Hiking Distance for the Long Distance Hiker
So, what’s it like to hike long distance? First of all, there are degrees of “long distance” hiking. I’m a section hiker (491 trail miles in May and June of 2017 and another 255 miles in September 2017). There are a lot of men and women out there that are thru hikers. A thru hiker is one who intends to do all 2,189 miles of the Appalachian Trail within a twelve month period. Most complete the trail within six months. The more aggressive of these hikers are doing 25 miles or more each day.
I remember sitting at a shelter one day this past May (2017) and a young woman came into camp and setup her tent. She kept to herself and was quiet. Nevertheless, I struck up a short conversation with her and found out she had hiked 25 miles that day. Days later, I mentioned it to other hikers and they knew her. The hikers said she does that mileage most days and is usually finished by 4:00 PM. Wow! My average daily hike was about 12 miles. That figure was arrived at by dividing 6 weeks into 491 trail miles and then dividing the quotient by 7 days. It includes the zero days where I didn’t hike at all, the short days where I only hiked a few miles and does not include all the side trail and town hikes that took my total miles hiked well over 500 miles. I did hike a few days just short of 20 miles and a few more days over twenty miles, but my pace made a consistent day’s hike in the range of 20 miles just not attainable.
Moving Down the Trail
But I digress. What’s it like to hike long distance? I can tell you what it’s like for me and a few of the hikers I’ve come across in shelters.
The day starts early. I was usually up by 6:00 AM each morning. I slept mostly in shelters, so I didn’t have to deal with a tent. The first thing one does upon waking, and this is universal among all hikers, is put your sleeping pad and sleeping bag away. Then if you are so inclined, you eat breakfast. Breakfast is a meal that many everyday people skip, but hikers eat it because of the concern about losing too much body weight. After breakfast, it’s off to the trail. Most hikers are gone by 8:00 AM with the majority having left between 6:30 and 7:30 AM.
The trail is covered with the forest canopy in late spring. The trees have their leaves and plants are growing beneath. This year there were a lot of ferns. I was told by a ridge runner that last year’s fires and the dry weather weakened or killed a lot of plants, which then made it easier for the ferns to grow.
Ferns on the trail
The majority of the trail is very narrow. From Springer Mountain in Georgia to Virginia, a lot of the trail had steep drop offs to the side. In other words, if you stumbled off the trail, you could be tumbling down the mountain; although with all the trees and plants, the chances of going down a significant distance is not that great. This actually happened to me twice in 2016. Once, part of the trail gave away, and I went sliding down about 30 meters. Another time, it was raining, and I slipped on some wet leaves. At the time I had my trekking poles under my arms and not in use as I checked my GPS position. I only dropped about 10 feet where a downed tree caught me. In Virginia, the trail tended to not have so many steep drop offs, so that was good if not somewhat boring.
The results of sliding down the side of a mountain after a part of the trail gave way.
When I hike, and this is true of most other hikers, my head is down and watching the trail, and I mostly move my trekking poles together as I hike, but when I’m hiking faster than usual, the poles alternate (i.e. one forward and one back). The perils on the trail are rocks, tree roots and leaves, especially wet leaves that cover up the trail. The trekking poles add balance, but they also can keep a hiker from falling. My High Trek trekking poles saved me countless times from falling on the trail. Still, hiking into Fontana last year I was not as vigilant on the trail as I should have been and sprained my ankle. I probably would have gone down the side of the mountain, too, if not for my trekking poles. To this day, I’m still not sure what caused the sprain, but it is a sure bet it was either tree root or a rock that caused my foot to turn at an odd angle, which resulted in the ankle sprain.
The problem with hikers keeping their heads down to watch the trail is sometimes they get a surprise. A hiker came upon me one day and freaked out. He didn’t see me until he almost ran into me, and when he did see me; he thought I was a bear. I have had more than one bump on my head after running into a low hanging tree limb that I didn’t see, because my eyes were down and concentrating on the trail.
Aside from closely watching the trail, the focus when hiking is moving as quickly as possible. The ideal pace is 2 miles per hour. If the trail has a climb, I rarely can match 2 mph. Most younger hikers have no problem, though. Going down a steep trail isn’t much better. The tendency is to slow your pace somewhat to safely make the descent. Often I found myself practically running down a descending trail. Not really a good idea for someone who is trying to avoid another ankle sprain.
