Happy Wednesday! Only 173 days until we hit the trail in Monson, Maine! Less than 6 months to go. Woo! It seems so close, but yet so far away. It takes a lot of planning to get to day one on the trail, so we are deep into planning mode right now.
We are working out the details of each day’s hike. I think I have said it before, we hope to do the 100 miles in 9 days and summit Katahdin on the tenth day. We’ve even started looking at long term parking and figuring out how we prefer to shuttle from one end to the other. We will be starting in Monson and hiking NOBO.
We also decided to order a backpack for Marty as our Christmas gift this year. He decided to go with a ULA pack and it arrived yesterday. The pack takes about 3 pounds off of his total pack weight. It’s a bright orange and blue pack that makes him look like a Florida Gators fan. Bleh. I guess THAT will be okay. He’s not really a Gator’s fan! I really like his new backpack, but love my LiteAF more! It’s the perfect backpack for his needs and I know that he will get many years of adventures with it. My LiteAf is perfect for me, so we are both winners!
The biggest prep for this trip is going to be our food for the ten days. When we did the 50 mile hike from Dickey Gap to Damascus, we ordered freeze dried keto meals for ourselves and chicken for Ghost. Food for the 6 days for just us was around $1,000. Ghost’s food was about $500. We knew we couldn’t carry his food and ours unless it was lightened up! Those keto meals are limited and pricey!
Marty ordered a freeze dryer just over a week ago so that we can make our own camping and backpacking food. It’s a great way to save food from the garden this spring, too. We figure two long backpacking trips for us and Ghost will pay for itself. Fingers crossed. Food prep is an important part of the upcoming trip. One is supposed to have ten days of provisions before entering the 100 mile wilderness. I do know there is at least one drop point where people pay to have food dropped, but we want to just carry everything with us.
One of the things we will be freeze drying is Ghost’s Farmer’s Dog. This will help him avoid tummy troubles on trail. He won’t be in Maine with us, but he will have many more backpacking adventures with us for years to come. We plan on freeze drying the cherries and strawberries we pick every year– they will last much longer than sticking them in the freezer. Some of the things we want to try– asparagus that we like to grill with parm cheese, pickles, and various low carb veggies we like to cook. Freeze dried veggies are not widely available for purchase (camp servings). We do have bags of mixed veggies that we like but we really want more variety.
We have also been working to get some longer hikes This past weekend, we backpacked 13.1 miles to the summit of Spruce Knob in West Virginia. It is the highest point in West Virginia, so we were able to knock off another one off our list! It was fairly cold and rained all day, but it was a fun hike anyway. We saw a coyote who escorted us out of his territory. He followed us for a good while, it seemed. Ghost flushed a ruff grouse from the bushes and that was about all of the wild life we saw. Marty and I did not get pictures of the coyote. Darn it!
It was my second backpacking adventure with my LiteAF pack. We were originally going to hike 10.9 miles in Tellico Plains, but once we saw that West Virginia was going to get less rain than Tellico, we changed plans. I liked this iteration of packing. The camp stove fits perfectly in the side pocket of the LiteAF. I keep saying that I am going to do a video to “show you around” my new backpack, but have not had a chance.
We hope to get to Tellico Plains in a few weekends to get the previous planned 10.9 mile hike in. The best part of this weekend’s backpacking adventure? My pack stayed dry inside! Yay! The trail was a river. The previous 24 hors before getting on trail, they received .25 inches of rain. The forecast was to receive .8 more. With the water flow, we got wet and Ghost got soaked. All of our base layers were wool, so our feet stayed warm, despite being wet. We tried to avoid stepping in the water, as it would briefly cool your feet off for a minute or so before our wool lined feet warmed up again.
By the time we made it to the summit and got to a shelter to eat our lunch, our hands were very cold. The cold crept up on us as we got to higher elevation. I never felt like my hands were all that cold, however. I was unable to rip the food bags open because they were cold enough! It was a weird feeling. We warmed our hands as we boiled water for our meals and it felt great.
After hiking all day in the cold rain this weekend, I know that I will be able to make the 100 mile wilderness no matter what the weather brings. That is for sure!
Next week, I am traveling to Missouri for work. I am not sure what side adventures I will find on my time off, but you know I will explore SOMETHING.
My Little Red Bike 