June 21, 2022 • 51 mins
A few short years after the hiking trails from Maine to Georgia were connected into the world’s longest hiking-only footpath, a WWII vet walked the whole thing in one go. He kicked off a challenge that’s still taken on by thousands of people each year.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know. A production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. And I'm Josh,
there's Chuck. Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
should know to get out there and do. An addition,
(00:21):
just a couple of no bos hanging out in front
of the mic. M hmmm mm hmm. And if you
don't know what a nobo is, prepare to learn. I
thought you were gonna give me a trail name. I
can think of one. I was, how about starfish? Your starfish?
All right? What are you um? You're like, I don't
know what he eats a starfish. I'll be jellyfish. Jellyfish, okay,
(00:44):
and Jerry will be sunfish. Uh so our little sunfish. Yeah.
And it will make sense as long as we hike together.
But if one of us gets ahead of the other
behind the other, then it'll just seem weird. Finally, we're
talking about the appalach and trail. Boy. We've been asked many, many,
many many times over the years to cover this by
(01:05):
generally by through hikers that like, I'm listening to your
show as I hike from Georgia to Maine, and uh,
we're finally getting down to it. Mm hmm, it is
about time for sure. In a big thank you to
Dave Rus for helping us with this one. I don't
believe he ever threw hike the A T, which makes
this even more impressive all the info he came up with,
(01:27):
you ever hiked any any of the eight? I think
I accidentally did and maybe Unicoise State Park and didn't
realize that's what I was doing. Um, I had no
idea I was on the A T. But now I
had a friend, um named Mitch who I went to
high school with, not dirty Mitch from this Gabies episode
of different Mitch and a few years sure, I don't
know about that, but still um medium Sure. A few
(01:50):
years after high school he he threw hiked the A T.
And he was the first and I think maybe the
only person I know who has uh my ends older
brother hiked the A T with his dog, his sort
of regular Doughey black lab, and Dude, that dog came
back ripped back like a black lab that was built
(02:14):
like a pit bull. Yeah. I can imagine. Because one
of the most physically demanding things you can do is
through hike the Appalachian Trail, and through hike means that
you hike the whole two thousand, one hundred and ninety
four point three miles from Georgia to Maine or Maine
to Georgia in one straight shot, usually averaging about four
(02:36):
to five to six months to do it. That's right, well,
not necessarily in one straight shot, as we'll see, because
you can do it in leap frogate and do it
in chunks, and I think it all counts as long
as you do it within the same year. But for me,
and I used to want to do this, I had
a big, gigantic A T poster that hung on my
(02:57):
walls for many, many years, and my time has passed
to do this. But I think my new goal is
I would like to hike the entire Georgia portion. Okay,
at some point I have hiked portions of it in Georgia,
but uh, when I wanted to hike the A T.
I was always of the mindset and not that there's
(03:17):
any right or wrong way to do it, but I
wanted to do it just all in one go, and
not do it in chunks, and just start out at
Springer Mountain in Georgia and end up with some mountain
in Maine. Canadain. That's right. Yeah, that's a through hike
for sure, and that's the that's you would be a nobo,
like you said, going from yeah, from Georgia to Maine.
(03:38):
If you went from Maine to Georgia, which is again
another way you can do it, you'd be a sobo
for southbound. But the thing is chucked. I think three
million people hike on the a T every year, some
little segment or portion. They're called section hikers. Anyone who
doesn't hike the whole thing in one shot as a
section hiker. But of those three million people, just a
(03:59):
few are several thousand people try it, try through hiking
every year, and only one and four of them is
successful because it's so hard to do. Yeah. It is
the longest hike only footpath in the world. Uh. There
are longer trails for sure. Uh. And at some point
(04:20):
we might do one on the Great Specific Rest Trail.
But um, you can take pack mules and horses on
the PCT. Uh, you are not allowed to. You can
only take your body and your own feet on the
Appalachian Trail. Yeah. Whereas Dave puts it on the a T,
the pack animal, as you that's a great line. That's
(04:41):
very yakov SnO. So in addition to it just being
really really long, Chuck, there's a lot of ups and downs.
There's a lot of crazy terrain. There's a lot of
dangers that will see. But those ups and downs amount
to over that whole distance, four hundred and sixty four thousand,
five of hundred feet of elevation gain and loss. And
(05:04):
Mount Everest is about twenty nine thousand feet, So if
you started at sea level and walked up and down Everest,
you'd have to do that eight times to equal that
amount of elevation gain or loss that you're gonna walk
along the Appalachian Trail in that one straight shot. That's right. Uh.
That is not to say I mean those are apples
to oranges, but that just puts it into perspective a
(05:26):
lot of a lot of mountains you're hiking up and down.
I never claimed they were both apples, No, No, I know,
I just don't, like, I don't want people that have
climbed Everest to be like, dude, you can't even compare
the two. That's such a good Everest climber impression. Almost
stood up there, bro Um. All right, so let's talk
(05:47):
about this history wise. Uh. The original human being that
thought this was a good idea was named Benton Mackay,
who obviously was a hiker in the New England area
and went to High of It, got a degree in
forestry and worked as a land use planner and was
hiking along in Vermont one day in the Green Mountains,
(06:09):
climbed a big tree, looked out upon all the peaks,
you know, those nice little rounded peaks of the Appalachian Mountains,
not like the Rocky Mountains. We've talked about that. Why, Uh,
it's because of wind, and said, you know what, that's amazing.
I've been trying to interlink trails in New England to
make hikes longer. Is it even possible? Could we link
(06:33):
a trail from Georgia to Maine all along this Appalachian Range? Yeah?
And that's a great first thought. But then he had
plenty of successive follow up thoughts about that idea. UM.
He wrote a paper called an Appalachian Trail, a Project
in Regional Planning in n and UM he basically said, hey,
(06:53):
in addition to this interconnected trail that forms one big
trail along the Appalachians, we can also build shelter is
for people hiking. We can build community camps, we can
build farms that are run by labor unions and basically
socialize the woods to give people a chance to get
away from the rest of the world. Yeah, it was
like a really really grand plan and one that like
(07:16):
super admirable I think, Yeah, for sure, I I admire it.
And Yeah, the thing is is he was like, as
Dave put it, he was the tree hugger who came
up with this idea, and he definitely was, and he
had a real vision for it. And people came along
and said, that has a great idea. We're gonna really
trim off this fat about socialism and labor unions and stuff,
(07:36):
but the rest of it we really like. And McKay
was like, hey, what do you mean fat? And uh
that that it just kind of got taken away from
him from their well sort off. He still worked a
lot with. Uh. This other guy who came along who
we're going to talk about named Myron Avery, And this
is how Dave put it. By all accounts, Myron Avery
was a great a jerk. Here's the thing. Myron Avery
(08:00):
was a lawyer, a maritime attorney, a big time hiker
from Washington, d C. Who took charge of the project
in nineteen thirty and everything. I read up a lot
about this guy, because anytime I see someone just kind
of categorized as a big time jerk, I'm kind of
curious because it's probably complicated, and it sounds like he
(08:22):
was very stubborn and he was a perfectionist and he
kind of just didn't want to listen to other people,
Like he would go into a community and that they
would have ideas like, hey, why don't you get the
community on board with this and get some community support,
and he was like no, he was like, we should
just make this trail and then they'll see the benefit.
(08:44):
The locals will see the benefit and its value afterward,
and all we need to do is just blaze forward,
no pun intended as you'll see, and and just do
this thing. And it sounded like he was just really
tenacious and he did burn bridges, and it sounds like
he had a big ego and he may have been
a bit of a jerk in a bully, but I
(09:04):
think it's probably a little more complicated than to just
say he was a big a hole, for sure, But
he was enough of a whole Are we singing that now?
I mean I just did. Okay, So he was enough
of one of those that he and mackay had a
falling out and McKay stayed away from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy,
which Myron Avery led until Myron Avery died at age
(09:28):
fifty two of a heart attack. From being such a
type a personality. Yeah, I mean they had they worked
together for a while and then eventually couldn't sort of
see eye to eye, so he backed out. Have you
ever read the book A Walk in the Woods by
Bill Bryson? No, but I'd like to chuck you will
love it. It's Did you read it? Oh? Yeah, it's
It's one of those best in your late teens early twenties.
(09:49):
But I think you would appreciate it no matter what
your age. It's just a great book. And he's such
a great writer, and his um, his Companion on the Trail,
is just such a great like oil and comic relief.
It is just a really good book. But in it
he he described Myron Avery is blazing to two trails
from Georgia to Maine. One was of hurt feelings and
(10:10):
bruised egos. The other was the t uh well for
his stubborn efforts. Uh. The east peak of Bigelow Mountain
and Maine is now called Avery Peak. Oh it's nice
or a whole peak. Oh boy? So Avery did walk
the Appalachian Trail. He mapped apparently every square inch of
(10:32):
it because again he was in charge of it, and
he was such a um, a pragmatic and totally driven
visionary that um he got the A T completed in
seven years and it opened to the public in ninety
seven because of him, that's right. Uh. And after it
(10:52):
was completed, everyone was like, this thing is great, but
is anyone ever gonna really? I know you link these trails,
but is anyone even capable of hiking this whole thing?
And we will let you know if that's possible, well,
or at least who made that possible. Right after this
(11:28):
and drum roll, Uh boy, your drum You need to
change your drumhead, my friend, we need to work on
our timing to Okay, what does that mean? I finished
(11:51):
my drum roll and you were still talking about my drumheads. Sorry,
let's try it again. Look, No, that's great, it's really good. Uh. Yes,
we know that we can complete the A T we're
being coy. Many people have done it, but the very
(12:13):
first time that it was done was but eleven years
after it opened, and a man named Earl Schaefer, Pennsylvanian
from York County World War two Vett who uh you
know we what we called this now is PTSD by
you know, back then they just you know, called it
suffering from war demons. But he clearly had some kind
(12:34):
of PTSD and and was quoted as saying he wanted
to walk the army out of his system and started
at the time, it was not at Springer Mountain and
Georgia at the time. It was Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia
on April four, nineteen and didn't even have a tent. No,
he had a poncho that he slept under, had paper maps,
(12:55):
he had a compass. He was wearing Russell Moccasin Company's
bird Shooter boots and they still make those. Actually they're
nice looking boots, but I would not like the t
and them very expensive. They're like fours. But I believe
they're so handmade that you can find like fingernail clippings
in them. Yeah, that's handmade chuck. That is super handmade.
