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So I am back from two days (and twenty miles, and about two square inches of skin off my feet) on the Appalachian trail. I have now hiked 2 out of 14 states' worth, that means I'm about 14% done, right?

(More realistically, I've done 3 of the 13 ~20-mile PATC maps. Which cover PA, MD, WV, and VA. Or 9 of the 13 sections in the MD&NoVA guidebook. But still! I've hiked across two states!)

I don't know why I do the AT. I don't particularly enjoy it while I'm doing it and I'm really, really bad at it.

As trails go, the Appalachian Trail is possibly the most boring and with the worst trail conditions - 90% of the time there's nothing to see except basically the same scruffy second-growth woodlands I can see from my house; and since it generally follows ridgelines, the elevation change is unnecessarily ridiculous, water is usually at least a quarter-mile straight down, and when you combine the terrain with general overuse, the condition of the trail surface is generally horrendously eroded so you basically find your way by looking through the forest and going "which bit looks the least pleasant to walk on? Ah yes, that must be the trail." And even on a weekend with basically ideal weather, like we had, it's either too cold at night or too warm in the mornings or both, the weather is unpredictable, and there are annoying insects everywhere.

And while it's not, like, super-crowded, even now - on the busiest section of the trail on the busiest weekend of the year I could still go hours without seeing another human - if what you want is grand solitude, it's unlikely you'll go more than a few hours truly alone or totally away from active human habitation or roads.

Anyway. Yeah. If you want to go hiking I recommend literally any other trail I have ever walked on.

But somehow I keep wanting to go back anyway.

The trail culture is good - because it's such a freakin' miserable trail to walk, pretty much the only people you meet are people who want to Hike The Appalachian Trail (rather than, you know, just want to hike, because in that case you'd pick a trail that was actually nice) and, within ~5 miles of a road, locals out with their dogs, so there's a real sense of shared ownership of the AT as a cultural artifact, and of camaraderie, and a laid-back spirit.

The other thing about the AT is that logistically, it's relatively easy: all the towns and roads it crosses are used to long-distance hikers stumbling in, there are plenty of campsites and shelters and water source and resupply shops, relatively well spaced; there's enough traffic and the trail is well enough marked and maintained that you can get the backcountry feeling without the actual danger of isolation and wilderness; and there's lots of other hikers around who are happy to help and share. Plus it's easy driving distance for something like a quarter of the US population. And there really isn't any cheaper possible vacation. (You can spend a ton of money on trail gear if you want to but for most of the AT, you really don't have to.)

And long-distance backpacking in general is - physically horrendous for someone with my general lack of physical condition, but mentally relaxing, because once you're out on the trail, literally the only decision you can make is "do I keep going now, or do I take a break for food/water/rest, and then keep going later?" Because there are no other options. You can't do anything about anything off the trail until you are off it, and you can't get off the trail except by keeping going, however slowly that might be by the end of the day and however heavily you are leaning on your stick. You have one path and you have to go down it and life's exactly that simple.

That would probably drive a lot of people 'round the bend, but it works for me. (Of course, in our modern world - where we talked to thru-hikers who had been on the trail for months and been on the internet on their smartphones nearly every day - that part of the trail experience is probably whittling away, too. I had mine turned off thanks.)

And I also like... the experience of having done it? The experience of long-distance walking is sort of a foundational human experience - before cars, really, nearly everybody had done multi-day walks (or multiple all-day walks in a row) many, many times in their lives, even if they were walking beside carts or animals. It's still a basic part of life for many people all around the world. Just not people like me who live in a place where a car is basically required because walkability is limited (and walking along the roads stupidly dangerous) even if you try. I know that getting out a couple times a year to hike a trail doesn't really show me anything substantial about what a long-distance-walking life is like, but it shows me more than not doing it would.

Anyway, today I am walking with a cane because my calf muscles are celebrating Labor Day by going on strike whenever I stand up, and also I have gauze pads taped across the backs of both my ankles where every shoe I have ever hiked in (from $200 hiking boots to Crocs) has worn away the skin, and I can still feel my packstraps even when I'm not wearing them, but generally I am satisfied for at least awhile, I think. I told everyone that next hiking trip I do will be somewhere level. Maybe a barrier island. I once walked half of Fenwick Island and back in an afternoon and barely noticed I'd done it. (We crossed 82 hundred-foot contour lines on the map during that 20 mile hike, which is more elevation change than climbing Old Rag. And a lot more horizontal.)

Now I need to lever myself up and unpack properly. Analysis of this year's pack contents and their usefulness coming as soon as I've managed that.

