People always congratulate my brother and I when we tell them we completed the Appalachian Trail. They often ask us what was it like and what was our favorite part. To which I reply, "it was amazing BUT also lots of SUFFERING." And here I am to give you a little idea of that suffering...
Lets begin with the first week of the trail. It's early March and it's cold, real cold. Our third day we got hit by Winter Storm Stella. We hiked 16 miles over Blood Mountain (lovely name, right?!) hoping to get a room at the hostel in Neels Gap, of course we got Mary and Josephed... no room in the inn! Winter hiking is fun but starting a 2,190 mile journey in sub zero temps with the windchill really dampers your motivation. You should have seen us trying to put the tent up with crazy wind gusts and frozen fingers. Of course our rain fly zipper broke as we were setting it up (Big Agnes tents are notorious for their shitty zippers) and so we listened to the door rapidly flap around all night. Those first weeks we were just COLD. We liked hiking more then because it kept you warm, while sitting at camp we were just freezing our asses off. (This will later change when it gets warmer and hiking sucks and we'd rather be at camp.) Our water was constantly frozen, we had to carry more weight with all our layers, and I rarely socialized because I would immediately hop into my sleeping bag when I got to camp (let me stress I was SO COLD.)
RAIN. Honestly, I appreciate the ability to go inside while it's rainy so much more now. Oh the PLEASURE to look out the window and watch rain droplets hit that magical glass barrier. So let me say hiking in the rain is so much fun AS LONG AS it's not freezing, you have dry clothes, or better yet can go home and take a warm shower! Generally, all those things do NOT apply while long distance hiking. Once we made it into Virginia, we got hit with multiple days of constant rain and it was still chilly out (avg. 40 degrees). Add higher elevation (~5,000 ft Mt. Rogers) and no tree cover (thank you Grayson Highlands) and you are soaked through your rain layers and entering hypothermia. Yes, hiking in cold, wet weather is DANGEROUS. It didn't help that my brother and I were just overcoming a horrible stomach bug (with lots and lots of vomit) a couple days before all this. Well, eventually it got warmer and hiking in the rain was almost OK.
We only carried one extra pair of clothes (usually used for sleeping/emergencies.) When one pair gets wet from sweat (which was everyday) or rain we would attempt to dry them out but the humidity was so high that they rarely did. Oh the JOYS of putting wet/sweaty clothes on in the morning!
A lot of times it would only rain at night. Thank goodness for tents, you can just set them up and hop right in and enjoy a peaceful night of dryness and warmth in your sleeping bag as the rain puts you right to sleep... OH NO, not the first night in Vermont. There must have been at least 100 people at this campsite and everyone's tent was flooded, it rained so hard. All of our sleeping bags, pads etc. were soaked as well. One person in our group had to legit evacuate their tent in the middle of the night, the pool of water forming inside was kinda keeping them up. If that wasn't bad enough, the trails were also flooded. Some people call Vermont, "Vermud." I wonder why??!!?! After a while, you just can't avoid the endless puddle and we were just trudging straight through the streams (I mean trails, IDK, you couldn't tell the difference!) We ended up hiking 12 miles through the mess and hitching into town and washing/drying all our things.
But THE WORST thing about rain is getting your feet wet and hiking in wet socks and shoes for multiple days... trust me, it does really scary, bad things to your feet. We legit have had trench foot multiple times. There was one day in New York that I hiked 19 miles through a thunderstorm and my feet were so wet and in such bad shape, I wasn't sure if I could hike the last couple miles to the campsite because the pain was so excruciating.
Stay tuned for more AMAZING suffering stories from the trail.
Photo Cred: Bridget "Giggles" Williams, Cody "Feathers" Jackson, Owen "Big Style" Phillips