5 things my first hikes taught me for round two

In 2023, I hiked the Appalachian Trail. It was glorious, enlightening and wet. Since the AT was my first hike, there were a lot of things I couldn’t know about long-distance backpacking until I experienced them. Two years later, I finished the Long Trail and learned new things too. Things that I think will help me be more successful as I embark on another multi-month hike.

Before the AT, I watched a few videos where some fitness influencer said «you should train in the gym before a walk» and then demonstrated weighted steps and lunge variations. I quickly ignored them, thinking Why would I waste time darting when I’ll just be walking?

Instead, my training plan was to do what I planned to do: walk. I walked every day, sometimes for hours on end. I didn’t look for slopes to practice on or hiking routes. I was walking in circles in the parking lot during my lunch break at work. Before work, I drove to a nearby bike path and walked as much as I could before my shift. On my days off, I would sometimes visit the park and do a combination of paved and dirt trails. Unless I was testing the equipment, I didn’t even train with my backpack on. And you know what? I did very well.

In those first few months on AT I kept a pretty steady pace and was pretty pain free. It wasn’t until Vermont that I started experiencing knee pain. The pain was bad enough to keep me off the trail for a week and put fear of steep descents into my hiking heart. So, I humbled myself and decided to get some training in before heading out on my next big hike: the Long Trail.

My hike along the Long Trail was somewhat of an experiment. I knew I would be doing the PCT the following year, so I decided to see what kind of difference strength training made. could do on a walk. I stopped spending long hours doing cardio and focused on lower body training in the gym. And honestly, I wish I hadn’t.

Lower body strength training helped me less than developing cardiovascular endurance. At the end of the day I was still sore, my muscles were still tense in the mornings, and now I was out of breath every time I had to climb something. In my opinion, the benefit of isolated strength training over resistance training simply does not exist.

Virginia barely had any rain, so normally plentiful water sources were completely dry. That changed once we reached Vermont, where the entire Northeast suffered record rainfall. The path was a stream and I was a salamander propelled against my will. My legs ached, my feet fell apart from being perpetually wet, and I felt like at any moment my determination would run out.

What started as fun in the woods turned into a mid-life crisis. I dreaded my return home, and yet I couldn’t wait for the torture of my walk to end. Upon reaching northern Maine I began to resent the trail and myself. I should have been happy to be out there. had been happy to be out there. But I found myself trapped in the void. I couldn’t get past the parts that didn’t bring me the magic I craved. I expected the hike to do all the work for me while I reaped all the rewards.

When trail conditions changed, my mindset refused to keep up. At first there was a lot of fear about how difficult one section or another would be, and I didn’t find those accusations to be true. The first 1,800 miles of the Appalachian Trail were not hard for me. I felt strong, I felt capable, and I got cocky.

When the rain-soaked White Mountains posed a real physical challenge, they generated hatred rather than humility. How dare these hills try to stop me? How dare this rain ruin my fun? This, in turn, caused imposter syndrome. I’m not a real hiker because I don’t want to be here anymore. All my friends surpassed me because I’m a fraud. While I should have been kind and looked for ways to still enjoy the trip, I became infuriated by everything that didn’t go my way. I envied those I had fallen behind, instead of seeking to make connections with new people and enjoy new experiences.

My approach now is a healthy mix of determination and humility. Do I think I can successfully walk from Mexico to Canada? Yes, without a doubt. Do I think there will be days when I will wake up and cry because I have to use my own feet to walk? Of course. But now I know to expect the unexpected. I know how to listen to my body, take breaks when necessary and not see it as a failure. I also know that no matter what, the “sucking” won’t last forever unless I let it.

Those who followed my AT hike know I had a terrible time in the Smokies. A winter storm came and my group and I decided to ride through it instead of going to Gatlinburg to wait it out. Our first two days were dynamic but manageable. On day 3 it rained, and then the temperatures dropped and everything froze. Before this, I didn’t really understand the importance of staying dry. I thought that with a warm enough midlayer it would be fine even in the rain. I had a rain jacket, but no rain pants or rain gloves. This meant I had minimal insulation for my hands and legs.

