: say to count on a couple of liters of water
32:10
Speaker 1: a day. Uh, And obviously you're not gonna carry that
32:13
Speaker 1: much weight, so you're gonna gonna want to use and
32:15
Speaker 1: I got one of these two uh, one of those
32:17
Speaker 1: beautiful little lightweight water purifying systems that you just kind
32:21
Speaker 1: of pump into your water bottle from a running, beautiful stream. Ye,
32:26
Speaker 1: you pump and dump into your water bottle. That's right.
32:29
Speaker 1: And then also, chuck, I mean you want to keep
32:32
Speaker 1: up with your water, you really need to keep up
32:33
Speaker 1: with your calories, because, like you said, you're gonna lose
32:36
Speaker 1: a ton of weight. And apparently, even if you ate
32:39
Speaker 1: four thousand calories a day, by the time you were
32:43
Speaker 1: done with your through hike, on average, you would have
32:45
Speaker 1: probably lost ten to twenty pounds and you would look
32:49
Speaker 1: like a black lab that has ripped like a pit pole. Yeah,
32:55
Speaker 1: that's right, and that's a cool reason to do it,
32:57
Speaker 1: you know it is. But I also saw that it
33:00
Speaker 1: can lead to a lot of um like guilt or
33:03
Speaker 1: shame when you start to gain your weight back, because
33:05
Speaker 1: everybody's been telling you how amazing you look, and then
33:08
Speaker 1: when you get back to normal life, it can be
33:10
Speaker 1: really difficult. Right. There's something called hikers hunger, where it
33:15
Speaker 1: is you're just starving and you can eat those incredible
33:19
Speaker 1: large amounts of food, calorie dense food, and just keep
33:23
Speaker 1: shedding the pounds because you're exerting yourself so much. But
33:26
Speaker 1: when you get off of the trail, when you're done,
33:28
Speaker 1: you're not exerting yourself any longer. But that that hikers
33:32
Speaker 1: hunger can still linger. So you're actually eating way more
33:35
Speaker 1: than you would have before you started the trail, and
33:38
Speaker 1: you really have to kind of keep up with it
33:40
Speaker 1: or else you can gain whatever weight you have back
33:42
Speaker 1: and then some. But yeah, I saw that there's there
33:44
Speaker 1: there can be guilt associated with with not looking like
33:47
Speaker 1: that any longer after a little while. Yeah, So if
33:50
Speaker 1: you next time you see a buddy come off of
33:52
Speaker 1: a through hike on the a T, don't tell them
33:54
Speaker 1: how amazing they look. Just say it's good to see you,
33:58
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, I'm glad you're safe. And then they'll go,
34:02
Speaker 1: you know what you say anything about how great airlock? Right?
34:04
Speaker 1: What's wrong with this? I thought we were a friend. Uh.
34:08
Speaker 1: There are animal dangers, of course, snakes and spiders and
34:11
Speaker 1: bears and things like that. Uh. Ticks are a big,
34:15
Speaker 1: big part of the problem. Uh. Lime disease is huge.
34:19
Speaker 1: You're gonna get ticks if you hike the a t
34:21
Speaker 1: So you wanna check that every night around your ankles
34:24
Speaker 1: and armpits and groin area and waistline and everywhere that
34:28
Speaker 1: ticks like to hide out. Dude, I saw that people
34:31
Speaker 1: drop their pants in squat over an iPhone and video
34:35
Speaker 1: like run a video of their underside or undercarriage and
34:39
Speaker 1: then watch the video just see if there's any hiding
34:41
Speaker 1: there that they can't feel. Or the stranger that they
34:44
Speaker 1: met in the thing. They say, I looked at the
34:46
Speaker 1: video a few times. Will you just give it a
34:48
Speaker 1: once over? Right? And the stranger says, I'm a term Mike,
34:51
Speaker 1: please leave me alone. Bears, I did mention you don't
34:56
Speaker 1: want your food to be left out. If you are
34:59
Speaker 1: an experienced camp n hiker, you know this stuff. But uh,
35:02
Speaker 1: some places they have bare boxes, but that you can't
35:06
Speaker 1: count on a bare box being there. Um, there are
35:09
Speaker 1: bear proof canisters you can carry, but what you're probably
35:12
Speaker 1: gonna do it's just what's called a bear hang, which
35:15
Speaker 1: go about two hundred feet away from your campsite and
35:19
Speaker 1: loop a rope over a tree and pull your food
35:21
Speaker 1: up at least twelve feet off the ground. Yeah, every
35:24
Speaker 1: single night without fail, and they still might get it.
