180 Days

Well, Jen and I have sad news. On Thursday we set out to hike and were hit with a brutal reality. Hurricane Sandy brought winter to Appalachia. Even though it required an AWD to get through the snow to our drop off point, and parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway were closed, that did not stop these two women. We put on our warmest gear, leaving only one layer for something dry at night. We put on socks, then zip lock bags, then socks, and then tennis shoes, in hopes to keep our feet “dry”. We knew they would be cold, we were just hoping that we could keep them from being cold and wet. We grabbed our trekking poles and our packs and set off to hike the mile up the fire road and onto the trail.

The road was relatively easy hiking. We were learning our bodies in our new environment and testing out our foot placement on the ice and snow. It is amazing how much your stride changes when your footing becomes uncertain! In an acceptable amount of time we found the trail. Jen stopped, turned around and looked at me, and without words we gave each other our “Well here we go” looks. At first it didn’t seem too bad. The snow was about 6 inches and it was still a novel feeling. However, that changed in about 20 minutes.

The trail was covered in snow. It looked no different than the rest of the woods. We were finding our way by searching for white blazes on trees in snow covered woods. We realized after it taking us more than 3 minutes to find a blaze that this may not be a good idea. But, we forged on. 45 minutes passed and we only covered one mile of trail. We had repeated epic, slightly panicked blaze searches, and our feet were dangerously cold. We decided we had to talk. We had weighed our options and were relatively certain that this early snow had postponed the progress on our hike. (As we talked, I found a place under a tree that allowed me to take my shoes off one at a time and hand warm my toes.)

We talked about waiting a week or two and then trying again. Unfortunately while we wait for Virginia to thaw the Smokies have more opportunity to accumulate more snow. We talked about short days, but if it takes an hour to hike a mile then a day would only put us eight miles down the trail. That is 100 more days hiking. We talked about our gear and the fact that we really don’t enjoy hiking in the snow. We talked about finances. We honestly don’t have the funds to go another three months without working. We cried. Sobbed really. There seemed to be only one right answer, and it was not the answer we wanted.

We turned around. We followed our steps, still knee deep in snow, and hiked back to the car. (Slacker was here to help us out for a bit, and we were lucky for that.) As we hiked the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. My tears were very cold on my cheeks. We hiked in silence.

I have lived in Virginia a long time. Never, would I have expected there to be a foot of snow in the mountains in October. Honestly, I am always surprised if we get a dusting in November. I know, I know… I feel petty that I am mourning the postponement of my hike when there are people out there who lost everything due to the same storm. In reality it is just a “walk in the woods”. But we have put everything into this hike. We have hiked on sprained ankles, hurt knees, bad stomachs, and no food. We have given it our all physically and mentally everyday. We walked when we didn’t want to walk through lightning, rain, and hail. We have slept side by side every night for four months. Basically, the trail is our home. We are both very sad to be forced to leave it for a while.

With this said, we have decided to take 180 zero hiking days. We are returning to the same spot to pick up where we left off in May of 2013 and will finish within a year of our start date. We will still hike every step of this trail. We will finish what we started, and we will be happier than ever to be back in the woods. We will also continue to blog. We have to stay in shape, because when we do come back we will be in a time crunch to finish. I am also going to experiment with dehydrating our meals for the rest of our hike. I feel certain that will make for some interesting stories. Plus as we finish the AT in 2013 we will be preparing for the 2014 attempt of the PCT. We are still moving forward, moving towards our goal. This is just a chapter in the story that is uniquely ours. It is part of our adventure. It is part of our Thru-Hike.

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