Mail Drop List for Care Packages

Care Packages and Mail Drops
I set up a list of potential Mail Drops on our Trail Journals page in the event some kind soul, family member or friend wants to send us some love.  It is always a huge boost to our morale when we know we have a package waiting in the next town.  We will lovingly accept anything you send, but please take into consideration that we must carry (or give away or leave in a Hiker Box) anything that is sent.  Canned goods probably aren't the best idea.  I'll list some potential options below, but we truly appreciate anything and everything that is sent to us.  

Our List:
You can find the active list on the Trail Journal page.  These are places where the trail actually goes through the town, so it is guaranteed that we will have to pass by these post offices and establishments.  I have added addresses that cover the whole length of the trail.  I will add and edit as we move along, adding or removing drops if needed and adjust ETA dates as appropriate.  I hope to update the ETA date on the next waypoint about a week to ten days before our arrival.  If you are following along on our progress, you should be able to make your own educated guess.  It doesn't have to be perfect as the Post offices hold the package for 30 days and the other places will hold it for at least two weeks and usually longer.  

The list has a mixture of post office addresses and places that accept mail drops for hikers like outfitters, hostels and hotels.  I decided on each on the likelihood that we will stay or visit the business and hopefully we will be able to hit the Post Offices while they are open and not have to zero a day or two to wait.  

The way the list displays the address is kind of funky, but I'm sure it would work no matter how you order the lines, as long as all the important information is there.  Here is how I would rearrange the lines:

Joe or Lisa Harold
C/O Fontana Lodge
300 Woods Rd.
Fontana Dam, NC 28733
Attn: Hold for AT Hiker ETA: 5/14/2017

Mailing Tips:
If you would like to send something, I recommend mailing two weeks
before the planned arrival date. Add time to this two weeks if you live further 
from the trail. This will allow ample shipping time as well as a few buffer days 
in the schedule. Some places don't like to hold mail for longer then necessary. 

If you are mailing in advance of two weeks to a place of business other than a 
Post Office, I would confirm it with the receiver first. Space is often limited. 

It's also a necessity to let us know ahead of time that you sent us something and what it is, either a letter or a package. Often the letters and packages are not in the same place. 
If we don't know you have sent us something, we most likely won't stop by the post office or ask the hotel desk about mail.  This is very important.

Thanks
We appreciate all the support we can get as we head out on our Quest.  

Here are some ideas of what you can send us.  Not all inclusive of course.
Tuna packets
Drink powders
Instant coffee packets
Candy bars
Candy
Sweet and Salty bars
Mountain House Meals
Trail Mix
Almonds
Raisins
Crasins
Dried fruit
Nutella
Jerky
Real Bacon Bits
Baby Bell cheese
Summer sausage
Peanut butter
Mayo
Salt and pepper packs
Knorr rice and noodle sides
Ramen

All the Ways we Share our Journey

This is most likely redundant if you have been following us on Social Media, but if you just stumbled on it and want to follow along on our Journey, here is where our presence will be known.

We are going to try and share our Journey as best as we can. I have several sites where I will possibly be posting our progress and my thoughts as we move up the Trail. I know that it is hard to walk all day, do your camp chores, then find time to write and post and signal can be sporadic at certain places, but if I am posting, then these are the possible places I will be posting.

1. Here (Our Blog: The Adventures of EarthTone and LoGear). I started this Blog about seven years ago and have more or less added to it as things happened in my life and I had the desire to write about them. If you dig down into it, you will see its theme change from time to time. Evolving into what it is now. This is my personal blog. I invite you in to check it out. Eventually this will contain a complete rendition of the hike. I will probably update this more on a weekly schedule if I can.

2. Our Facebook Like Page - Adventures of EarthTone and LoGear: https://www.facebook.com/EarthToneLoGear/ This will probably be my go-to, as near as daily as possible, easy place to post. If you use Facebook and Like this page, you will see my updates in your feed.

3. My personal Facebook Page. If you are my friend (or following), then you will see it, but the above Like page will be our main depository of updates. https://www.facebook.com/johar923

4. Trailjournals website: http://www.trailjournals.com/pamola... I hope to keep this up-to-date with a nice mileage accumulation and maybe a picture or two, but it is a unwieldy to use with a phone out on the trail, so updates may come late and in chunks. Eventually, it will be updated with all the data as a record of the hike. My other hikes are all documented here.

5. Instagram: earthtone923 - From time to time I might post a photo. Not my go to app, but who knows.

6. SnapChat: earthtone923 - I followed a few hikers on this for the 2016 season. It is kinda cool, but can get annoying at times. I might do a few short videos from time to time when I get the inkling

7. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/johar9... I don't plan on posting many videos, but you never know. I don't plan on being a filmmaker out there, so anything I post will probably be pretty raw and in need of editing.