35:27
Speaker 1: Bears are crafty. They are crafty, but at least they're
35:30
Speaker 1: doing it two feet away from where you're sleeping exactly.
35:33
Speaker 1: You know. Um, a lot of people get injured too,
35:35
Speaker 1: but very few people die U. Two to three people
35:39
Speaker 1: out of again three million people die on the A
35:42
Speaker 1: T every year. That's actually seems like it would be
35:45
Speaker 1: way higher than that. UM. And there have only been
35:48
Speaker 1: I say only, but to me, statistically speaking, it seems low.
35:52
Speaker 1: Thirteen murders on the trail and the first one wasn't
35:55
Speaker 1: until yeah, and I look this up and they did.
36:01
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna bother going on the crazy apples to
36:03
Speaker 1: apples math they had to do to make it work
36:06
Speaker 1: out to like just being living in the United States
36:09
Speaker 1: in a regular neighborhood. But they did do that math
36:12
Speaker 1: if you want to go out there and look. But
36:14
Speaker 1: they found that your chances of getting murdered on the
36:17
Speaker 1: A T or a thousand times less likely than just
36:21
Speaker 1: being a regular American walking around on a daily basis. Man,
36:27
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you said that, because all you have
36:30
Speaker 1: to do is hear about thirteen murders on the trailers
36:32
Speaker 1: and people die. And this is the fact that you're
36:35
Speaker 1: putting it in the context of dying out in the woods,
36:38
Speaker 1: are being murdered out in the woods. It seems so
36:40
Speaker 1: much worse. So I think that's a really reassuring thing
36:42
Speaker 1: you just said. Uh it is. And I was also
36:45
Speaker 1: curious about sexual assault type of things, and of course
36:50
Speaker 1: things go unreported, so I'm not not even enough to
36:53
Speaker 1: think that this accounts for all of them. But they
36:55
Speaker 1: said that there's one basically one reported rape every two
37:00
Speaker 1: to three years. And it is more dangerous to live
37:03
Speaker 1: on a college campus than it is to hike the
37:05
Speaker 1: a T. So I don't know if that makes you
37:07
Speaker 1: feel better or worse, depending on if you're on a
37:10
Speaker 1: college campus or not. But the point is it is
37:13
Speaker 1: generally a pretty safe, helpful community out there. Yeah. That's
37:18
Speaker 1: one of the reasons it's safe is because there's such
37:21
Speaker 1: a established culture and there is such tight community out there,
37:25
Speaker 1: not only among strangers, but among the towns folk like this.
37:29
Speaker 1: These this trail goes through or right past some towns
37:32
Speaker 1: that part of their industry is supporting Appalachian Trail through hikers, um.
37:38
Speaker 1: And so they're really kind and generous and um and
37:43
Speaker 1: helpful um out on the trail. Some people will just
37:46
Speaker 1: go out on the trail who live in town and
37:49
Speaker 1: take like snacks and drinks and stuff and just hand
37:51
Speaker 1: them out to people who are walking on the Appalachian Trail.
37:55
Speaker 1: So I mean like there's that's that's like kind of
37:57
Speaker 1: like the the vibe and the zeitgeist on a T.
38:00
Speaker 1: Not everybody's out for themselves and you know, don't don't
38:04
Speaker 1: turn your back on a stranger because they'll hit you
38:06
Speaker 1: with a hatchet and take your one pound hint um.
