 So thank you for participating in this and I hope that you find it beautiful and perfect. For those of you that don't know, the Green Mountain Club maintains a long trail in Vermont. Long Trail is the nation's oldest long-distance hiking trail. It started in 1910 by James P. Taylor as he sat in the area of Straton Mountain waiting for the mist to clear. His whole idea came from wanting to provide this experience across the entire length of Vermont, giving people the ability to see all of the state, to connect with the mountains, and really to have the mountains play an impact on their everyday lives. And so that's what we are continuing to do, that is the Green Mountain Club's foremost priority is protecting and maintaining the Montana Trail. So while this might be our headquarters, it goes the entire length of Vermont, so you will find the Green Mountain Club volunteer or somebody hiking along the trail, obviously the entire length of Vermont. And I think that's really cool that we've spread the whole state. My name is Warren. I'm the outreach and field coordinator here with the Green Mountain Club. I've been at the club for about 18 months and my main priorities are working with volunteer groups such as Boy Scouts, summer camps, college orientation trips to help them schedule volunteer opportunities on the Montreal Trail. I also do all of our leave and trace education and work with our caretakers and our Montreal Patrol to go out and steward the trail the way they do. I wanted to run a couple things by you for the evening. In case anybody needs, the bathrooms are right behind you in this main room here. There's also one bathroom down the stairs. There's some water on the back table there. And then the two main exits are right down at the bottom of the stairs to the left and to the right, and those will bring you right outside. And this is going to be a pretty freeform event, so if you have a question, raise your hand. If there's anything that's a burning thought in your head, then don't be afraid to speak up. And this is a learning opportunity for everybody, so we'll try and make the best out of that if we possibly can. So I think with that, I'm going to go along the panel here, and everybody if you want to take a couple minutes and maybe introduce yourselves with what's in front of you there and start us off from the back for a bit. So Dan, would you be first? Sure. Hey, I'm Dan Braun. I'm from Morris Town, Vermont. My trail name is Country Time, because actually I brought a really, really big amount of lemonade mixed by accident. Also, it has a little bit of an ironic slant, because I was born in Queens, New York. I through-hiked with my niece-slash-god-daughter-slash-very-excellent-hiking-partner, Tori. Shout-out, Tor. My favorite section on the long trail is the Mount Mansfield area, because it's where I'm from. And what I offer as a panelist is whatever I can answer for you. My name is Hilary Orsini. My trail name was Hoot, because my spirit animal is an owl, and I'm fun. I grew up in Sutton, Vermont, which is in the Northeast Kingdom, in the middle of nowhere. And I section-hiked the trail. I did the first half with my dad, who was here, and then was shredding my Achilles tendon, so left the trail and came back and did it like six years later. In Bits, I worked my way up north with my friend Paul. My favorite location on the trail is kind of hard. I think it is completely dependent on what my mood and blood sugar was like at any time, but I remember when my dad, White Rocks, was really amazing, just magical. And then Lara Way was, when we got there, it was raining and misty, and there were birds, and it was just like this, almost a spiritual experience, so I loved that. As a panelist, I think I can offer honesty. I think it was really hard. It was like one of the hardest things. It was the hardest thing that I've ever done, and I'm really proud of it. And I think that the hard parts are really funny. I'm also a comic, so I'm going to tell you what actually happened. My name is Andrew Maxfield. I go by stretch. Pretty much I'm just a normal person, stretched out a little bit bigger, and helps me get across the mudspots. So my shoes stay a little cleaner than the average person hiking next to me, which is nice. Hometown, I'm originally from the Burlington area. I live up in Northern Vermont now, Highgate. So I actually was hiking. I was pretty much telling everyone as I started down south, I was hiking home because it's pretty much the end of the trail is about 40 minutes from my house, so it's a long way to get there. I through-hiked actually two different segments, so I started in the beginning of the summer and due to my little pup dog who didn't make it the whole time, she got tired and through all the rain stopped, and then I picked it back up a few months later and finished up, so I did like three days and then like another couple weeks after that. So I did it by myself. I started with my dog. I always had that ambition that she was going to do it with me. I just waited until she got a little too late in her life to make it, so there's a good point on that if you want to try to bring your dog, make sure they're in good shape, and not 10 to 15 pounds overweight. Now she's even more. I hope she's not listening. I'm not saying that. My favorite location, White Rocks, was absolutely amazing. The White Pine Forest was absolutely phenomenal. It's something so unique compared to the Maple Forest and Hardwood Forest up north where I'm from. That was amazing. Then also the ridge going from like Mount Abraham over to the single chair lift up on top of Mad River. You're just hiking on almost a peak along the hallway. You look off either side and it's down for, you know, it was at six, seven miles at least. Something about that day when I hit it, it was amazing. Getting on top of Mount Abraham, hitting Mount Ellen, the first 4,000 footer, really starting to hit those mountains. It was a good day. I think it had a lot to do with that too. How your mood was, how the weather was, what you had for breakfast I wish you didn't have. Made it a lot. What I can offer is just, you know, experience with someone that's living in Vermont and wanting to do it my whole life. And I finally had to get off my butt and do it. It took some ambition and timing. You know, I work full-time. I think like most people, a lot of people do and it takes time to do. And now, you know, I have ambitions to do with my whole family here, wife and three kids in the next couple of years. I'm sure you're going to hit a lot more. I'm Alexis Peters. My trail name was Grizzly Squirrel, which is kind of a long story, but pretty much I had a dream my first night out when Grizzly Squirrel was attacking me. I'm from Mystic Connecticut originally, and I threw hiked alone last summer. My favorite location on the trail is probably the section between the linking gap and the app gap, because I grew up spending a lot of time in that area. That's kind of where I was a kid, like, oh, wow, there's a trail that goes the whole length of the state. I'm going to do this someday. So when I finally made it there, I was like, I guess I'm doing it now, but still have a long way to go. And what I can offer as a panelist, I guess just my enthusiasm to share what my experience is like, because I know ever since, like, last August, I talk about it pretty regularly, and it'll be nice to talk to people who actually want to hear about it. Thank you. Hi, I'm Leanna. My trail name is All Good. It's pretty cool that I got a trail name. I was really nervous about getting a trail name. I don't know how many of you have a trail name and have hiked, but there's sometimes a moment of am I going to get one. But I got mine from a legit AT through hiker, so that was kind of cool, and his name was Sunny. So I felt like getting a name like All Good from someone named Sunny was a pretty neat moment. I'm from Pennsylvania, a really small town in the middle of the state, so part of coming to Vermont was I'd never been up here, got to experience this amazing place, and then get to come back for something like this. I hiked last summer in July to the beginning of August. I went by myself, but met some of the most amazing people and have kept in touch with a lot of those folks. So even though I was by myself, I don't feel like that I was by myself the whole time. Favorite location? I remember a moment at Kid Gore Shelter when I set up my tent on the edge of the mountain, and I would watch the sunset and watch the sunrise, and I just felt like I was in the mountains, and I was like, I could stop right now and be okay. It was just so amazing, and that was so early on, so I had so many more amazing, amazing opportunities ahead and experiences ahead. What do I have to offer as a panelist? Oh, goodness. I have a lot to learn still. That's something I'll be honest with you about, and that was very much in my communication with Lauren before this, is that I'll be honest in that I have my experiences to share, but I will be very honest in that I have a lot to learn as well. Your pictures of that camping spot at Kid Gore? Yeah. You'll see them, and it's like the most dreamy place with the bright sun and the green leaves. It's