(13:20):
So He did this in a hundred and twenty four days,
the first guy to ever through hike the a T
did it way above average of what people do today. Yeah,
he was making about sixty miles a day on average.
So not only did he, you know, set the bar
by being the first person to throw hike, he said
a really high bar as far as records to break,
(13:43):
Like that wasn't just something the second person was going
to do better than you know, Yeah, for sure. His
advice was carry as little as possible, but choose that
little with care. Uh And everyone said duh and he went,
shut up, I'm the first one to do it. I
get to have my my advice has given out. And
he did it again just to prove himself in nineteen
(14:05):
and was the first person to do it both ways
in both directions, and then at almost eighty years old
in the late nineties, he did it one more time. Yeah,
and there's other other trail legends, but he was definitely
the first. They called them crazy one Earl Schaefer and
then original crazy one apparently. Yeah, I guess there was
somebody who was just as crazy who came along. Well,
(14:28):
I'm sure a lot of people are like oh, I'm
gonna be crazy one too. And then you know, yeah,
you know it's steal his name. No, that's his trail name.
So Charles. Um we said that the Appalachian Trail goes
from um Georgia Springer Mountain to Mount cadad In in Maine,
and as it as it winds from one place to
(14:48):
the other, it goes through fourteen different states, some more
than others. Virginia it goes for about five and fifty
plus miles. West Virginia, which is very jealous of Virginia
in this respect, only has eighteen miles of Appalachian Trail. Yeah,
that's what I said to But if you add all
these together, a couple hundred miles here, tens of miles here, Um,
(15:10):
you have this whole mile trail, and on average it
takes a through hiker about a hundred and sixty five days,
which again this is today with modern amazing gear people
average a hundred and sixty five days, And Earl Schaefer
did it in a hundred and twenty four back in
nineteen eight with fingernail boots, right exactly. It just makes
(15:34):
his accomplishment that much more amazing. Um. But one guy
showed up Earl Schaefer like nobody's business, didn't he? Oh yeah.
A trail runner named Joe McConaughey in average fifty miles
a day to complete the eight and forty five days,
twelve hours and fifteen minutes. I had my little blaze
(15:56):
pun earlier. If you've ever hiked any portion of the
A t um you will know about the blazes. If
you've never hiked the A t you may wonder, how
do you know that you're still on the A T
and you don't accidentally go off on another trail, which
is possible. But it is marked with little blazes there.
It's a rectangular piece of paint, piece of paint. It's
(16:20):
a rectangular swash of paint, brushstroke of paint. Uh. And
they're about I don't know, I feel like they're about
six by three inches or so. Uh. And they are
on trees and rocks about every seventy feet or so.
So it is a very very well marked, whale well
(16:41):
trod trail. That's hard to say, So don't don't be
afraid of getting lost. And there are plenty people on it. Uh.
It is not to say you should go into it
lightly or without any preparation, but it is. It's pretty
easy to find your way along the A T. Yes,
it is. And you're gonna encounter plenty of people along
a tube because remember three million people a year hike
(17:01):
it to some extent. And again, there's thousands and thousands
of people who are nobos or sobos trying to throw
hike at any given on any any given year. And
because of the weather and the distance that you're covering,
you're actually going through the A T in different seasons,
so there's actually like certain windows, depending on which direction
(17:25):
you're going north or south, um, where you can hike
the A T. So all of those thousands of people
are not spread out over a full year. They're actually
kind of condensed in four or five or six month
periods on any given years. So you're definitely gonna have
lots of companions on the trail, whether you like them
or not. Yeah. Well, trail sex is a thing too, Yeah,
(17:47):
I saw, it's not nearly as much as you would think. Yeah,
I'm sure, Okay, I don't know. I mean I'm sure
that these uh, these dirty hippies out there sweating it
up for days at a time, don't mind knocking boots
under the stars. But no, it's not the sexiest way
to do things. I saw that that was saved for town.
(18:08):
Oh okay, like your your zero day, like you take
a down day, maybe stay in a cheap hotel, take
a shower, meet a friend, starfish meat and jellyfish meat,
starfish right, and they have sunfish. Sure that this is
something weird just happened. I'm glad we planned that out.
(18:29):
Uh So, if you are a NOBO, you're gonna want
to and if you want to hike the a t
there are books out there that like, and websites and
and blogs that will tell you very specifically exactly. You
can map it down to the day if you want,
like day one, day two, um, or you can kind
of do your own thing. But generally, if you're a NOBO,
(18:50):
you're probably gonna want to start at Springer Mountain in
the early spring and like March or April. So those
first couple of months, those first few months, actually you're
be hiking and pretty good weather h as far as
it getting too hot, Uh, it will get elevation. You
can get snow still for sure. In March and April
(19:10):
in North Carolina and Tennessee even parts of Georgia. So
the disadvantage there is that you will have to pack
some cold weather gear for your first five miles or so,
which you can ditch in mail uh mail home at
some point if you want, right, But you have a
much longer stretch of time to finish your through hike
than you do if you're going from Maine to Georgia
(19:32):
or southbound. UM. And because you have a much more
limited window of about four to five months UM, you
have to cover a lot of miles every day. So
being a sobo, if you see a SABO on the trail,
this is probably not their first hike. They're usually pretty
experienced and can make it over some unforgiving terrain a
(19:52):
lot faster than the average hiker, I would guess for sure.
And you talked about the amount of people hiking, there's
something called the bubble, So early on in March and April,
the nobo areas get pretty and when we say congested,
it's not like you're surrounded about like hundreds of people,
but it definitely thins out as you go. Yeah, but
(20:13):
that's a real advantage to being a sobo is far
fewer people start north to south UM. So you're going
to run into a lot less people at the time,
and by the time south and by the time you
do start running into those original members of the bubble,
they've thinned out because again, remember only one and four
people make it all the way through the a T
(20:33):
and it's not like they all make it close to
the end. People burn out at different spots along the way. Yeah.
And then I mentioned at the very beginning the flip
flopping technique, that is when you're doing it in chunks
to really try and get the best weather everywhere you
are at the time. Uh. And there's a leap frogging
route where you would start in Georgia in April, uh
(20:55):
late April, just as so you maybe don't get that
snow that we were talking about out. You hike to
West Virginia to Harper's Ferry, and then you leap frog.
You can take a car, you can take a train
anyway you would normally get somewhere not by foot. You
would go to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, then hike north from
there to finish up by September before that cold weather,
(21:18):
and then you leap frog back down to Great Barrington
and hike that southern portion back down to Harper's ferry
that you skipped, and there you have if you ever
want to hike the a T. Just pack a backpack
and listen to what Chuck just said and just go
for it. You don't need any other information, that's correct,
I think, actually you do need a tremendous amount of information.
And luckily there's a lot of information out there on
(21:42):
the web, a lot of really good free advice. UM.
If if you are thinking about, um hiking the A T.
I'm sure you have already found a lot of these,
but a good place to start if you're just if
this episode inspires you, is probably the subredit for the
Appalachian Trail. I know. Just there's a ton of good
advice on there. Um and just whatever question you have,
(22:04):
just ask it in type Appalachian Trail, and there's probably
pages and pages of people who have great advice and
suggestions on how to do this. UM. And we'll share
a little bit with you right now. I'm about sleeping
and eating. Yeah, I used to do plenty of backpacking,
so I'm familiar with all this stuff. Now. I'm a
car camper mainly, but I am going to get back
into backpacking at some point. Um, But I still have
(22:27):
all that gear. But boy, it's it's a lot lighter
now than when I bought it. Um. You can get
an ultra light tent these days that weigh less than
twenty ounces. My friend, it's about one point one seven pounds.
That's like the weight of a cockatil, a big one.
That's right. So leave your cocket deal at home too. Um.
So you know you're gonna want an ultra light tent
(22:49):
unless you're gonna really really either sleep in a hammock
or just you know, sleep under the ground under a
tarp or something. But I would suggest an ultra light tent.
But there are two hundred and fifty shelters along the way.
I've slept in a couple of these there. It's just
you know, two walls in a roof and a and
a sort of like a small deck that you're sleeping on.
(23:11):
And it's first come, first serve, uh. You. Some of
them have little outhouses, some of them don't. They're usually
near water, like a river or something. Uh. And you
can and I have camped on these with strangers, and
then it could be a lot of fun sometimes meeting
people like that. Oh yeah, if you're gonna throw hike
the a t You need to get used to interacting
with strangers in close quarters for just for times like this,
(23:34):
but also you know, on the trail you run into
lots of strangers and a lot of times they want
to stop and talk or whatever. But um, I saw
that those rustic shelters are um first come, first serve.
So even if you meticulously planned your hike UM to
hit one of these, did you say they're about eight
miles apart? I didn't, but that's about right yet. So
(23:55):
that and that's like, you know, that's an average day's
walk for a very average ridge hikers. And they purposely
spread them out like that, and they're a little further
spread out if there's a town in between them with
hotels and hostels and all that. But you can meticulously
plan your your route so that you hit one of
these shelters every night, so you're you're you have shelter
(24:16):
without needing a tent. But if there's a lot of
people on the trail, you may be s o l
when you show up at that shelter because it's full
up by with eight people in their sleeping bags and
there's no room for you. Yeah, that's when you're gonna
want that tent as a backup at the very least,
and you can camp right behind the shelter if you
still want to hang out with people. Because I don't
know if we mentioned this, there are a lot of
(24:36):
different reasons people hike the A t Some people really
want to get away from people. Um. But for what
I'm have read and talk to people who have done it.
Even those people, when you're out there for five and
a half months, can enjoy talking with someone every few days, right,
you know what I mean? Even though weirdos want to
talk to people sometimes or you may not. They they're
(24:57):
probably names for everything. They're probably named for people to
don't want to socialize, like a little a t uh,
sort of made up name they give them sure, trail
hermits all bad. Yeah, termits termites, Yeah, termites is what
they call them. We've been a cockney rhyming rhyming slang. Um.
(25:18):
Food is another thing. Obviously you're gonna be eating a
lot of calories, or at least burning up a lot
of calories and ideally replenishing those calories with food. Um,
you will lose a ton of weight hiking the A
t if you're through hiker and you need about two
pounds of food a day and you want to resupply
generally every three to ten days, depending on kind of
(25:38):
how you want to plan it out and how much
weight you want to carry. Uh. And there are great
books again that you can tell you exactly how to
do this. But you're either going to be replenishing on
the trail when you hit a town, or a lot
of people mail or have family members mail their stuff
ahead of time to post offices that you'll hit. Yeah. Um,
some people mail their own stuff or they have some
(26:00):
family do it for him. And there's a lot of
a lot of websites dedicated to teaching you how to
do that successfully and giving you the addresses you need
and where you can it can't send send stuff. But
the off shot is you're not gonna have to carry
your five months supply of food with you the whole time.
