 We're probably going to have a couple strikers coming in. You might've noticed your 100 is in the best of conditions. So maybe that traffic is affecting something for the drier. Thank you all for coming, we have a wonderful panel of experienced writers here as well as all of you. This is the ninth annual remount of End-to-Enders panel. Last year we had about 60 people in the audience and that working media provided us with a live stream with over 400 people watching it who use you. If you consider that for nine years then we've reached quite a bit of people with this opportunity and that's really special. So thank you for participating in this and I hope that you find it useful and perfect. For those of you that don't know, the Green Mountain Club is the nation's oldest long-distance hiking trail. It started in 1910 by James P. Taylor as he sat in the area of Stratton Mountain waiting for the mist to cleave. 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 real lives. So that's what we are continuing to do as the Green Mountain Club's foremost priority is protecting and maintaining the mountain. So while this might be our end course, it goes the entire length of Vermont so you will find a Green Mountain Club volunteer or somebody protecting the mountain trail obviously the entire length of Vermont. I think that's really cool that we spread the whole state. My name is Warren. I'm the outreach and field coordinator here with the Green Mountain Club. I've been in 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 mantra. I also work with our caretakers and our mantra patrol to go out and do it in the trail the way they do. And I wanted to run things by you for the evening. In case anybody needs, there's a bathroom. The bathrooms are right behind you in this main room here. There's also one bathroom downstairs. There's some water on the back table there and then the two main exits are right down to 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, there's a hand. If there's anything that's occurring in the spot in your head that you'll be able to speak up and this is, you know, a learning opportunity for everybody so we'll try and make the best out of that and 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 there for a minute. Sure. Hey, I'm Dan Brun. I'm from Morristown, Vermont. My trail name is Country Time because actually I brought a really, really big amount of lemonade addicts by accident. Also it has a little bit of an ironic slant because I was born in Queens, New York. I flew hiked with my niece slash goddaughter slash very excellent hiking partner, Tori. Shout out, Tori. My favorite section on a long trail is the Mount Mass area because it's where I'm from and what I'm offering as a panelist is whatever I can answer for you. My name is Hillary 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 and that's all it 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 love 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 and also comic so I'm going to tell you what actually happened. My name is Andrew Maxfield. I go by stretch pretty much which is the normal first stretch. I'm a little bit bigger and I also get across the butt spots so my shoes stay a little thinner than the average person who hiked next to me which is nice. At home town I have a version from the Burlington area. I love it. I grew up in Vermont now. I hiked so I actually as I was hiking I was pretty much telling everyone to start down south as I was hiking home because it's pretty much the end of the trail. It's 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 do my little puff dog who we made the whole time. She got tired and it all rained. I stopped and I drove back a few months later and finished up so I did like three days and then like another couple of weeks after that. So I did by myself. I started 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 about that. If you want to start a new dog make sure you have a good shape. And not 10, 15 times over a week. Now she's even more so. She's not listening to me. My favorite location on White Rocks was at the basin. The White Plain Forest was at the phenomenal. It's something so unique compared to the Illuminati Forest, part of the forest I don't know where I'm from. That was amazing. Then also the bridge that's going from Mount Abraham over to the single chair lift up on top of Mad River. You're just hiking up and it pulls up keep along the hallway. You look off either side and it's down for, you know, six, seven miles at least. So then about that day when I hit it, it was amazing. Then on top of my Abraham big mountain, Allen, the first 4,000 footer really started to hit those mountains. It was a good day. I think it had a lot to do with that too. Probably the mood was, how the weather was. Which had breakfast, which didn't have anything to do with it. What I can offer is just an experience that some of us looking for want to do it like a wife. And I kind of had to go out of my butt and do it. It took some ambition and time. You know, I work full time. I think that most people, a lot of people do and takes time to do it. And now I have ambitions to do it with my whole family. I'm going to fight and break it in the next couple of years. I'm sure you're going to get 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 it during my first night out that Squirrel was attacking me. I'm from Mystic, Connecticut originally. And I threw pipes alone last summer. My favorite location on the trail is probably the section between the Lincoln Gap and the App Gap because I grew up in 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 a whole, like, the same. I'm going to do this someday. So when I find the maid in there, it's like, I guess I'm doing it now. I 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 is 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 one 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 that met some of the most amazing people and I've 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's 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've got to stop right now and be okay. It was just so amazing. 