Trail-er Trash: Thoughts On an Appalachian Trail Thru-hike

By Alexander Warzinski

I knew I would hike the Appalachian Trail. My dad took me on my first backpacking trip when I was 16, and I instantly fell in love. Backpacking isn’t easy, but it’s simple. Perfectly simple. I draw extreme pleasure from being able to survive with nothing but what I can carry on my back. You establish a baseline of comfort, and from there you are free to wander and wonder. Something in my 16-year-old head understood that thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail was the ultimate backpacking experience. After years of talking about it in high school and college to extremely patient friends, I was excited and frantically planning during my final semester at school to finally get underway. I’m pleased to say I hiked all 2,185.3 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine from May 24th-Sep. 27th, 2014.
This ebook is the fullest written representation of the trail I can give.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312941113

Book preview

Trail-er Trash: Thoughts On an Appalachian Trail Thru-hike

Trail-er Trash

Thoughts On an Appalachian Trail Thru-hike

Trail-er Trash:

Thoughts On an Appalachian Trail Thru-hike

Alexander Warzinski

Clearly Muddled Press

2015

Copyright © 2015 by Alexander Warzinski

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2015

ISBN 978-1-312-94111-3

Clearly Muddled Press

8007 Belmont Ct.

Marshall, Virginia 20115

Ordering Information:

Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, educators, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the above listed address.

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Dedication

To my mother and father.

Without your support, I would have never achieved any of this.

And to the rest of my family, friends, and even the naysayers.

You pushed me further than I thought I could go.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

May

June

July

August

September

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my father for introducing me to the world of backpacking. It is an eternal gift.

Thank you to my mother for providing support at every step of the way, especially with regards to the mail drops. A special thanks to her for offering to pay the cost of recovering the completed draft of this book off of a fried hard drive.

Thank you to all the family members that helped me to purchase my necessary gear, especially my loving grandmothers.

I deeply appreciate the support of those friends and family members who could join me, or wished to join me, on this adventure. You mean more to me than you can imagine.

Lastly, I apologize in advance to all my prior writing instructors for my journal entries’ poor grammar, sentence structures, and lack of figure captions.

Preface

I knew I would hike the Appalachian Trail. My dad took me on my first backpacking trip into when I was 16, and I instantly fell in love. Backpacking isn’t easy, but it’s simple. Perfectly simple. I draw extreme pleasure from being able to survive with nothing but what I can carry on my back. You establish a baseline of comfort, and from there you are free to wander and wonder. Something in my 16-year-old head understood that thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail was the ultimate backpacking experience. After years of talking about it in high school and college to extremely patient friends, I was excited and frantically planning during my final semester at school to finally get underway. I’m pleased to say I hiked all 2,185.3 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine from May 24th-Sep. 27th, 2014.

For the gearheads, here’s what I packed:

Pack

Osprey Aether 70 l

Osprey pack cover

1 large and 1 medium Walmart stuff sack

Shelter

MSR E-bivy

Kelty Cosmic Down 20° Bag – Overkill down South, greatly appreciated up North

Aqua Quest 9’ x 6’ tarp w/ compression straps and aluminum stakes

2x 50’ nylon cord

Egg-crate foam pad cut to torso length

Space blanket for groundcloth

Clothing

1 pair Merrel Moab Mid waterproof boots

1 pair ancient Spaulding sports sandals

3x lightweight hiking socks

1 pair sock liners

REI zip-off pants

Synthetic t-shirt

80% synthetic long-sleeve – regret not going full-synthetic

Fleece pullover

Bimini Bay nylon raincoat

2x compression shorts

2x bandanas

Running cap

Knit beanie

Mittens

Cheap sunglasses – rarely used

Cold Weather Additions

Under Armour ColdGear long-sleeve

ASICS running tights

Lightweight gloves

Water

Katadyn Hiker Pro filter and accessories – replaced with Sawyer Mini (then Sawyer Squeeze) and empty 2l bottle

Walmart 2l water bladder w/ replacement bits

Empty quart-size Gatorade bottle

Potable Aqua iodine tablets – untouched

Cooking

MSR Whisperlite Stove – should’ve just carried a simple alcohol stove

MSR 11oz fuel bottle w/ fuel filter/funnel

Snow Peak titanium pot w/ lid

REI plastic insulated mug – slowly killing itself due to heat shock; liquid gets between the plastic layers

Plastic spork

2 mini bic lighters

Matches in waterproof container – never used

Drawstring gym bag for tie-ups

Medical and Misc.