People have figured out how to not do it, and
there's no shame whatsoever. And going into town not only
(26:22):
to eat or to resupply and restock up on food,
but also to sleep to like people take zero days
I think you mentioned earlier, where you just you just
take the day off or maybe even two days off
if you're particularly burned out, and you just kind of
recuperate and recharge and get back on the trail after that.
So that's definitely part of a t culture that's not
(26:43):
like cheating or anything. Yeah. Absolutely, uh And apparently it's
a tradition to uh to go on a feast and
when you're in a town just to really eat just
a bunch of high calorie junk. Uh, to load up
on calories and think to maybe satisfy a certain urge
that's not being met on the trail when you're eating, uh,
(27:06):
you know. Uh. Dave calls it gorp. I've never heard
it called that, but like trail mix and and freeze
dried food and stuff like that, even though that stuff
has come a long way and how good it tastes,
I will say that I looked it up. GORP stands
for good old raisins and peanuts. Okay, gn't that delightful.
That may be a regional thing. I've never heard anyone
call it that here. Yeah, I have never heard it either,
(27:27):
which is why I was like, what is this gorps stuff?
I didn't I'm glad you, Uh, I didn't know as
an acronym. It definitely it does not accurately convey what
it's talking about because gorp sounds disgusting, but raisins and
peanuts are not disgusting. Yeah, Dave also hasn't here. The
average cost of gear that you buy is about a
thousand bucks. I think that is, uh, can vary wildly.
(27:52):
I think it really depends on how much gear you
already have, because that one pound tent that I was
talking about is a seven all our tent. Oh yeah, No, definitely,
Like you can also like buy your stuff off of
like eBay or Craigslist or something like that probably save
a tremendous amount of money compared to going to are
e I and buying everything brand new. Um. And also,
(28:14):
especially if you're a first timer, you're definitely going to
over purchase, over plan, and overpack. So I would guess
if you're if you're a first time through hiker, you
were going to spend substantially more than you would on
maybe your second attempt. Yeah, and I think at the
beginning of no matter where you start in Maine, And
it's weird that he can do this in both places.
(28:35):
But Sam Elliott is at the front at the trailhead
going through your pack and saying, you don't need this,
you don't need this, get rid of this, why would
you even have this, and just tearing your pack apart
basically until you're down to you know, that ultra light
tent and some gorp. Yeah, and by proxy tearing you
apart psychologically. Yeah. He was kind of a jerk lately
(28:59):
about that power of the dog. Maybe I forgot about that.
What do you mean he was a jerk? What do
you do? He the power of the dog came out
and he was just kind of like, well, do you
know what these candy butts in their homosexual cowboyd notions?
And that's that's not the West. I knew what's problem. Yes,
he knew he was born in nineteen fifty or the
(29:22):
crotchety old guy, homophobic, crotchety old guy, which was very
disappointing because all that's great, Sam elliott Um. But getting
back to the money, Uh, you're gonna spend about a
grand a month. They just say that at least plan
on about a thousand dollars a month, So between five
and seven thousand dollars, depending on how long you're gonna
(29:42):
take to hike it. Yes, so cough up the smoleans.
Everybody are prepared to and also prepared to listen to
some commercials because we're gonna take a break real quick.
(30:18):
All right, Well, let's talk weather. If you're hiking the
a T we mentioned potentially, potentially the snow at the
beginning of the northbound route, or you know, Maine is crazy,
you might you might get a late snow and in
May or early June and May and even at elevation,
so you're gonna have some cold weather to contend with
(30:39):
for a little while at least, right, yes, one way
or another. And again, um, if you have cold weather
stuff that you need to eventually ditch, you don't have
to plan on carrying it the whole time. You can
go to one of those same post offices that you
pick up your mail drop at and mail it back,
mail back your cold weather gear, a little lead, a
little trail magic for someone, you know what I'm saying.
(30:59):
There you go, I wonder, I'll bet a lot of
people do that. To tell you the truth, you think, Yeah,
and then hypothermia because there's cold weather associated with the
um hike. It's a real problem and it's not just
from being snowed on. It's actually much less likely from
being snowed on. It's more likely from being hit by
a cold rain and being soaked and then hit with
(31:19):
some very cold wind, which can happen at high altitudes,
and all of a sudden, your core temperature is dropping
very quickly, so you have to get naked and try
to warm up as fast as you can. That's right.
The clothing that they make these days is amazing. It's
very lightweight. Uh, these synthetic weaves that with the water away,
(31:40):
they dry out super fast. Uh. It is not like
the stuff in the shapeer days. And this other wonderful
hero that we're going to talk about in a little bit,
this woman. I cannot wait to get to her. H
But you're also gonna hit really hot, humid, balmy weather
in the in the thick of it in the summer,
in the middle of that hike. Uh, you're gonna you
(32:00):
depleted of your electrolytes and your salts. You could suffer
from cramping and heat stroke and heat exhaustion. So they
say to count on a couple of liters of water
a day. Uh, And obviously you're not gonna carry that
much weight, so you're gonna gonna want to use and
I got one of these two uh, one of those
beautiful little lightweight water purifying systems that you just kind
(32:21):
of pump into your water bottle from a running, beautiful stream. Ye,
you pump and dump into your water bottle. That's right.
And then also, chuck, I mean you want to keep
up with your water, you really need to keep up
with your calories, because, like you said, you're gonna lose
a ton of weight. And apparently, even if you ate
four thousand calories a day, by the time you were
(32:43):
done with your through hike, on average, you would have
probably lost ten to twenty pounds and you would look
like a black lab that has ripped like a pit pole. Yeah,
that's right, and that's a cool reason to do it,
you know it is. But I also saw that it
can lead to a lot of um like guilt or
shame when you start to gain your weight back, because
(33:05):
everybody's been telling you how amazing you look, and then
when you get back to normal life, it can be
really difficult. Right. There's something called hikers hunger, where it
is you're just starving and you can eat those incredible
large amounts of food, calorie dense food, and just keep
shedding the pounds because you're exerting yourself so much. But
(33:26):
when you get off of the trail, when you're done,
you're not exerting yourself any longer. But that that hikers
hunger can still linger. So you're actually eating way more
than you would have before you started the trail, and
you really have to kind of keep up with it
or else you can gain whatever weight you have back
and then some. But yeah, I saw that there's there
there can be guilt associated with with not looking like
(33:47):
that any longer after a little while. Yeah, So if
you next time you see a buddy come off of
a through hike on the a T, don't tell them
how amazing they look. Just say it's good to see you,
yeah exactly, I'm glad you're safe. And then they'll go,
you know what you say anything about how great airlock? Right?
What's wrong with this? I thought we were a friend. Uh.
(34:08):
There are animal dangers, of course, snakes and spiders and
bears and things like that. Uh. Ticks are a big,
big part of the problem. Uh. Lime disease is huge.
You're gonna get ticks if you hike the a t
So you wanna check that every night around your ankles
and armpits and groin area and waistline and everywhere that
ticks like to hide out. Dude, I saw that people
(34:31):
drop their pants in squat over an iPhone and video
like run a video of their underside or undercarriage and
then watch the video just see if there's any hiding
there that they can't feel. Or the stranger that they
met in the thing. They say, I looked at the
video a few times. Will you just give it a
once over? Right? And the stranger says, I'm a term Mike,
(34:51):
please leave me alone. Bears, I did mention you don't
want your food to be left out. If you are
an experienced camp n hiker, you know this stuff. But uh,
some places they have bare boxes, but that you can't
count on a bare box being there. Um, there are
bear proof canisters you can carry, but what you're probably
(35:12):
gonna do it's just what's called a bear hang, which
go about two hundred feet away from your campsite and
loop a rope over a tree and pull your food
up at least twelve feet off the ground. Yeah, every
single night without fail, and they still might get it.
Bears are crafty. They are crafty, but at least they're
doing it two feet away from where you're sleeping exactly.
(35:33):
You know. Um, a lot of people get injured too,
but very few people die U. Two to three people
out of again three million people die on the A
T every year. That's actually seems like it would be
way higher than that. UM. And there have only been
I say only, but to me, statistically speaking, it seems low.
Thirteen murders on the trail and the first one wasn't
(35:55):
until yeah, and I look this up and they did.
I'm not gonna bother going on the crazy apples to
apples math they had to do to make it work
out to like just being living in the United States
in a regular neighborhood. But they did do that math
if you want to go out there and look. But
they found that your chances of getting murdered on the
(36:17):
A T or a thousand times less likely than just
being a regular American walking around on a daily basis. Man,
I'm really glad you said that, because all you have
to do is hear about thirteen murders on the trailers
and people die. And this is the fact that you're
putting it in the context of dying out in the woods,
(36:38):
are being murdered out in the woods. It seems so
much worse. So I think that's a really reassuring thing
you just said. Uh it is. And I was also
curious about sexual assault type of things, and of course
things go unreported, so I'm not not even enough to
think that this accounts for all of them. But they
said that there's one basically one reported rape every two
(37:00):
to three years. And it is more dangerous to live
on a college campus than it is to hike the
a T. So I don't know if that makes you
feel better or worse, depending on if you're on a
college campus or not. But the point is it is
generally a pretty safe, helpful community out there. Yeah. That's
one of the reasons it's safe is because there's such
(37:21):
a established culture and there is such tight community out there,
not only among strangers, but among the towns folk like this.
These this trail goes through or right past some towns
that part of their industry is supporting Appalachian Trail through hikers, um.
And so they're really kind and generous and um and
(37:43):
helpful um out on the trail. Some people will just
go out on the trail who live in town and
take like snacks and drinks and stuff and just hand
them out to people who are walking on the Appalachian Trail.
So I mean like there's that's that's like kind of
like the the vibe and the zeitgeist on a T.
Not everybody's out for themselves and you know, don't don't
(38:04):
turn your back on a stranger because they'll hit you
with a hatchet and take your one pound hint um.