The trail designers must have had hikers like me in mind when they designed switchbacks. Rather than go straight up a mountain, a switchback will take a hiker on a gentler slope. Periodically, the trail will then make almost a 180 degree turn and continue the upward climb, so the hiker is sort of zig-zagging his way up the mountain. Yes, there are some instances when there are no switchbacks or a switchback trail seems to be as steep as going directly up the mountain. Those are the times when you question the sanity of climbing mountains.
Hydration
Water is always a concern to the hiker. Carry too much and your backpack is heavy (1 liter of water equals 2.2 pounds). Carry too little water and you might run out before you find a water source to fill your water container. Many hikers only carry one liter of water. I, at all times, carry at least two liters of water and even that is not enough at times. There are ways to tell if you are dehydrated (I won’t get into them here), and I was almost constantly not hydrated enough, especially in the hotter weather I experienced in late May and June of 2017.
Last fall (2016) finding water was a real problem. I was carrying as much as 3 liters at times. The southern trail was in a drought and many water sources were drying up. I remember one particularly hot day when I was about to go up a steep mountain trail. The last few water sources listed in the AT (Appalachian Trail) guide were dry. I was almost out of water. Fortunately, I came upon a forestry service worker in a truck, and he had water, which he graciously gave me – lucky find for me.
Listening to the Trail
Many hikers listen to music on the trail. I don’t. Reasons not to are the drain on the cell phone battery, repetitive nature of listening to the same downloaded music over and over, and the spotty cell coverage on the trail if you want to listen to music while online with your phone. None of those reasons controlled my aversion to music listening, however. I didn’t listen to music, because I wanted to hear the forest, or more accurately, the quiet of the forest. It’s amazing how quiet it can be. You would think there would be all kinds of noises, but that is not the case. And when you do hear something, it is usually water. I became quite adept at being able to detect the sound of running water. Water meant there was a chance to fill up or it could mean a shelter nearby. The majority of shelters are built near a water source.
Cell Phones
And while we are on the closely related subject of phones, what about them? If you have Verizon service, your chances of getting a useable signal are infinitely better than those of hikers who have AT&T. If your service is with any of the other cell service providers, forget it. You should have left you phone at home – unless.
There is an app for your phone, whether it is Android or IPhone, which can be extremely helpful on the trail. It’s called Guthook. Guthook uses GPS satellites and has no need of a cell signal. It shows your exact location on the trail. On the app’s map there are many marked points of interest or waypoints. You can find out how far you are to the next water source and whether that water source is reliable or not. Roads, points of interest such as mountain views, shelters, etc. are all included on the Guthook map. It is remarkably accurate and is an invaluable resource to tell a hiker where he is and how far away is the next point of interest such as water or a shelter. It’s a wonderful tool that is becoming more prevalent on the trail as time goes on.
It bears mentioning that there is a new competitor to Guthook. Hikerbot is an Android app that is available for free. It is a crowd supported smart phone app that gets data from users. A user can navigate, get information on trail resources such as water and shelters, towns are listed, and there is much more. The program is now in beta testing, and I have not used it yet. Hikerbot does appear to do more than Guthook. Time will tell if it succeeds. I’m going to give it a try on my next section hike of the Appalachian Trail.
Eating During the Day
At the beginning, I rarely stopped to eat lunch. That reluctance to stop is most likely why I lost so much weight in 2017 (started at 152 lbs. and was down as low as 134 lbs. at one time). Most hikers do stop, and I made it a point later in my 2017 hike to stop as well. It is a time to rest and fuel up for the rest of the day. Aside from stopping for lunch, I ate protein bars, M & M Peanuts and Snickers (lots of calories in all) as I hiked in an attempt to maintain weight and increase energy. I firmly believe my weight loss affected my ability to hike faster and further even after I got my trail legs.
End of the Day’s Hike
Most of my days were planned so I would arrive at a shelter or campsite at a decent hour. Decent hour is any time after 3:00 PM and before 6:30 PM. Arriving at a shelter or campsite earlier wasted good hiking time and later meant that a spot in the shelter may not be available. Arriving in the early or late evening also meant all the camp chores a hiker has to do before sleep get pushed back that much further into the evening.