1 month doxycycline – for the imminent threat of Lyme

Trail Mix- roughly equal amounts ibuprofen, Benadryl, and Imodium to fill the rest of the pill bottle; was fortunate enough to need very little of any of this

Small first aid kit w/ extra Band-Aids and moleskin – used way less moleskin than I expected

1 small ACE bandage – never used

About 10ft duct tape (wrapped around match container)

Travel toothbrush and trial-size toothpaste

Unscented dental floss

3 small fishhooks and ~20’ of line – never used

4 oz Campsuds – used less than 1 oz the whole trip

~4 aluminum carabiners, various sizes

Mosquito head-net – never used

Small tube of sunscreen – never used

2 oz plastic trowel

1 roll toilet paper (tube pushed out)

1 small roll campers TP – I was a little paranoid about this; knew too many people who ran out

Cheap compass

2 Walmart-brand trekking poles

1 microfiber towel

PowerMonkey Solar-charger – Probably not essential

Cell phone

Energizer head-lamp

1 set spare AAAs

Digital watch

4 oz 100% DEET – Used very little; should’ve carried much smaller spray-bottle

Leatherman Micra multitool

KABAR Dozier folding knife

Food

Breakfast

Granola or Grape-nuts or Muesli w/ powdered milk

Snack

Almonds

Trail Mix

Hard candy

Lunch

Beef Jerky

Clif Bar Builder’s Max

Drink mix (for electrolytes or caffeine)

Dinner

Pouch tuna or salmon

Minute rice or couscous or mashed potatoes

Total weight was about ~40 lb with a week’s food and 3 liters of water. Most of the time, I was carrying much less of both.

If the diet sounds monotonous, it was. Food was little more than fuel, and anything tasted good while hungry. I made the mistake of mail-dropping food to post offices along the trail. Although it was reliable, it turned out to be a huge hassle and made me hike according to PO hours. It also sucked having a menu set months in advance. You’re much better off just resupplying in the towns that are accessible about every 3 days on average.

That being said, this book will not tell you how to hike the trail. For that, all you need are these 2 things:

The A.T. Guide by David Awol Miller – The trail-bible and the only literature you need to carry.

This advice: Never plan further ahead than your next resupply.

Now that those details are out of the way, here is the true preface:

What follows are my personal journal entries, edited to the lightest degree possible. I performed some scarce self-censorship and made some modifications where my writing was too ambiguous. Other than that, they are presented as-written and are about 99.7% faithful to my own hard-copies. I wanted the account to be as genuine as possible; you are getting window to many of my intimate thoughts from an entire summer. Please remember that the journals were written for me before they were written for you. Please respect this fact and take the entries for what they are: Thoughts; nothing more and nothing less. While typing, I’ve added abundant footnotes to provide the fullest written experience of the trail I can muster.

If these pages inspire you to go on a hike or examine yourself a little deeper or both, then they will have served their purpose. Enjoy

5/24

8:00pm

Dry hike. Gray, hazy burning off later in the afternoon. ~16 miles covered today.

Didn’t start off with a bang; more of just a cascade or a tumble. I feel like my mind took a while to catch up with what my feet were doing all day. Was feeling anxious all morning until I finally got the trekking poles in my hands. It was like my body knew it was hike time and my head finally shut up and was free to wander.

Settled on trailname Grubnugget about 5 miles in. Don’t know where it came from, but like the sound of it.

Today was a pretty aggressive start, so I know I’ll be feeling it tomorrow.

Not much wildlife today: a few rodents and small birds. Heard woodpeckers on a couple separate occasions. Found a snail-buddy in camp:

Sounds like the weather is supposed to get crappy in the next few days, so I’m trying to enjoy it while I can.

Don’t know exactly what/who/why journal, but I want to let you guys know I’m thinking about you already. It’s going to be tough with the little bit of interaction I get with the other hikers. In general, I don’t want to feel like I’m pestering them, and I think the feeling is mutual. Will figure all that out later (or not).

5/25

12:30pm

Clear skies in the morning. Clouds rolling in by midmorning.

About to push past Blood Mountain so we[1] don’t have to use bear canisters[2].

Small blister on inside of right heel and a couple little ones on each little toe (who needs those toes anyway?).

Weather is very mild again and there are no nuisance-bugs around.

Slept pretty well last night, but lots of turning to get my hips comfortable.