38:09
Speaker 1: It's nothing like that. It's actually quite the opposite of
38:12
Speaker 1: that from everything I can tell. Uh, we have kind
38:15
Speaker 1: of joked around about these trail names, but that is
38:17
Speaker 1: one thing that you do, or at least you're encouraged
38:20
Speaker 1: to do, is give yourself a trail name. Only go
38:23
Speaker 1: by that trail name, and it's a symbolic thing that
38:26
Speaker 1: you are leaving your old identity behind for now you
38:31
Speaker 1: are becoming a new person on the trail. And it's
38:33
Speaker 1: kind of fun, I think, yeah. But I mean that
38:36
Speaker 1: that kind of goes to underscore like why people hike
38:40
Speaker 1: the a T. And one of them is to like
38:42
Speaker 1: just get away from their life to kind of reset
38:46
Speaker 1: their perspective on things or think things through or you know,
38:49
Speaker 1: go through a transition. Um, and that you know, taking
38:52
Speaker 1: a trail name is a really good way to just
38:54
Speaker 1: become somebody different for a little while, or not your
38:57
Speaker 1: usual self. It gives you that kind of freedom. I think. Yeah,
39:00
Speaker 1: I just don't don't use the trail named Ted Bundy
39:03
Speaker 1: and you should be fine. Right. Um, you mentioned the
39:07
Speaker 1: towns that are behind this. There is in Damascus, Virginia
39:11
Speaker 1: in May there's a weeklong festival called Trail Days where
39:15
Speaker 1: there's a hiker parade and everyone gets showered with water
39:18
Speaker 1: balloons and water guns and they're sort of celebrated. Uh.
39:22
Speaker 1: There's the half gallon ice Cream Challenge or write a
39:26
Speaker 1: passage in pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, where
39:30
Speaker 1: you get a half gallon of ice cream from pine
39:32
Speaker 1: Grove Furnace General Store and try to eat the whole thing.
39:35
Speaker 1: Not that sounds like a lot of fun to me.
39:37
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely. I don't think you have to hike
39:39
Speaker 1: that a t to try that. Also, chuck. Apparently on
39:43
Speaker 1: the summer solstice in June, Um, there's Hike Naked Day
39:47
Speaker 1: for that is that is the thing, and my my
39:49
Speaker 1: friend Mitch told me that he hiked most of it naked,
39:52
Speaker 1: not just on high on hike naked day, Like, there's
39:55
Speaker 1: a lot of naked hiking, or at least there used
39:57
Speaker 1: to be in the late nineties. Okay, good from Yeah,
40:00
Speaker 1: that's what I said to and this is medium uh hygiene, Mitch, right,
40:05
Speaker 1: not any much? Okay, No one wants to see that
40:09
Speaker 1: I mentioned trail magic. That is not something I was
40:11
Speaker 1: just making fun of or made up. Trail magic is
40:15
Speaker 1: defined by the A T Conservancy as uh, I think it.
40:20
Speaker 1: People could be cynical about stuff like this, But the
40:23
Speaker 1: fact that you had to say that too is that
40:25
Speaker 1: it just goes to show how lame the words trail
40:27
Speaker 1: magic har you know. Uh. The A T Conservancy defines it,
40:33
Speaker 1: and it's finding what you need most when you at
40:34
Speaker 1: least expected, or experiencing something rare, extraordinary or inspiring in nature,
40:39
Speaker 1: or encountering unexpected acts of generosity that restore your faith
40:44
Speaker 1: and humanity. And it is something like, hey, man, you
40:48
Speaker 1: need you need that, I've got that, and here it is. Yeah,
40:51
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. It also can take the form of
40:53
Speaker 1: even like verbal encouragement from townsfolk in the towns that
40:57
Speaker 1: you walk through, you know, so I want to also
41:00
Speaker 1: clarify the term trail magic is what I think is lame.