So hiking for the day is coming to an end as a shelter comes into sight. As mentioned before, I prefer to sleep in shelters, so the first thing I do upon arrival is determine if there is space in the shelter. If so, I immediately lay out my sleeping pad and sleeping bag to stake claim to a spot in the shelter. I like sleeping against a side of the shelter so at least that side will not have another hiker sleeping next to me. If the shelter is crowded, the hiker next to you may only be a foot away.
Boots off, camp shoes on, sleeping pad inflated, sleeping bag is next. Staking my claim to the side of the shelter.
The camp chores are next. Water is usually the first thing a hiker will get after setting up their bedding and tent if they are not sleeping in the shelter. Most water is fairly close to the shelter, but I have hiked as much as one-half mile to a water source and back. I usually get four liters of water. Two liters at the most goes into my hydration bladder. The bladder is nothing more than a collapsible container for water. A hose attaches to the bladder and is led outside of the backpack to a location convenient for grabbing for a drink of water. The other two liters of the four liters is used for cooking and drinking that night and the next morning. Since I was usually dehydrated at the end of the day, I almost always drank whatever water I did not use for cooking.
If I don’t need to go very far to get water, I take off my boots and wool socks after setting up my sleeping pad and bag. If there is a long hike to get water, I leave the boots on until I return. Once the boots are off, I put on my camp shoes. Last year I wore moccasins as camp shoes, but this year I bought some Crock like rubber shoes from Walgreens. They were cheaper than Crocks and more comfortable. Almost every other hiker with few exceptions wear Crocks in camp.
Dinner is a favorite time in camp. For me, it is the biggest meal. I ate Mountain House freeze dried meals exclusively for dinner. The serving size is 2.5 servings and it usually satisfied me. The preparation process is boil water, pour it into the foil dinner bag, wait about 10 minutes and then eat – quick and simple. Most hikers, however, rarely had Mountain House dinners due to the cost. Some made their own freeze dried meals and a support person at home would mail the provisions as the hiker progressed down the trail. Other hikers shopped in towns along the trail for their provisions. There are a lot of ramen noodle dinners consumed; although they lack sufficient calories and protein to properly sustain a hiker. Pita bread is popular, too. It is used to create a pita sandwich of whatever the hiker found in the last town’s grocery store. Olive oil is a favorite because of its high calorie content. I could never see the advantage of carrying a heavy bottle of olive oil in a backpack.
The last thing to do before turning in for the night is to hang food bags. I always hung my food, but some hikers did not, and it made me uncomfortable if those hikers were in the shelter. There were times when other hikers made them hang their food, but I usually stayed out of that fray. Why hang food? So the bears don’t get it. Bears have an incredible sense of smell and they have been known to come into a camp looking for food. This actually happened at the Gravel Springs Hut. Fortunately, I was in a tent that night.
Food can be hung on bear cables, bear poles, stored in bear proof steel boxes, or if none of those devices are available, the hiker throws a line over a tree limb and hoists his food about ten feet off the ground and away from the tree trunk. It doesn’t make any sense to locate a food bag next to a tree trunk 10 feet up since a bear will simply climb the tree to get the food.
Hanging your food bag on a bear pole. I didn’t have as much trouble as this guy does. As a matter of fact, I got pretty good at it.
Hiker Midnight – Time to Sleep
As the evening wears on, hikers drift off to their tents or shelter bound sleeping bags. There really is nothing else to do once the sun goes down and the forest goes dark. Regardless of the time on the clock, there is a juncture recognized by hikers as “hiker midnight.” It can be 7:00 PM, 9:00 PM or any time in between. It is that time when the hikers are in their sleeping bags and sleeping.
I never could sleep through the night. An inflated pad and sleeping bag just don’t have the comfort of a good bed. I tend to toss and turn due to the discomfort as do many hikers. Furthermore, in a shelter, it can get pretty noisy with all that movement, and if there is a snorer among the hikers, sleep is that much more difficult. If I know there is a snorer in a shelter, I will bypass the shelter and pitch a tent without a second thought. On more than one occasion, I had snorers on each side of me in a shelter. Those were sleepless nights.
And that pretty much is how a day of hiking goes. A few hikers will hike at night, but they are in the minority. I guess in the heat of the summer, a night hike makes sense, but any benefit is offset by the more prevalent presence of predators at night and the inability to see any further than what a head lamp will allow.
So it’s all quiet (or mostly so) until 6:00 AM when it starts over again.