really cool. Oh, my. Yes. Oh, my. Thank you. Well, there's never any... There's like three times where you get a view. It's really cool. Hi, I'm Taryn. My trail name is Yellow Crocs. I was given that by my sister because I brought a pair of bright yellow crocs, which I wore when I wasn't wearing my hiking boots. I'm from Shelburne, Vermont, and I section-hiked the long trail. It took from about May to September. I hiked with my family, my sister, my mom and my dad, my two little dogs. My favorite location on the long trail was probably Devil's Gulch. It was just really pretty. There was a lot of rocks, and it was green. What I have to offer as a panelist is a different perspective on the long trail and hiking with a family. So my name is Jenny, and I come from the same place that Taryn does. I never grew up and got a trail name. So... There's still time. There's still time. I'll just have to do it again. I have a little bit different perspective than Taryn and the way that we did it. I kind of feel like we section-hiked the northern part, but then we hiked 200 miles continuously from the southern part to the middle of the state. Again, as Taryn said, we hiked with our whole family, and it was because of Taryn. She had set it as a goal the summer before when we were hiking out in the Grand Tetons and out in Yosemite. She said, next summer I want to hike the long trail. I want to hike the whole thing, and I want to through-hike it. And so we worked as a family to figure out how we can do it. And I think that's what I have to offer is how can we take a dream and ambition of our family, especially the younger members of our family, and make it happen. Awesome. Thank you all for that. And I think one sense I got from Hillary and Andrew is that your blood sugar and your food intake makes a difference, which is pretty obvious, so we can talk about that at some point, which I think is fun. There is a really wonderful slasher with a bunch of pictures that everybody sent in. So I think we'll take some time and kind of breeze through that and let ourself focus. And if you guys want to get up and move around, that sounds great. That's something I always like to do. Actually, I'm just going to get a whole lot of time for a suit. But I'm going to start this. Is everybody here? Can you identify the place? A lot of it's just like a green tunnel for the woods. Kind of a door, right? Yeah, that's a big door. We're left over the shelter, and it rises on the right, and it's just... It's a lot of food. I see that's people over there in the shelter. I have a question about that. That is one of the test pictures of the room. There was a lot of people breathing. Yeah, there's white lines. I had the best swimming quality. Yeah. It's like a cow. It's like a cow. It's like a cow. It's funny for us to keep you warm. There's a lot of rock. That's a cute little stew. Don't miss it. That's my favorite show. Yeah. That's my favorite show. That's up on Laroid, like I mentioned, and this and the stuff. Good. I was on the message all the time. It's been a terrible school. That's where I took my train path. I had to choose some down to the top. I'm telling you the story. So leave no trace answer to that as well. Is this some yellow rocks there? Yeah, some of them. Hamsters. Oh, yeah. This is a wet series of photos. Oh, yeah. A dress. This is a very sanctuary, very petting, very walking, very styling. We might have to go back. Some of that is some good creativity. So I have an idea. How about if each of you pick one of those pictures that you maybe feel had an impact that you would like to tell a story about, and we'll go through, and we can go back to that, and we can do that. So if you have something, you know, that you thought out of what you submitted there, do you want to go to the one with all three of your pictures? Can you come back to me? Oh, I mean, that's an interesting one, if you want. Yeah, you know what? Go ahead, pick that one. That's kind of neat. Just, and the reason that it's cool, I took a picture at every shelter that I went to. I figured, hey, if I'm coming out here and doing this, I'm gonna see all of them, you know? We're not walking past any. And so every single time that I got to a shelter, I took a selfie, or an assie, depending on, and my niece is in almost all of them. And it's really interesting that the reason this picture's interesting to me is because really, what it does that I didn't expect it was gonna do, is it provides a really brief little synopsis of my entire trip. And I can look at any one of these pictures, and I can remember what happened on that day, and the kind of day that it was, and where we went from there, and what were the next things that happened, and most significantly, the one that is sitting there all alone is Boy's Shelter, which is right here in the middle, and I got my arm chewed on. My niece is not there, and that was because I actually lost her that day on the left side. And it was pretty exciting stuff. We ended up deviating a little bit from our procedures. We got split up, and we didn't end up meeting up again until past that shelter, which was Skyline Lodge. And it was quite an exciting day, to say the least. But I think this picture a lot, because then if anybody asks, did you really do it? Well, that's the only picture I ever have to show anybody, and it's a really nice reminder of kind of the whole thing wrapped up in a neat little package. You have to go to the very first slide, which I sent one picture. We took more pictures. There I am. That's me and my friend Paul. That face is pretty much how I felt most of the time on the trail. But I did take some more pictures, but it's just, I guess it's making me think about how that wasn't the purpose for me, or that wasn't the point. Like I was actually, it was kind of a relief to not be looking at things through the lens of like how nice of an image is this to share, or how will I remember this? I really focused on the journal and just was present for the whole thing. But I love the other pictures that people took. We absolutely, I need this now, because I don't have any of this. You're sitting too young to do this. Did you write two whole journals? No, I had the first one, and then it was too special, so I had to go second one. Gotcha. Yeah, Ceasar's been one of them. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Ceasar's a third sanctuary that has somebody kind of petting a ferret, ferret milking and ferret stomping. So you'd see those signs everywhere. If anybody that's hiking, those are the front of almost every trail. Yeah, they just crack me up. Those type of things would keep you sane out there. Oh yeah. I mean, that's... The Green Mountain does not support any theory of stomping. No, no. Ferret stomping's out made up. Ferret stomping definitely out of the question. Discouraged. Alexis? There's one up like towards the beginning of a jar of pickles down over there. That one? Yeah. So I don't eat a lot of salt normally. So like six days in or so, I was like really crashing because I didn't have enough salt. So I panicked and hitchhiked into town to buy that jar of pickles. That was like the best thing I'd had in a week. Which is all that and the nuts and some powering. But yeah, that was quite the adventure. I'd never hitchhiked before and I wasn't planning on doing it but sometimes you're really desperate and it was worth it for the pickles. So. We kind of talked about Kid Gore already. That definitely would be for me. That's the photo I like to look at. And it just takes me back to that moment. I remember walking up to that shelter thinking where am I going? And coming around the corner and just being like this is where I'm staying tonight. I got to live in Vermont in the woods for 30 days. And that was just amazing. It just truly was. I mean, I look at that and I just go to that moment and I think that's so much like what this provides is an opportunity to kind of get that feeling back. And it's so important to keep that feeling with you throughout life when you're not on the trail as well. That's it. One of my favorite pictures is the one where we're lying on the back surrounded by mud and the dog is looking at me and saying what? What did you get us into? Because for me it really, it says you really don't know what it is that you're gonna experience on the trail. It was really wet, it was really muddy but we were actually having a lot of fun at that moment. It also talks to me about being prepared. We weren't prepared the first couple of times that we went out with the dogs when it was raining and they get cold too. And that was the one thing that we actually ended up adding to our hike was the dog's raincoats because I don't care if it had been our lab who used to hike with us or not, I'd forgotten that they get wet, they get cold just like we do. And so as you see we're all still smiling and laughing but what are we doing out here? A picture that takes me back to the memory of the long trail is the picture on top of Camelshaw with a few people that joined the picture and you just meet the most amazing people on the long trail. I mean, we were in the lodge with them and I remember just playing spoons with them that night and they