Article in Lariat

Check it out! The Lariat ran a whole story about my composting program!

Travel plans

I just booked a flight to Portland, the jumping off point for the AT. Well, actually, I didn’t book to Portland. I am actually flying in to Manchester, NH, then taking the bus to Boston, and then taking the train to Portland. Getting to the trailhead is going to be a pretty good adventure in its own way.

But the important thing here is that I have made travel reservations—there is no backing out now! Right?

Itinerary

So, yesterday instead of working on my history paper, I decided to plot out a rough itinerary for my time on the AT. Here’s what I’ve scoped out so far:

June 29: Fly from Dallas to Portland, Maine
June 30: Bus/taxi to Baxter State Park, home of Mt. Katahdin (the northern terminus of the AT)
July 1: Summit Mt. Katahdin
July 2 – July 15: Start hiking south through the “100 Mile Wilderness“

The rest of the schedule is a little rough, but here are my estimations for where I will be over the course of the trip:

July 1 – 28: Maine
July 29 – August 29: New Hampshire/Vermont
August 30 – September 10: Massachusetts/Connecticut
September 11 – 23: New York/New Jersey
September 24 – October 8: Pennsylvania
October 9 – 11: Maryland/West Virginia (the trail barely touches these states, and hikers have created various challenges for this stretch of the trail. My personal favorite is the “Four-State Challenge,” where you leave Pennsylvania in the morning, hike through Maryland and West Virginia, and finish just on the other side of the Virginia border that night, thus stepping foot in four states in one day)
October 12 – November 17: Virginia (at almost 550 miles, Virginia is by far the longest stretch of the trail)
November 13 – December 13: Tennessee/North Carolina
November 14 – 18: Georgia
December 18: Summit Mt. Springer, the southern terminus of the trail

Overall: 2180.6 miles, 170 days, average of 13 miles per day. Hopefully I will actually complete things sooner than expected and be finished by Thanksgiving, but for planning purposes I would rather be on the conservative side of things.

A lot of you have talked about joining me for a stetch of the way, which will be great. Pick out a time when you are available, email me/leave a comment below, and we will see what we can do!

Instructional Video

In case you didn’t read ALL of the bear attack article below, here is an instructional video with most of the key points covered. And best of all, it is claymation (sorry Lauren Eggers—I know how you feel about claymation).