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Good to know that you are back and glad that you enjoyed yourself.

...you know, your post is the first thing that's ever managed to make me think I might enjoy hiking as an activity.

(I do canoe tripping, which is like hiking only with 90% less having to carry things on your back)

Do you think it's just the Mid-Atlantic sections of the AT that are fugly? Because man, pics I've seen from people's thru hikes made it look really picturesque. Although, the tiny sections I've done as part of other trail loops in the Shenandoah NP do correspond with your experience.

Have you read "A Walk in the Woods"?

...I uh. Yeah. "enjoyed myself" might be a bit much. I hiked another part of the AT though!

So glad you've returned safely! And I'm loving this writeup. I've always wanted to thru-hike one of the big trails (okay, maybe not always, but I did want to do the PCT before Cheryl Strayed's book came out) so it's great to read about other people's experiences of the hikes. Congratulations on having gotten done the bits you've done - especially with all those huge elevation gains, wow!

I don't know that the mid-Atlantic sections are *particularly* fugly compared to the rest of the trail? They are probably less impressive to me because they're the woods and mountains I've hiked and driven through in all my life, so the wooded part doesn't have much in it to surprise me. (We did see a two-foot long snake though! And a lot of deer! and I got two more wildflowers on my life list, although more because I only started keeping the list this year than because they were particularly special..)

The thing is, though, we passed maybe six to ten overlooks or scenic spots that were really pretty (or would have been really pretty at a different time of year.) If I was showing people photos of the scenic spots it would look amazing. It's just that there were three or four or six miles of boring between them. I think in some parts of the trail they come closer together, and are more spectacular - this was not one of the sections that is super-popular for short hikes. We were doing the hike in reverse of most of the other weekend hikers, who started in town and headed south, and when we got to the first marked scenic spot (at 1.7 miles in) one of them asked if there was anything interesting further down and we said, "Well. More trail" and he said "Right then, I'm turning back" and that about sums it up.

And if you hike faster (I was managing maybe 1.5 mph, 2 on the even bits, maybe .75 on the long uphills, like I said I am bad at this) then you get through the boring spots faster, have longer to spend at the pretty ones, and have energy to do some of the side trails that lead to the really cool stuff (which I have always run out of oomph for.)

Then again I'm told that in Pennsylvania even thru-hikers can hike for days without finding anything interesting.

If you want scenic rather than Having Done The AT, I'd go for the many many circuit hikes around here that have a much higher ratio of "wow" rather than "oh boy more trees and rocks". I've had the same experience as you, of coming to a point where another trail overlap the AT, and being like "oh boy here comes the bad and boring part.) And if you want Long rather than Having Done The AT (and have the budget to pay for hotels when there's no campsites) do the C&O Canal Trail or one of the long roadside trails or something else where the trail surface is less awful.

...if this is the post that made you want to backpack you may be beyond help...

(I would love to do canoe tripping! I get in a rental canoe maybe twice a year for an afternoon and it's so great. I get the impression that canoe tripping requires more capital outlay and has more ways to seriously screw up than hiking a popular backpacking route, though.)

I have! A few years ago, before my first overnight on the AT. It was a fun read if not very memorable, but even then I was not impressed at Bryson's backpacking skills or his tenacity - doing most of the AT (a few specific mountain peaks, and bad-luck weather, aside) isn't actually that *hard*, I mean I have managed sixty miles over the course of two weekends despite being utterly out of condition and having crappy gear, it just requires the sort of grinding determination to keep doing something pointless even when you are miserable and getting miserabler. And the pigheadedness to get back on where you got off even when the inevitable illness or injury forces you off the trail for a bit. Which he did not exhibit, iirc. <_<

Maybe I should re-read it though, with the movie everyone's talking about it again.

(It did kind of make me want to try the sort of b&b-to-b&b European hiking that he'd apparently been used to before. That sounds like it has a much higher ratio of nice to misery. If also requiring infinitely more budget.)

If I ever do a long thru-hike it's not going to be the AT. The PCT sounds really nice in comparison, though! Everybody says if you've done the AT that one's a cakewalk.

I've actually been eyeing the Buckeye Trail which looks like it might be about my speed if I ever do want to do a long thru-hike (well. 1200 mile circuit hike. I could start and end in my mom's hometown.) It's got a lot more variety and a lot less monotonous mountain-climbing. Plus they understand the point of saying "what in the blue blazes??" repeatedly in a way that AT hikers somehow just don't.

hahaha I KNOW RIGHT *facepalm* No but the thing is, most of the time hikers are all "oh hiking is GLORIOUS" whereas you are upfront about the less-than-stellar aspects. Which makes me able to believe you when you talk about the reasons you like it anyway, and the reasons you outline are reasons I can get behind.

