Completing the Triple Crown – The Trek

enlist

A huge factor that affects your morale and keeps a hiker moving along the trail is the people you meet. Some hikers prefer to hike with trail families (aka trams), others prefer to hike alone, but many fall somewhere in between: hiking for days or weeks with hikers in a loosely organized group and then, for different factors, hiking with another group (e.g. hikers drop out, leave the trail for commitments like weddings or graduations, or hike more miles than my body can handle). I fall squarely into the latter category – I’ve hiked with several groups over the past 2 months.

I have met interesting people, good people and people who have impressed me. I was lucky enough to meet two backpackers a few weeks ago who would qualify in all 3 categories: Alaska and Veto.

Alaska is a Westpoint graduate and retired Army officer who was a base commander and trained cold weather infantry in, you guessed it, Alaska. Veto is also an Army veteran who led an engineer battalion and worked in public affairs. In the post-military phase of their careers, Alaska taught in public schools and Veto worked as a county assistant. administrator of Lumpkin County in northern Georgia.

I was lucky enough to meet Alaska and Veto at a lodge in the middle of Virginia. Before I knew it, I had inadvertently signed up for “backpacker boot camp.” It took us a while to get used to waking up at 5:30 each morning to break camp before 6:30, but the results were undeniable: we made it through the triple crown (Dragon’s Tooth, McCafee Knob, and Tinker Cliffs) and covered 125 miles in 7 days. A personal best for me. For Veto and Alaska, it was probably a typical week.

On one particularly long and gentle climb, Veto and I asked Alaska to start singing a cadence to keep our minds occupied. It did not disappoint. As he sang each line, we repeated;

“C-130 rolling down the strip,

Dad in the air will take a little trip.

Uncertain mission, unknown destination,

I don’t even know if we will ever return home.

Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door,

Jump and count to four.”

I enjoyed the brief taste of military life 😄, the camaraderie and their «can do» attitudes. I hope to cross paths with both of them in the future. They were great hiking companions.

Trail maintenance

It is often assumed that trail maintainers make backpacking the trail possible. A few days ago I caught up with the AT Conservancy’s Konnarock trail team in action. They were working hard to improve the trail. While talking to them, I discovered that the day before they were doing the same thing in the rain. What a bunch of ‘bad asses!’ Many thanks to everyone who volunteers their time to make our hikes more enjoyable and safe!

Dad gets new shoes

A new pair of shoes arrived in Waynesboro, Virginia, thanks to my support staff, who happens to be my daughter. I put over a thousand miles on my first pair of Solomons. Over a hundred before the AT plus the 850 plus to get to Shenandoah National Park. My new pair is a slightly lighter Solomon pair and I hope they hold up as well as my last pair. I was going to send my used pair home, but my wife wisely convinced me to throw them away. Later today, I will hold a brief memorial service to honor my Solomons and lay them to rest in a hiker box or trash can.

Final thoughts

I’m a couple of months into my hike and about a week ahead of my planned schedule, a bit of contingency that can come in handy if something unexpected comes up.

Next, I’ll post an update on Shenandoah National Park and ending Virginia.

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