8. The Trek (formerly Appalachian Trials): https://thetrek.co/author/joseph-ha... I joined up to write a blog entry from time to time. When I have a decent topic and have the time and inclination to write something, I'll post an article.

Follow if you like.  I hope I can keep at least one or two going as we head North.  

Peace,
EarthTone and LoGear

Final Test Hike

We loaded up our packs and headed North to the AT Museum area.  We took the movable Halfway Sign up to Dead Womans Hollow Rd and erected it for the season.  Jen and Tom, volunteers from the A.T. Museum came along to help.

2017 Halfway Point - Dead Womans Hollow Rd.

After that chore was complete, we went back to Shippensburg Rd and started hiking North.  It had rained all the way up from home, but had stopped by the time we arrived in the area.  It was a chilly day with temps on the upper 30s and everything was drippy.

A misty, drippy day

We made our way down to Toms Run shelter, where we would set up our new hammocks and spend the night.  The hike in had been good at an easy 4.8 miles, but we still felt that soreness you get when you first start carrying weight along uneven terrain. 

I took a time lapse video of our antics as we worked to figure out our new gear which was amusing.  I'm glad we did this trip as it was enlightening to say the least.  We are still climbing up the learning curve.

Our hammocks await us

We ate dinner and gathered some wood for a fire, but everything was pretty wet and we were tired enough to not want to fiddle with it much, so we didn't waste the effort.  As the light faded from the misty forest, we both headed to our hammocks to read, then sleep.

My night seemed restless, but I wasn't cold at all.  LoGear didn't fare as well as she said she was shivering all night.  She is ready to go back to her warm, but heavier bag.

Eventually, a Pileated Woodpecker announced the new day.  I opened my eyes and saw dawn had arrived. 

We slowly got up, made some breakfast and packed up.  LoGear headed out first as I was puttering around, in no hurry.

She was motivated by the hot tub and warm bed back waiting at home as we headed back the way we had come the day before.

We quickly got back to the truck and started for home.  Both of us sore and tired.  This was a good dose of what we will have to face on our hike and even though we didn't get actively rained on, we were able to experience some less than ideal weather.  

We will now make our final decisions on gear, finish up our food bags and Fontana resupply and be ready for the start of our Quest.

As always, we will stay flexible and make any needed changes to gear and technique as we start the Adventure.  25 more days until the Quest for Pamola starts.

Peace,
EarthTone and LoGear

< 30 Days - Dad, Food and Final Preps

Yesterday, we fell below 30 days in our wait time until we hit the trail.  Things have progressed along and I have gone from feeling like the hike is a very long way away to getting nervous that it is fast approaching and I still have things to do.

Korean Vet

My Father, who has had a few conversations with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates (who kept sending him back) is once again reunited with my Mother in happiness.  He was 87 years old and his body had finally reached the point where it was ready to release his spirit.  He passed peacefully between breakfast and lunch on St. Patrick's day.  My sadness at knowing that I will never have a two way conversation with him again in this lifetime is tempered by a happiness that I know he is now with my Mother again, who my Father has missed every day since December of 2011, when she passed.  He's with his Honey Babe now.

circa 1960s

circa 1980s

When I go back through my memories, I constantly see him as that tall, strong being.  Always there for us, even when he was on a job far away from home, building man's structures.  He was definitely the steady rock of our family.

My Father is also the one most responsible for my love of the outdoors and spending time hiking and camping.  I remember as a pretty young child he would rent an old Scotty 6 sleeper and we would hitch it up to the Buick Stationwagon and head out for a traveling vacation.  We would work our way to the beach and then the mountains.  It was a great introduction to the woods and spending time there.  In the 70s we had a camp up by Moraine State Park.  We spent most of the summer up there and Dad would come up each night or on the weekends.  He really liked to rake the leaves that filled the ground in our campsite.  From there it was some time in the Boy Scouts and then going out on our own.  Hiking and backpacking.  He planted the seed which has grown to this Quest of a long distance hike on the Appalachian Trail.  

He had a long life and he taught me many things.  He had one wife, five children, nine grand children and two great-grandchildren.  I like to think that he also had a good life.  He was certainly a large part in me saying I'm having a great life.  

Shauni and her Pap

I will miss him and his ready smile and easy laugh.  I hope I can find a fitting tribute to him as I use his strength to reinforce me during this upcoming hike.

