100 Mile Wilderness

Here's something that I've been kicking around for a while now. First, I'll start at the beginning. I live in Millinocket, which is the northern end of the Appalachian Trail, which leads from Georgia to Maine. People are coming through Millinocket beginning late summer and up until early October, having completed hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. When we ran an Internet cafe and published a newspaper, I would interview some of them at the end of their trek. Most take four months or more to complete the hike. One exception was an Australian woman who completed the entire 2,200 mile hike in less than two months, which was not the record, but still more than forty miles a day. Keep in mind that someone hiking the AT is going up and down mountains, not simply following a walking trail. Her VISA was going to expire in a couple of months, so she hurried it up. Someone else just broke the record last year, I think it was, at 46 days.

Since moving to Maine, I have wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail, but I could never get away for four months at a time, and didn't want to be away from my cats that long if I could, but I've wanted to do that. Fifteen years ago, I have little doubt that I could have made it. One guy made the entire hike despite the fact that he was over sixty and had only one leg. A blind man made it all the way from Springer Mountain in Georgia.

Although I still think about it from time to time, I have pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I am never going to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. I have hiked portions of it here in Maine, but never more than a couple of days at a time.

I am strongly considering hiking what is known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness, which is the last section of the AT, and the part the through-hikers say is the hardest part. It is entirely within Maine, and goes from Monson to Millinocket, but passing through no towns along the way. There are places where I could give up if I had to, but it would involve leaving the Appalachian Trail, and walking a logging road to a place where someone could pick up me up, that someone being my wife probably.

There are a couple of camps along the way, where someone could get Internet access, charge any electronics, and get a shower and a bed, as a break along the way. There are also free shelters that are spaced out so that the average hiker could get from one shelter to another in a day.

But the shelters are sometimes full, and I don't think I'd want to push myself to keep up with the "average hiker" so, while I would probably use some of the shelters along the way, I would plan on sleeping alone between shelters some nights, since I wouldn't want to hike at night.

If I decide to do this, it will probably be in September. Temperatures won't be overly hot, and most of the more irritating bugs won't be so prevalent, the only problem being that this would be the month that most of the through hikers would be coming through, and I don't know that I'd want to hike with people who are so much better at it than I am. Maybe I'll go north to south and have my wife pick me up in Monson, although I rather like the idea of ending it where I live.

Maybe I won't do it at all, but I'm thinking of it. It wouldn't be an easy walk but hey, maybe I could get my doctor to remove the stuff about a sedentary lifestyle.

 

A Walk in the Woods is a pretty funny movie with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte about hiking the AT, one that would probably come closer to approximating my effort.

 

I think I could handle it, but a lot of people quit after the first day. Years, ago I looked into hiking the whole trail pretty carefully, even picking out what I would need to bring, since every ounce matters when it comes to what is going to be carried. At that time, at least, titanium seemed to be the key as far as cooking and eating equipment went, since it was very lightweight and would still hold up.

I had decided on a particular sleeping bag that came with a hammock but that was for the whole hike, not just the last hundred miles of it. I would have to be prepared to be rained on because it rains constantly in Maine, and there might be some cool weather in September, given the elevation, so that still might be a good idea. I wouldn't have to worry about making it to a shelter every night, or whether the shelters will be full, etc.

Most people warn against expensive hiking boots because of the weight of them, and the fact that they don't dry out very quickly once they get wet. Most recommended are fairly lightweight shoes that will dry out quickly.

Rain and sore feet are likely to be the biggest problems. Well, actually pretty much everything is likely to be sore. There is also the danger of falls, so I would have to be very careful and not push myself too much.

Last October, they found the body of an AT hiker who was lost in 2013. She was in an area where she had no cell phone coverage so, while she had tried to text her husband several times, he wasn't receiving her texts. She lived at least twenty-six days after she lost the trail, they know because she kept a journal during that time.

It was very sad. She had hiked all the way to Maine from Georgia, and died during the last hundred miles. She had stepped off the trail to go to the bathroom, and did so in an area where people said the brush was so thick that you wouldn't be able to see the trail after taking two steps.

She had hiked much of the trail with a friend. When her friend was called away from the trail for a family emergency, she decided to continue alone, although she was said to have a poor sense of direction, to be afraid of being alone, and prone to anxiety. Her body was found in her tent in October, but they just released the information last month, I think.

 

I don't think it has been yet, but may be at some point. They just released the text of the journal and her attempted texts from her phone last month or the month before, so there probably hasn't been time yet.

 

Maine is one of the few parts of the Appalachian Trail where you're not allowed to have a dog. Since I don't have a dog anyhow, that's not a problem for me. Yes, I do believe that A Walk in the Woods was written by Bill Bryson.

 

I don't plan on pushing myself to meet any particular time goals, short of taking so long that my wife calls out a search team. I don't really know what might turn out to be reasonable. On the hikes I have taken on the AT, which included smaller portions of the same section, I wasn't really paying attention to how far I walked. I just walked until it started to get dark or, if I came to a shelter early, I might stop for the night if there weren't too many people there, and depending on the people who were there. I don't really want to spend the night in a crowded shelter with a lot of 20-somethings smoking pot. I think I'll plan on about five miles a day and expect to actually do better than that, but I might decide to take a zero day, that being a day when I didn't go anywhere.

 

Here's a list of them.