It's nothing like that. It's actually quite the opposite of
that from everything I can tell. Uh, we have kind
of joked around about these trail names, but that is
one thing that you do, or at least you're encouraged
to do, is give yourself a trail name. Only go
by that trail name, and it's a symbolic thing that
(38:26):
you are leaving your old identity behind for now you
are becoming a new person on the trail. And it's
kind of fun, I think, yeah. But I mean that
that kind of goes to underscore like why people hike
the a T. And one of them is to like
just get away from their life to kind of reset
their perspective on things or think things through or you know,
(38:49):
go through a transition. Um, and that you know, taking
a trail name is a really good way to just
become somebody different for a little while, or not your
usual self. It gives you that kind of freedom. I think. Yeah,
I just don't don't use the trail named Ted Bundy
and you should be fine. Right. Um, you mentioned the
towns that are behind this. There is in Damascus, Virginia
(39:11):
in May there's a weeklong festival called Trail Days where
there's a hiker parade and everyone gets showered with water
balloons and water guns and they're sort of celebrated. Uh.
There's the half gallon ice Cream Challenge or write a
passage in pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, where
you get a half gallon of ice cream from pine
(39:32):
Grove Furnace General Store and try to eat the whole thing.
Not that sounds like a lot of fun to me.
Oh yeah, definitely. I don't think you have to hike
that a t to try that. Also, chuck. Apparently on
the summer solstice in June, Um, there's Hike Naked Day
for that is that is the thing, and my my
friend Mitch told me that he hiked most of it naked,
(39:52):
not just on high on hike naked day, Like, there's
a lot of naked hiking, or at least there used
to be in the late nineties. Okay, good from Yeah,
that's what I said to and this is medium uh hygiene, Mitch, right,
not any much? Okay, No one wants to see that
I mentioned trail magic. That is not something I was
just making fun of or made up. Trail magic is
(40:15):
defined by the A T Conservancy as uh, I think it.
People could be cynical about stuff like this, But the
fact that you had to say that too is that
it just goes to show how lame the words trail
magic har you know. Uh. The A T Conservancy defines it,
and it's finding what you need most when you at
least expected, or experiencing something rare, extraordinary or inspiring in nature,
(40:39):
or encountering unexpected acts of generosity that restore your faith
and humanity. And it is something like, hey, man, you
need you need that, I've got that, and here it is. Yeah,
that's pretty cool. It also can take the form of
even like verbal encouragement from townsfolk in the towns that
you walk through, you know, so I want to also
(41:00):
clarify the term trail magic is what I think is lame.
That concept of trail mangic, I think is beautiful. No,
I'm with you. I think it's wonderful and like you said,
you know, something inspiring in nature. When you're on the trail,
you might see things that you're never ever going to
see again for the rest of your life and have
never seen before, including some types of animals or just
certain views um and that like that experience can be
(41:26):
there's no other way to put it. Magical. Like that's
what helps helps you when you're kind of on this
passage through the a t if you're going through life
transition or if you're trying to figure yourself out, seeing
stuff like that, bearing witness to it and letting it
like um, impress upon you. That helps that process I
think probably tremendously. Yeah, or like somebody filming their butt
(41:48):
hole with an iPhone. That's right, trail magic. All right.
I think we should close the show and this episode
with uh. I think I can speak for both of
us and say one of our new favorite amazing women
and human beings to ever live u Emma Grandma Gatewood
(42:09):
true dat, who was the first woman to walk the
A T by herself, um, all the way back in
nineteen five when she was sixty seven, and this is
nineteen fifty five, sixty seven, that's like hundred and fifty today, right,
And as if that wasn't enough, it just gets better
and better. She was the mother of eleven kids twenty
(42:30):
three grandkids, had a thirty year marriage to an awful, abusive,
physically abusive husband who apparently would beat her nearly to
death at times. Eventually divorced this uh garbage human, raised
those eleven children by herself, and then in the nineteen
fifties read a nat GEO article about the A T
(42:54):
and about Schaefer's through hike, and said in in nineteen
fifty three, told her grandchildren, I'm sorry her grown children
that she was going for a hike quote, and tried
to hike the A T right then and there, starting
at Mount Katadin, which again, if you if you're a sobo,
(43:14):
you're that's for experience hikers, not first timer who's going
for a hike at age sixty seven and nineteen fifty five,
so uh and apparently very short order she fell she
broke her glasses, she got lost. She basically turned into
Veloma from Scooby Doo and she was rescued by rangers.
And you would think, okay, that's the end of the
(43:35):
story that she you know, she had a wild hair
and she tried it and it didn't work. No, in
two years later she said, let me try this from
Georgia instead, and she was able to through hike the
entire Appalachian Trail. Unbelievable. You look up pictures of this
lady and you're like, wait a minute, it looks like
she's just holding a ruck sack over her shoulder. And
(43:57):
that's because that's exactly what she did. She didn't have
a backpack, she didn't have a sleeping bag, she didn't
have a compass. She had a homemade denim duffel bag
that she draped over her shoulder, that had a blanket,
a shower curtain that she used as a sleeping tart. Basically,
she had a canteen for water apparently, a small pot,
(44:19):
a spoon, a Swiss army knife, some pins, a first
aid kit, a flashlight, a piece of rope, a raincoat,
a warmer coat, and a change of clothes. And she
hiked the whole thing and kids sneakers, yes, seven pairs.
Did kids take advantage of this back then and they're
advertising I don't know. They could probably still take advantage
of it. It's that astounding, you know they should. And
(44:41):
despite wearing nothing but kids and carrying this denim duffel bag,
which I would guess is probably pretty heavy. Um, she
managed the average of fourteen miles a day, and of
course people heard about her in the newspaper started covering
her and all that. So townsfolk came out and said like, hey,
you can sleep our house, no charge. We want to
feed Jim, put you up. We just think what you're
(45:03):
doing is great. And she said, I appreciate it. But
most nights she slept out on a bed of leaves. Amazing.
I salute you, Grandma Gatewood. She U. There were not
many women obviously hiking the a T at the time
at all, much less through hiking. I think they make
up women make up about a third of all through
hikers today. Uh. And she went on to hike it
(45:26):
I think a couple of more times to write. Yeah.
Two years later she hiked it again. So she became
the first person man or woman to hike the trail twice,
and she did a third time in nineteen sixty four.
At that time she divided into sections, So yeah, she
was definitely she definitely Again, there's really no other way
to put it. She was a trailblazer for women on
(45:47):
the a T. Sorry, but that's just how you put it.
A couple of other standouts we should mention um. Just
last year m J. Sunny Everhart Uh became the oldest
person to complete it through hiking eighty three years young.
What was Sonny's name on the trail Nimblewood nomad. Very nice,
(46:10):
but how about that kid trail magic to it? It does. Yeah.
The same year, another record was set the youngest through hiker,
UH five year old named Harvey Sutton, who started off
when he was four and walked it in two d
nine days with his parents. Unbelievable. Harvey's trail name was
little Man And I read article about this and it
(46:31):
just sounds sounded like a wonderful family experience. Uh. And
this one guy hiked with the family from somewhere in
Pennsylvania through two Maine just kind of buddied up with
him and it was like this kid at the end
of the day, like our butts are kicked and he's like,
let's play freeze tag. Oh my god, unbelievable and and
just you know, the parents had to work over time
(46:52):
to keep him engaged. And so you can't just like
be alone with your thoughts for you know, ten hours
a day on the trail with a five year old,
like you gotta be pointing things out and playing little games.
And so they said that was challenging. But they said
they were just closer than they'd ever been as a family,
which is pretty cool. That it's cool. Did they say
anything about feeding him? Because I would find it distressing
(47:12):
as a parent to know that I needed to keep
up with thousands of calories. Yeah, that my kid needed.
So I mean hats off to his parents for for
doing that and then successfully doing it too. You know. Yeah,
I did see that there was um another kid that
finished it for named Juniper net Netteberg, a young girl
(47:34):
that finished it. This is amazing and a wonder woman costume. Um.
But apparently he did it in sections and took time
off and I think did it within a year's time,
but didn't do this straight through hike like Harvey Sutton did.
But big salute to Juniper as well as well as
Bill Irwin. Right, yeah, he definitely bears mentioning. He was
(47:55):
the first man who was blind to hike the Appalitchian
Trail through hike In and he did it with his
dog Orient. Apparently the pair together we're called the Orient Express,
and it took him eight months. Again, this is not
like this trail is not just like some well worn
dirt path. For two thousand miles. You're climbing over boulders,
(48:17):
you're climbing up mountains, down mountains, You're crossing streams and rivers.
Apparently they would do that because Orient would go across
and then bark at Bill, so he knew where to
swim across this river. He gets to the other side.
This is what they did, and they did it in
eight months, and he estimates that he fell about five
thousand times over that eight months. But he still made
(48:39):
it from Georgia to Cadadin. You know what that means,
my friend, he got up five thousand times. That's right,
pretty neat chucking your brain? Do you love my body? Sure, Starfish.
I don't know why this episode is so blue. I
don't either, but it sure was. Hopefully it inspired some
people to go out and do this, you know, I hope.
(49:01):
So it's a very cool thing. I'm glad we finally
got around to it. Hopefully there's some through hikers listing
right now that can write in and let us know
what's going on. Oh yeah, definitely. Uh, let us know
your trail name too. If you want to know more
about the a T. Just start doing research and there's
plenty of stuff out there and hopefully it'll draw you
out into the woods. And since I said draw you
out into the woods, it's time for listener mail. I'm
(49:25):
gonna call this kidney donation story. It's pretty great. Hello, chaps,
love the program. Listen with more interest than usual to
the on kidney donation. I donated to a family friend
a couple of years ago. We actually were in adjoining
surgery rooms. Out of me into him, lickety split. We're
both doing well. His kids nicknamed the organ little Kirby
(49:46):
after me, which I took as a high compliment. Uh,
and you asked how you got the kidney out. They
do make a three inch long incision low on the
bikini line up front and they just split it out. Wow,
So I think it it must just sort of flatten
out or something, and then they take it and they
feed it to the other person and hope it lands
in the right spot. Uh. That incision was actually the
(50:08):
worst part of the recovery. It took about a month
to heal up. In my case, I told my sisters
that they then made you poop the kidney out, and
I think part of them wanted to believe me. Thanks
for encouraging folks to join. The registry is well worth
it and the need is great. That is from Kirby
in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Very nice, Kirby. Hats off to
you for doing that. It's amazing, and hats off to
(50:31):
everybody who's done that. A few people have written in
and let us known that they've done that. So anyone
who does that, is it a okay in our book? Agreed.
