The featured image is the sun rising, not setting, over Jo-Mary Pond. The sun is always rising somewhere.

I am an engineer by education and profession and therefore it goes without saying that I like spreadsheets. One of my daughter-in-laws is a spreadsheet pro, I wish I had asked her to improve my spreadsheet before we left. Most of you probably don’t care about miles per day, so even though the title has stats first, they are last in this post.

Reflections

Deadline

My wife, Meriwether, is a teacher. She was granted an unpaid leave for the last part of the 2023/24 school year but was required to be back by 12 Aug 2024. Meriwether’s career provides us with excellent health insurance which is something we do not want to sacrifice at this point in time. She is also an excellent teacher and loves (the teaching part of) her job so she doesn’t really want to retire at this point.

The requirement to be back by 12 Aug 2024 gave us exactly 143 days to complete the hike. While we completed the hike in 138 days, I would NOT recommend a through hike with this tight of a deadline. If you must have a deadline, give yourself 6 months, not 20 weeks.

At times I felt we were racing to finish. We skipped many blue blazed paths to views. I never swam in a Maine lake or in any of the many creek swimming holes that we passed. I never took a nap; I especially wanted to fall asleep unexpectedly at a shelter where we stopped just for a break. We never took a zero at a shelter or in the tent just to wait for a rainy day to pass.

Having said this, we had many, many exceptional times. We were lucky enough to stay in two AMC huts as guests, on beautiful weekends, with no reservations. Mt Washington was cool, clear, and 0 MPH winds. We became fast friends with several through hikers and many section hikers. Katahdin was cool, clear, and 0 MPH winds. We found ramps with Ready, climbed down a waterfall with Fin, and shared a shelter with 4 Mennonite women; just thinking about those makes me teary. We had eggs benedict at the Maine Roadhouse, were the first hikers this year to stay at Old Colony Ski Club, and got our clothes washed twice by Ruthie at the Bethel Village Motel. New friends entered our lives when we needed them most and left when we were prepared to go alone. Outside of my marriage and watching my exceptional children grow, this was the best experience of my life. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity.

Favorites

My favorite part of the trip was the 100 mile wilderness in Maine. Tall granite mountains, lakes everywhere, dense pine forest. The convergence of experienced NoBo hikers and eager SoBo hikers. The pull of Katahdin. The welcome from Donald Duck. The anticipation at Shaw’s. The entire trip is embodied in the 100 mile wilderness. The trail was difficult in parts, it was easy in others, the weather was mostly great, but it did rain a bit (actually pretty hard at times), there were steep sections and flat sections. We met new people and ran into old friends. It is a long section with the best options for beds, resupply, and showers at either end.

My favorite experience of the trip was the people. On this trip I learned that people are exceptional. I also learned how to ask for help. Nobody said “no”, everybody came through. In order for this learning to take place, I had to be beaten down. I had to be tired, worn out, exhausted, on the edge of breaking. In my most difficult moment I said out loud “I am not in a good place, will you hike with us for a few days?” The response, “I know exactly what you are going through, it would be my pleasure to help.” People are great.

Gear

I was most impressed by the hikers that used whatever they could find at home, they also seemed to be the most satisfied with their gear. If you are in this category, skip the next few paragraphs.

Snow Peak 750 ml Titanium pot – I have had this pot for a long time. It is the one that has the extruding lip on the lid that can be used to hang the lid on the side of the pot. I only ever used that feature to demonstrate to others the purpose of the extruding lip. Most of the time, however, that lip caused me concern. What is it going to poke a hole in? I spent a lot of time making sure it was oriented just right so as not to poke a hole in my food bag, then into my tent or quilt. I got lucky, no holes. The issue is that I have had this concern for almost as long as I have owned the pot, I should have replaced it well before we left.

Rain gear – my rain gear is great as far as keeping the rain off me goes. It is also heavy. I could only wear it when it was pretty chilly outside or when I was pretty cold from being wet. Most of the time it lived in the front pocket of my pack. I should have replaced it with something much lighter, carrying heavy gear that does not get used is not the smartest thing to do.

Quilt – I love my quilt. It is a Katabatic Gear Flex 22 and, after a good washing, will go with me on most future trips. From McAfee Knob to Katahdin (Mar 22 – Jul 1) it served me very well. From Springer back to McAfee Knob, however, it got pushed way to the bottom of the tent every night. The Flex 22 is pretty light, but I think I could have gotten an inexpensive 40+ degree quilt that weighed half as much and actually got used some in the Southern states.

Darn Tough Socks – I love the run, no show tab, ultra lightweight version. They fit my feet great, dry super fast, and never allowed any blisters. They also got very holey after two weeks. I tried two pairs, one that I started with and another that I purchased a few hundred miles into the trip. Both pairs failed the exact same way, holes everywhere. I replaced the second pair with the cushioned version. I had already tried the SmartWool run sock with cushioning and it was working. The SmartWool pair were black and left too many black threads under my toenails. My toenails looked bad enough already. The cushioned Darn Tough (and SmartWool) did NOT dry fast and would frequently get folds in the fabric under my feet, both of these issues really bothered me.

Backpack – I saved some money on my backpack, the ULA Circuit, by not upgrading the top strap to the Y strap. Don’t save money on your backpack by skimping on features that will make your life easier. My backpack also never let me down and it doesn’t have any scrapes or holes. Once it is washed it will probably look brand new.

Mid Layer – I might have been one of the very last people to be able to purchase the Appalachian Gear Company Alpaca hoodie. This was my favorite piece of clothing. It got worn just about every day and night for the first couple months of our trip. It is also the only piece of clothing I had that NEVER got washed, NEVER felt sticky, and NEVER smelled bad. It still smells exactly the same as the day it arrived and still has not been washed. I’m looking forward to cooler weather so I can start wearing it again.

Favorites – ULA Circuit and Katabatic Gear Flex 22 are my two favorite pieces of gear. I am likely to purchase a smaller ULA pack for future weekend trips now that I really know what I need to carry.

Statistics

• 138 days (22 March – 06 August)
  • 3 Zeros
    • 01 April – Waynesboro, VA
    • 23 June – Shaw’s Hiker Hostel
    • 02 July – Flight from Bangor to Atlanta
• 15.9 miles per day (2197.4 / 138)
  • 3 Zeros
  • 21 Days less than 10 miles (Nero)
    • average: 7.1
    • shortest: 2.9 – New Hampshire – Ethan Pond Shelter to Rt 302, we could have done this the day before but were unsure of the terrain. This short day provided a great opportunity for rest before tackling the Presidentials.
  • 79 Days between 10 and 20 miles
    • average: 15.9
  • 35 Days more than 20 miles
    • average: 22.9
    • longest: 28.3 – NC/TN/Smoky’s – Mt Collins Shelter to Cosby Knob Shelter – The Smoky’s are beautiful, but Meriwether likes neither staying in shelters nor conflict with park rangers. We tent camped most frequently in the Smoky’s and the one ranger we met was very understanding.
• 137 Nights on trail
  • 64 Nights in a tent
  • 32 Nights in a shelter
  • 41 Nights in a bed – our initial plan was once every 10 days or about 13 total nights in a bed. I was surprised at how high this number was.
• McAfee to Katahdin – 14.6 miles per day
• Springer to McAfee – 20.3 miles per day