41:04
Speaker 1: That concept of trail mangic, I think is beautiful. No,
41:07
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I think it's wonderful and like you said,
41:09
Speaker 1: you know, something inspiring in nature. When you're on the trail,
41:12
Speaker 1: you might see things that you're never ever going to
41:14
Speaker 1: see again for the rest of your life and have
41:16
Speaker 1: never seen before, including some types of animals or just
41:20
Speaker 1: certain views um and that like that experience can be
41:26
Speaker 1: there's no other way to put it. Magical. Like that's
41:28
Speaker 1: what helps helps you when you're kind of on this
41:31
Speaker 1: passage through the a t if you're going through life
41:34
Speaker 1: transition or if you're trying to figure yourself out, seeing
41:37
Speaker 1: stuff like that, bearing witness to it and letting it
41:39
Speaker 1: like um, impress upon you. That helps that process I
41:44
Speaker 1: think probably tremendously. Yeah, or like somebody filming their butt
41:48
Speaker 1: hole with an iPhone. That's right, trail magic. All right.
41:52
Speaker 1: I think we should close the show and this episode
41:57
Speaker 1: with uh. I think I can speak for both of
42:00
Speaker 1: us and say one of our new favorite amazing women
42:05
Speaker 1: and human beings to ever live u Emma Grandma Gatewood
42:09
Speaker 1: true dat, who was the first woman to walk the
42:12
Speaker 1: A T by herself, um, all the way back in
42:14
Speaker 1: nineteen five when she was sixty seven, and this is
42:19
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, sixty seven, that's like hundred and fifty today, right,
42:24
Speaker 1: And as if that wasn't enough, it just gets better
42:27
Speaker 1: and better. She was the mother of eleven kids twenty
42:30
Speaker 1: three grandkids, had a thirty year marriage to an awful, abusive,
42:36
Speaker 1: physically abusive husband who apparently would beat her nearly to
42:40
Speaker 1: death at times. Eventually divorced this uh garbage human, raised
42:46
Speaker 1: those eleven children by herself, and then in the nineteen
42:50
Speaker 1: fifties read a nat GEO article about the A T
42:54
Speaker 1: and about Schaefer's through hike, and said in in nineteen
42:58
Speaker 1: fifty three, told her grandchildren, I'm sorry her grown children
43:03
Speaker 1: that she was going for a hike quote, and tried
43:06
Speaker 1: to hike the A T right then and there, starting
43:10
Speaker 1: at Mount Katadin, which again, if you if you're a sobo,
43:14
Speaker 1: you're that's for experience hikers, not first timer who's going
43:18
Speaker 1: for a hike at age sixty seven and nineteen fifty five,
43:22
Speaker 1: so uh and apparently very short order she fell she
43:26
Speaker 1: broke her glasses, she got lost. She basically turned into
43:29
Speaker 1: Veloma from Scooby Doo and she was rescued by rangers.
43:33
Speaker 1: And you would think, okay, that's the end of the
43:35
Speaker 1: story that she you know, she had a wild hair
43:36
Speaker 1: and she tried it and it didn't work. No, in
43:40
Speaker 1: two years later she said, let me try this from
43:42
Speaker 1: Georgia instead, and she was able to through hike the
43:45
Speaker 1: entire Appalachian Trail. Unbelievable. You look up pictures of this
43:50
Speaker 1: lady and you're like, wait a minute, it looks like
43:54
Speaker 1: she's just holding a ruck sack over her shoulder. And
43:57
Speaker 1: that's because that's exactly what she did. She didn't have
44:00
Speaker 1: a backpack, she didn't have a sleeping bag, she didn't
44:03
Speaker 1: have a compass. She had a homemade denim duffel bag
44:06
Speaker 1: that she draped over her shoulder, that had a blanket,
44:10
Speaker 1: a shower curtain that she used as a sleeping tart. Basically,
44:15
Speaker 1: she had a canteen for water apparently, a small pot,
44:19
Speaker 1: a spoon, a Swiss army knife, some pins, a first
44:22
Speaker 1: aid kit, a flashlight, a piece of rope, a raincoat,
44:25
Speaker 1: a warmer coat, and a change of clothes. And she
44:28
Speaker 1: hiked the whole thing and kids sneakers, yes, seven pairs.