Wellll, it certainly makes canoe tripping easier to have the fancy equipment, but it is no means necessary to do that sort of capital outlay to have a good experience. I am assuming given your hiking experience that you already have things like a lightweight portable stove and tent and sleeping pad and all that, which are the most important things anyway. And when my family started canoe tripping when I was a small child we had zero fancy equipment and still had a great time, we just had to do a lot more back-and-forthing over portages (and thus planned our routes to involve as little portaging as possible). I would say, if you plan to do any portages, to rent a canoe made of ANYTHING BUT ALUMINUM even if it costs more money. Aluminum canoes are the WORST for portaging. I do not recommend the experience. That is one place where equipment matters.

It is true that canoe tripping has the added risk of things like drowning. And you're less close to civilization so you need to make sure you have carried with you everything you might need. I would personally never go on a solo canoe trip, so there's always at least someone around if something bad happens. But the popular canoe routes are surprisingly full of people too, so you're not as alone as you might think (...or want to be). And even on a solo canoe trip, you can do things like bring along a satellite phone or radio so that you'll be sure you can contact the outside world in case of emergency.

Overall I guess it does carry more risk of serious screw-up than a popular trail like the Appalachian, but not high enough to, in my opinion, be worth scaring people off. And it's so nice! Being out on the lake is beautiful and relaxing, and because you're not in the middle of the woods you don't get eaten by mosquitoes (except on portages), and you don't need to carry all your supplies on your back because the water is carrying it for you, and you can get fairly seriously far from civilization and the rest of humanity if you try, and it's just LOVELY.

Though perhaps I should amend: canoe tripping in northern Ontario is lovely. I don't know if your part of the US has anything like as nice places to canoe. I remember once I did a canoe trip in a park in the US that everyone in the US talks up as being so amazing for canoe tripping and my only thought was that it was kinda crap compared to Canadian Shield region - the lakes were smelly and gucky and the scenery wasn't nearly so good. So I worry that the places you have available to you wouldn't be as worth canoeing in!

(AUGH SORRY FOR WRITING YOU AN ESSAY ABOUT CANOE TRIPPING, I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH)

Well, I have a feeling that veritas was sacrified for humor in that book for sure!

I want to see the movie just for the casting, myself.

The prince adored the book and laughed out loud alot reading it. He really likes Bryson.

I think there is a point where if you do it more seriously than me and are in better cardio shape overall, you burn through most of the physical misery I go through. Although from reading AT thru-hikers' trail journals, if you push past that you then very rapidly find Level 2 physical misery to replace it. And then Level 3, which seems to frequently involve vomit. While hiking 20-mile days up mountains. So.

My places for canoe tripping are probably not nearly as good as yours because iirc the Canadian Shield is the best place in the world for canoe tripping, but there are some very interesting-looking canoe trails around the edges of the Chesepeake Bay, especially since there are places along the shore that can ONLY be accessed by small boat, because above the high-tide line is all 'no tresspassing gated community rich people only land' for miles. (*sigh*) It would be very different from up in the Shield, though, we don't have those kinds of lakes + portages trails around here.

By capital outlay I mostly meant "buying or renting a canoe". :P I actually don't have much in the way of equipment, though - I have an ancient Sterno stove that was my Dad's in the 70s, but mostly I've relied on cold food and someone else at the shelter having fire they are willing to share enough to heat water. I've been looking to get one but never seen one that I actually liked the design and fuel enough to shell out. I don't have my own water filter either, because ditto - I've picked every trip so far to have clean water stops or someone else along with a filter. And for sleeping I do a net hammock and tarp instead of tend and pad, because tent and pad are heavy and/or expensive. (Actually I do have tent and pad that would work well enough for canoing probably, just not for a <20 lb pack.)

ANYWAY I am sure it is lovely! Someday I will try it around here and report back to you.

I wish I lived close enough by you to be able to loan you my equipment! My experience is that the canoers I know are always happy to lend things though - the last time I went canoeing with a group of friends we needed two canoes and didn't have to rent either, because between us we happened to know multiple people who own canoes and are willing to loan them. And I've borrowed things from my parents, from a friend's parent, from an acquaintance from church, from friends, etc. And I've loaned my stuff out to friends and acquaintances as well. If you even distantly know anyone who canoes I recommend looking into borrowing stuff from them!