were just amazing. And then we all left at different times and we all met back up on the shop of Camelshaw and we took a picture together and they're just... Yep, it's the whole group of people, so. The whole group, I think it's one of their first ones. Oh, yeah, yeah. Either way, you get the point. That's it. That's it to get down on Camelshaw. That's cool. Yeah. It's kind of a great question to just roll down the line and kind of describe what your experience is as a hiker overall, like happen. I've had some close-trail ATI that everywhere, beginner leather, what your average mileage per day was and if you did anything before you head out, training lines or... Sure, I hike Vermont, mostly, but I do a lot of different stuff. I'm just kind of outdoors in general, which helps, I think, keep in shape. I did train a little bit for a few months leading up to it, but to be honest with you, looking back on what I did, kind of makes me laugh a little bit now. Because in a lot of ways, you can prepare as much as you like, but you're never fully ready for whatever it is you're going to find out there. You do have the ability to get used to it, to work up to it and to build your strength and kind of find your rhythm and your flow. I think when you do that, you kind of settle in and you kind of find a bit of a balance and things sort of just kick in for you and then you kind of ride that way, mileage. Oh, sorry, mileage, yes. Well, mileage is a funny question. The spreadsheet that I had that planned this entire trip, which, by the way, lasted one day, that planned a little bit less. It actually, you're about 19 hours. About 15 at the end of the entire operation, which was a rainy, muddy operation. We did about 10. 10 miles a day. What was your back weight? My pack was from a base about 27, 28 pounds and it throws six to eight pounds of food on top of that. On your first day, it's pretty hefty and then every day it's a couple pounds lighter. And by the end of the week, when you're starving, your pack's really light, so it works out. And then after a hiking, I averaged, I probably averaged about 12 miles a day as few as six and as many as 19. I think it's really important to listen to your body and in terms of the training thing. You really gear up as you go, so making sure that you're taking time on those first days to not only let your muscles and your lungs kind of recharge, but also your joints and your tendons. And also, the other thing that I kind of caught on as I continued to do this, is that there's training and then there's how much am I going to put on my back. So I got the pack down from 35 pounds to like 22 and that's huge. Especially for me, you know, it's like 15% of my body weight or something. It's a huge difference. Somebody that's small, it's a huge difference. So thinking about it that way too. I grew up hiking. I grew up hiking. So I get to travel. I've been to pretty much a lot of countries, a lot of states. I've done a lot of hiking on weekends and on week long trips. So that's got me to do a lot of different areas. This was by far the biggest endeavor I ever did. It took 18 days to divide the mileage by that. I had some really short days. Five, six miles at the end when we wanted to go down to Jay and hang out for the day. Or up to the low 20s. Listen to your body. How well did you eat the day prior? And I definitely felt it. You know, some days you get up. You take too many of some supplement energy like little jelly beans which I found are horrible in my body. I said give me a boost to get me going but boy the next day I was done. So I did away with that stuff. It really made a difference for me. I want to take a meal where the electrolytes helped a lot. What was the other stuff? So it was mileage. Pack weight. I would I did 20s when I was empty on food when I restocked in full of water. I was probably 31-32ish. So before the long trail I'd done mostly like day hikes. I'd done one overnight that was three nights. Then another one that was one night that was it for like backpacking. So I was like experienced with hiking but not with that combined with camping out. Then for training I guess I had been hiking a bit that summer and I was running maybe like six miles a week or something which helped but it's not the same as hiking. I never knew how heavy my pack was. I think it was probably between like 25 and 30. It was way too heavy at the beginning so I'd met a whole bunch of AT through hikers down south and they basically went through my pack that piece of your stove that's useless and so I ended up sending a whole bunch of stuff home which really helped. And then I was like oh, mileage was probably about between 12 maybe 15 at the most was comfortable but usually closer to 12. Some days I had like a five mile day if I went into town or just wanted to hang out my hammock longer so I kind of took it easy and I felt like it because you need to recharge mentally too. It's so cool to hear everyone's stories. Are you looking to through hikers? That's awesome. Very cool. I'm not a numbers girl I have no idea what my pack weight was or what it is now or what it was during the whole duration. I was on the trail 33 days but not like on the trail the whole time I had one day with a trail angel off of the trail so as far as my average I'm not really sure what that was or how much I was doing per day I was just listening to myself and kind of going I wasn't stressed for time so it was really I was focusing on the experience and I wanted to come home healthy. As far as training I very much like have been hiking for a long time that's part of what I do regularly at home but backpacking was something that I had been wanting to do for a really long time like multiple overnights. I completed the Camino Frances which was 500 miles so that's not quite the same as backpacking at all but it was still continual 500 miles and then the year after that I completed the Camino Portugues which again was shorter not quite the same as backpacking but still like that continual on your body day after day after day of miles and weight on your back. This past summer before I came up to Vermont I through hiked it's called the Laurel Highlands hiking trail and it's a 70 mile hike in Pennsylvania and so that was kind of like my shakedown hike and at that point I didn't even know I was coming and doing the long trail I went and did that and that was kind of my inspiration for what is this summer to be. So I did that and when I came home I ordered the map for the long trail and then I went to the beach with friends and I came back and then I came to the long trail but from the past couple summers before this I definitely learned as far as training it's more than just your cardio then the weight on your back. It's all those little muscles that are in your feet and legs. I continually every single day throughout the winter I have like a list of kind of exercises that I do just to work on all of those muscles because it's like those muscles that you forget you know your quads, your calves those things like we're used to running and working all of those but all those little muscles that's really important getting your arms ready for using your trekking poles day after day after day so that would be my recommendation is don't forget about all of those little muscles that help make all those big muscles work. We didn't do much training I mean I've been so we just kind of went out on the long trail and my path went about 20 pieces. So cool. Yeah. So I'm going to add a little bit to that. One of the things that we did to build up to do it with a family that was kind of we did wasn't purposeful but ended up being very purposeful in the end is that we started at the beginning of the summer when we were doing section hikes by doing section hikes that were between 5 and 7 miles and then we built up to doing doing consistent days of 10 miles a day for our day hikes and then over nights that she was saying in the north of 10 miles a day and the north is definitely a lot more complicated and a lot more technical than the south was and so we anticipated that's what we would hike in the south when we flipped to the south because we ended our 200 miles we were doing we thought we went a lot faster than we thought because we were doing 15 miles a day with our longest day because of her wanting pizza at 17.5 wow way to go when we looked at our pack weights we looked at the size of the person in our family so Taryn is the smallest of us she carried the smallest pack at about 20 pounds my daughter and I realized after the first day out that she and I are actually the same size and we should be carrying the same weight so we equalized that at about 22-25 pounds and then Kevin who is here with us carried 30 for a little more so I do want to say something about working one of the things that I learned with us for working we take in five weeks off the year before and something that I ended up doing was early on the hikers told me you need to take some zero days so I actually took zero days in the office rather than taking zero days on the weekends and that made it feasible for us to do our through hike because we would do two days in the office five to seven days out of the office