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Everything is awful, I really want to not have to have a job (medicaid for all, where are you, if I didn't have to pay for health insurance I could go part-time and actually breathe), and somebody needs to talk me out of using up a bunch of my leave and going on a solo backpacking trip this spring.
(Current nebulous plan: Get someone to drop me around the 100-mile marker on the C&O Canal Towpath Trail; hike downhill. 40 miles in there's a train station where I can take the train home; 60 miles in there's another train station where I can take the train home; 100 miles in is the last train home.
Which means I don't have to commit to walking a hundred miles or call home in shame, I can just make a decision at each train station. And the terrain's good, so it's hard for me to imagine not being able to do at least forty miles in a week, even if all the worst happens.
It's not a wilderness trail, so I wouldn't be out of civilization for any very long stretches, which means I could go very light on things like food, and do a few hotel/restaurant stops if I wanted. And there's supposed to be potable water every five miles or so, so I shouldn't need to worry too much about carrying/filtering water.
The only tricky bit is that there's nowhere to sleep in the last 20 miles, and the very last stretch is through the city, so when I got to that last train station I'd have to be very sure I could do 20 miles in a day, and still not miss the last train. But I could stop before then if I didn't think that was doable.
I'd need to make sure my camping hammock was functional enough, and decide if I want to try to stick with a vintage Sterno stove or finally get the backpacking stove I've been lusting over, and figure out my cell phone charging strategy, but other than that I could probably just mark up some maps, pack a bag, and then go.
I've wanted to do this specific trip since high school, so, why not now?
And then once I've done a 100-mile solo trip it'll be a lot easier to convince myself I can do more ambitious ones.)
(Also convince me that if I do it, I shouldn't try to do it in period-appropriate cosplay.)
(Current nebulous plan: Get someone to drop me around the 100-mile marker on the C&O Canal Towpath Trail; hike downhill. 40 miles in there's a train station where I can take the train home; 60 miles in there's another train station where I can take the train home; 100 miles in is the last train home.
Which means I don't have to commit to walking a hundred miles or call home in shame, I can just make a decision at each train station. And the terrain's good, so it's hard for me to imagine not being able to do at least forty miles in a week, even if all the worst happens.
It's not a wilderness trail, so I wouldn't be out of civilization for any very long stretches, which means I could go very light on things like food, and do a few hotel/restaurant stops if I wanted. And there's supposed to be potable water every five miles or so, so I shouldn't need to worry too much about carrying/filtering water.
The only tricky bit is that there's nowhere to sleep in the last 20 miles, and the very last stretch is through the city, so when I got to that last train station I'd have to be very sure I could do 20 miles in a day, and still not miss the last train. But I could stop before then if I didn't think that was doable.
I'd need to make sure my camping hammock was functional enough, and decide if I want to try to stick with a vintage Sterno stove or finally get the backpacking stove I've been lusting over, and figure out my cell phone charging strategy, but other than that I could probably just mark up some maps, pack a bag, and then go.
I've wanted to do this specific trip since high school, so, why not now?
And then once I've done a 100-mile solo trip it'll be a lot easier to convince myself I can do more ambitious ones.)
(Also convince me that if I do it, I shouldn't try to do it in period-appropriate cosplay.)
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Would it feel like a failure if you got to the second train station, walked twenty miles, slept, and then turned around if you had doubts about walking to the final train station in one day to catch the last train? If that would still feel like "good hike" rather than "ugh, I had to retrace my path and scramble uphill some," something like this might work:
Taking a few days to walk between the drop-off and the first train station. Then it's a couple of days from there to the second train station and deciding whether to get on the train then or keep going. If you keep going, give yourself a day or two to walk to the last place to sleep, and then deciding when you woke up. And the decision would then be "turn back to the train station at mile 60, or head onward and decide around mile 88 whether to turn back or keep going through the city.
With regard to cosplay, I can think of two possible arguments against it, which are "things to consider" rather than "don't do it."
1) Would your ouit be adequately waterproof without causing you to overheat? (I don't know whether there are period-appropriate umbrellas that are waterproof enough for a long walk/hike in the rain.)
2) If you'd be visiting any museums on the way, you might have to explain "sorry, I don't work here" to other museum visitors. And cosplay might encourage possibly-intrusive conversation from people at restaurants, hotels, etc.
It sounds from here like one option would be to sleep at mile 80ish, start walking toward the last train station the next day, and somewhere around mile eight decide whether you could get to that station in time, and if not turn around to where you'd slept the night before, and then take a couple of days to walk back to the sixty-mile station.
Would it feel like a failure if you got to the second train station, walked twenty miles, slept, and then turned around if you had doubts about walking to the final train station in one day to catch the last train? If that would still feel like "good hike" rather than "ugh, I had to retrace my path," something like this might work:
Taking a few days to walk between the drop-off and the first train station. Then it's a couple of days from there to the second train station and deciding whether to get on the train then or keep going. If you keep going, give yourself a day or two to walk to the last place to sleep, and then deciding when you woke up. And the decision would then be "turn back to the train station at mile 60, or head onward and decide around mile 88 whether to turn back or keep going through the city.
If that would n't be failure but "I took a hike along the old towpath and then then took a train home" in the same way as just stopping at the second train station,
no subject
I think the timing there wouldn't work out unless I took more than a week - either I'm walking fast enough that I can probably do one long 20 mile day when I have to, or I'll be far enough behind that I wouldn't have the time cushion to backtrack for several days. (Unless I took more than a week off! I have the leave! It would suck for my co-workers, but the part of the problem is that I don't have any coworkers left.)