3 separate dreams last night: One with Stacie at some Midway-esque setting. Another with Nick moving back in and some associated drama. Also, some random one with Telmer talking about twerking. I feel like he was the first instance of me hearing twerk anyway.

Some animal got into my food bag last night and ate half of one of my trail mix bags (equiv. 1 day snacking). Now have about a quarter-sized hole in bag. Will probably fill with trash tonight so the next animal has to chew through an inch of foil and plastic before getting to my goodies inside.

4:00pm

Missed some afternoon storms (a little wet, but not bad)

Reaching top of Blood Mountain took longer than expected. Gorgeous stone shelter and real pretty. Exposed rock and pink something-or-anothers[3] in bloom.

8:30pm

Arrived in camp ~6:30pm and it started raining moderately heavy. It finally stopped by the time tarp was prepped, water was pumped, and dinner was consumed. Was getting chilly in my damp t-shirt, so switched into my dry, cozy long-sleeve. Just having dry clothes is going to be one of those creature-comforts I feel will repeat itself over and over again this summer.

Was coming up with stupid nicknames for pretty much everyone I know. Hopefully I’ll remember them/write them down later.

I think tomorrow is about the same mileage as today, but the terrain should be a little gentler. Hopefully those trail-legs kick in nonetheless. Weather has potential to get crappy tomorrow, if I remember the forecast correctly.

Forgot about Neels Gap[4], nice little trail store. Andrew went in and grabbed some snacks. Ate half a Snickers. Cool tree out front with probably 100 pairs of shoes/boots tossed over the branches. Weird hiker tradition, I suppose.

---

[1] My brother Andrew and I.

[2] Bear-proof containers were required for camping in about a 5 mile stretch of trail.

[3] Rhododendrons.

[4] Some ridiculous percentage of would-be thru-hikers drop out at this road crossing about 30 miles in.

5/26

7:20am

Didn’t end up raining last night. Woke up to pretty much clear skies. Took me a while to fall asleep last night. Think it was because it was a little colder than the night before. I ended up putting on a hat and mittens and sliding deep into my bag.

Again, can remember 3 distinct dreams. First was with Stacie and one of her friends in downtown Pittsburgh. Something about the way she was acting was making me feel used. I started walking away up towards Oakland with the intention of never speaking to her again. 2nd was me ordering some deluxe sandwich at what was probably a Chik-fil-a. After going to sit down with Nick, Khoff comes over and sits down. She was talking about how, when she got her food, she said something like, "no you have a nice day" to the cashier like it was some kind of funny/snarky remark. Nick started laughing inappropriately loud in an effort to annoy me. Last one involved Nick and I lifeguarding at some school-fundraiser pool and arcade place. We realized we weren’t qualified for the job of looking after dozens of small children, so most of the time was spent trying to close our section of the pool and exit the park without getting harassed by too many mothers and children.

7:45pm

Around lunch it looked like it was going to start storming. Luckily, it held off. Found a few salamanders while pumping there:

I was in a pretty bad mood and I tried to eat one of my peanut butter packs for a morale boost. Mood continued on for most of the rest of the afternoon. It was supposed to be a relatively easy hike based on topography, but it still ended up dragging on.

I realize now that the 20 mile pace I have for the majority of the hike is probably unrealistic. The GA-NC-TN section is proving more difficult than expected and it’s going to get hard again around NH. There’s a possibility of catching up in VA/PA, but, as it stands, I’m not super confident in finishing up the thru-hike. It might be physically possible, but I feel the required pace would be killing me. For right now, I’m planning on hiking 4 months, wherever that ends up taking me. I’ll keep the pace manageable and enjoy my stops in town. This is still my summer and I plan to enjoy it. I know I’ve stated it before, but now I’m coming to terms with my talk about the journey and not the destination. Who cares if I get the little 2,000-miler patch? This is my summer to bum around and I hope to treat it more like a vacation than an ordeal. I can always finish up the hike another season.

My major cravings today were for McDonalds (doesn’t matter what; just quantity) and about a gallon of applesauce.

5/27

1:10pm

Slept alright last night. A handful of mice scurrying around the shelter, which was a little unnerving.

2 big climbs so far today. Felt like I was really sucking wind on them. Pace has slowed down a little. My right knee has been acting up on the downhills, so I’m just trying to take it easy.

Caught a whiff of something coming up Tray (Trey?) Mountain which smelled like it needed to be turned into a beverage.

