Preparing for the AT

Logistics, mental prep, physical training, and figuring out what to wear.

I wake up at 7am with the sunlight brightening my windows. I pick up my phone (terrible habit) and open TheTrek.co to read Peg Leg’s blog. Oh my God, I just know that her perspective on a 30mile day on the AT is not what my experience will be like as a beginner. Wow! She is really an incredible person and hiker, but I have to check myself mentally to remind myself that I am not her, she is not me, and I will be ok with starting the AT in a few weeks with the plan of easing into things with some 8 mile days.

I decide I better get up. My room is a mess because I’ve started going through everything I own to sort it for donation or trash, and the rest is going into boxes, soon to be packed away into a storage unit for 6 months to stay safe while I hike the AT.

Not a lot of people talk about the logistics of how they get to the trail, and what they do with their life that was normal before the trail. Maybe because once they’re out there, they don’t want to think about it.

Probably they also don’t talk about it on this website since the theme is thruhiking…

Well, I’m still here in my “matrix life” at Trey Free calls it in his book Pushing North, so I’m thinking about it. And to me it’s relevant to my thruhike, so now it’s on this website.

Where do you “live” while thruhiking?

By the numbers, a lot of hikers of the AT are college aged, which likely means they have minimal furniture, can still live with their parents, or are don’t have stuff to begin with. This is definitely an advantage to the necessary part of thruhiking (logistically and mentally) leave it all behind.

Another common demographic of Thruhikers on the AT are retirees. I am making some big assumptions in my thinking here, but I would assume that these people have money enough and home enough to leave their things at home as-is and live off their fixed income of retirement while on the trail (let’s hope we get to experience that too, eh gen X, millennials, and gen z!).

So what about the most common age of AT Thruhikers last year, my age, and Peg Leg’s age of 28?

My guess, from my own experiences, is that many of us, who are actually quite commonly engineers and other professionals with career type jobs, (according to the 2024 hiker survey by TheTrek.co) may be at a point some years after college where we have worked in the “matrix world”, experiences what it had to offer, were maybe a bit disappointed, and finally had savings enough to do something different for 6 months.

Maybe as an escape, maybe as a way to reset, maybe to use as a transitional period between a big move, a relationship change, a career change. We’re all trying to find ourselves out on that trail in one way or another. Testing our endurance of mind, body, and spirit. Trying to prove ourselves.

So where do we put our stuff that we’ve accumulated over the last 6+ years of living on our own outside of college??

For me, I’m putting my apartment in a storage unit. It’s just the best option for now, and it adds a fun layer of stress and anxiety to my final days in my “normal life” before changing it up completely.

I’ve noticed that preparing mentally and physically for the trail has already made me a bit more of a minimalist, and I am shocked (as I am every time I move) at the amount of trash that accumulated just by living in a place. Things that once were cute, important – or at least seemed that way – squirreled away into a drawer or left on a shelf for months or years only to be found and thrown out later.

Mental Prep

Speaking of clearing out the junk…

Have y’all heard of meditation?

Apparently this is something that is gaining popularity among us burnt out, fed up Americans (speaking from an American perspective), where we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.

This is also something that is advocated for by both of the men whose books I read in preparation for my hike: Appalachian Trials by Zach Davis (the founder of the website you’re reading this on), and Pushing North by Trey Free.

Apparently (read with some amount of irony here), walking 2200 miles in 6 months across the country isn’t as easy as it sounds!

So what helps? Well, number 1: stop comparing yourself to other people (especially amazing incredible and absolutely outrageous hikers like PegLeg and Tara Dower). Look up to people, read their blogs, support their amazing missions, and use their stories as inspiration. But don’t try to be them. Especially when you’re new to thruhiking.

Number 2: meditate.

Apparently, (and I say it like this because I am new to this and am simply saying what others have said so far) meditation is like cleaning out your house before a move.

It is, very simply, letting yourself be still, be quiet, and be at peace with who you are and where you are.

Honestly, to me, it sounds almost impossible.

How can I be still when I have so much to do! Or so much to read, or so much to pack, or so much to clean up after I burnt my dinner last night while trying to pack books into boxes on the other side of my house and now my kitchen smells like smoke ??

Ok, so this is the point where you breathe.

I really appreciated that both of the men whose books I read spent the time they did talking about how important breathing is. (“No sh*t, Sherlock” is how you might be feeling, but hold on.)

Breathing is one of the only parts of our standard operating systems that is unintentional, and intentional. When we don’t think about it, we do it. When we think about it, we realize we have a little more control than we thought.

The whole idea is to take control of what we can, and release what we can’t. This may sound familiar if you have any spiritual inclinations or have heard the Serenity Prayer before.

No matter your experiences or your opinion of meditation, it is supposed to help, in your “normal” life, or on the trail, or while frantically running back and forth across your house cleaning and saving your burnt dinner because your ADHD brain forgot there was a reason you’re still hungry.

So anyway, I started breathing

Next step, physical prep.

How do you train to Thruhike? You Thruhike.

At least that’s what I’ve been told, and I’m inclined to believe those who have gone before me when they share their wisdom and experiences.

So I have my gear, I have a system, and I have a bottle of water and a bag full of food. At this point I don’t know exactly how much it all weighs, as I’ve messed around with what’s what and where it sits on my body, but I know it’s “not so bad” for about an hour, then after that it starts to feel a bit heavy.

I’m lucky enough to live in a neighborhood with hills, so for me the physical preparation is just loading up my pack, strapping in, and walking down my stairs, up the hill, up to a nice view of my city, then back down.

It’s nice, but it’s still freezing cold here in February!!

As I do my urban hikes to train my legs and back and feet and shoulders and core (it really is a full body workout), I think about my next issue.

What to wear on the AT?

Like I’ve said, I’m a noob.

I like day hiking, and I have taken a few nights out with my gear – in the fall mind you, when the weather was liveable at night in my mid-temperature-range-gear. But I have no idea what the weather will be like on the AT when I start in a few weeks. No one knows. That’s how the weather works.

But I know that right now, according to PegLeg’s blog, there is ice on the trail, it’s hella cold, and she is only staying warm on the uphills!

Now, I probably have significantly more body fat than PL at the moment, since I’m not hiking 30miles a day yet…. So maybe I’ll be a tad warmer. But at this point I’m just hopin’ and prayin’ the air will be a bit warmer when March comes.

For now, I am able to stay “warm enough” on my urban hikes in freezing weather in my city with my base layers, hiking pants, socks and sandals (!!), puffy jacket, and warm hat.

Will I be buying another layer at Mountain Crossings after 3 days on the trail? Maybe so!

Will I be sending home my puffy jacket? No!!

Anyway…

Welcome to my twisted mind 🤪

I have a lot to think about before the trail even begins, and thankfully I have this blogosphere to do some thinking aloud on, and maybe I’ll even get some feedback from the community of those who know more than me.