44:33
Speaker 1: Did kids take advantage of this back then and they're
44:35
Speaker 1: advertising I don't know. They could probably still take advantage
44:38
Speaker 1: of it. It's that astounding, you know they should. And
44:41
Speaker 1: despite wearing nothing but kids and carrying this denim duffel bag,
44:45
Speaker 1: which I would guess is probably pretty heavy. Um, she
44:49
Speaker 1: managed the average of fourteen miles a day, and of
44:52
Speaker 1: course people heard about her in the newspaper started covering
44:55
Speaker 1: her and all that. So townsfolk came out and said like, hey,
44:59
Speaker 1: you can sleep our house, no charge. We want to
45:01
Speaker 1: feed Jim, put you up. We just think what you're
45:03
Speaker 1: doing is great. And she said, I appreciate it. But
45:06
Speaker 1: most nights she slept out on a bed of leaves. Amazing.
45:10
Speaker 1: I salute you, Grandma Gatewood. She U. There were not
45:14
Speaker 1: many women obviously hiking the a T at the time
45:17
Speaker 1: at all, much less through hiking. I think they make
45:20
Speaker 1: up women make up about a third of all through
45:22
Speaker 1: hikers today. Uh. And she went on to hike it
45:26
Speaker 1: I think a couple of more times to write. Yeah.
45:28
Speaker 1: Two years later she hiked it again. So she became
45:31
Speaker 1: the first person man or woman to hike the trail twice,
45:35
Speaker 1: and she did a third time in nineteen sixty four.
45:38
Speaker 1: At that time she divided into sections, So yeah, she
45:41
Speaker 1: was definitely she definitely Again, there's really no other way
45:44
Speaker 1: to put it. She was a trailblazer for women on
45:47
Speaker 1: the a T. Sorry, but that's just how you put it.
45:51
Speaker 1: A couple of other standouts we should mention um. Just
45:56
Speaker 1: last year m J. Sunny Everhart Uh became the oldest
46:01
Speaker 1: person to complete it through hiking eighty three years young.
46:05
Speaker 1: What was Sonny's name on the trail Nimblewood nomad. Very nice,
46:10
Speaker 1: but how about that kid trail magic to it? It does. Yeah.
46:14
Speaker 1: The same year, another record was set the youngest through hiker,
46:18
Speaker 1: UH five year old named Harvey Sutton, who started off
46:20
Speaker 1: when he was four and walked it in two d
46:23
Speaker 1: nine days with his parents. Unbelievable. Harvey's trail name was
46:28
Speaker 1: little Man And I read article about this and it
46:31
Speaker 1: just sounds sounded like a wonderful family experience. Uh. And
46:34
Speaker 1: this one guy hiked with the family from somewhere in
46:37
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania through two Maine just kind of buddied up with
46:40
Speaker 1: him and it was like this kid at the end
46:43
Speaker 1: of the day, like our butts are kicked and he's like,
46:46
Speaker 1: let's play freeze tag. Oh my god, unbelievable and and
46:50
Speaker 1: just you know, the parents had to work over time
46:52
Speaker 1: to keep him engaged. And so you can't just like
46:55
Speaker 1: be alone with your thoughts for you know, ten hours
46:57
Speaker 1: a day on the trail with a five year old,
46:59
Speaker 1: like you gotta be pointing things out and playing little games.
47:03
Speaker 1: And so they said that was challenging. But they said
47:05
Speaker 1: they were just closer than they'd ever been as a family,
47:08
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. That it's cool. Did they say
47:10
Speaker 1: anything about feeding him? Because I would find it distressing
47:12
Speaker 1: as a parent to know that I needed to keep
47:15
Speaker 1: up with thousands of calories. Yeah, that my kid needed.
47:18
Speaker 1: So I mean hats off to his parents for for
47:21
Speaker 1: doing that and then successfully doing it too. You know. Yeah,
47:24
Speaker 1: I did see that there was um another kid that
47:28
Speaker 1: finished it for named Juniper net Netteberg, a young girl
47:34
Speaker 1: that finished it. This is amazing and a wonder woman costume. Um.
47:38
Speaker 1: But apparently he did it in sections and took time
47:42
Speaker 1: off and I think did it within a year's time,
47:44
Speaker 1: but didn't do this straight through hike like Harvey Sutton did.