and that really helped with the weather here can you speak up what's happening also if anybody left their windows open it might be too late I do want to be clear about kind of our hiking we've been backpacking with our kids since we were five and that really helped but most of what we had done up to that point was one or two days not five or seven days seven days out and we had hiked 120 miles like the summer before out in the western parks I was glad we're not on the long trail right now yes great so I got a couple general questions that I think could kind of go off of that a little bit one that I think is really cool to think about for everybody that's out on the trail everyone here is a different person it's a really cool experience and the phrase that I've heard a lot is anybody hikes their own hike and I was wondering if maybe some of you have an opinion on that or if you've heard that phrase and how you interpreted that for your own experience on luncheon maybe can I get like three volunteers to raise your hands there I've definitely heard that hike your own hike some take pictures, some write in journals I see some people hiking in that and they're just cruising listening to music or a book or whatever it is they want to listen to only ever it's just a tornado warning just keep talking my son's actually out camping right now with a boy scout so I'm sure he's having a blast so no I definitely agree with that hike your own hike I've thought about that in the past I am a kind of a stats and organized I plan a plan and I try to stick to it or exceed it I'm very goal oriented I had a spreadsheet before I went out I really did and it was pretty darn detailed I have the final version there's five different versions of when it changed I always make a goal and that's what I wanted to do and that's the way that's what motivated me I was doing it on my own I could hike it the way I wanted to hike it and eventually I ran into a group of four other people I ended up hiking with that were from everywhere and I kind of adopted there's a little bit we're a little more easy going just whatever hike to wherever you hike and stop if I look back on it I've thought about this a lot over the last you know years since I've done it or so and be like you know I'd rather kind of do some other things like just if I want to sleep in my hammock tell noon and just relax and do that you know put my phone away a little more not that I was on it but you know taking pictures I say that now I'm like that's what I'd love to go on out there and do the same darn thing I did the last time because that's just who I am but I do I appreciate the way every single person hikes it you meet down south the first hundred miles so many AT hikers that are doing it their way you know they've already been on the trail for almost 1700 miles at that point they're kind of setting their ways and I appreciate the way every single one have done that and I learned a lot from them I learned a lot from everyone I meet on the trail or it didn't be on the trail actually a ton more right here so it is everyone does it their way and whatever makes you happy is the way it needs to be awesome the other question I kind of had was as I said to be a mountain club and take the long trail and the two are inextricably inextricably connected so you somebody maybe explain a time that you interact with a caretaker or a trail crew or maybe some steward do you want to go down there? so a lot of the best experiences actually were with the Green Mountain Club because when you walk with two kids and two dogs people don't really take you that seriously so the only trail magic we actually got was on the top of on the top of Mansfield and the person at that summit and the other Green Mountain Club folks were really excited for us and really excited for us being out there and I think that really made our journey and they I also felt like they really respectfully got at those summits guided people to where they should be and help with the vegetation and stuff in a way that was respectful and responsible when there were a lot of people up there I found that yeah we actually were fortunate enough to run into the entire crew of caretakers up on Campbell Sump I think Isaac was the fellow that was up there and his and what a cool bunch of people they were to meet they were so welcoming they were really glad to see us they were supportive they gave us food they gave us drink they wouldn't let us eat in the shelter other things like that which was important because you can't have bears in the shelter and stuff like that and they were just dynamite you can tell that the people that are out there doing this stuff are absolutely for real they're doing it because they love it and it's where they want to be and what they want to be doing and just to maybe kind of expand a little bit and almost kind of circle around to that kind of hiking or hike thing there's so many different people out there it's incredible I saw people that were 70 years old I saw a girl that was 9 years old physical abilities mental toughness the reasons you're being out there the goals you have all these things everybody they're all completely different and yet you're all out there doing the same thing and that's pretty amazing Andrew mentioned the AT and it was kind of interesting to me because I was here last year's meeting and I was talking to one of the panelists and she said it was a big difference between hiking the AT and the LT and I kind of understood what she meant but not really and now I really do and the difference is the people that are out there on the AT they're doing numbers they're out there for volume purposes they're doing 1700 or whatever miles they're 10 by 10s 10 miles before 10 o'clock in the morning they're in their sleeping bags at 5pm they're up at 5am though you will be walking the same physical path through the wilderness and occupying the same space you're not on the same trail you don't have the same motivations and reasons that they do and I think for the first little chunk of it especially starting down in the south there was almost like a little bit of compulsion if you're not really sure what you're doing a lot of times it's your nature to go out if the crowd is AT folks they're doing something different and it took a couple of days to break out of that say hey man you know what you guys go ahead in your bags at 5 we're going to go build a campfire we're going to be social we're going to be a little more mellow so don't get those two things confused because they are very different even though they're kind of the same does anybody know how long the AT is in Montfort? it's like 100 it's about 140 is it? it's Southern Boydwood Killington so the AT starts at where the long trail starts at the master mount border is where the AT comes into Vermont from Massachusetts and then they share the same treadway until main junction of Killington where the AT then splits off to go east to Hanover, New Hampshire and the big mountain club maintain the AT for its entirety here and you know same as the long trail it's a long distance footpath but as Daniel said that might be different than taking three months off full-time work to go like the long trail and go like that so I think they love that for a few things I was wondering how many of you started in the South versus the North and what's the benefit of going on here I started in the South the benefit is if you don't well I would say you don't know what you're doing I mean you kind of have to know a little something but it's less physically challenging in the South the peaks are not as high the slopes the trails much more gradual for me aside from I didn't want to end in Massachusetts should I not have said that my bad that was part of the reasons that we North bounded was to kind of work your way up to it you know you don't want to walk out of your house and slam into JP and stuff like that it's pretty hardcore so that gives you a little chance to kind of catch up to it I think well I would say I did so I started in Massachusetts and went to Canada but I'm from Pennsylvania so once I got up there it was because of not a numbers person I'm not really a planning person and everything usually always works out but getting home from up there was more difficult so I would consider and I have considered if I go to do it again starting in the North and coming south for that reason because once you come south you have a lot more options for getting places yeah another thing that I we did south to north there are a lot more people in the south for better or for worse but I found that comforting while I was kind of getting used to being out there and then I think they the AT like curved off and then we had a night in a shelter me and my dad and I woke up and I was like I slept so well and he was like red-eyed he was like did you not hear the pack of coyotes so yeah but like if you're just getting used to being in the woods I think that that's another kind of benefit of being with those AT folks I think another point to that is the weather and the timing of your hike so say you wanted to start your LT hike September 15th or end of September even you'd rather probably start in the north