Depending on what kinds of contaminants are a worry in your area, you might be able to get by with treating your water with chemicals (chlorine or iodine or whatever is the recommended chemical) instead of having to buy a water filter. But if you do decide at some point to buy a water filter I would highly recommend a gravity filter because they are SO much less effort than having to pump. My parents just recently got one and it's amazing.

Recently two of my friends on facebook had a conversation in the comments of one of my photos about the relative qualities of various stoves and came out with a strong recommendation in favour of a particular one. If it would be useful to you I could dig that up and let you know the recommendation?

At any rate if you ever do try canoe tripping I will look forward to your report.

I have had several offers of loaner canoes but they were all along the lines of "oh, yeah, it's been out behind the shed for the last thirty years, but if you haul it out you can have it" which, uh, was not encouraging for someone at my level of expertise. ,_, Clearly I need to find the canoing grapevine around here and hook into it! I am at a point in my life where I could probably rent, though, it's just that doing something like renting a boat makes it seem way more real (and thus to be taken more seriously) than just walking out into the woods one day. (I think what I really need is an experienced canoe tripper to haul me along, but all the ones I know locally are in the "thirty years ago I would have---" condition just like their boats. Or have moved on to much more exciting boating like kayaking through rapids and not interested in lazy canoe paddles anymore. Which less face it is all I'd be up to.)

Stove-wise, what I really want is something like a Kelly kettle or a Zip stove - something that burns twigs and leaves but with really high efficiency, so you don't have to carry fuel. Unfortunately the only one like that in the stores around here is the BioLite, which also wants to be a cell phone charger and flash light and idk, make your bed in the morning, which seems needlessly complex and heavy and prone to breakage. And I don't really want to buy one off the internet sight unseen. (The stove that seems to be most popular on the AT for the last several years is the JetBoil, which is nice and all, but I just hate the idea of dealing with fuel canisters if I don't have to.)

I've seen some good filters around too, but I have people I can borrow from if I really need one for one trip, and none of the ones I've seen people use on the trail have struck me as so super-cool that they helped me decide. The gravity ones look really neat though! At least the faster ones, if they really are that fast.

Edited 2015-09-08 02:52 (UTC)

I've sometimes thought about trying long distance hiking on vacation, because I really like walking. I loathe the idea of camping though. I mean, I have never camped, but I find the mere idea of not having a bed and a bathroom at night unpleasant. So thus far I've always stuck with day hikes.

OTOH Europe is settled so densely that afaik there are plenty long distance hikes you can do where you always reach a town or village to stay at night, that are still pretty, and the hostel network is fairly dense to, so accommodation wouldn't necessarily be that expensive.

Edited (Missing word) 2015-09-08 08:06 (UTC)

The AT was where I was this weekend too! What section did you do, if you don't mind me asking? We did Snickers Gap to Harper's Ferry, with two tough days that reminded me of all the ways I hate hiking and an easy third day that reminded me of what I like about it. I've been running recently so physically I've recovered okay. Though my calves and hips are still sore.

I think my favorite part of these kinds of trips is turning off my phone and disconnecting. I don't wear a watch either so I always feel a bit adrift in time too, when all that matters is sun up and sundown.

That's exactly what we did! But we did it in two hiking days and were home by Sunday night, which was probably a bad idea, except that I'm really glad I had Monday as a recovery day. We probably passed on the trail. I had the tiny bright blue pack and the walking stick and the long-sleeved white shirt. ^_^ Where did you spend Saturday night? We were at Blackburn, in hammocks.

I didn't wear a watch the first time but I'm so slow that I need to at least vaguely watch my pace or I start to get worried about making it to camp on time more than not-having-a-watch is worth.

I hope his general incompetence was played up! Sadly I've known enough dudes who do stuff like that that I kind of fear it wasn't.

dudes who do stuff like drop a car at the end of the trail, drive other car to start of trail, and then carefully lock key to first car in second car before hiking away, not that my hiking partner DID THAT THIS WEEKEND or anything.

I started a re-read last night and it's got a lot of funny bits and I love the history/nature/travel writing he does! And he describes the misery of hiking the AT really well. Having started a re-read, though, I am remembering how pretty much everyone in the book other than him and his family gets "humorously" characterized as either fat, stupid, slutty, and/or white trash (usually at least two of the above), and it gets REALLY OLD really fast.

Also I am bitter that he skips over all the bits of the trail I know well. Not even just that he skips them, doesn't even *mention* that he skips them, for all he talks about the trail goes right from Harper's Ferry to PA.