If you want to be like Kirby and let us
know how you are a okay we want to hear,
you can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
(50:52):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows, h
Welcome to stuff you should know. A production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. And I'm Josh,
there's Chuck. Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
should know to get out there and do. An addition,
(00:21):
just a couple of no bos hanging out in front
of the mic. M hmmm mm hmm. And if you
don't know what a nobo is, prepare to learn. I
thought you were gonna give me a trail name. I
can think of one. I was, how about starfish? Your starfish?
All right? What are you um? You're like, I don't
know what he eats a starfish. I'll be jellyfish. Jellyfish, okay,
(00:44):
and Jerry will be sunfish. Uh so our little sunfish. Yeah.
And it will make sense as long as we hike together.
But if one of us gets ahead of the other
behind the other, then it'll just seem weird. Finally, we're
talking about the appalach and trail. Boy. We've been asked many, many,
many many times over the years to cover this by
(01:05):
generally by through hikers that like, I'm listening to your
show as I hike from Georgia to Maine, and uh,
we're finally getting down to it. Mm hmm, it is
about time for sure. In a big thank you to
Dave Rus for helping us with this one. I don't
believe he ever threw hike the A T, which makes
this even more impressive all the info he came up with,
(01:27):
you ever hiked any any of the eight? I think
I accidentally did and maybe Unicoise State Park and didn't
realize that's what I was doing. Um, I had no
idea I was on the A T. But now I
had a friend, um named Mitch who I went to
high school with, not dirty Mitch from this Gabies episode
of different Mitch and a few years sure, I don't
know about that, but still um medium Sure. A few
(01:50):
years after high school he he threw hiked the A T.
And he was the first and I think maybe the
only person I know who has uh my ends older
brother hiked the A T with his dog, his sort
of regular Doughey black lab, and Dude, that dog came
back ripped back like a black lab that was built
(02:14):
like a pit bull. Yeah. I can imagine. Because one
of the most physically demanding things you can do is
through hike the Appalachian Trail, and through hike means that
you hike the whole two thousand, one hundred and ninety
four point three miles from Georgia to Maine or Maine
to Georgia in one straight shot, usually averaging about four
(02:36):
to five to six months to do it. That's right, well,
not necessarily in one straight shot, as we'll see, because
you can do it in leap frogate and do it
in chunks, and I think it all counts as long
as you do it within the same year. But for me,
and I used to want to do this, I had
a big, gigantic A T poster that hung on my
(02:57):
walls for many, many years, and my time has passed
to do this. But I think my new goal is
I would like to hike the entire Georgia portion. Okay,
at some point I have hiked portions of it in Georgia,
but uh, when I wanted to hike the A T.
I was always of the mindset and not that there's
(03:17):
any right or wrong way to do it, but I
wanted to do it just all in one go, and
not do it in chunks, and just start out at
Springer Mountain in Georgia and end up with some mountain
in Maine. Canadain. That's right. Yeah, that's a through hike
for sure, and that's the that's you would be a nobo,
like you said, going from yeah, from Georgia to Maine.
(03:38):
If you went from Maine to Georgia, which is again
another way you can do it, you'd be a sobo
for southbound. But the thing is chucked. I think three
million people hike on the a T every year, some
little segment or portion. They're called section hikers. Anyone who
doesn't hike the whole thing in one shot as a
section hiker. But of those three million people, just a
(03:59):
few are several thousand people try it, try through hiking
every year, and only one and four of them is
successful because it's so hard to do. Yeah. It is
the longest hike only footpath in the world. Uh. There
are longer trails for sure. Uh. And at some point
(04:20):
we might do one on the Great Specific Rest Trail.
But um, you can take pack mules and horses on
the PCT. Uh, you are not allowed to. You can
only take your body and your own feet on the
Appalachian Trail. Yeah. Whereas Dave puts it on the a T,
the pack animal, as you that's a great line. That's
(04:41):
very yakov SnO. So in addition to it just being
really really long, Chuck, there's a lot of ups and downs.
There's a lot of crazy terrain. There's a lot of
dangers that will see. But those ups and downs amount
to over that whole distance, four hundred and sixty four thousand,
five of hundred feet of elevation gain and loss. And
(05:04):
Mount Everest is about twenty nine thousand feet, So if
you started at sea level and walked up and down Everest,
you'd have to do that eight times to equal that
amount of elevation gain or loss that you're gonna walk
along the Appalachian Trail in that one straight shot. That's right. Uh.
That is not to say I mean those are apples
to oranges, but that just puts it into perspective a
(05:26):
lot of a lot of mountains you're hiking up and down.
I never claimed they were both apples, No, No, I know,
I just don't, like, I don't want people that have
climbed Everest to be like, dude, you can't even compare
the two. That's such a good Everest climber impression. Almost
stood up there, bro Um. All right, so let's talk
(05:47):
about this history wise. Uh. The original human being that
thought this was a good idea was named Benton Mackay,
who obviously was a hiker in the New England area
and went to High of It, got a degree in
forestry and worked as a land use planner and was
hiking along in Vermont one day in the Green Mountains,
(06:09):
climbed a big tree, looked out upon all the peaks,
you know, those nice little rounded peaks of the Appalachian Mountains,
not like the Rocky Mountains. We've talked about that. Why, Uh,
it's because of wind, and said, you know what, that's amazing.
I've been trying to interlink trails in New England to
make hikes longer. Is it even possible? Could we link
(06:33):
a trail from Georgia to Maine all along this Appalachian Range? Yeah?
And that's a great first thought. But then he had
plenty of successive follow up thoughts about that idea. UM.
He wrote a paper called an Appalachian Trail, a Project
in Regional Planning in n and UM he basically said, hey,
(06:53):
in addition to this interconnected trail that forms one big
trail along the Appalachians, we can also build shelter is
for people hiking. We can build community camps, we can
build farms that are run by labor unions and basically
socialize the woods to give people a chance to get
away from the rest of the world. Yeah, it was
like a really really grand plan and one that like
(07:16):
super admirable I think, Yeah, for sure, I I admire it.
And Yeah, the thing is is he was like, as
Dave put it, he was the tree hugger who came
up with this idea, and he definitely was, and he
had a real vision for it. And people came along
and said, that has a great idea. We're gonna really
trim off this fat about socialism and labor unions and stuff,
(07:36):
but the rest of it we really like. And McKay
was like, hey, what do you mean fat? And uh
that that it just kind of got taken away from
him from their well sort off. He still worked a
lot with. Uh. This other guy who came along who
we're going to talk about named Myron Avery, And this
is how Dave put it. By all accounts, Myron Avery
was a great a jerk. Here's the thing. Myron Avery
(08:00):
was a lawyer, a maritime attorney, a big time hiker
from Washington, d C. Who took charge of the project
in nineteen thirty and everything. I read up a lot
about this guy, because anytime I see someone just kind
of categorized as a big time jerk, I'm kind of
curious because it's probably complicated, and it sounds like he
(08:22):
was very stubborn and he was a perfectionist and he
kind of just didn't want to listen to other people,
Like he would go into a community and that they
would have ideas like, hey, why don't you get the
community on board with this and get some community support,
and he was like no, he was like, we should
just make this trail and then they'll see the benefit.
(08:44):
The locals will see the benefit and its value afterward,
and all we need to do is just blaze forward,
no pun intended as you'll see, and and just do
this thing. And it sounded like he was just really
tenacious and he did burn bridges, and it sounds like
he had a big ego and he may have been
a bit of a jerk in a bully, but I
(09:04):
think it's probably a little more complicated than to just
say he was a big a hole, for sure, But
he was enough of a whole Are we singing that now?
I mean I just did. Okay, So he was enough
of one of those that he and mackay had a
falling out and McKay stayed away from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy,
which Myron Avery led until Myron Avery died at age
(09:28):
fifty two of a heart attack. From being such a
type a personality. Yeah, I mean they had they worked
together for a while and then eventually couldn't sort of
see eye to eye, so he backed out. Have you
ever read the book A Walk in the Woods by
Bill Bryson? No, but I'd like to chuck you will
love it. It's Did you read it? Oh? Yeah, it's
It's one of those best in your late teens early twenties.
(09:49):
But I think you would appreciate it no matter what
your age. It's just a great book. And he's such
a great writer, and his um, his Companion on the Trail,
is just such a great like oil and comic relief.
It is just a really good book. But in it
he he described Myron Avery is blazing to two trails
from Georgia to Maine. One was of hurt feelings and
(10:10):
bruised egos. The other was the t uh well for
his stubborn efforts. Uh. The east peak of Bigelow Mountain
and Maine is now called Avery Peak. Oh it's nice
or a whole peak. Oh boy? So Avery did walk
the Appalachian Trail. He mapped apparently every square inch of
(10:32):
it because again he was in charge of it, and
he was such a um, a pragmatic and totally driven
visionary that um he got the A T completed in
seven years and it opened to the public in ninety
seven because of him, that's right. Uh. And after it
(10:52):
was completed, everyone was like, this thing is great, but
is anyone ever gonna really? I know you link these trails,
but is anyone even capable of hiking this whole thing?
And we will let you know if that's possible, well,
or at least who made that possible. Right after this
(11:28):
and drum roll, Uh boy, your drum You need to
change your drumhead, my friend, we need to work on
our timing to Okay, what does that mean? I finished
(11:51):
my drum roll and you were still talking about my drumheads. Sorry,
let's try it again. Look, No, that's great, it's really good. Uh. Yes,
we know that we can complete the A T we're
being coy. Many people have done it, but the very
(12:13):
first time that it was done was but eleven years
after it opened, and a man named Earl Schaefer, Pennsylvanian
from York County World War two Vett who uh you
know we what we called this now is PTSD by
you know, back then they just you know, called it
suffering from war demons. But he clearly had some kind
(12:34):
of PTSD and and was quoted as saying he wanted
to walk the army out of his system and started
at the time, it was not at Springer Mountain and
Georgia at the time. It was Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia
on April four, nineteen and didn't even have a tent. No,
he had a poncho that he slept under, had paper maps,
(12:55):
he had a compass. He was wearing Russell Moccasin Company's
bird Shooter boots and they still make those. Actually they're
nice looking boots, but I would not like the t
and them very expensive. They're like fours. But I believe
they're so handmade that you can find like fingernail clippings
in them. Yeah, that's handmade chuck. That is super handmade.
(13:20):
So He did this in a hundred and twenty four days,
the first guy to ever through hike the a T
did it way above average of what people do today. Yeah,
he was making about sixty miles a day on average.
