A Pillow Tale

I’ve been working on two aspects of training. The first one you would expect- miles on my feet with a pack.
The second one has been just as daunting , or draining. Trying to find a light weight pillow that will actually allow me to get a goods night rest. If you’ve seen me in church on a few past Sunday mornings, you’ll now realize those were aftermaths of failed attempts. I even took the sleeping outside equation out of the mix after a few failed attempts. With hubby gone for a month, sleeping on my air pad downstairs with the dogs was a good place to practice.

Attempt 1 was a highly recommended air pillow, that had no intention of staying under my head with all the poly and nylon. Along with side sleeping on it, made it feel like the earplugs were being driven into my brain. Attempt 2 was a different air pillow with hollows that looked like it would keep the ear free and clear of the pressure. I quickly ended that trial and slept in the bed that night. Next was making a pillow case to enclose the 2 air pillows together while I waited for a third purchase of a compressible pillow to arrive. Again the air pillows were counterproductive in sleeping. I found I was bringing a memory foam pillow into the tent as failure back up. 

I tried the compressible pillow, but again found it lacking any kind of support if I turned on my side. So memory foam and air pillow went into the pillow case and with the air pillow half filled, I found a nice solution. Only problem was it was close  to 1.5 pounds. You really have to think hard about carrying that much weight in a pillow for 2200 miles. If you read forums,  hikers will tell you to ball up your clothes, your puffy jacket,  and even stuff sacks to make a pillow—— if you are thru hiking you have one set of hiking clothes, one set of sleep clothes (base layer if needed) and rain gear. Do you really want  your sweaty, smelly, haven’t been washed in a few days, possibly wet clothes, right at your nose?? So the hunt was still on for a lighter weight pillow.  A Facebook hiking page suggested a blow up that had memory foam on top of it all in one. Cool. Amazon 2 day is amazing. Only thing - it might have 1/4” of memory foam. That’s when I came across Backcountry Banters YouTube videos. He makes a lot of his own gear to go light. In one of them he was making a poly filled pillow and it was in the 1-3 ounce range. Only thing was it was the size of a sheet of paper. Literally, that was his pattern. I knew I would need more and sleeping on nylon won’t cut it with contact dermatitis after chemo. I made a nylon with flannel top pillow. Stuffed it with left over poly fill and it came in at 6 ounces and is legal pad size. Ribbon ties to bind the air pillow in under it and I now have a 9.85 ounce pillow that actually lets me sleep. 

If I blow it up tight it is great for reading, then reach under and release a little air and I have a cushioned soft pillow. 

Did you ever think you would be reading about finding a pillow for thru hiking? Me either. Happy  Thanksgiving to you all. Thanks for stopping by. 

You tubers on the trail I watch.

To have a clearer picture of what I will find on the trail I have been watching YouTube videos this past year. I thought you might like to check out a few yourself. Just be careful you might get bit by the hiking bug yourself.

Evan’s Backpacking videos. I like to trail as light as he does with only tarp and bivy. He also introduced me to the idea of trying sandals to save my toenails. I really like the comfort. More on my sandals at a later time. His diet is more conducive for the long slow speed endurance. Not sure I can get everything I need in gas station and Dollar General resupplies, so mail boxes are still the plan.  Evan started on 21-22 of April and finished in Sept. Im starting Approach Trail on April 17. I would like to follow his start out plan and make it to Trail Days in Damascus, VA in 28 days. Weekend after Mother’s Day. We will just have to see how hard the mountain inclines kick on the plains girl.

Liz Kidder- she walked most of trail with Evan when her boyfriend would have to leave trail to work. There is a surprise in her videos when she reaches the finish at Mt. Katahdin. Her trail name is Handstand.

Juliana Chauncey - she is 5’1” and is awesome in the amount of trail she shows in her videos and the girl hikes - hoping to meet someone with her drive.

Homemade Wanderlust - Dixie. She had never hiked/camped out on trail until she decided to do the AT. She is the one that started this all for me. She is now a triple crowned. You can binge watch all 3 of her long trails and this fall she is on the Camino in Spain with her younger sister. She also does a lot of gear information as do the following two men—

Darwin on the trail. And Follow Bigfoot. Learn everything you need to know with these two.

Wander Women did the trail this year. Their filming of the trail is great with more scenery then selfie.

Then there is Jimmy. Interviewing  Appalachian Trail Hikers. He has done this for a few years since he supported his wife on her thru-hike. His wife had the trail name “I Believe”. I hope to meet them next Spring.

There are many others I’m learning about from the above videos and will have to check them out.
I hope that if you watch these videos it will lessen some of your fears about the trail. You still have time to train, gather gear and join me.

Consider it Pure Joy.... James 1:2-4

Appalachian Trail stats for fun

I went to a Rei page written by Zach Davis to find some quick info for you.
  The trail is approximately 2200 miles long. Each year there are modifications. 2019 had a new number of 2192, up from 2189.2. Reroutes usually add a few more miles. Don’t know the number for 2020 yet. But these do not include the approach trail 8.8 nor the 5.2 back down off Mt. Katahdin.