In particular the movie casting terrifies me. Partly because the only role I have previously seen Redford in was Peirce. <_<. Partly because though there's a female lead, and I can't can't think of ANY women who have shown up for more than a page that he hasn't treated terribly. Like, thrown misogynistic slurs at for no reason terribly. Much less lasted long enough to be a female lead. So either Hollywood ran with that or made one up out of whole cloth, and either way I am scared. Plus the trail culture around female thru-hikers is... weird, so if they did make one up (or seriously increase Mary Ellen's role), I'm afraid it will have gone even weirder.

Yeah, I have to have my "liking problematic things" hat firmly in place to read Bryson.

Redford was the Brad Pitt of my generation (I'm in my mid 50s). He's a terrific actor and had a long and wonderful career before Pierce.

If you haven't seen All the President's Men, for example, it's wonderful.

And he did two influencial, slashy buddy pictures with Paul Newman that are very good.

Anyway. I guess I'm just happy to see a movie come along that the prince and I can enjoy together. That's rare for us. Our tastes are very very different.

*cheers*

..it's not a generational thing, I think the only thing I've seen Brad Pitt in was Interview with a Vampire. It's a "me being oblivious" thing.

Yay! I hope it's good, because if they made the right changes, it could be really, really good and really, really funny. I just. Do not trust Hollywood to make the right changes. Let me know after you see it if you think I should!

I've read about people doing Europe-style long distance hiking where you stop for lunch at a pub and sleep in a hostel or inn, and I have to say it sounds really fun, and a lot less misery than the AT.

This part of the U.S. is densely enough populated for that, but sadly not very walkable in the populated areas - we don't have a culture of allowing traditional public walking trails to go through private land, like I think a lot of Europe does, so it's either backcountry hiking in the national parks or walking in the ditches while cars whiz by most of the time. (There are a few long rail-to-trail routes on old railroad lines where it might be doable, though, I've just never done it with an actual budget for hotels.)

You might have been ahead of us. On Saturday, we stayed at the second campsite at Blackburn, up the trail about a hundred yards because we got there later. It was just us and one other person at that site. I was in green :)

It was my first time on this part of the AT. I grew up in South Carolina so I'm more familiar with the North Carolina section and hiking around there.

Others in my group had watches, which was good for the pacing. One of the guys kept track of where we were too, which was definitely nice to have.

This is the reason I really dislike Bryson, honestly - he's just so mean about people, and being just as mean to himself doesn't make up for that - if anything, it makes it worse.

When I made a trip across the US (by car, not walking, except day hikes) in the late 90s I was disappointed how scarce cheap hostels were, compared to here. That increased the cost a bit. Like the biggest cities usually had some, but not even every national park I visited. I mean, the number of hostels in Germany has decreased from its hight, but there are still well over 500 in not that large an area.

Were you in a large group, mostly women, with tents? I think we may have run into you at that first overlook past Blackburn in the morning - two of you were out at the overlook and the rest of you were getting impatient.

Otherwise I think you all were behind us the whole way. Which is comforting because I thought we'd been passed by every other person on the trail by the time we finished. ^_^

Yeah, hostels aren't really a thing here, except in large cities and the really occasional college town. You do sometimes get really cheap motels if you get out in the middle of nowhere, but it's not really the same thing (and the motels are usually clustered where cars are, which is to say, near big highway interchanges that really awful for walking.)

There's a trail near me - the C&O Canal Trail - that does pass through areas where I could probably get a hotel room every night without going very far off the trail, and I've been thinking that might be fun, but I also kinda feel like if I'm going to spend the money for a week of full-price hotels I want to go somewhere more interesting than that.

DO NOT APOLOGIZE FOR THE ESSAY!

I mean I obvs can't speak for anyone else but I've only ever been on float trips that lasted a single day, so if you're at all inclined to wax on about canoe trips I'd definitely love to hear more!

And he really isn't as mean to himself as other people - he's lovably bumbling, they're awful stereotypes. And he's not even *interestingly* mean, they're all just fat and poor and stupid and slutty. And I noticed that the only other people so far who didn't get that treatment were other middle-aged, middle-class, college-educated male thru-hikers.

Oh, and the lady at the ATC headquarters, I guess. So that's one.

I found staying in cheap motels fairly depressing compared to staying in hostels. In a motel you are alone in a drab place, and can't even properly cook for yourself, whereas in a hostel you usually have a communal kitchen you can use, which helps a lot with the food budget, and lots of friendly fellow travellers if you want company, but you can ignore them if you don't feel sociable. I've never been bothered by the lack of privacy that comes with sleeping in a dorm for a bit, because mostly people are pretty considerate.

