shakedown hike
Three Things I Did Right
I did a lot of things wrong on my PCT thru-hike, but at least three I got right. One I knew would be important from the start, one quickly became...
Thru-Hike or Shakedown Hike?
Thru-hike starts. Let me tell you about my first attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, which became a shakedown hike. The day was cool, air crisp with clouds in the...
Shaking It Down in AT Prep Town: Part Three
Finally, the third and last chapter in my blog mini-series about our shakedown hikes over the past year or so!
The AT Lead-up: Shakedowns, Saving Money, and Slaying Trolls
The lead-up to my Appalachian Trail departure is getting real, folks. There's less than three months to go until my date with destiny at Amicalola on March 10. There's...
Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Lessons Learned Alone in the Grand Canyon
As a child, I had a picture book chronicling the adventures of Donald Duck and his three nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, on a camping trip in the woods. The...
Learning by Doing in the Big Ditch: A Solo Trek of the Escalante Route
The Grand Canyon is the type of place that you can't understand or appreciate from a single vantage point. In photos, it looks so vast that it's difficult to have...
My First Back Packing Trip – The Plan and the Gear
WHO: I am going on this trip with some members of Boston's AMC chapter as a part of their Spring Hiking Program. There are 9 people in our group, including the...
Learning the Hard Way (Lessons from another not-so-successful shakedown hike)
Here in Maryland near South Mountain, we live in a little pocket of uncertain weather. Check half a dozen forecasts on any given day, and you'll get six wildly disparate...
Shakin’ It Down in Illinois
I know, I know, everyone else is posting about their awesome shakedown hikes, but stick with me here. My brother and I were supposed to have done our shakedown hike...