and go south because you know J.P. is almost Canada and it's pretty cold and I think another point is right now in this kind of transition that season that we're in a month season the north will be much snow much later as Russ knows J.P. is still covered in snow whereas there are probably places in the south around now or within a week of snow that he can start hiking so if you're starting in May or if you're starting in June starting in the south and going to let that dry out and stuff and black flies and really making this happen you know the black flies are really something special and for those of you I have a little video of it which I dare not screen here publicly but we got caught in quite a mess of black flies and until you've been there let me tell you something boy they are the truth do you have a question? yeah I just want to hear your comments on the part where it overlaps and how packed the shelters are or there's no place to pitch a tent it's always down soft because of the AT everything's crowded and the AT hikers are there's probably as many of AT AT as LT hikers and once you cross that threshold they all make a right and east and then you know the shelter populations I never had a problem I mean we hiked from June 4th to July 4th I tented twice on both times by choice I never didn't have room and you know what people are really accommodating out there when things are tight people will make it happen we got to Goddard and I think we had 15 people or something in the shelter it was you know the shelter didn't do for the most part because we had the dogs we stayed in a tent but I will tell you that we had a different experience in August there were many a night we probably wouldn't have fit in the shelters in the southern part of the state they were pretty packed the one night that we did stay in the shelter down in the southern part of the state we got there around the time that most people pull in but they all came in later so that while you're on the AT section there's definitely you can anticipate there may be a night it's a pretty tight squeeze the other thing is there is a bit of seems to be a bit of a hierarchy the AT hikers pull in early they expect that they have an expectation that LT hikers and day hikers will likely have a tent and will be sleeping not in the shelter all night you can also in the year or two I started later so their bubbles they pretty much all got by when I got back on in mid-September if they weren't already by most of Vermont for the most part they weren't making it up to Maine it's definitely a lot quieter that time of year but also you can also find bubbles of them if you end up getting packed with a whole bunch of them try to hang back or go up faster because they do AT hikers they call them bubbles where there's a whole bunch of them once this is what I saw another thing to be mindful of is that when the college students come back they'll do a lot of get to know you orientations out there and you might be minding your own business and then all of a sudden it's like the locusts they're like and they're not supposed to hike in groups larger than seven but there's like 25 undergraduates who are just making friends for the first time you have to be what? it was bad so we're going to have a conversation later and I'll be some digging oh I'm so excited she has lots of picture videos yeah last point we tried to you know share that shelter's your first come first serve facility so always having a backup of some sort is smart because on a night like this if you're planning on staying in shelter and you can't you're going to have a pretty horrible night of bed there's no guarantee that a shelter will be full or empty you might want to consider that when you're planning too if you don't have a tent if you absolutely have to find shelter wherever it is you're going to end up for the night cut your mileage down get there earlier it's like he said it's first comes first served if you show up at five o'clock six o'clock you're going to be out there stuck that's part of the way to approach it I can't make a big day today so we're going to do a shorter one and make sure you get a spot question for you Jenny did you guys share one tent or did you have multiple tents we did we shared one tent all four of us we had purchased it a few years ago it was one of the things that we didn't do is replace all of our gear for this and so we kept that it packed in at six pounds which isn't too bad for a four person two dog tent which by the way please don't ever put your tent in a shelter I have a question about the kind of over nights together he has no mom sleeping away from me but as mom and he's away and I can see him in his pride you might have like a gift to know you college thing but then there's like the mom there but then there's also you gotta give your kids space so I don't know I need to always go back and forth to be tense so so we've had some funky experiences out backpacking not just on the long trail but out backpacking and I would say that even with that when I take I often by myself take a group of girls out and we will sometimes split into multiple spaces and I feel pretty comfortable on the long trail more than anything else we once had our pack stolen it wasn't on the long trail it's where there are a lot more day hikers on the long trail I felt a lot more safe and so I would feel comfortable with two hammocks with myself and one of my daughters I would stay in shouting distance that would be my you hike with your kids and I stay in shouting distance we don't move too far away from each other yeah pretty close we've never really done it to where you're not usually going off the same tree on one end yeah one other thing I'd say is we're all in this room together here and we're all interested in learning about my Muantra it seems like a pretty good community of people and that's part of what you find out there there might be a few not even bad eggs but just a few eggs the people were definitely our highlight on the on the trip we'd had a bad experience like I said when I took a group of girls out and our packs were stolen and the girls were a little bit nervous one of the first nights and they were so excited by the people and how well they were generally treated they either didn't say much to us or they treated them so well so I would be totally comfortable they got this they got this so so did everybody did we yeah so when we were we hiked we were what was we at the top of like man Mt. Tom and these guys came in and they looked like pirates like we were like and they took one guy took off his shoes and his foot was like bloody and gnarling oh my gosh like this is kind of alarming and then they started making food and they were like do you guys want some of some of those do you want to play cards like they were just such nice sweet people so like when you've been hiking the 18 maybe for 2000 miles like you're a little rough but it's just like there's this trail magic and this community out there I also think like there's something really neat about the fact that you're hiking often from shelter to shelter so there's like journals in each shelter so you might be following behind somebody who's writing notes for you know six days or ten days and then you catch up to them and you've been reading about their journal their journey the whole time or because there's that communal space at the end of the night you're leapfrogging or you're starting to make friends and these people you know maybe you start out slow in the morning and then they pass you and then you catch up for lunch it's just it's just it becomes like this moving caravan kind of communication is very cool it's almost like social media but written down in you know notebooks and you know there is actually like a messaging system the trail has if somebody is hiking faster than you and you want to talk to somebody ahead of you you can tell them something and they'll let you know and I actually managed to send a couple messages like that I asked if somebody was moving a lot quicker than me like hey when you find my knees tell them to stop and wait for me you guys just know the log books and the shelters come back to the club here and get put into our archives and we have Montreal shelters coming back you know get aids so it might seem like you're writing that for yourself but it's also really cool because creating this never ending history of people on the line I mean size-wise like this big guys 48's mine I have a 60 yeah a 60 liter bag yeah I don't know she doesn't do numbers mine too mine was 53 and you can have 100 liter pack but at the end of the day you got to be able to carry it and you can also go the ways I went actually mine is 65 sorry I have a 50 and a 65 but you just find it go bigger and you can cinch it down and make it smaller so I do sometimes where I need more gear I'd rather have enough room rather than having to not have enough room so you can always cinch them down whatever having kid size packs was really important for kids oh yeah the right size packs get them fitted whatever it is because they make small medium large depending on your size your frame your torso and stuff if you have the wrong size bag it's not