So not only did he, you know, set the bar
by being the first person to throw hike, he said
a really high bar as far as records to break,
(13:43):
Like that wasn't just something the second person was going
to do better than you know, Yeah, for sure. His
advice was carry as little as possible, but choose that
little with care. Uh And everyone said duh and he went,
shut up, I'm the first one to do it. I
get to have my my advice has given out. And
he did it again just to prove himself in nineteen
(14:05):
and was the first person to do it both ways
in both directions, and then at almost eighty years old
in the late nineties, he did it one more time. Yeah,
and there's other other trail legends, but he was definitely
the first. They called them crazy one Earl Schaefer and
then original crazy one apparently. Yeah, I guess there was
somebody who was just as crazy who came along. Well,
(14:28):
I'm sure a lot of people are like oh, I'm
gonna be crazy one too. And then you know, yeah,
you know it's steal his name. No, that's his trail name.
So Charles. Um we said that the Appalachian Trail goes
from um Georgia Springer Mountain to Mount cadad In in Maine,
and as it as it winds from one place to
(14:48):
the other, it goes through fourteen different states, some more
than others. Virginia it goes for about five and fifty
plus miles. West Virginia, which is very jealous of Virginia
in this respect, only has eighteen miles of Appalachian Trail. Yeah,
that's what I said to But if you add all
these together, a couple hundred miles here, tens of miles here, Um,
(15:10):
you have this whole mile trail, and on average it
takes a through hiker about a hundred and sixty five days,
which again this is today with modern amazing gear people
average a hundred and sixty five days, And Earl Schaefer
did it in a hundred and twenty four back in
nineteen eight with fingernail boots, right exactly. It just makes
(15:34):
his accomplishment that much more amazing. Um. But one guy
showed up Earl Schaefer like nobody's business, didn't he? Oh yeah.
A trail runner named Joe McConaughey in average fifty miles
a day to complete the eight and forty five days,
twelve hours and fifteen minutes. I had my little blaze
(15:56):
pun earlier. If you've ever hiked any portion of the
A t um you will know about the blazes. If
you've never hiked the A t you may wonder, how
do you know that you're still on the A T
and you don't accidentally go off on another trail, which
is possible. But it is marked with little blazes there.
It's a rectangular piece of paint, piece of paint. It's
(16:20):
a rectangular swash of paint, brushstroke of paint. Uh. And
they're about I don't know, I feel like they're about
six by three inches or so. Uh. And they are
on trees and rocks about every seventy feet or so.
So it is a very very well marked, whale well
(16:41):
trod trail. That's hard to say, So don't don't be
afraid of getting lost. And there are plenty people on it. Uh.
It is not to say you should go into it
lightly or without any preparation, but it is. It's pretty
easy to find your way along the A T. Yes,
it is. And you're gonna encounter plenty of people along
a tube because remember three million people a year hike
(17:01):
it to some extent. And again, there's thousands and thousands
of people who are nobos or sobos trying to throw
hike at any given on any any given year. And
because of the weather and the distance that you're covering,
you're actually going through the A T in different seasons,
so there's actually like certain windows, depending on which direction
(17:25):
you're going north or south, um, where you can hike
the A T. So all of those thousands of people
are not spread out over a full year. They're actually
kind of condensed in four or five or six month
periods on any given years. So you're definitely gonna have
lots of companions on the trail, whether you like them
or not. Yeah. Well, trail sex is a thing too, Yeah,
(17:47):
I saw, it's not nearly as much as you would think. Yeah,
I'm sure, Okay, I don't know. I mean I'm sure
that these uh, these dirty hippies out there sweating it
up for days at a time, don't mind knocking boots
under the stars. But no, it's not the sexiest way
to do things. I saw that that was saved for town.
(18:08):
Oh okay, like your your zero day, like you take
a down day, maybe stay in a cheap hotel, take
a shower, meet a friend, starfish meat and jellyfish meat,
starfish right, and they have sunfish. Sure that this is
something weird just happened. I'm glad we planned that out.
(18:29):
Uh So, if you are a NOBO, you're gonna want
to and if you want to hike the a t
there are books out there that like, and websites and
and blogs that will tell you very specifically exactly. You
can map it down to the day if you want,
like day one, day two, um, or you can kind
of do your own thing. But generally, if you're a NOBO,
(18:50):
you're probably gonna want to start at Springer Mountain in
the early spring and like March or April. So those
first couple of months, those first few months, actually you're
be hiking and pretty good weather h as far as
it getting too hot, Uh, it will get elevation. You
can get snow still for sure. In March and April
(19:10):
in North Carolina and Tennessee even parts of Georgia. So
the disadvantage there is that you will have to pack
some cold weather gear for your first five miles or so,
which you can ditch in mail uh mail home at
some point if you want, right, But you have a
much longer stretch of time to finish your through hike
than you do if you're going from Maine to Georgia
(19:32):
or southbound. UM. And because you have a much more
limited window of about four to five months UM, you
have to cover a lot of miles every day. So
being a sobo, if you see a SABO on the trail,
this is probably not their first hike. They're usually pretty
experienced and can make it over some unforgiving terrain a
(19:52):
lot faster than the average hiker, I would guess for sure.
And you talked about the amount of people hiking, there's
something called the bubble, So early on in March and April,
the nobo areas get pretty and when we say congested,
it's not like you're surrounded about like hundreds of people,
but it definitely thins out as you go. Yeah, but
(20:13):
that's a real advantage to being a sobo is far
fewer people start north to south UM. So you're going
to run into a lot less people at the time,
and by the time south and by the time you
do start running into those original members of the bubble,
they've thinned out because again, remember only one and four
people make it all the way through the a T
(20:33):
and it's not like they all make it close to
the end. People burn out at different spots along the way. Yeah.
And then I mentioned at the very beginning the flip
flopping technique, that is when you're doing it in chunks
to really try and get the best weather everywhere you
are at the time. Uh. And there's a leap frogging
route where you would start in Georgia in April, uh
(20:55):
late April, just as so you maybe don't get that
snow that we were talking about out. You hike to
West Virginia to Harper's Ferry, and then you leap frog.
You can take a car, you can take a train
anyway you would normally get somewhere not by foot. You
would go to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, then hike north from
there to finish up by September before that cold weather,
(21:18):
and then you leap frog back down to Great Barrington
and hike that southern portion back down to Harper's ferry
that you skipped, and there you have if you ever
want to hike the a T. Just pack a backpack
and listen to what Chuck just said and just go
for it. You don't need any other information, that's correct,
I think, actually you do need a tremendous amount of information.
And luckily there's a lot of information out there on
(21:42):
the web, a lot of really good free advice. UM.
If if you are thinking about, um hiking the A T.
I'm sure you have already found a lot of these,
but a good place to start if you're just if
this episode inspires you, is probably the subredit for the
Appalachian Trail. I know. Just there's a ton of good
advice on there. Um and just whatever question you have,
(22:04):
just ask it in type Appalachian Trail, and there's probably
pages and pages of people who have great advice and
suggestions on how to do this. UM. And we'll share
a little bit with you right now. I'm about sleeping
and eating. Yeah, I used to do plenty of backpacking,
so I'm familiar with all this stuff. Now. I'm a
car camper mainly, but I am going to get back
into backpacking at some point. Um, But I still have
(22:27):
all that gear. But boy, it's it's a lot lighter
now than when I bought it. Um. You can get
an ultra light tent these days that weigh less than
twenty ounces. My friend, it's about one point one seven pounds.
That's like the weight of a cockatil, a big one.
That's right. So leave your cocket deal at home too. Um.
So you know you're gonna want an ultra light tent
(22:49):
unless you're gonna really really either sleep in a hammock
or just you know, sleep under the ground under a
tarp or something. But I would suggest an ultra light tent.
But there are two hundred and fifty shelters along the way.
I've slept in a couple of these there. It's just
you know, two walls in a roof and a and
a sort of like a small deck that you're sleeping on.
(23:11):
And it's first come, first serve, uh. You. Some of
them have little outhouses, some of them don't. They're usually
near water, like a river or something. Uh. And you
can and I have camped on these with strangers, and
then it could be a lot of fun sometimes meeting
people like that. Oh yeah, if you're gonna throw hike
the a t You need to get used to interacting
with strangers in close quarters for just for times like this,
(23:34):
but also you know, on the trail you run into
lots of strangers and a lot of times they want
to stop and talk or whatever. But um, I saw
that those rustic shelters are um first come, first serve.
So even if you meticulously planned your hike UM to
hit one of these, did you say they're about eight
miles apart? I didn't, but that's about right yet. So
(23:55):
that and that's like, you know, that's an average day's
walk for a very average ridge hikers. And they purposely
spread them out like that, and they're a little further
spread out if there's a town in between them with
hotels and hostels and all that. But you can meticulously
plan your your route so that you hit one of
these shelters every night, so you're you're you have shelter
(24:16):
without needing a tent. But if there's a lot of
people on the trail, you may be s o l
when you show up at that shelter because it's full
up by with eight people in their sleeping bags and
there's no room for you. Yeah, that's when you're gonna
want that tent as a backup at the very least,
and you can camp right behind the shelter if you
still want to hang out with people. Because I don't
know if we mentioned this, there are a lot of
(24:36):
different reasons people hike the A t Some people really
want to get away from people. Um. But for what
I'm have read and talk to people who have done it.
Even those people, when you're out there for five and
a half months, can enjoy talking with someone every few days, right,
you know what I mean? Even though weirdos want to
talk to people sometimes or you may not. They they're
(24:57):
probably names for everything. They're probably named for people to
don't want to socialize, like a little a t uh,
sort of made up name they give them sure, trail
hermits all bad. Yeah, termits termites, Yeah, termites is what
they call them. We've been a cockney rhyming rhyming slang. Um.
(25:18):
Food is another thing. Obviously you're gonna be eating a
lot of calories, or at least burning up a lot
of calories and ideally replenishing those calories with food. Um,
you will lose a ton of weight hiking the A
t if you're through hiker and you need about two
pounds of food a day and you want to resupply
generally every three to ten days, depending on kind of
(25:38):
how you want to plan it out and how much
weight you want to carry. Uh. And there are great
books again that you can tell you exactly how to
do this. But you're either going to be replenishing on
the trail when you hit a town, or a lot
of people mail or have family members mail their stuff
ahead of time to post offices that you'll hit. Yeah. Um,
some people mail their own stuff or they have some
(26:00):
family do it for him. And there's a lot of
a lot of websites dedicated to teaching you how to
do that successfully and giving you the addresses you need
and where you can it can't send send stuff. But
the off shot is you're not gonna have to carry
your five months supply of food with you the whole time.