That was probably us :) There were six of us, and we definitely stopped at most of the overlooks.

I am glad you managed what you wanted to and arrived back safely!

I can sympathise with a bunch of this? My parents love hiking - LOVE hiking - and so I have grown up doing a great deal of it, mainly in the Alps. And I just... pretty quickly hit the point of "my feet hurt and I am tired and I am sick of walking why am I doing this." Also, I kind of hate camping. I love my creature comforts and I just hate waking up in a cold tent when everything is damp, knowing I'm going to have to get out of my warm sleeping bag and wear dirty clothes and shiver and pack up the damp tent and just - ugh.

I hear you about the mental relaxation, though. I really like taking that sort of holiday (although my preferred form is long-distance cycling - less foot pain! less heavy stuff on your back! more distance!) because it helps to just get completely away and focus on something completely different in a way a lot of more sedentary holidays can't quite manage.

I do feel like hiking holidays are often more enjoyable in retrospect, if that makes sense - you theoretically know that you spent most of it in a haze of "why am I doing this to myself voluntarily", but because of the low-key same-y nature of that the memories are gone and the ones that remain are the highs, and since the highs are very high and very outside your regular experience they really stick and so your memory of the trip becomes artificially better than the actual experience. Of course, for that your trail has to have highs. :P

I admit I hadn't noticed that part of Bryson specifically, but that... makes an unfortunate amount of sense.

My family is/was enamoured of him so I read a bunch of his books... the ones where he has some unusual perspective (his early UK/US ones, mainly) can serve to obscure the underlying contempt and offer some interesting comments, but the ones where he doesn't have that just end up shallow and nasty IMO. I remember his sections on Germany in his book on continental Europe and they were just chock-full of shallow stereotypes and nasty asides about Nazis - if I hadn't been soured on him already, I would have after that.

(Also, his book on linguistics is... hilarious as a work of fiction, extremely worrying as the factual book it's purporting to be. I don't think I've ever read something so badly researched in my life.)

Come back to Iceland next summer and we can hike around Melrakkaslétta! it's sort of flat.

Heck, we could practically do Laugavegurinn, it's only like ten miles longer than what I did last weekend and I think it might actually be flatter. O_o And it's less boring and the accommodations are a heck of a lot better.

My dad loved hiking and my mom... likes it ok, but somehow once they had kids they didn't have time (or didn't enjoy it as much with us whining along, idk) so I got a whole lot of "that summer in the '60s I went backpacking for a summer" type nostalgia and not nearly as much actual experience to balance it out. (day hikes, yes, but not overnights.)

I do like the camping part, though! So that helps. My favorite bit of the AT (and I think this is also true of most AT hikers) is washing up at a shelter at night and meeting all the other people who washed up there and making a minimal camp that is just enough to be comfortable. Not when it's damp though. There are no redeeming features when it's damp.

(apparently the reason hiking is way more popular out in the Western US is that you can pretty much guarantee it won't rain at night for most of the hiking season. hahaha if only.)

Yeah, it's possible some of those thirty year old canoes are fine, but I would be wary too. Good luck finding the canoeing grapevine! And...if you ever happen to be in Ontario let me know and I would happily go on a canoe trip with you.

Oh! If that's the kind of stove you're interested in, I can tell you that the BioLite, though unnecessarily gadgety, is actually a really great stove. One of my friends recently got one and that's what we used on the most recent canoe trip and it worked wonderfully! Although you're right about possibly being unnecessarily heavy - it worked fine on a canoe trip but I don't think it'd be my first choice for backpacking.

The gravity filter really is remarkably fast! Though possibly as it gets older and the filter more clogged it slows down. IDK if the filter is replaceable....

Um - um - what sorts of things do you want me to talk about? I could go on all day probably but it would be helpful to have a direction to steer in, in my discussion!

Hmm, what about stories about your favorite or most challenging trips? Or tips n' tricks for people new to canoe tripping?

Hmm! Let me start by talking about most challenging. And first off I would say that it's not that any one trip has been The Most Challenging, it's that a few different trips have all had challenging aspects. So I'll talk about things that have been challenging!