Dad's last visit to the cabin

Our gear sits in the basement in the "Gear" area and we constantly pitter with it.  Adding this, deleting that.  I have decided on my first four days of food and have started to fill my "operational" food bag with what I already have on hand as I check the shopping list that will complete the contents.  We also started filling our only pre-planned food drop that we will be sending to Fontana Dam in North Carolina.  Sort of a supplement to what we expect to find at the store in the village.  

I have been collecting a lot of condiments in my last several years of doing sections and overnights, so we sorted through that and figured out what we are taking and what has been sitting at the bottom of my shopping bag sized food bag a little too long and needs to hit the trash.

Food bags and resupply

This upcoming Friday, we plan on heading up to my old stomping grounds in PA near the Museum to do a final overnight to once again become more familiar with our new hammocks and quilts.  I also need to get some dirt time.  Just some easy time outdoors for a while.  Before we head to Toms Run Shelter, we will erect the portable Halfway Sign at its location for the 2017 hiking season.  It is once again at Dead Woman's Hollow Rd, so we will put it there and hope to hike back to it, arriving some time in July if all bodes well.

My Before I HIke ToDo List is still pretty full, but I hope to start checking off some of them every day for a while.  Things are scheduled.  Things need to wait a bit still, but I'm confident it will all come together when it needs to and not a second before.  Just like a traveling wizard always arrives precisely when he means to.  

Georgia will be here before we know it and we will step out, with our backs heavy, but our hearts light to take on the challenge that is the Appalachian Trail and our Quest of Pamola.

Peace,
EarthTone and LoGear

Earl F. Harold Jr.  1929 - 2017
and me  :)

Ten Goals/Traditions Custom Made for My Hike

Sunsday, 25 Rethe:
A lot of hikers look forward to all the unique things people do while hiking the trail.  There's the traditional things like Jumping off the James River footbridge, hiking naked on the Solstice, eating a half gallon of ice cream after making it halfway and mooning the cog to name a few.

I want to create my own goals.  Some things that are offbeat and maybe not very mainstream.  Although some of these thing are done by most hikers, I want to keep my hike interesting with the following things I want to do.  My bucket list of the quest:

1. Be asked to leave an AYCE buffet.

2. Buy a set of clothes in a thrift shop (for town, camp or trail).

3. Swim naked in a pond or stream.

4. Do a complete resupply in a gas station store.

5. Continuously change my trail name.  Try to find a new one for each state.

6. Collect and build some sort of totem for the quest.  Add something for each state or major goal achieved.  

7. Use only Shire Reckoning for all my journal and register entries. 

8. Create several badges, achievements and abilities that can be earned during the hike.  Some examples are the Outsider Badge, the Long Distance Trekker achievement and the Resupply Wizard ability.  

9. Submit an offering of fat and oil to Pamola whenever needed.  

10. After summiting Baxter Peak, continue along the Knife's Edge to Pamola Peak.  There my Quest will end.  

I hope to continuously add to this list as we make our way North towards Pamola.  The plan is to keep everything fresh and exciting.  Especially when the blues intrude on my mind.  

I also have cut this Hike into several short mileposts and goals to make it manageable.  I find it overwhelming to only think of that final mountain.  There is so much more before that final climb.  

Here are the first ten Goals and Milestones:
1. Neels Gap
2. NOC
3. Fontana Dam
4. Hot Springs
5. Damascus
6. McAfee Knob
7. Harpers Ferry
8. Halfway
9. Bear Mountain Zoo
10. Mt Greylock
to be continued...

Peace,
EarthTone and LoGear

The Time Between Now and Then

This is a hard time to endure.  The time between being ready to go and being able to go.  Our packs are waiting ready.  Our gear is pretty much set.  We tick off each day as it passes and watch others start their own journey.  It's hard seeing them head out and not being out there with them.

Mama Bear (Ginger) after her first surgery.  Now she needs her ACL worked on

As usual, obstacles keep throwing themselves in front of us.  The tentacles are already reaching for us, even before we hit the trail.  Dog surgeries, dental work, mysterious bloody noses.  Each of these, and more, keep jumping up in front of us.  We have learned that each obstacle can be overcome by going around, over or through, so we handle each as it comes up and continue to hope that all will fall into place before we head to Georgia and start our Quest.

Dog walking with my pack

I try to wear my full pack whenever I can.  Most of my neighbors have gotten used to me walking through the neighborhood wearing my pack.  On our way to the woods where we walk the flat, sandy trails.  Some ask me what is up, others just stare and wonder.  

At least once a week, LoGear and I try to get out to the only place around here that has decent elevation changes, Patapsco State Park.  We can do a couple different loops from a couple of miles to somewhere near ten.  Mama Bear gets pretty excited when she sees us getting our packs ready.  It is going to be hard on her (and us) when we do it in late April and leave her behind with Home Base (Brandi).  