going to hit the right spots it's going to be miserable you really shouldn't even feel the weight if you have the right size pack and your weight goes right on your hips nothing pulling up here at all this is just to keep it from flopping around and when you get that it's really cool when you get it right you get 40 or something pounds of weight extra on you you don't really feel it when that's dialed up you can go five times further than if it's pulling you back it's all how you set it up you'll be surprised yeah I was thinking of that question is there something that you all you can just say really quickly what you dropped on your first three days metal candle lantern that seems like an obvious one it was just it was little it was special no special I brought a small solar panel thinking all my stuff is rechargeable so I'm like hey I'll recharge my stereo pen, my headlamp, everything else there's not enough sun and you're moving too much here in the woods I had a glass bottle of chula so I had to transfer it to plastic and that made it much more carryable so just like the containers that was carrying things and it wasn't the right right ones I don't know I feel like I used pretty much everything that was in my bag there was lots of stuff I got rid of along the way I started with a lot of like just in case like just in case I have extra zip ties and just in case I have extra this and I didn't need all those just in cases so I would get rid of those as I went but really like everything that was in there I did use and by the end I was able to be down to just that stuff which I think was good and even when I packed up my pack this week I was like yeah I used everything in here except for a few like first aid items which I'm happy I didn't use and even that was very minimal but yeah I pretty much used everything that was in there clothes I definitely overpacked on clothes at the beginning so I there are a couple of things that I switched in and out we had the small Sawyer microfilter does not filter fast enough so we swapped that out for our bigger filter that we had before had brought flip flops because it's really nice to get out of your shoes at night ended up swapping those over for crocs because you can't wear socks and flip flops and in August it is cold on the top of Killington so definitely swapped those things out didn't use our first aid kit but would definitely would definitely still bring it because we have needed it on other hikes and and even to wear the socks with crocs I found because I was kind of I'm not wearing crocs I went through a whole like camp shoe of I wasn't using camp shoe that I would just take my inserts out of my shoes at the beginning and then I got flip flops and then I got crocs but the other nice thing about wearing socks was that like I found at night the bugs would eat like when I was sitting around like the mosquitoes would get my feet which is like the one place you don't want mosquitoes getting so having socks on in the crocs was for me really helpful because I wanted to protect my feet the other thing that we can't choose is our campsites are they're used a lot and a camp shoe has much less of a brown surface impact you don't like a big heavy looks so you actually impact on the surface of the campsite is less if you're wearing leather footwear and that's just like really basically no choice principle is carrying a pair of camp shoes to switch into back and forth. There's two other things that I would say to food, we overpacked on food when we were out down in the southern part it took us a lot less time than we thought and we decided that we needed to be really diligent about what we brought what we brought for food along the way because that's what that was the heaviest thing in our pack and so after our first resupply we're like okay we can, there's no more what ifs, what if we get stuck no more Justin Keith no more Justin Keith it's breakfast for what you want maybe for Andrew to make you sit in the crowd having boots that can absorb some of that impact I'm going to trail runners Merrill trail runners if I find them agile enough that if I start to roll my ankle I just hop real quick and that's where trekking poles help you with that too I think it's it really is preference I used to hike with big hiking boots and I just got sick of the weight on them and I realized I didn't really need it I think I'm agile enough that if I like I said I did almost roll my ankle several times at least half a dozen if not more and I just always find myself pop up and hop real quick and the trekking poles were huge to help maybe I got lucky I don't know yeah I used big like hide boots because that's all I'd ever had so I didn't really want to start like trying something new while I was on the trail it's like this is what I'm comfortable with why change it so I just stuck with those I got a new pair but not a new pair of something else yeah I think it's a lot of preference I have falcony trail runners that I wouldn't change that for the world like I tried boots and that does not work for me but the only addition I would add to the trail runners is I use Gators so Dirty Girl Gators are awesome and they hook right on lightweight like that's that's to mean number one so that's my combo and I will use that for as long as I can yeah sure I I mean I personally I wouldn't think about doing it without you know a serious pair of boots for a couple reasons one is that I don't really have to worry about where I'm stepping and there's some gnarly gnarly rock and stuff out there I mean sharp things your footing is especially in really bad weather a lot of times your focus is is limited to you know literally three or four feet in front of you because you've got to actually look carefully at the next step you're about to take I don't know how I could have done it in the lousy weather without you know boots that I didn't have to worry about where I was going to come down on you know waterproof to a point I mean potentially a snow through it doesn't matter but between the support that I got you know I never worried about rolling you know anything it was just you know foot down and take the next step so without that you know I I would have been in trouble in fact four so she's asking about food and how many days before you can carry what was your favorite thing and what would you never want to see again when we started we were I think we were planning for a camping trip not a hiking trip maybe me and my dad we went through the first four days and then my mom showed up with zip lock bags for a resupply of frozen lasagna and they went into dad's bag and I just like have never seen him look more despondent in my life just like boom boom so as I went by the end of it I was just eating dried meals and some of those like those dried backpacker meals I don't know if it was just because I was so hungry but I was like I would eat this at home this is the best thing I've ever eaten yeah things taste surprisingly good when you're out there yeah dried food I mean Starbucks via dried mix like a Laura bar and then I treated myself with a Snickers bar every single day which I'll recommend yes I was going to say that bring bring a little bit of snacks like Snickers at the end or whatever is your favorite thing something good to get I did the same thing I had dehydrated food that I dehydrated myself prior to going it's really really light you just got to boil some water and throw it in there and you can you can dehydrate pretty much anything so whatever your favorite meal is spaghetti and meat sauce or ramen noodles a bunch of vegetables thrown in you can dehydrate it and then rehydrate it again and it's tastes I want to get a hyper stomach it really doesn't matter if it is actually as good as at home it still tastes just to counter that a little bit as well I was I was actually surprised and we all had I don't know how many meals out of foil packets and dried things dehydrated things I was kind of amazed at people that were out there that really really knew what they were doing they were eating fresh food like they had cheeses and they were making salads and cooking things and that was like hey wow like these people really you know are on a different level because they're you know first of all I don't know where they're getting it from they're getting fresh produce and stuff like that unless they just went into town but I was really amazed that you know for example you go out and buy yourself you know a block of you know cheddar cheese or something like that you throw that in your food bag that's good for a week you don't have to refrigerate it you know what I mean like stuff that you might normally keep around in a fridge is perfectly fine to bring out there hard sausages and stuff like that you know once I started to see what people were doing and kind of learn more about it I definitely changed what was going in my food bag and there were things that I didn't think of that you know yeah I am I carried cheese the whole time but I did a lot of research beforehand about how to package cheese because like if you put it in certain things it'll get moldy so I was like always making sure to wrap it in like wax paper and put it in like saran wrap