People have figured out how to not do it, and
there's no shame whatsoever. And going into town not only
(26:22):
to eat or to resupply and restock up on food,
but also to sleep to like people take zero days
I think you mentioned earlier, where you just you just
take the day off or maybe even two days off
if you're particularly burned out, and you just kind of
recuperate and recharge and get back on the trail after that.
So that's definitely part of a t culture that's not
(26:43):
like cheating or anything. Yeah. Absolutely, uh And apparently it's
a tradition to uh to go on a feast and
when you're in a town just to really eat just
a bunch of high calorie junk. Uh, to load up
on calories and think to maybe satisfy a certain urge
that's not being met on the trail when you're eating, uh,
(27:06):
you know. Uh. Dave calls it gorp. I've never heard
it called that, but like trail mix and and freeze
dried food and stuff like that, even though that stuff
has come a long way and how good it tastes,
I will say that I looked it up. GORP stands
for good old raisins and peanuts. Okay, gn't that delightful.
That may be a regional thing. I've never heard anyone
call it that here. Yeah, I have never heard it either,
(27:27):
which is why I was like, what is this gorps stuff?
I didn't I'm glad you, Uh, I didn't know as
an acronym. It definitely it does not accurately convey what
it's talking about because gorp sounds disgusting, but raisins and
peanuts are not disgusting. Yeah, Dave also hasn't here. The
average cost of gear that you buy is about a
thousand bucks. I think that is, uh, can vary wildly.
(27:52):
I think it really depends on how much gear you
already have, because that one pound tent that I was
talking about is a seven all our tent. Oh yeah, No, definitely,
Like you can also like buy your stuff off of
like eBay or Craigslist or something like that probably save
a tremendous amount of money compared to going to are
e I and buying everything brand new. Um. And also,
(28:14):
especially if you're a first timer, you're definitely going to
over purchase, over plan, and overpack. So I would guess
if you're if you're a first time through hiker, you
were going to spend substantially more than you would on
maybe your second attempt. Yeah, and I think at the
beginning of no matter where you start in Maine, And
it's weird that he can do this in both places.
(28:35):
But Sam Elliott is at the front at the trailhead
going through your pack and saying, you don't need this,
you don't need this, get rid of this, why would
you even have this, and just tearing your pack apart
basically until you're down to you know, that ultra light
tent and some gorp. Yeah, and by proxy tearing you
apart psychologically. Yeah. He was kind of a jerk lately
(28:59):
about that power of the dog. Maybe I forgot about that.
What do you mean he was a jerk? What do
you do? He the power of the dog came out
and he was just kind of like, well, do you
know what these candy butts in their homosexual cowboyd notions?
And that's that's not the West. I knew what's problem. Yes,
he knew he was born in nineteen fifty or the
(29:22):
crotchety old guy, homophobic, crotchety old guy, which was very
disappointing because all that's great, Sam elliott Um. But getting
back to the money, Uh, you're gonna spend about a
grand a month. They just say that at least plan
on about a thousand dollars a month, So between five
and seven thousand dollars, depending on how long you're gonna
(29:42):
take to hike it. Yes, so cough up the smoleans.
Everybody are prepared to and also prepared to listen to
some commercials because we're gonna take a break real quick.
(30:18):
All right, Well, let's talk weather. If you're hiking the
a T we mentioned potentially, potentially the snow at the
beginning of the northbound route, or you know, Maine is crazy,
you might you might get a late snow and in
May or early June and May and even at elevation,
so you're gonna have some cold weather to contend with
(30:39):
for a little while at least, right, yes, one way
or another. And again, um, if you have cold weather
stuff that you need to eventually ditch, you don't have
to plan on carrying it the whole time. You can
go to one of those same post offices that you
pick up your mail drop at and mail it back,
mail back your cold weather gear, a little lead, a
little trail magic for someone, you know what I'm saying.
(30:59):
There you go, I wonder, I'll bet a lot of
people do that. To tell you the truth, you think, Yeah,
and then hypothermia because there's cold weather associated with the
um hike. It's a real problem and it's not just
from being snowed on. It's actually much less likely from
being snowed on. It's more likely from being hit by
a cold rain and being soaked and then hit with
(31:19):
some very cold wind, which can happen at high altitudes,
and all of a sudden, your core temperature is dropping
very quickly, so you have to get naked and try
to warm up as fast as you can. That's right.
The clothing that they make these days is amazing. It's
very lightweight. Uh, these synthetic weaves that with the water away,
(31:40):
they dry out super fast. Uh. It is not like
the stuff in the shapeer days. And this other wonderful
hero that we're going to talk about in a little bit,
this woman. I cannot wait to get to her. H
But you're also gonna hit really hot, humid, balmy weather
in the in the thick of it in the summer,
in the middle of that hike. Uh, you're gonna you
(32:00):
depleted of your electrolytes and your salts. You could suffer
from cramping and heat stroke and heat exhaustion. So they
say to count on a couple of liters of water
a day. Uh, And obviously you're not gonna carry that
much weight, so you're gonna gonna want to use and
I got one of these two uh, one of those
beautiful little lightweight water purifying systems that you just kind
(32:21):
of pump into your water bottle from a running, beautiful stream. Ye,
you pump and dump into your water bottle. That's right.
And then also, chuck, I mean you want to keep
up with your water, you really need to keep up
with your calories, because, like you said, you're gonna lose
a ton of weight. And apparently, even if you ate
four thousand calories a day, by the time you were
(32:43):
done with your through hike, on average, you would have
probably lost ten to twenty pounds and you would look
like a black lab that has ripped like a pit pole. Yeah,
that's right, and that's a cool reason to do it,
you know it is. But I also saw that it
can lead to a lot of um like guilt or
shame when you start to gain your weight back, because
(33:05):
everybody's been telling you how amazing you look, and then
when you get back to normal life, it can be
really difficult. Right. There's something called hikers hunger, where it
is you're just starving and you can eat those incredible
large amounts of food, calorie dense food, and just keep
shedding the pounds because you're exerting yourself so much. But
(33:26):
when you get off of the trail, when you're done,
you're not exerting yourself any longer. But that that hikers
hunger can still linger. So you're actually eating way more
than you would have before you started the trail, and
you really have to kind of keep up with it
or else you can gain whatever weight you have back
and then some. But yeah, I saw that there's there
there can be guilt associated with with not looking like
(33:47):
that any longer after a little while. Yeah, So if
you next time you see a buddy come off of
a through hike on the a T, don't tell them
how amazing they look. Just say it's good to see you,
yeah exactly, I'm glad you're safe. And then they'll go,
you know what you say anything about how great airlock? Right?
What's wrong with this? I thought we were a friend. Uh.
(34:08):
There are animal dangers, of course, snakes and spiders and
bears and things like that. Uh. Ticks are a big,
big part of the problem. Uh. Lime disease is huge.
You're gonna get ticks if you hike the a t
So you wanna check that every night around your ankles
and armpits and groin area and waistline and everywhere that
ticks like to hide out. Dude, I saw that people
(34:31):
drop their pants in squat over an iPhone and video
like run a video of their underside or undercarriage and
then watch the video just see if there's any hiding
there that they can't feel. Or the stranger that they
met in the thing. They say, I looked at the
video a few times. Will you just give it a
once over? Right? And the stranger says, I'm a term Mike,
(34:51):
please leave me alone. Bears, I did mention you don't
want your food to be left out. If you are
an experienced camp n hiker, you know this stuff. But uh,
some places they have bare boxes, but that you can't
count on a bare box being there. Um, there are
bear proof canisters you can carry, but what you're probably
(35:12):
gonna do it's just what's called a bear hang, which
go about two hundred feet away from your campsite and
loop a rope over a tree and pull your food
up at least twelve feet off the ground. Yeah, every
single night without fail, and they still might get it.
Bears are crafty. They are crafty, but at least they're
doing it two feet away from where you're sleeping exactly.
(35:33):
You know. Um, a lot of people get injured too,
but very few people die U. Two to three people
out of again three million people die on the A
T every year. That's actually seems like it would be
way higher than that. UM. And there have only been
I say only, but to me, statistically speaking, it seems low.
Thirteen murders on the trail and the first one wasn't
(35:55):
until yeah, and I look this up and they did.
I'm not gonna bother going on the crazy apples to
apples math they had to do to make it work
out to like just being living in the United States
in a regular neighborhood. But they did do that math
if you want to go out there and look. But
they found that your chances of getting murdered on the
(36:17):
A T or a thousand times less likely than just
being a regular American walking around on a daily basis. Man,
I'm really glad you said that, because all you have
to do is hear about thirteen murders on the trailers
and people die. And this is the fact that you're
putting it in the context of dying out in the woods,
(36:38):
are being murdered out in the woods. It seems so
much worse. So I think that's a really reassuring thing
you just said. Uh it is. And I was also
curious about sexual assault type of things, and of course
things go unreported, so I'm not not even enough to
think that this accounts for all of them. But they
said that there's one basically one reported rape every two
(37:00):
to three years. And it is more dangerous to live
on a college campus than it is to hike the
a T. So I don't know if that makes you
feel better or worse, depending on if you're on a
college campus or not. But the point is it is
generally a pretty safe, helpful community out there. Yeah. That's
one of the reasons it's safe is because there's such
(37:21):
a established culture and there is such tight community out there,
not only among strangers, but among the towns folk like this.
These this trail goes through or right past some towns
that part of their industry is supporting Appalachian Trail through hikers, um.
And so they're really kind and generous and um and
(37:43):
helpful um out on the trail. Some people will just
go out on the trail who live in town and
take like snacks and drinks and stuff and just hand
them out to people who are walking on the Appalachian Trail.
So I mean like there's that's that's like kind of
like the the vibe and the zeitgeist on a T.
Not everybody's out for themselves and you know, don't don't
(38:04):
turn your back on a stranger because they'll hit you
with a hatchet and take your one pound hint um.
