12 days!!

It's so hard to believe that after almost a year and a half of planning I'm leaving in 12 short days. My last day of work is on Monday!

All of my food for the first week is packed up, I just need to mail half of it to myself sometime next week.

I need to set up automatic billing for my car payments. As well as replacing a tire.

I've decided I'm going to bring my phone after all. Everything I read talks about how few payphones there are anymore. So I guess I'll be finding somewhere to charge it while I resupply.

From here on in its just minor details and waiting to leave. Can't wait to start! I hope I get good weather the first few days!

I'm also trying to publish this from an app on ny phone. So if it works I'll be able to update as well as sending my journal home to be posted.

getting there...

I've made my travel arrangements. Everything is set. My bus leaves from Orlando the morning of Feb. 28th and the hiker hostel will be picking me up when it arrives in Atlanta. I'll spend the night there, then they'll drop me off at the start of the approach trail the next morning. Officially starting my hike on Feb. 29th.

I realized that I have a zero degree sleeping bag, so I need to get a compression bag for that because with my early start date I can expect some cold weather.

I upgraded my backpack, I finally gave in and got a Golite Jam (it was on clearance for the end of the year, and thats pretty much the only reason other than it is only 1 lb 14 oz). Everything fits into it, and it's  really comfortable despite the fact that its a frameless pack.

I just got some insurance papers in the mail - I need to call them tomorrow and lower my coverage so that I'm not paying crazy amounts of money while I'm gone.

I'll post more when I have more to update, but that's all for now.

lighten up!

I've been doing a few things in order to lighten my pack weight. I haven't turned into a full-on gram weenie, but there were some pretty easy ways to cut weight. 

First off, my cookset needed to go. I gave up the Soloist for a grease pot from k-mart with a windscreen made out of an oven liner and a pop can stove using bent hangers as a pot stand. Everything fits inside of itself so it's very packable. The best part is that everything in my kitchen (including a lighter) is only 5.24 oz. that's pretty good in my book.

I've also decided to ditch my tent. After reading everything I can find about them, I made up my mind on an 8x10 Outdoor Equipment Supplier silnylon tarp. weighing in at right around 16 oz. 

This was the first time I've pitched a tarp in my life, and I didn't have the guy lines attached so it wasn't as taut as possible. I want to add an extra tie out loop to the center of the long side so that I can set it up in the half pyramid like in the picture but wider. 

I really need to get some tyvek for a groundcloth and something to use as the guy lines. 

getting closer...

Since my last post I've decided to push my start date up a day and officially start the trail on Feb 29th, 2012. Just because I can, and it's a leap year. 

Thanks to an awesome website called The Clymb, I got a killer deal on an awesome multipurpose watch. I bought a Highgear Altiforce; it has an altimeter, barometer, and compass, on top of all of the typical watch type stuff like alarm clock and whatnot.

I keep watching it while I walk up the stairs at my house and at work to watch the altitude change. Looking forward to trying it on a real mountain. I'm a huge nerd. 

The barometer will be handy in helping to tell what the weather is going to do, and the compass will be the only one that I'm bringing. 

Physical preparations - I know that I haven't talked much about this other than my shakedown, so.... - I've taken up running to get ready for the tough mudder that I'm running next month. It's basically a 10 mile military style obstacle course race to raise money for the wounded warrior project. It's not the running that I'm concerned about in that race, it's everything else. Those types of obstacles really can wear you out. I ran the warrior dash last year and it was a good time, but too short at only 5k.

I've also been playing hockey for over a year now, so I think my legs are in decent shape. I'm sure the AT will have something else to say about that. 

Budget - I'm PLANNING on spending around $2,500 on the trail, however I'm saving a little over $6500 to cover everything that I need to take care of before I leave, and to allow extra money when I'm gone. 

I Got My Boots

At first I was going to avoid boots and go with something more like a trail runner, but a little extra support never hurt, and they are pretty light. Not to mention how comfortable the are. A new Dicks Sporting Goods opened up in my area so they had some pretty good grand opening sales going on so overall they were pretty well priced. 

Im going to Bill Jackson's later to see about getting a new spoon and maybe look for supplies to make that tarptent. Im still not 100% sure I want to try to do it, but it would be very nice to shed that weight. The downfalls in protection from the weather makes me more nervous than anything else. 

I have all of my resupply stops up till New Hampshire planned out, or at least all of my options planned out. I can always skip the ones I feel like I don't really need.  

I need a new spork

I melted my spork on my shakedown hike while making some mac n cheese. whoops. looks like a good excuse to go to Bill Jacksons. There are some made out of recycled airplane parts or something like that. super light.

In the way of weight, I've been thinking about taking some Ultra Light techniques to my not really Ultra Light gear. Cutting toothbrushes in half, cutting off excess strap length on my pack, crazy things like that.

Also I'm considering building a tarptent.

Something like one of these. weighs only 18 oz, so it would save around a pound out of my pack. only costs ~$40 to make. I'm game. it uses a hiking pole to set up, so I'd also save space when I won't have to pack tent poles. Not to mention that it gives me more space than my current tent. The little things add up.

I took some time and sat down with my copy of the thru-hikers companion and looked at all my resuply options for the first 389 miles. looks interesting, nothing too intimidating, but good to know when theres a long gap between towns like the 68 miles between Hot Springs NC and Erwin TN.

So over the past little bit I've taken a few short trips and I've realized that I may ditch the whisperlite and lean more towards an alcohol stove. It would shed right around a pound, and the cost of the fuel use due to its lower efficiency isn't that much higher. I think the weight tradeoff would be well worth it.

Also, I talked to my insurance company yesterday, and they said that because I am still making payments on my car it still has to be insured. Maybe my newly 16 year old brother and sister would want to use my car and they can pay insurance on it while I'm gone. We'll see.