instead of a plastic bag as it needs to breathe and then I made all my own wheels but instead of making something and then dehydrating it I went online and bought like I don't know it was like 20 different little baggies of dehydrated vegetables and then just kind of mixed my own and that worked out pretty well but I didn't try them beforehand so it was kind of like some of them would be great and then I'd try one one night and I was like oh no I made five more of these so it was pretty hit and miss but I mean you're saying it's like you're so hungry out there that anything is good at that to the day I really liked the little packages of like seasoned tuna fish that's really good and I never want to eat again gork there are just things that you my parents made me gork like here's a snack but it just gets old can you explain for everybody what gork is it's like raisins and nuts and M&Ms Jenny did you guys cook all your meals in unison as a family so like breakfast would be the same lunch would be the same dinner would be the same and the one consideration with that is it for us because of that like a little jet boil stove wouldn't work our whisper light that we've had for 20 years worked great because you could boil a lot more water than you could in the jet boil because we did it all as a group and every day someone will have a meltdown as far as food could I say something real quick I will let you know that you can so if you have any questions about that I can talk to you about that afterwards or whatever but I didn't have a stove and didn't through hike with one so you can do that questions in through our very technologically advanced live chat so I'm going to post some of that and just direct to me on one of you guys and if you can answer that so that people watching at home can also get some information about it dude may I ask you how much water you should go through a day in July or how much you should have like as a person in general as a human being you know as I went through the trail and I did it over a period of years so I just got more experience I was eating way more and drinking more at the end than I was at the beginning I just realized like I need to be stopping every 30 minutes and giving my body something and it kept my mind and that negative self-talk about how hard it was to a minimum it was like a calorie thing so I think water-wise hot day in July gosh I'd go through like five sometimes like four liters or five liters of water and I would be even I carry I have room in my pack for up to four I like to carry three and if I know that there's water I'll be pumping as I go so walking from stream to stream and really I like to always be in a position where I've got enough to be rationing it I always want to have enough so I can just drink what I need another question was maybe for Alexis I was thinking of starting late August beginning of September what is the best time you'd like to trail to avoid the flies on the mosquitoes? life was out there late July into early August so I might have a little bit of insight on the August bit that the mosquitoes weren't too bad there's only like two nights or so on bug spray and other than that I didn't use it the entire time and I never had a major problem with the flies there were a couple of times where they'll take a chunk of skin and then you'll just see this bleeding spot on your ankle and it's like where did that did it eat it? is it building a mess somewhere? and I don't know what they do with it still so you still are going to run into some bugs out there but yeah August was alright September is probably better another question we got is a little specific but maybe if somebody feels like they've got an answer for that how feasible do you think it is for a travel runner to hike 20 to 30 miles a day and the first 100 miles with a 40 pound pack sounds like a math problem did you say with a 40 pound pack? if that does not sound realistic that does not sound realistic what does sound realistic maybe I can pose an answer to this 20 to 30 miles with a 40 pound pack for the first 100 miles probably is a tough way to break it in like we were talking about getting your bike down to you maybe maybe that person might want to dial it down a little bit at the beginning would you agree? I think Jenny said at the beginning like long trail miles are different than miles somewhere else like if anyone has hiked a lot out west when you come to Vermont like this was the first trail long distance trail they ever cut they didn't switch it back like it's like straight up it's rocky and rooty and it's technical which I think is awesome but you just can't get that same kind of mileage you can't huff it in the same way that was actually our joke on the trail the long trail must have been built by 20 somethings who didn't know the term switch back they just didn't just like under 4 days they don't have things fully supported so yeah that isn't we have a copy of that here at the club and that picture of Andrew's feet that looks like nothing compared to what he might do in that movie that's what the AT hikers are doing 20 miles a day up here I think that's where they come in and they've done that 1,700 miles already and they're able to move in again you do get them to come back I don't know if anybody ran into a lot of AT hikers they come and they do that lower 140 well then they'll backtrack and they want to finish the LT also so they'll come to the northern part and they get on there and I remember hearing a lot of them that I ran in to say that that northern part is the hardest part harder than any part of the whole AT was the northern part that says a lot considering how long the AT is when those guys get up here and they say wow the mileage that you can get elsewhere you're probably not going to get in Vermont it's not safe I would believe that I would definitely believe that as soon as you start hitting anything above 30 you can definitely feel it when MT is going heavy and you're fully restocked it's a huge difference that's the big thing, when you're restocked you get afraid of that number whatever that big number is and it can be a scary number but that's not your number all the time that's your number day one you get to take a little bit off that every day so it's edge of flows I can talk to her through your mind you did the whole way do you want to go? you definitely want to have your dog on the leash near the shelter because not everybody is dog friendly so if you have your dog we ran into this one family that was really scared of dogs and we were just hiking and they got freaked out with our two little dogs and we definitely want to be aware of them so bring a leash and that actually was in where we ran into that family it was kind of a bad experience all around it wasn't actually in a shelter area even so when you're getting to the busier areas where there are a lot of day hikers we also would leash the dogs we made sure that we brought something warm for them it was valuable to have them hike in a harness because there are several places where there are ladders and even a big dog we used to have a lab even a big dog couldn't get around those so having them in a harness made it a lot easier to take them up and down we always carried a tent because in general unless the shelter was empty we stayed in a tent because it's not fair to the other folks can I answer so other things about dogs is dog waste it's the same as human waste you can't go off the trail yourself maybe you shouldn't let your dog do that and the appropriate thing for that is leaving out your eggs, taking your cattle that was big and then other notes are yeah exactly carrying a leash and leashing your dog in public places and also leashing your dog in public tree line because same as a human if they can't go off the trail some of those fragile land plants will be effective because our dogs have sections of the lawn and their friends were like there's nobody here so I'm going to put them on the leash and he's in the back and he points on you it's not fair it's not anything that's human so dog life after like I never had this on me or woman I feel like you might find that's the best reason I've ever heard to leash a dog it's not it's not even fair to clean your dog up I think it's case by case with your dog too how well it's trained and there's a difference between somebody's perceived voice control and actual voice control and so we really you want that voice control to be 100% voice control like we were talking earlier I've seen a dog with a mouth full and that is not something you want to experience I'm sure that some of you guys might have seen the shelters they're out there so yes man didn't see many bear cans bear cans are really from a couple of people had them from down south and stuff like that I didn't see cans at all you want to hang your stuff the big thing you're worried about is not bears but really like rodents and mice they'll eat right through your pack food bag and out the other side of it so mostly if you keep your stuff reasonably compartmentalized and just hung up you probably don't need a bear can that's overkill always outside the tent and at the places where there are if there ever is a bear concern