1. That time I referenced above where I had to portage an aluminum canoe. The portage was something like 800 metres, I think, so not short, and it had a lot of uphills and downhills, and the condition of the walking surface was not great (roots and rocks and sharp corners and trees in the way and all that). My sister and I carried the canoe together because there was zero chance of either of us carrying it on our own. It being super duper heavy and without a proper shoulder yoke was bad enough - it was also not well balanced, so that if I felt like it was on my shoulders squarely Mara felt like it was about to fall off her left shoulder, but if Mara felt like it was on squarely I felt like it was about to fall off my right shoulder. So it was HORRIBLE. And the seats (which is what we rested on our shoulders) dug into our spines most thoroughly too. Within a very short amount of beginning to walk Mara and I began to shout and groan aloud as a way of relieving our misery, and we continued like that through the entire trail because it was HORRIBLE and it helped just a little. Also there were mosquitoes and we couldn't slap them if we didn't want the canoe to fall off. Also when turning a sharp corner on a steep and muddy downhill my feet slipped from under me and the canoe landed on top of me and I got a hard bump on my head. All in all: NOT RECOMMENDED.

And yet! This whole experience led to one of the nicest experiences I have ever had while canoeing! This portage was so long and unfortunate because it led to a really out-of-the-way lake, and this was in fact the EASIEST way to get to that lake. So for a night and a day we had a lake allll to ourselves. Probably the next nearest human was many kilometres away. It was so peaceful and beautiful and wonderful.

(and then we had to portage the dratted canoe out again.)

Take-home lesson: check before renting the canoe what the canoe is made of, and make sure it's appropriate for the type of trip you're doing.

2. Mosquitos! Mosquitos are always my least favourite part of canoe trips. Different peoples' body chemistry is differently attractive to mosquitos and apparently I smell DELICIOUS because I always get wayyyyy more mosquito bites than anyone else I know. I remember one portage that I guess led through a particularly mosquito-friendly area because that portage was absolutely swarming with the blighters. I RAN that portage (multiple times because we had too much stuff to take it all in one trip) because I was so miserable and I wanted to be out of there as fast as possible. When out the other end my entire body was itchy/painful. We stopped for a dip in the water, and the coolness felt so nice and numbing for that brief time, but then we had to get a move on and I was miserable for QUITE A WHILE more until the effect of the bites began to fade. Take-home lesson: have better body chemistry than me? And plan your trips for later in the season because mosquitos are worst in July. September's really nice if you don't mind the cold! There's no mosquitos!

3. the importance of eating! It was canoe trips that really pressed home to me how much a difference food makes on one's emotional equilibrium. We had a done a long morning of paddling on a cold, misty day. It was getting well on lunchtime and we got to the beginning of a relatively long portage and all of us were grouchy and snapping at each other and convinced we couldn't face the thought of doing the portage. Then someone had the bright idea to dig out the gorp. We all stood huddled in a grouchy chilly circle eating out of a common bag, and magically within a few minutes we were all rational human beings again who were totally capable of completing the portage. So we did! Take-home lesson: be careful to not put off lunch breaks any longer than absolutely necessary, and snack regularly.

4. Actually this one is the story of the canoe trip that never happened. We arrived at the park where we were planning to canoe trip. It was really cold (idk, like 12 degrees C?) and that sort of steady all-day rain that although never a downpour is also never going to go away and will leave you just as wet. We elected to put off starting the canoe trip till the next day, and camped in the car camping area. The next day: more of the same, we put it off again. And so forth for something like half a week, until it got to the point where were just like NEVER MIND and went to visit my grandparents instead. We spent that time in the car camping area huddled over a tiny fire that we just barely managed to keep going with all the damp wood and rain, with ALL our layers of clothing on, just being miserable and cold. Important take-home lessons: make sure to pack for the weather, and don't be afraid to give up and go home if you're not having fun.

5. That time when I was in high school and me and Essie (my bff) went on a weeklong canoe trip through a summer camp. All the other campers on the trip were there because their parents had made them, not because they wanted to be. The trip leader was amazing so Essie and I managed to have a good time regardless, but it was hard going in places what with the other campers. Take-home lesson: make sure the people you're traveling with are people you genuinely like spending time with, because you will be spending a lot of time with them.

And now let me talk about favourites! Like the challenging aspects, this is a collection of different favourite experiences I've had on different trips.

1. This one time I managed to time things such that I was canoe tripping on the one weekend in September when the fall leaves were at their most splendid, in a year when the colours were particularly good. The entire weekend I felt like I was in a photoshopped picture because everything looked so beautiful it was UNREAL.

