Q&A and some recent madness on the trail

Hey everyone. Below are the answers to most of the wonderful questions you posted.

Robyn: The shovel does a wonderful job when it needs to. :)

Wienes: NoBo stands for Northbound. Some hikers choose to go SoBo or Southbound from Maine to Georgia. Thanks for the reminder on Mother's day, I almost forgot. :) Yes I have seen a live bear, see the story below. I've only had a couple of boring moments, the people and trail stay pretty interesting. I'd say that the journey has given me more than I thought all ready. Weather has been all over the board: cold, hot & humid, sleet, thunderstorms, hail, and thankfully plenty of perfect days.

Mtka Nancy: Meals are pretty easy, nothing too fancy. Poptarts/bars for breakfast, summer sausage & cheese bagel sandwich with trail mix for lunch, then a pasta or mashed potatoes with some tuna or a protein for dinner. Then a bunch of bars and snacks throughout the day. I spend only a few days to a week with groups. I pop in and out of bubbles of people as I like to hike my own pace and go solo for the most part. 

Aunt Donna: Haven't lost that much weight, maybe 5-10lbs. I hiked with a bigger guy that lost 30lbs in the first month. I have slept alone in the woods but mostly with groups of people around shelters. Altitude isn't an issue on the A.T. as it only get about 6,000ft.

Ok now for some of the madness that has occurred recently on the trail. For the last week and a half there have been late afternoon thunderstorms. And it's never been a question of will it rain, but when will it rain and where will I be on the mountain.

One day I was taking in the views on an exposed ridge on top of a mountain when a roar of thunder echoed behind me. A storm had brewed up very quickly on the other side of the mountain and snuck up on me. It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life as I ran on a bouldery path with lightning flashing next to me and thunder all around. I've never ran so fast with my pack on. All I could think of was all the people that I love and that I hope I make it off this damn mountain. 

Another fun thunderstorm was on top of Roan mountain where we got pelted with pea and marble size hail that accumulated to 3-4 inches in some areas. It was the first time that the hail had actually hurt during the hike, as it bounced off your knuckles, arms and ears. I even found one hiker curled up in a ball on the trail because the hail was hitting her so hard in the face, luckily the bill of my cap kept my pretty face safe. And of course during this storm my destination was the highest shelter on the A.T. But it was a nice and cozy two level shelter that we packed past capacity due to the storm. You tend to get use to sleeping in really close quarters to some smelly strangers in situations like this. 

Now the last two days anything and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. After hiking a decent amount of miles I made it into Hampton, TN where I stayed at a hostel and stuffed my face with terrible fast food. I enjoyed a 6" Subway sandwich, chips, soda and then went over to McDonalds where I stuffed down 2 cheeseburgers, fries and an oreo McFlurry. Now putting this much food down in town is nothing new or out of the ordinary but something in that combo didn't mix quite right. In the middle of the night I woke up every hour for five hours violently vomiting. Never had I thrown up so much in my life. So needless to say I was feeling like hell in the morning, but I had to hike to the next town in a week to meet Sara, so I foolishly got back on the trail.

Weak, hungry and dehydrated I had to walk through a 4 mile stretch that's closed to camping and resting due to bear activity. Also leaving towns my pack is usually the heaviest  as I resupply my food and also just received a care package filled with other tasty treats. Then due to some landmark errors I missed my water source and had more miles than anticipated to the next shelter. So I set up camp a mile outside of the closed high bear activity area. About an hour later after setting up camp I heard some really loud rustling in the woods and see a momma bear and two cubs cross the road I was camping near. I screamed and made a bunch of noise to let them know where I was and even blew my ear shattering whistle. An hour after getting into my tent for bed I heard that similar rustling sound in the woods, only closer this time. I again made a bunch of noise and blew the whistle, but this bear could care less. She and her cubs did some acrobatics and got my hanging food bag out of the tree and destroyed my weeks worth of food. 

Now if this was just a solo bear I wouldn't be so nervous as I didn't have any food or anything aromatic near my tent. But since this was a momma bear I didn't want to mess around as I'm sure they'd come back in the night to try and find more food, or even chew on a tasty little hiker. :) So I called the police to let them know the situation and they sent out a sheriff to maybe help scare the bear away with a fire of his gun or atleast just get me out of the situation. Moments before the sheriff arrived the bears finally scampered off and I felt safe to get out of my tent. So I packed all my crap up quickly in the dark and he gave me ride into town. 

So now fully resupplied again I'll be getting back on the trail today and setting up better bear bags and making sure to hike even farther away from high bear activity areas. Happy trails!

(FYI this post is a little outdated as I am now safely awaiting the arrival of my lovely wife in a clean and well lit library in Marion, VA somewhere around mile marker 530.)