Passed dozens of snails this morning. Also a lot of centipedes and millipedes.

Forgot to mention passing a 12-18 snake yesterday. Dark grey with a band around his neck. Surprised I didn’t accidentally sit/stand on him. Passed another 6er today, but didn’t notice any markings. Passed a quail or a pheasant-like bird[5] that was making some funny call I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Have only seen 5 hikers today, which I think is a new low. I figure the Memorial Day weekend crowd has cleared out. Hopefully that means we’ll keep finding spots in the shelters if we choose to use them. It’s all just a tradeoff between setting up the tarp or sleeping with rodents.

This afternoon hike ought to go a little smoother than this morning.

5:30pm

Ended up getting wet after all. We were making good progress until Addis Gap. Whatever that climb was afterward was right in the middle of a fairly aggressive storm. Only lasted about 20min, but it was downpour and about BB-sized hail. Both boots got soaked pretty quick, so I stopped worrying about stepping in water. Original plan was to push about a mile further to a dry (no spring) campsite. Plans changed because of the weather. Either way, got into camp early and we have another night of not having to worry about setting up the tarp. I doubt my boots will dry much overnight, so I’ll be stuck with wet boots tomorrow. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if it were a longer storm or if we didn’t have a dry shelter to welcome us. These are going to be the events that make the hike tough even if the hills themselves aren’t bad.

On a completely separate note, I was thinking some more today about how I never feel like I’ve ever initiated a friendship. It always feels like instead I’m recruited into an existing social circle. Feels like it happened in middle school, high school, and while at college. It’s like I’m floating along just going through whatever motions I have to to get my work done and then, out of nowhere, someone takes an interest in me. The weird thing for me to consider now is whether it would’ve been the same had I made the attempt to be more outgoing. I’m honestly surprised anyone is able to read anything from me most of the time, let alone something worth getting to know further. On the one hand, I could chalk it up as a personality trait and the way things just happen to me. On the other, it could be something I’m actively working to change. I think that, luckily, my middle school social life established itself pretty quickly (again, because someone else chose to actively include me). For high school, though, the first couple years sucked.  I was a floater who just kind of sat at whichever lunch table had some space. It’s weird how the last couple of years of high school where things were finally going right seem to block out the equal time-period of awful loneliness at the beginning. Likewise, things didn’t really seem to fall into place at college until the last semester. It was fantastic, but again there was a lot of time prior to that that sucked: I used to feel bad on the weekends because it would rub in the fact that I had nothing to do with anyone. I was extremely grateful that Joe was around the first couple of years because without him I would’ve had no social life at all. I’ve thought also that he may have been a crutch; because I knew at least one person from home I may not have made it as much of a priority to meet new people. Considering the way I act, though, I probably would’ve spent that time moping around. That’s why I feel it is something I need to seriously change about myself. I feel extremely lucky that I have made friends with the people I have. They are deep connections that I don’t plan on losing. Whether you like it or not, if you are reading this you are probably stuck in my category of friends for life. Looking forward, I need to learn to minimize the shitty feeling the waters time and dive right in with new people. I’m going into a big transition into whatever office I wind up in and I need to socialize quickly and aggressively. For once, I want to be the guy who reaches out and makes friends with someone new. They’re hard habits to break, but I’ll be working on them.[6]

7:30pm

Turns out it wasn’t the last of the rain. It started up again around 6 and has been going ever since with some more strong bursts. Waited for it to temporarily lighten up before hanging up my food and taking a piss. The downside is that my bag is going to get soaked before going back into my pack tomorrow. I’ll have to get creative with packing to get all the wet stuff on the bottom. This is the amount of water that I feel would make it very uncomfortable to deal with with just a tarp. Even assuming the tarp is perfectly impermeable, you would have to set it very low to keep water from coming in the sides. There is also a big concern with water on the ground. A lot of campsites are set up in a kind of trampled-down, low area, so there is a tendency for water to pool.

If I could thank the workers who put up the shelters in the 30s and 40s, I would. I still have no idea how they set them up in the first place. It’s probably local timber, but some of these joists are huge. On top of that, they’re all propped up on concrete piles, so someone had to haul bags of cement up here. I guess New Deal era was the glory days for National Park development, so a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands could go in and do some serious labor. Same applies for all the stone stairs in all the steep sections. These have got to be 200lb rocks and someone went and stacked them in nice 12-18" increments. I’ve been tempted in the past to get involved with trail maintenance, but I’m