they'll have a bear box and keep it out of your tent we've had bear encounters not on the long trail and I'd add to that the bear population of a mountain is growing and black bears are becoming more and more aggressive and they will because the hiker population is growing as well there's just a natural those four hikers that might not store their food well or might leave their food bag outside their tent on the ground during mid-May and the setting is if that bear is a dead bear any bear that gets food becomes more and more habituated and therefore becomes more and more dangerous so Green Mountain Club is we would very much promote bear canisters along the long trail there were three bear issues last year that prompted action by the club we put in bear boxes at Story Spring Cave Gore, Set the Warner Hazard and the safest thing is a bear canister in my experience you can fit roughly three to five days of food in there and people will complain because they're heavy a little bit they might be kind of tough to fit into a pack but the other side is that you don't lose your food and you're not feeding it there and you might say well we can do a bear hang but there are many places on the long trail that are sheltered that might not have that perfect branch to swing a lot that's what I asked because we do a lot of distance hiking and we always have bear can and I bring the kitchen for instance I'm always surprised how many people are here I've never heard of it I haven't seen it they all had me and I bulkied yeah I think that if you want to get ahead of the curve here making sure that everybody's bear aware and it's also if you're a first time miker and you're going out to make the long trail and you've never made a bear hang before the safer thing is buy yourself a $60 bear canister and never have to worry about you being the culprit there are actually other options to the big plastic cans now I've seen like Kevlar pouches and things that are kind of like advanced materials and they're really strong yeah I mean no they'll ruin your lunch for sure I've seen a bear unzip a fanny pack I've seen and I just outed that you have a fanny pack bag um sorry well you didn't actually but now you did I actually had a question when you are hiking with a bear canister do you keep that outside the tent or still leave no trace and there are ones that are some packs now there are certain places where they are required and if you're found without a bear canister you will be fine and there are ones, even some canisters are stronger than others and so you know I think that if you're in an area where you're confident that you'll have the tree and you'll prepare a bank then that's great but in other areas there might be there might be some yeah and the difference so a quick note there are bear boxes at most of their sites um because in the wet mountains there's maybe 16 overnight sites total the launch house is 70 overnight sites every one of those bear boxes is a couple hundred dollars and they're not like so outfitting those along the launch house some people might say well why do you have bear box everywhere it's not feasible within our program right now so the public being bear aware is really the best in that area it's tornadoes last flood warning floods, tornadoes, whatever so I think we're going to have time for maybe one more question and then we'll break out and if anybody's got questions or other issues that we'd like to tackle then do that for those of you who pitch tents do you pitch tents next to the shelter or do you pitch on trail or do you go off trail we're not supposed to pitch it on the trail but I mean I only I only tented twice at both times by choice one time was because I thought the shelter was kind of smelling and the other time was because this girl really annoyed me um there's always room you know what I mean like and it helps to kind of be within the cluster you know if you're feeling antisocial then you know go away from the shelter but almost everybody that tented that I saw tending you know kind of just expanded the area that was already there instead of going too far away another one down there um I tented I tented the majority of the time there were only a few times I stayed in the shelter and really the important thing is knowing the leave no trace principles um you know you're not going to attend ever on the trail I mean you hear about that in the case of an emergency that that's the only option but that's not really what you're going to do so I would familiarize yourself familiarize yourself with the leave no trace principles you know that you should be x amount of feet lorn from the trail 200 200 okay there we go yeah from water all of those things are really important and like dispersed camping is really important there are tent pads at places as well um but tending is great I loved all of my experiences tending along the trail yeah yeah there were times where we were hiking to get to a destination maybe it was poor weather and I was starting to look around there are plenty of places on the long trail where it is impossible to set up a tent there's a trail and you've got three or four miles of stuff but it's the rain and going up Killington you know we've got three miles to get to that next shelter you're not stopping it's that kind of tent it's impossible and I know that because I'm walking I'm like perfect attentive we have to stop are we going to turn around and go back to those three miles you have to be aware of your terrain and we would look at the contour map sometimes and paint it up what do we do in an emergency right now and a lot of times it's like we keep walking I tried to plan that actually and I said hey I'm going from A to B today but if I don't make it to B what am I going to do well this looks like a good place to tent but then when you actually get there it's like a 40 degree pitch of bolder sticking on or something and it's just not possible the answer is you keep walking and it impacts a site that hasn't been impacted already so if you're at a shelter you want to be in a site that looks like it has been designated as the place that already has a tent happening at it so you know big open forest where you see all these shoots coming up and beautiful leaves don't put your tent down on the area that's already been impacted that you're not going to cause further damage and there's plenty of those areas around the shelters we were always able to find a spot around the shelter but one of the things that was really helpful is the Long Trail Book we'll tell you whether there's a tenting around the shelter or not there are a very small few exceptions where it really clearly says there is no tent pad I can't remember if it was Butler or Taylor but one of the two of them has no space Butler Lodge, Taf Lodge, a couple others are at a high up in an elevation it's not going to be fragile coming up forest and so we were best able to stay inside of this I just have the impact of yeah, so that's a good question that's one that comes up a lot you know, I'm going to talk about this in less and then if you guys have opinions Harris, you obviously brought the service that's great, but with looking for a place to sleep going up the south side of Kilington you're not really going to find a place to string a hammock because the trees are small and it's very well packed so it might need to have to find a spot in there so I think that those leave no trace the impact is depending on the site that you're at but more important is considering whether you're able to get yourself accustomed to the peculiarities of hammock versus tenting because it's not possible at both sites all the time and also what kind of trees you do I hammock tend a lot and I know I don't do it on like pines or anything because it'll rip the bark off depending on what you're using if you're using a tree saver hopefully or you know, a 550 cord so try to find oak stuff where it's not the poorest bark and you're not going to hurt the tree as well that's very important I like trees so I think that we've had a lot of great topics and that there's still a lot of questions to answer because it's launched and it's been on for three months but I think it'll be useful now we wanted to call this kind of session quits and let people come up and ask some questions I can get some watch out guides out back and show you guys a guidebook a map of all these individual maps the end-to-enders guide the resources that the Green Mountain Club has available to help with hiking another good point is that we maintain a list of all of you when you completed the launch rally check whether you were a mentor is that correct? yeah I remember that so if you're interested in that you can send an email to GMC at Green Mountain Club and we tell us a little bit about what you'd like to learn and we can find a person that you can connect with to learn some of the things that you might want to do lastly I really wanted to thank all of you guys for being willing to come in here and share all your knowledge and expertise I think it's really wonderful all the bandanas right there underneath your name tags just go right? she was hoping that the whole time 270 miles for a patch thank you everybody