This equals to around 5,000,000 steps. I’m going to try and keep my Fitbit charged and recording. Are you game to do a workweek challenge with me next spring?

14 is the number of states you go through while on trail. I’ll just need South Carolina after Maine to finish the 50 states.
16 is the number of times you climb enough elevation to have summit Mount Everest. All those P.U.D.S add up- pointless ups and downs. The gain and loss is over 464,464ft or 89 miles. Thank you Zach for figuring this all out.

165 the number of days it takes an average person to complete a thru hike. I’m shooting for 130. To be considered a thru hike the trail has to be completed with in a years time. 46  and a half days was the record when article was written.

6643 highest elevation at Clingmans Dome in the Great Smokies- but there are like 4 over 6000 to go over on the way to Clingmans.
The lowest point is 134 ft above sea level. Crossing the Hudson River bridge I believe. Oh, yay, bridges. “consider it pure joy my brothers and sister when you face trials of many kinds.....”

99% of the trail has been relocated or rebuilt since ifs creation in 1937.

The volunteer hours by now is well over 250,000. Thank you volunteers. They have been rebuilding shelters, putting in large rock steps where the trail is steep and slippery, cutting the blow downs apart to clear the path. This year I heard of at least one fire that  the firefighters had to fight the blazes in the mountains and it closed a section of trail for awhile.

31 maintenance clubs serve the trail. It is unfortunate that they have to spend so many man hours cleaning up trash left on the trail, when there is a Leave no trace policy.

165,000 approximate number of white blazed.

5500 - Ha ! Number of calories required to maintain body weight during typical day of backpacking. That’s 12 Big Macs and still be at energy deficiency. Hiker hunger hits after first week or two. The article stated it’s the hikers wallet that prevents the calorie intake with in town binging.

1/2    Gallon - the amount of ice cream hikers eat at the 1/2 way point challenge at Pine Grove Furnace. This is near Carlisle, PA. Want to meet me there? No,I do not plan on taking the challenge- I think I’d go into a sugar coma with that much.

30 the average number of pounds lost by thru hikers during their journey. Some women actually gain - muscle mass over fat loss. I’ll go for that. But I’m going to enjoy the holidays. Hint, hint, nod, nod, say no more.

$((((((.   Oh that was suppose to tell you the average amount spent during the course of the thru-hike. Shhhhhh🤫 we won’t go into that right now. But I did sale the car and the “End of the Trail” and the Hexie Dancer to cover most of this. I have some quilts for sale if you need a gift for someone.

4-5 the number of shoes a hiker goes through. Most wear trail runners with Altra Lone peak being a major choice. I’m going with Teva sandals Terra, waterproof socks, darn tough socks on dry days and injinji toe sock liners. My orthotics fit snug between the socks and waterproof outer ones. My long toes don’t have to take a daily beating.  You are so glad to know that aren’t you.? That was too much information.

4 the average number of miles between road crossings on the trail.

The number of hikers in 21 century from 20th century is a whopping 78%.
87% attempt the NOBO northbound route from Springer.

262 number of shelters. Average one every 8 miles. These usually have water nearby and a privy. But are know for the easy spread of norovirus, mice , and loud snorers.

25 - percentage of female 2000 milers, and it is on the rise. This article was a couple of years old.
To top it off there have actually been yo-yo hikers. To hike one direction then turn around and go the opposite direction and finish in a years time. That’s 2 thru hikes in one year. You can call me crazy, but I’m not that crazy. Yet.

Last but not least 1-4 thru hikers finish.

The big 3 on gear list

The big three items on your hiking gear list is your shelter - tent, sleeping items - pad/quilt or bag and what backpack will hold all of your gear.

The first item I started with was the back pack. This started March and April. Before that I had purchased the AT guide book, started changing all the elevation markings to treadmill incline numbers . My plan was to hike the AT on the treadmill as training since at that time of year Tony was saying it would be 2022 before a hike would be doable. It was in the too hard box. Tony dubbed my workout “ Hiking the Appalachian Trail without breaking a nail”. Later in the month he bought me an early birthday present at Cabelas. A backpack.  I had been using one of the boys old Boy Scout packs and couldn’t cinch it up around the waist to make it sit on my hips, plus it weighed like 5 pounds by itself. At Cabelas a 3-4 pound pack is a good buy. I hadn’t fully started researching the ultralight gear companies. I still use this pack for training, it’s holding 40#s nicely.
The more I watched YouTube videos of thru hikers and searched gear, the more I wanted to do the trail in 2020. For a while it was one week on trail in PA. Then I tried to finagle a month out of the plans to do Virginia line through West Virginia/Maryland and into PA. I’m not sure when it happened but Tony asked if I really wanted to try the whole thing. Yes!!!. I’m pulled to do it.
Didn’t take long for me to research more on gear to know I really didn’t want a 4# pack on a thru hike. I now will carry a Gossamer Gear Mariposa 60L . 2.08#

Item two was the tent. By now I new it needed to be ultralight. I started with a Lanshan UL 2.

