Still up, surprisingly

Yep, still up. So far as I know there have been no naps. It’s amazing what Coke, pizza, and chocolate can do for you. I might have one more glass of Coke, but caffeine lasts up to six hours and I need to be headed to dreamland by 0900 or I’ll never get enough sleep.

I’ve been kind of tossing the thought of hiking the Appalachian Trail from bottom to top around in my head for about ten years now, and I think I’m gonna see if I can do it sometime in the next two years. I’ll have to get in shape and save up some money for supplies, but I think I’ll be able to do it. I’ll see what the average length of time it takes to do it and see about getting a personal leave from work.

I just saw a show on the National Geographic Channel about the Pacific Crest Trail, which I suppose is the western equivalent of the Appalachian Trail, though it seems to cover far more environmental extremes than I think the AT does. I think I want to do that too. That one takes about five months normally. If I’ve done my math right that’s not even twenty miles a day. Yes, I know that twenty miles a day on foot is a lot, especially with a pack. And especially carrying your own water. I don’t think the PCT has as much support infrastructure as I’ve been led to believe the AT has.

I’ll start by walking regularly until I start losing weight again, then I’ll buy some hiking boots, a pack, and some free weights. That way I can start getting used to having a pack and I can start to load it up without actually having to pack and unpack it regularly. I’ll start gathering equipment along the way, some of it I’ve already got.

I’m going to have to make weight allowances for some technology though. I’ll probably take a camera, a phone (probably my iPhone), and maybe an iPad, that way I could use the Amazon.com Kindle app to carry books along for almost no weight penalty. I figure I can take one day out of every six off to rest and clean up a bit. That should do me though, I’ll be able to update my progress and upload pics with all that. I might carry a hand held GPS unit too (apparently having the Location Services turned on eats a lot of iPhone battery life). That means I’ve got to carry a solar charging system as well, but they’ve got those pretty light and efficient now, so that might not be as big a deal as it used to be.

I’d have to see if Ember, Mana, or Critter would be willing to ship stuff up and accept packages for me as I need to swap out gear for different sections of trail and different seasons if I start at an odd time. And of course I have no idea what I’d do about my apartment. I may have to find a trailer or something to rent for three or four hundred dollars a month just so I’ll have somewhere to send stuff and store my furniture and books. It’ll also give me someplace to come if I need to take a short break from the trail, but I’d rather not do that if I can avoid it.

First things first though, start walking again, which I intend to do before the end of the month. With inventory on the fourteenth and my schedule screwed up for the next week or so I can’t make any plans more solid than that.