47:47
Speaker 1: But big salute to Juniper as well as well as
47:51
Speaker 1: Bill Irwin. Right, yeah, he definitely bears mentioning. He was
47:55
Speaker 1: the first man who was blind to hike the Appalitchian
47:58
Speaker 1: Trail through hike In and he did it with his
48:02
Speaker 1: dog Orient. Apparently the pair together we're called the Orient Express,
48:07
Speaker 1: and it took him eight months. Again, this is not
48:11
Speaker 1: like this trail is not just like some well worn
48:13
Speaker 1: dirt path. For two thousand miles. You're climbing over boulders,
48:17
Speaker 1: you're climbing up mountains, down mountains, You're crossing streams and rivers.
48:22
Speaker 1: Apparently they would do that because Orient would go across
48:25
Speaker 1: and then bark at Bill, so he knew where to
48:28
Speaker 1: swim across this river. He gets to the other side.
48:31
Speaker 1: This is what they did, and they did it in
48:33
Speaker 1: eight months, and he estimates that he fell about five
48:36
Speaker 1: thousand times over that eight months. But he still made
48:39
Speaker 1: it from Georgia to Cadadin. You know what that means,
48:41
Speaker 1: my friend, he got up five thousand times. That's right,
48:45
Speaker 1: pretty neat chucking your brain? Do you love my body? Sure, Starfish.
48:52
Speaker 1: I don't know why this episode is so blue. I
48:55
Speaker 1: don't either, but it sure was. Hopefully it inspired some
48:58
Speaker 1: people to go out and do this, you know, I hope.
49:01
Speaker 1: So it's a very cool thing. I'm glad we finally
49:03
Speaker 1: got around to it. Hopefully there's some through hikers listing
49:06
Speaker 1: right now that can write in and let us know
49:08
Speaker 1: what's going on. Oh yeah, definitely. Uh, let us know
49:11
Speaker 1: your trail name too. If you want to know more
49:13
Speaker 1: about the a T. Just start doing research and there's
49:16
Speaker 1: plenty of stuff out there and hopefully it'll draw you
49:18
Speaker 1: out into the woods. And since I said draw you
49:20
Speaker 1: out into the woods, it's time for listener mail. I'm
49:25
Speaker 1: gonna call this kidney donation story. It's pretty great. Hello, chaps,
49:29
Speaker 1: love the program. Listen with more interest than usual to
49:32
Speaker 1: the on kidney donation. I donated to a family friend
49:35
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. We actually were in adjoining
49:38
Speaker 1: surgery rooms. Out of me into him, lickety split. We're
49:42
Speaker 1: both doing well. His kids nicknamed the organ little Kirby
49:46
Speaker 1: after me, which I took as a high compliment. Uh,
49:49
Speaker 1: and you asked how you got the kidney out. They
49:51
Speaker 1: do make a three inch long incision low on the
49:53
Speaker 1: bikini line up front and they just split it out. Wow,
49:58
Speaker 1: So I think it it must just sort of flatten
49:59
Speaker 1: out or something, and then they take it and they
50:02
Speaker 1: feed it to the other person and hope it lands
50:05
Speaker 1: in the right spot. Uh. That incision was actually the
50:08
Speaker 1: worst part of the recovery. It took about a month
50:09
Speaker 1: to heal up. In my case, I told my sisters
50:12
Speaker 1: that they then made you poop the kidney out, and
50:14
Speaker 1: I think part of them wanted to believe me. Thanks
50:17
Speaker 1: for encouraging folks to join. The registry is well worth
50:20
Speaker 1: it and the need is great. That is from Kirby
50:24
Speaker 1: in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Very nice, Kirby. Hats off to
50:28
Speaker 1: you for doing that. It's amazing, and hats off to
50:31
Speaker 1: everybody who's done that. A few people have written in
50:33
Speaker 1: and let us known that they've done that. So anyone
50:36
Speaker 1: who does that, is it a okay in our book? Agreed.
50:40
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Kirby and let us
50:42
Speaker 1: know how you are a okay we want to hear,
50:44
Speaker 1: you can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
50:47
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
50:52
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
50:56
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
50:59
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows, h