It's nothing like that. It's actually quite the opposite of
that from everything I can tell. Uh, we have kind
of joked around about these trail names, but that is
one thing that you do, or at least you're encouraged
to do, is give yourself a trail name. Only go
by that trail name, and it's a symbolic thing that
(38:26):
you are leaving your old identity behind for now you
are becoming a new person on the trail. And it's
kind of fun, I think, yeah. But I mean that
that kind of goes to underscore like why people hike
the a T. And one of them is to like
just get away from their life to kind of reset
their perspective on things or think things through or you know,
(38:49):
go through a transition. Um, and that you know, taking
a trail name is a really good way to just
become somebody different for a little while, or not your
usual self. It gives you that kind of freedom. I think. Yeah,
I just don't don't use the trail named Ted Bundy
and you should be fine. Right. Um, you mentioned the
towns that are behind this. There is in Damascus, Virginia
(39:11):
in May there's a weeklong festival called Trail Days where
there's a hiker parade and everyone gets showered with water
balloons and water guns and they're sort of celebrated. Uh.
There's the half gallon ice Cream Challenge or write a
passage in pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, where
you get a half gallon of ice cream from pine
(39:32):
Grove Furnace General Store and try to eat the whole thing.
Not that sounds like a lot of fun to me.
Oh yeah, definitely. I don't think you have to hike
that a t to try that. Also, chuck. Apparently on
the summer solstice in June, Um, there's Hike Naked Day
for that is that is the thing, and my my
friend Mitch told me that he hiked most of it naked,
(39:52):
not just on high on hike naked day, Like, there's
a lot of naked hiking, or at least there used
to be in the late nineties. Okay, good from Yeah,
that's what I said to and this is medium uh hygiene, Mitch, right,
not any much? Okay, No one wants to see that
I mentioned trail magic. That is not something I was
just making fun of or made up. Trail magic is
(40:15):
defined by the A T Conservancy as uh, I think it.
People could be cynical about stuff like this, But the
fact that you had to say that too is that
it just goes to show how lame the words trail
magic har you know. Uh. The A T Conservancy defines it,
and it's finding what you need most when you at
least expected, or experiencing something rare, extraordinary or inspiring in nature,
(40:39):
or encountering unexpected acts of generosity that restore your faith
and humanity. And it is something like, hey, man, you
need you need that, I've got that, and here it is. Yeah,
that's pretty cool. It also can take the form of
even like verbal encouragement from townsfolk in the towns that
you walk through, you know, so I want to also
(41:00):
clarify the term trail magic is what I think is lame.
That concept of trail mangic, I think is beautiful. No,
I'm with you. I think it's wonderful and like you said,
you know, something inspiring in nature. When you're on the trail,
you might see things that you're never ever going to
see again for the rest of your life and have
never seen before, including some types of animals or just
certain views um and that like that experience can be
(41:26):
there's no other way to put it. Magical. Like that's
what helps helps you when you're kind of on this
passage through the a t if you're going through life
transition or if you're trying to figure yourself out, seeing
stuff like that, bearing witness to it and letting it
like um, impress upon you. That helps that process I
think probably tremendously. Yeah, or like somebody filming their butt
(41:48):
hole with an iPhone. That's right, trail magic. All right.
I think we should close the show and this episode
with uh. I think I can speak for both of
us and say one of our new favorite amazing women
and human beings to ever live u Emma Grandma Gatewood
(42:09):
true dat, who was the first woman to walk the
A T by herself, um, all the way back in
nineteen five when she was sixty seven, and this is
nineteen fifty five, sixty seven, that's like hundred and fifty today, right,
And as if that wasn't enough, it just gets better
and better. She was the mother of eleven kids twenty
(42:30):
three grandkids, had a thirty year marriage to an awful, abusive,
physically abusive husband who apparently would beat her nearly to
death at times. Eventually divorced this uh garbage human, raised
those eleven children by herself, and then in the nineteen
fifties read a nat GEO article about the A T
(42:54):
and about Schaefer's through hike, and said in in nineteen
fifty three, told her grandchildren, I'm sorry her grown children
that she was going for a hike quote, and tried
to hike the A T right then and there, starting
at Mount Katadin, which again, if you if you're a sobo,
(43:14):
you're that's for experience hikers, not first timer who's going
for a hike at age sixty seven and nineteen fifty five,
so uh and apparently very short order she fell she
broke her glasses, she got lost. She basically turned into
Veloma from Scooby Doo and she was rescued by rangers.
And you would think, okay, that's the end of the
(43:35):
story that she you know, she had a wild hair
and she tried it and it didn't work. No, in
two years later she said, let me try this from
Georgia instead, and she was able to through hike the
entire Appalachian Trail. Unbelievable. You look up pictures of this
lady and you're like, wait a minute, it looks like
she's just holding a ruck sack over her shoulder. And
(43:57):
that's because that's exactly what she did. She didn't have
a backpack, she didn't have a sleeping bag, she didn't
have a compass. She had a homemade denim duffel bag
that she draped over her shoulder, that had a blanket,
a shower curtain that she used as a sleeping tart. Basically,
she had a canteen for water apparently, a small pot,
(44:19):
a spoon, a Swiss army knife, some pins, a first
aid kit, a flashlight, a piece of rope, a raincoat,
a warmer coat, and a change of clothes. And she
hiked the whole thing and kids sneakers, yes, seven pairs.
Did kids take advantage of this back then and they're
advertising I don't know. They could probably still take advantage
of it. It's that astounding, you know they should. And
(44:41):
despite wearing nothing but kids and carrying this denim duffel bag,
which I would guess is probably pretty heavy. Um, she
managed the average of fourteen miles a day, and of
course people heard about her in the newspaper started covering
her and all that. So townsfolk came out and said like, hey,
you can sleep our house, no charge. We want to
feed Jim, put you up. We just think what you're
(45:03):
doing is great. And she said, I appreciate it. But
most nights she slept out on a bed of leaves. Amazing.
I salute you, Grandma Gatewood. She U. There were not
many women obviously hiking the a T at the time
at all, much less through hiking. I think they make
up women make up about a third of all through
hikers today. Uh. And she went on to hike it
(45:26):
I think a couple of more times to write. Yeah.
Two years later she hiked it again. So she became
the first person man or woman to hike the trail twice,
and she did a third time in nineteen sixty four.
At that time she divided into sections, So yeah, she
was definitely she definitely Again, there's really no other way
to put it. She was a trailblazer for women on
(45:47):
the a T. Sorry, but that's just how you put it.
A couple of other standouts we should mention um. Just
last year m J. Sunny Everhart Uh became the oldest
person to complete it through hiking eighty three years young.
What was Sonny's name on the trail Nimblewood nomad. Very nice,
(46:10):
but how about that kid trail magic to it? It does. Yeah.
The same year, another record was set the youngest through hiker,
UH five year old named Harvey Sutton, who started off
when he was four and walked it in two d
nine days with his parents. Unbelievable. Harvey's trail name was
little Man And I read article about this and it
(46:31):
just sounds sounded like a wonderful family experience. Uh. And
this one guy hiked with the family from somewhere in
Pennsylvania through two Maine just kind of buddied up with
him and it was like this kid at the end
of the day, like our butts are kicked and he's like,
let's play freeze tag. Oh my god, unbelievable and and
just you know, the parents had to work over time
(46:52):
to keep him engaged. And so you can't just like
be alone with your thoughts for you know, ten hours
a day on the trail with a five year old,
like you gotta be pointing things out and playing little games.
And so they said that was challenging. But they said
they were just closer than they'd ever been as a family,
which is pretty cool. That it's cool. Did they say
anything about feeding him? Because I would find it distressing
(47:12):
as a parent to know that I needed to keep
up with thousands of calories. Yeah, that my kid needed.
So I mean hats off to his parents for for
doing that and then successfully doing it too. You know. Yeah,
I did see that there was um another kid that
finished it for named Juniper net Netteberg, a young girl
(47:34):
that finished it. This is amazing and a wonder woman costume. Um.
But apparently he did it in sections and took time
off and I think did it within a year's time,
but didn't do this straight through hike like Harvey Sutton did.
But big salute to Juniper as well as well as
Bill Irwin. Right, yeah, he definitely bears mentioning. He was
(47:55):
the first man who was blind to hike the Appalitchian
Trail through hike In and he did it with his
dog Orient. Apparently the pair together we're called the Orient Express,
and it took him eight months. Again, this is not
like this trail is not just like some well worn
dirt path. For two thousand miles. You're climbing over boulders,
(48:17):
you're climbing up mountains, down mountains, You're crossing streams and rivers.
Apparently they would do that because Orient would go across
and then bark at Bill, so he knew where to
swim across this river. He gets to the other side.
This is what they did, and they did it in
eight months, and he estimates that he fell about five
thousand times over that eight months. But he still made
(48:39):
it from Georgia to Cadadin. You know what that means,
my friend, he got up five thousand times. That's right,
pretty neat chucking your brain? Do you love my body? Sure, Starfish.
I don't know why this episode is so blue. I
don't either, but it sure was. Hopefully it inspired some
people to go out and do this, you know, I hope.
(49:01):
So it's a very cool thing. I'm glad we finally
got around to it. Hopefully there's some through hikers listing
right now that can write in and let us know
what's going on. Oh yeah, definitely. Uh, let us know
your trail name too. If you want to know more
about the a T. Just start doing research and there's
plenty of stuff out there and hopefully it'll draw you
out into the woods. And since I said draw you
out into the woods, it's time for listener mail. I'm
(49:25):
gonna call this kidney donation story. It's pretty great. Hello, chaps,
love the program. Listen with more interest than usual to
the on kidney donation. I donated to a family friend
a couple of years ago. We actually were in adjoining
surgery rooms. Out of me into him, lickety split. We're
both doing well. His kids nicknamed the organ little Kirby
(49:46):
after me, which I took as a high compliment. Uh,
and you asked how you got the kidney out. They
do make a three inch long incision low on the
bikini line up front and they just split it out. Wow,
So I think it it must just sort of flatten
out or something, and then they take it and they
feed it to the other person and hope it lands
in the right spot. Uh. That incision was actually the
(50:08):
worst part of the recovery. It took about a month
to heal up. In my case, I told my sisters
that they then made you poop the kidney out, and
I think part of them wanted to believe me. Thanks
for encouraging folks to join. The registry is well worth
it and the need is great. That is from Kirby
in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Very nice, Kirby. Hats off to
you for doing that. It's amazing, and hats off to
(50:31):
everybody who's done that. A few people have written in
and let us known that they've done that. So anyone
who does that, is it a okay in our book? Agreed.
If you want to be like Kirby and let us
know how you are a okay we want to hear,
you can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
(50:52):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows, h
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