Taking a packs off break in Patapsco State Park

I'm itching to get out there.  Even if it is just an overnight.  The weird spring like weather has messed my mind up even more.  It feels like it is time to go, but there are still miles of things to do before we hike.  The obstacles keep us at home.

Until it is our time, and all (or most) of the obstacles have been handled or mitigated, we will continue to watch the videos and read the journals of those who are out there now, hiking their hike. The time between now and then continues, until it is our turn to add our feet to the trail and our voice to the song that is the Quest of Pamola.  

Peace,

EarthTone and LoGear

LD-08: Hike Your Own Hike

Hike Your Own Hike

Anyone who has dipped their toe into the world of the Hiker has most likely heard this ubiquitous saying. Its individual meanings are endless and have so many nuances, that at times, it has become meaningless. But we will continue to use it and embrace the meaning we have chosen to use as we hike on down the trail, hiking our own hike.

What "hike your own hike" means to me
As I said above, there are so many meanings to this saying that I probably can't list them all. Here are two that I consider often.

1. An expression of the freedom that a long distance hike allows for the hiker. To go out and commune with nature and be one with it. To be at home in the woods and move along the trail as best as you can, doing what you want (as long as it doesn't infringe on other's hikes). It means, you hike your hike and I will hike mine. No judgment or criticism.

2. A pseudo polite, semi-passive aggressive way to say Shut the Fuck Up. I really don't want or need the unsolicited advice you are giving me, so please go find someone else to impose your will on.

It is usually pretty easy to figure out which meaning I'm using...

What does it Not mean to me? It doesn't mean to go out there and do whatever the fuck you want, disregarding the others you share the trail with. It doesn't mean to ignore LNT. It doesn't mean to ignore all the trail etiquette you have read and heard about. It doesn't mean you have free rein to be loud, obnoxious and basically an asshole.

The golden rule fits nicely with this concept. Treat others the way you would like to be treated. It is as simple as that.

Further resources
With today's Interwebs, there are countless resources of information about attempting a Long Distance Hike. Some if it is good, some, not so much. The thing is to go out there and see what you can find. Weight the advice and information you see and either try it, discard it or save it for later. I love planning hikes. Whether they be one or two nights or five or six months. Using all the resources I find on this great information highway is always fun. Here are a couple of go to websites that I have found very useful:

1. The A.T. Guide - You need to have a guide and this is the one that I recommend. It has a gold mine of information that helps you along the way. You can get a pdf version for your phone, but I will always also carry the paper edition. I have cut mine in half and will carry only the half I need. AWOL's website also have some handy resupply planning spreadsheets that come in three different Miles Per Day variations.

2. Lighter Pack - This website helps you obsess about your pack weight. It gives you a nice visual display of where the bulk of your weight is and lets you plan how to cut it down.

3. ATC's Interactive Map - Great for getting a clear visual clue of the trail. It can show you shelters, parking, vistas and more.

4. Distance Calculator - Another great planning tool. Enter start and stop locations and it gives you a good breakdown on the mileage between way points.

5. Trail Journals - This is a great site for sharing your journey. Although it is a little challenging to use from the trail, it isn't impossible, if you have a bit of signal. It has great tools to show your gear, let visitors offer encouragement and tracks your mileage and other stats from your hike.

6. Zero Day Resupply - This fairly new concept lets you plan and execute mail drops without all the prep work. You just go to their website, fill your box or pack and tell them where to ship it. The prices are fairly comparable to grocery store, but remember you are paying for a service too.

7. AT Mailing Labels - If you are doing the mail drop thing (or just need someone to send you something) this site has a good database of addresses, both Post Office and Businesses. You always want to double check with most of these as they may disappear without notice.

8. Facebook Hiking Groups - There are dozens of these that you can join and share your knowledge and ask your questions. A word of warning. You might want to do a little of your own Googling first because you can ask a simple question in any one of these groups and get so many conflicting answers, that it just confuses you more than before you asked. They are good to see who is planning to get out there and it is possible to make friends early and also decide who you really don't want to hike around.

This is the final installment of my Long Distance Hiking 101 series. I hope I was able to provide a few tidbits of wisdom. What works for me, might not work for you so please don't consider anything I have advised here as the only solution. Everyone has a slightly different experience out there, but for most, it is a really great experience that affects them for the rest of their lives.

Have a great hike and remember the Hike is about the Journey. The experiences are to be cherished. The destination is just where you sigh and say, "What's Next?"

See you out on the trail.

Peace,
EarthTone and LoGear

LD-01 - LD-02 - LD-03 - LD-04 - LD-05 - LD-06 - LD-07 - LD-08