When I arrived at the shelter the day it rained, I was mildly hypothermic. It took me endless hours on my quilt and wearing all my dry clothes to stop the chills. My legs were purple, my lips were blue, and I had a rash on my hands from how cold they had been. The next day, desperate for warmth, we booked it for Standing Bear in our camping clothes, and I had almost I learned my lesson. I bought a pair of leggings at the nearby Walmart, but they still weren’t keeping me warm on those cold, wet mornings.

Once we entered Virginia I expected to feel warmer, but it never happened. I ended up borrowing my friend Cookie’s rain pants most mornings until I could generate some body heat. Finally, my friends found me my own waterproof pants in a hiking box somewhere in central Virginia and I started wearing them as an extra layer for warmth. Since then, I’ve taken them on trips in colder climates and even used them to sleep in on very cold nights.

Beyond using waterproof pants as a durable warm layer, I’ve added alpha socks to my arsenal (because my feet are always cold) and generally feel more comfortable controlling my temperature. I’m still a very cold person – I carried a 0 degree bag the entire AT and fell asleep with all my layers on – but I think I’m better prepared to handle that cold after the experiences I’ve had.

Obviously, for most of us money is not infinite. We all work hard off the court to save funds to play on the court, but sometimes it’s hard to know exactly how much to budget. I saved about $8,000 for my AT hike, not including equipment purchases and ongoing off-trail expenses. I spent every bit of that $8,000, and then some, but it could have been a lot cheaper if I hadn’t had some unfortunate shipping mishaps.

Just when I arrived in Rutland, I was forced to go home, get my car and continue my hike by bouncing my car. This generated many transportation and fuel costs that I had not initially taken into account. I also ended up hiking alone a lot after Massachusetts, which meant I was only paying the cost of hotel rooms on the part of the trail where they cost the most. There are many factors to a full hike, and the best way to mitigate situations like this is to save a little more money than seems necessary.

Another part of this, however, is taking the luxuries of trail life in smaller doses. It’s so much fun to sit in a restaurant with your trolley and order round after round. Soon, everyone is laughing at that stupid thing someone did 200 miles ago, but your bank account is a little worse for it. I’ve gone on many excursions around town that I planned to «be good at,» only to find myself sitting with friends at a pizza place ordering «one for now and one to pack.» Towards the end of the road, when my funds were so low that they threatened a premature end, I wished I hadn’t indulged so much in the beginning.

On the Long Trail, I did a little better by packing really fresh foods. The girl I walked most of the trail with was carrying a frying pan and we went crazy. We packed raw veggies to sauté, shredded cheese into tortillas to melt, bagels to toast, eggs to fry, and shredded veggie meat to brown. The food was so much better than just knorr sides and jerky, and it curbed some of that craving for city food. I was inspired to bring my own frying pan to the PCT, in the hopes that I could feel a little better by eating more whole foods and spending a little less money on hot food in the cities.

This may seem obvious (who likes being short on time?), but until recently it didn’t seem like an important factor to me. When I climbed the AT, I was already in school. I chose to take a semester off from hiking and started early so I could reach the top of Katahdin before the start of the fall semester. Having a “I have to finish before” date made some parts of the hike really stressful. I had big dreams of finishing my trek in Canada, but I abandoned it from the beginning due to time limitation. I was never in real danger of not finishing. I finished before the end of July and classes weren’t scheduled to start until the end of August, but there were times when I wanted to slow down a little and couldn’t for fear of falling behind my schedule.

He also had a timeline about the Long Walk. I did the Long Trail because I had a random month between commitments and a thirst for hiking in the Northeast. My initial plan was to hike the entire trail, but I quickly realized that a month was not enough time to cover the entire 273 miles without sections of the trail. I ended up hopping over to Maine Junction and taking the LT where the AT leaves off. This left me 3 weeks to fit the rest in and it was almost impossible. Plus, the stress of planning miles days in advance to make sure we made it to the finish line on time made being out there a lot less enjoyable.

I definitely have that Type A planner personality. I love spreadsheets, laying out data, and feeling prepared. However, this is something I plan to leave out this time. Giving you a rough outline of my next few days while I’m away should be enough to keep me out of sticky situations. But having it all laid out before you go, regardless of the “why,” adds unnecessary tension to the experience. I hope that without a deadline or future obligations I can fully enjoy my walk.