2. One time we were at a campsite where there was a family of loons that lived nearby or something. And the young loons were old enough that the parents were trying to teach them how to fly. And I don't know if you know anything about loons, but although loons are amazingly graceful in the water they're the most hilariously terrible flyers even when they're all grown up. They flap and flap and flap their way across most of a lake half in the water before they manage to get properly airborn. It's hilarious to watch. Even more hilarious: watching all these young loons doing exactly that except UTTERLY FAILING to get airborn. All that frantic ungainly flapping and it got them nowhere. And they did this for most of a morning. It made for amazing entertainment.

3. ...you know, talking about favourite things in a list like this doesn't really work because what I like about canoe trips mostly isn't these unexpected spectacular moments, it's the things that are the same about all of them: spending time surrounded by nature and away from the bustle of human civilization, the feeling of capability from being able to do all this hard physical work, the almost meditatively relaxing work of paddling across a lake with your mind not focused on anything but the motion of your paddle and the beautiful scenery, stretching out on a rock in the sunshine with a good book and not having to move until you're done the book (...we do less-than-hardcore canoe trips), hanging out with people you like in a super low-key situation, and just... being.

And even when things go less than perfect, on a canoe trip it just feels like another part of the adventure & experience, and it doesn't affect my good mood and relaxed state of mind. And it would frankly feel weird and wrong if everything DID go perfect. Like maybe one day there's a terrible headwind you have to paddle into so it takes far more time and energy to get the distance you need to go than you expected. Or maybe dinner sticks to the bottom of the pot and it all tastes slightly burnt and then you have to scrub the damn thing too. Or maybe there aren't enough flattish spots on the campsite for everyone's tents so you end up on something of a hill and wake up in the morning curled up at the bottom of your tent because you slid further and further down over the course of the night. Or maybe your site is terribly mosquitoey and you have to retreat to your tent at first hint of dusk. Or maybe the trail to the toilet is precarious and muddy and you have to be REALLY CAREFUL every time you need to go. And so forth. It's all part of the experience! It's all fine.

I don't think I know how to write tips and tricks for new canoers because I've been doing this literally as far back as I can remember, so I don't actually have a good sense of what kinds of things aren't obvious? But hopefully the above has been helpful/useful. If you ask more questions I may well keep going!

While hiking 20-mile days up mountains.

Marathon running looks so much less impressive when you read about thru hikers.

Okay so, those are some really great stories. Thank you so much for sharing them! And in such detail!! xD

I had not realized that portaging could be so difficult - I haven't been on the water on anything longer than a day trip down the Merrimac River, and I'm pretty sure the adults did all the heavy lifting - so the information about the type of canoe is good to know for sure. And also the mosquitoes! We're pretty spoiled here in southern California because there just aren't a whole lot of them except in some very specific areas. I'll definitely bring bug spray because I do not like being eaten alive.

And I get that, the thing where even the challenging parts of the trip just become parts of the story, like what you're talking about with it becoming just another part of the adventure and the experience, and how that doesn't need to make it a bad trip, it just - it just is. Camping is a bit like that too, I think, that even when things go imperfectly there's still a lot to be said for having done it, and being able to just be out and about in serene natural and wild places with friends and/or family. It's what I'm hoping to get out of backpacking, once I start doing that, and I'm really glad to hear so much about canoe trips because they're so far outside my own experiences but based on what you're saying I'd definitely like to change that! It sounds like it's exactly the type of outdoors experience that I'd really enjoy. :3

Edited (found my brain!) 2015-09-10 18:58 (UTC)

Stove-wise I use this tablet stove and really like it. The entire set-up weighs about 7 ounces, plus about half an ounce per fuel tablet. One tablet does for two cups of water, which is enough for me to make a cup of tea and a couple packets of oatmeal or dried soup or whatever. It's cheap, it's easy to light, and it packs down small. No, it doesn't boil as quickly as the JetBoil, but it also doesn't require messing with canisters.

Edited 2015-09-10 14:43 (UTC)

Yay I'm glad you enjoyed my wordvomit!

Portaging doesn't have to be as difficult as I made it sound - most of my experience of portages is that while they're not a part of the trip I actively ENJOY they're not actually a problem either. For carrying a canoe, as long as your canoe is made of one of the lighter material options and has a decently comfortable yoke, it's actually not a big deal, though it can be tricky to get it on and off without help.

And I hope you do get the chance to go on a canoe trip and have a good experience! To me it is like all of the best parts of ordinary camping put together with a lot fewer of the downsides. (My least favourite part about camping is that inevitably the people in the campsite next door are inconsiderately rowdy late into the night, and you can't escape the noise. Backcountry tripping does not have that problem!)

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