A knock up of the more expensive higher quality Cuban fiber tent made by ZPack. I tried this tent out for about five nights (some in a row) in the backyard. I finally had to call it quits. If you are tall you will know how frustrating it can be to sleep in a bed with a headboard and footboard that doesn’t  allow you to stretch out. It’s for sale with the tyvek, and extra poles to help hold sides out to give more space. I’d say 5’9” is as tall as you want to be. It’s 88”s in length.
I went searching and posting questions on FB until I heard about lighthearted gear having a tent with 100”s in length. Yay!

Mine is gray on top and plum on bottom. 

Sad thing to note, I asked where I could sale my old tent on a special 2920  thru hiker page on FB and the algorithms on FB made the page look like I was selling the tent On that group page . The one group I really wanted to be apart,  so I can meet people before the trail, and I got band from the page. Oh well.  My tent weighs in with stakes, arrow, and ground cloth. 3.07# oh, yes, in the previous post picture you will see an arrow by the tent. Why spend 30$ to buy a carbon pole to raise the vestibule when a broken knocked arrow has been hanging around the back yard for years With nothing to do.

Item 3 sleeping bag and pad. I really wanted to save money on the bag so I made a quilt from a kit a company that sales ripstop nylon had available. I knew I would have to test it’s limits and found those last Friday night. I have since ordered the Enlightened Equipment Revelation with collar.

It is a 22.25  oz. treated down quilt with foot box that can be opened. My previous quilt was 2 1/2 pounds. This will be helpful for I’m going heavy in the air mattress part. A Nemo tensor insulated long and wide mattress

. It is heavenly. Comfortable for side sleeping and doesn’t sound like crunching chips when you turn over.  I also have a bag liner and a sea to summit extreme liner which can add 15 degrees of warmth to the system. These 2 together add more weight especially since I had to add a strip of fabric to the extreme to make it longer. The extreme liner will actually be my pillow with an air pillow. The pillow issue, as a side sleeper, has been the toughest to nail down.  I really want comfort and not blow up pillow hardness. Also I cant seem to sleep on my side if I have earplugs in, hence I’m trying a portable white noise maker that sounds like the fan in our bedroom. Luxury items, luxury items, luxury items. Have a great day and thanks for visiting.

It’s coming together

Welcome to my new blog page. I hope to share my journey along the Appalachian Trail with you here. This will be done from my phone while on trail. Hopefully when I hit a clearing or town I’ll be able to download some pics and info. With that said, I’ll say this: grammar nazis - comments will go in the next cathole I have to dig, negative comments you want to make because you think I’m crazy can be expressed as “I will pray for you” .
Yeah, I know, you think I’m crazy. Well, you are not the only one. Many times I’ve said the same thing. I don’t know how many times a week I question my sanity, but, I was doing that before I planned this hike.
I’ve been collecting gear for the last couple of months, and think I’ve got 98% of what I need -

Somehow we are upside down🙃

not counting food.  This has been a fun ordeal, which I’ll touch on later.

I have sold the End of the Trail wall hanging to help cover cost of gear. This weekend I received a call about my car. It is now sold. I feel like everything is coming together saying Go, Jane , Go!

They say to budget 1k per month on the trail. Hopefully the car purchase will give me enough time to finish. I definitely don’t want to get sucked into the town/hostel vortex where a lot of hikers spend way more than planned. I’ll be sending most of my Gluten Free resupplies to cut down on time in town. I do know of a few hostels that I’ll seek out in New England that offer slack packing services. Slack packing - they keep my heavy  pack safe while I carry only food and water for the day. They then pick  me up at a designated spot and bring me to the hostel where I  pay to stay and receive a shower and chance to wash clothes. Some include a meal. Most will also allow a resupply package to be sent to them.

Start date : April 17th, 2020. I should be doing the Approach Trail around noon. The Approach trail doesn’t count as part of the AT. (Unless they change it this year) it is 8.8 miles up to the top of Mount Springer. The approach trail starts at Amicalola Falls State Park in Georgia. There are 604 stairs in front of the waterfall going up . I hear you have to do them to have “Gritching rights”. There is a road that can get you  closer to the top, but it’s sketchy.  Hoping the stair master will prepare me for those stairs  and more.  The Appalachian Trail starts at the top of Springer Mountain with the first white blaze- a 2” by 6” rectangle painted on a tree or rock or anything else along the trail. ‘Follow the white blazed trail.  follow the white blazed trail’. Did you hear the munchkins chanting at you. I did. Blue blazes take you off on side trails to water, shelters, waterfalls, or parking lots. Word of caution try not to camp near the roads and parking lots. These shelters get the day hikers who might be creepy and not part of the tramily- trail family. There is a Leave no Trace rule for hiking the A.T. Or any trail. Pack it in pack it out. That’s your public service announcement for the day. You are welcome.