Folks – Thanks for visiting our blog.  I was never really sure what a  blog is, but I guess I’ll find out now that I have started one. In any case, as you see from the titles, my son Cliff and I are hiking the Long Trail and trying to do so in one bite, from the Mass to the Canadian border. I have been itching to do this really since I was a wee delinquent at Stowe School, which sits in the shadow of Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in VT and naturally the high point on the trail. But let me back up a bit at this point and provide some background.

In the process of describing this trek to friends and family, I got a lot of questions as well as requests to keep people updated on the journey’s progress. Another reason for some kind of documentation is that the Green Mountain Club, a non-profit that built and maintains the Trail, requires a journal from hikers who want to receive an “end-to-ender’s” certificate (yeah, silly that I should need this but hey). So this is what I came up with to both satisfy that and to keep people apprised of our progress, or lack thereof!

How I write this, in terms of the things/themes I will focus on, will evolve during the trip. I say this because there are plenty of straight trail journals, written mainly for other hikers, that focus on gear, camp sites, water sources, trail conditions, etc. That’s cool, but for my Facebook and other “friends,” it will be a quick way to get your eyes to glaze over, so I’ll try to avoid hiking minutiae. And on the backpacker’s side of the coin you would not need to answer a lot of the questions I’ve been getting, like these:

What is the Long Trail?  It’s funny – a lot of people come up to VT to ski or peep at leaves, and they drink plenty of Long Trail beer but have no idea where that name comes from. It is in fact the oldest long distance hiking trail in the US and runs 272 miles up the backbone of the Green Mountains from Williamstown MA to the Canadian border, a bit north of Jay Peak. Along the way, it hits pretty much every ski area you’ve heard of  – Stratton, Bromley, Killington, Bolton, Stowe, and Jay – with one difference being that the trail actually reaches the peak of those resorts’ mountains. Most chairlifts only get you most of the way up. The GMC started building it in 1910 and finished in 1927. Hard to imagine that work, especially back then!  Plenty of info and history here: http://www.greenmountainclub.org

Where will you sleep?  I was a bit surprised the first time I heard this, but then I heard it a bunch more. This ain’t no cute little inn-to inn deal – this is backpacking! For the most part, there is no choice but to sleep in GMC shelters (mostly lean-to’s with three walls) or in a tent. A lot of people prefer a tent to sleeping in close proximity to strangers, and sometimes you have to anyway as the shelters fill up, you can’t make it to the next one on the trail, or other reasons. There a are a couple of places where you can actually find a bed and a shower (yes we will acquire a stank), like the Inn at Long Trail near Killington, but that’s it, and most would consider it kind of cheating if you did it a lot anyway. In any case, because the LT goes along the high ridge, it is impossible to hit many population points cuz you have to hike 3-8 miles on avg off the trail and then back again. Don’t even think about Uber you NYC’ers! Ain’t happening!

What will you eat? The choices here are a subject of endless debate among hikers. For dinners we will enjoy freeze-dried dinners, mostly from the Mountain House brand. You boil water, pour it in the pouch, stir, seal for 5 mins, and mmm boy yummy yummy! You haven’t lived till you’ve tried freeze dried Beef Stroganoff or Pad Thai, not to mention ice cream sandwiches (kid you not). For breakfast it’s pretty much instant oatmeal, and I got a bunch of Starbux Via packets. Lunch will be crackers and cheese, salami, and peanut butter. For snacks on the trail, we made trail mix from peanuts, raisins, and choc chips. We boil water using an MSR “pocket rocket,” a device that fits in the palm of the hand and screws on to a white gas “isopro” cannister. it gets the job done in less than 5 mins.

How long will it take you?  Don’t know exactly. If we both stay healthy, we are hoping to emerge on the edge of Canada around Sept 1st. That’s 28 days with 3 rest/re-supply days built in. That is a pretty modest pace for trail veterans, but still requires something like 11 miles per day.  We are hoping to average quite a bit more than that on the southern half, as the elevation changes are way more radical up north. Also, about halfway up, the Appalachian Trail splits off from the LT on it’s way to NH and Maine, and the AT is way more traveled, so wider and generally more trampled on and steady in terms of trail surface. There are people that do it in 2 weeks, but even if we were able, all those people do is hike every day all day, and we want to be able to chill on some rock outcrop with a view after a long climb if we feel like it and it’s not pelting rain. My wife Marcia, bless her 1,000x, is meeting us to resupply 6 days and 14 days in. For the third re-supply (food, fuel, underwear, socks, batteries, bug spray, toiletries, etc) we will have a box sent to a TBD post office somewhere in N VT.

OK, that’s enough for now. Sorry about no photos – I am on Cliff’s laptop and there are no pics on here. Anyway w’ere not on trail yet and all I have is our gear spread out in the living room. Today we drive from our house in Springfield VT to Williamstown. We will hike about 3 miles up the ridge to the state line and the official start of the LT. Only 6 miles in to the first shelter cuz we only have the afternoon, but starting tomorrow, we’ll have to hike double digit miles in order to reach the first resupply point in Peru VT next Sat. 67 miles…  Hope this wasn’t too dull, but we got bears, bugs, and weather on the way, and pics that will depict our increasing gnarliness and gauntness. For the record, I now weigh 217 lbs. This ought to be a helluva fat-trimmimg exercise.