Hello everyone. We are getting ready to hit the trail again. Our plan is to drive down to North Carolina where we ended last year, park the car and shuttle down to Springer Mountain, GA. That is the Southern end of the AT, from there we will walk north the 287 miles back to the car. This should take roughly 30 days. We plan to do journal updates same as last year. The photos will however not be posted until after we return home. I think this will be the fastest way and save Matt his valuable personal time as he [View Full Entry]

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OD New boots for CC today. We drove to Syracuse and found new boots that are lighter and fit much better than her old ones. I swapped out my heavy boots for much lighter ones also. The average person takes about 2,000 paces per mile. 1 extra pound per leg means you lift a ton or more unnecessarly per mile per leg and 10+ tons per day lifted. It has also been calculated that one pound one your foot equals five pounds on your back. So by going to lighter boots we should be able to cover the same miles with [View Full Entry]

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OD Well here it is two days before departure. We took all of our resupply boxes to be mailed out to Rochester and dropped them off at our daughters place. She will be responsible for getting them out to us on time. There was a total of 14 boxes. This has probably been one of the hardest logistical problems I have ever worked on. There are so many variables that we don't know I believe what I have done is just a real good guess. Loading it into the SUV I had to fold down one of the seats just [View Full Entry]

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OD, Prep, prep and more prep. So much to do and so little time to get it all done in. Sunday and Monday winter has returned to the "North Country" with a vengeance. Single digit temps high winds and blowing snow. No training hikes in a few days. We probably should be out there toughing it out, but the older smarter me says I will endure a little extra pain on the trail start than risk a fall on an icy walk. Sunday was a rest day both body and mind. CC and I were about brain dead on trying [View Full Entry]

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Update from Patrick (aka O.D.) Been heavy into Thru Hike prep for the past two weeks. We have done some conditioning hikes with about half trail weight packs. Some on the roads and one on a walking trail in Clayton. We have done quite a bit of food prep with dehydration and vacuum packing. We are taking store bought meals in bags like "Lipton Noodles" that are flavored and bags, removing them from the original bag.. Then we place it in a vacuum meal bag and add our own dehydrated veggies, meat and maybe a spice or two. Then vacuum pack [View Full Entry]

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The best way to open our Travel Blog I think is with a bit of "Robert Service " poetry. "The Land Beyond" Have ever you heard of the Land Beyond, That dreams at the gates of day? Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies, And ever so far away; Alluring it calls: O ye the yoke that galls, And ye of the trail overfond, With saddle and pack, by paddle and track, Let's go to the Land of Beyond! Have ever you stood where the silences brood, And vast the horizons begin, At the dawn of the day [View Full Entry]

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Unser letzter Tag bricht an... Nach einem letzten gemeinsamen Fruehstuck (nochmals vielen Dank und viele Hugs an Isolde, Steve, Christopher, Jeremy, Markus, Jessica, Jacob, Alex und Eric) bringt uns Isolde zum 'Watertown International Airport' - ein 'suesser', kleiner Flughafen. Taeglich verkehren hier 6 Flugzeuge, die Stimmung ist fast als familiaer zu bezeichnen und die Koffer werden noch per Hand durchsucht, weil sich eine grosse Durchleuchtungsanlage offensichtlich nicht rentiert... Wir fliegen mit einer kleinen Maschine nach Pittsburgh, von dort mit etwas Verspaetung nach Philadelp [View Full Entry]

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