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. Can I interject really quickly? Your pictures of that camping spot at Kid Gore, 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, I'm not right. Yes. There's never any better spot. I brought a pair of bright yellow crocs, which I wore when I was preparing the hiking boots. Shelburne, section height to the long trail. It took from about May to September. Family, my sister, my mom and my dad, I think I was probably Devil's Bolt. It was just really pretty. There was a lot of development. What I have to offer as a panelist is a different perspective on the long trail and hiking equipment. My name is Jenny and I come from the same place that Taryn does. I never grew up in Gattacharana. There's still time. I'll listen to you again. I have a little bit different perspective than Taryn and the way that we did it. I feel like we section-hiked the northern part but then we hiked 200 miles continuously from the southern part to the middle of the sea. Again, as Taryn said, we hiked with our whole family and it was because of Taryn. She had said 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 my kit. So it works as a family to figure out how we can do it. I think that's what I have to offer is how can we take a great benefit of our family, especially if the other members are family-making. Thank you all for that. And I think the one sense I got from from Hilary 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. I think it's fun. There is a really wonderful slideshow with a bunch of pictures that everybody sent in. So I think we'll take some time and kind of reach to that and better our self-focus and if you guys want to get up and move around. That sounds great. I'm going to start this. Is everybody? A lot of it is just like a green tunnel for the woods. That's here. It's a cave door, right? Yeah. The shelter rises on the right. It's just... It's wrong food. I have a question about that. That is one of the best pictures I've ever taken. It causes a lot of people to read. Yeah, those white lines. I had the best one before. That was my top. That was hot. Oh, that was pretty cool. Fucking rocks. I get you cool. Do they actually live here? Yeah. That's kind of a shelter. That's a killer group of stews. Don't miss it. That's my favorite. That's my favorite. That's my favorite. That's my favorite. That's my favorite. That's up on our way to mention the mist. That was really cool. That was really cool. I understand. That's where I took my train after. I had to chase them down. I had to slow them down. So leave no trace answers as well. Nice. Is this some yellow rocks there? Yeah, it's all of them. Is that his bathroom? That is both of them. It was so much. That was our Catholic companions. That's their... This is a wet series of photos. Nope. It's so weird. That's it. That's it. That's my favorite. That's my favorite. That's my favorite. That's a good one. Wow. So I got 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 Daniel, do you have some, you know, the thought out of what you submitted there? Do you want to go to the one with all three of your pictures? Yeah, I mean that's an interesting one, if you want. And you know what, go ahead, pick that one. That's kind of neat. And the reason that it's cool, I took a picture of every shelter that I went to, I figured, hey, if I'm coming out here and doing this, I'm going to see all of them, you know, we're not walking past anything. And so every single time that I took a shelter, I took a selfie, or nothing, depending on, and my niece is in almost all of them. And it's really interesting that the reason this picture is interesting to me is because really what it does, that I didn't expect it was going to 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, the kind of day that it was, and where we went from there, and what was the next thing that happened. And most significantly, the one that is sitting there all alone, his boy's shelter, which is right here in the middle, I don't know, my niece is not there. And that was because I actually lost her that day. I went on the left side already. 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 voyage. And it was quite exciting day to say the least. But I did this picture a lot because it was, you know, if anybody asked, did you really do it? Well, that's the only picture I ever had to show anybody. And it's a really nice reminder of kind of the whole thing wrapped up in an evil package. You have to go to the very first slide, which I sent one picture. We took more pictures. There it is. 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 about how that wasn't the purpose for me or that wasn't the point. I was actually kind of relieved to not be looking at things through the lens of 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. I need this now, because I don't have it. Real shot. No, I had the first one, and then it was too special. Alright, so Andrea, I'm going to try this. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a third sanctuary. That's somebody kind of petting a third milking and third summing. So you see the sign there? Anybody that's hiking knows that the front of almost every trail. Yeah. That just cracked me up. Those type of things you keep saying out there. Oh yeah. The green mouth is not for any three of us, though. No, no, no. Fairest topic. Fairest topic. Definitely out of the question. Alexis? There's one up here at the beginning of the jar of pickles. Alright. That one. Alright, there. 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 by that jar of pickles. That was like the best thing I've had in a week. Which is a little fat in the nuts and some powdery. But yeah, that was quite the adventure I'd never hitchhiked before. I wasn't planning on doing it, but sometimes you're really desperate. And it was worth a few pickles. 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 and 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 you know, it's so important to keep that feeling with you throughout life when you're not on a trail as well. I love it. One of my favorite pictures is the one where we're live 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 going to 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 dogs and 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 and forgotten that they get wet. They get cold just like me. So as you see, we're also smiling and laughing. But what are we doing out here? Let me bring you back to another picture. Is the picture on top of Camel's Hop where you just meet the most amazing people who watch 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 top of Camel's Hop. We took a picture together. Oh, again, yeah. I was wondering if you could spare my three part question if you could just roll down the line and kind of describe what your experience is as a hiker overall like added. I had Pacific Coast Trail ATF and everywhere, beginner, whatever. What your average mileage per day was and if you did anything before you headed out training-wise. I'm sure. I hike a lot, mostly. But I do a lot of different stuff. I'm just kind of outdoors in general which helps, I think, keep me in shape. I did train a little bit for a few months but to be honest with you, looking back on what I did kind of makes me laugh a little bit now because a lot of ways, you can prepare as much as you like but you're never fully ready for whatever you're going to find out there. You do have the ability to get used to it, to work up to it and build your strength and kind of find your rhythm and your flow and I think when you do that you kind of settle in and you kind of find a bit of a balance and things like just kicking it for you and you kind of ride that way. Well, in my last 20 questions, Gretchen did I have to plan this entire trip which, by the way, lasted one day, that plan. A little bit less, actually, about 19 hours. That plan was about 15 at the end of the entire operation which was a really muddy operation. We did about 10. About what? 10 more, 10. My pack was from a base about 27, 28 pounds and then it was 6 to 8 pounds from the top of that so when you're in your first day it's pretty hefty and then every day it's a couple of pounds lighter and by the end of the week when you're starving you're actually really light so it works out. I'm an avid hiker, I grew up 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, 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. The other thing that I kind of caught on as I continue to do this is that there's training and then there's how much am I going to put on my back. I got the pack down from 35 pounds to like 22 and that's huge, especially for me. It's like a really 15% of my body weight or something. It's a huge weight. It's a little bit small. It's a huge weight. So thinking about it, that would be good. Can we come back to that? I grew up hiking so I'd say I've hiked all over most of the world. I'm in the military so I get a shroud. I've been to pretty much a lot of countries, a lot of states. I've done a lot of hiking on weekends and week-long trips so that's not going to do a lot of different areas. This was by far the biggest endeavor I ever did. It took 18 days to divide and model by that. I had some really short base, probably six miles at the end when we wanted to go down to the J and hang out for the day or up in the low 20s. It all just, there you go. Listen to your body. A lot of it has to go back to food. You know how well they do. Not to eat today, how well did you eat today prior? And I definitely felt it. You know, some days you get up. You take too many of some supplement energy that I go jelly beans, which I found are horrible in my body. It's like, give me a boost to get me going, but boy, the next day I have it done. So I did away with that stuff. It really, really made a difference for me when I, you know, came to me over the last couple of nights, helped a lot. It was this stuff. So it was mileage. Pack weight. I agreed in the mid-20s when I was emptying out the food when I re-stocked in full water. I was probably 31, 32. So I've, before the long trail, I've done mostly like day hikes. I've done one overnight that was three nights, and another one that was one night opposite for like backpacking. So I was like experienced with hiking, but not with like that, why I can't think out. And for training, I guess I've 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 bet a whole bunch of 18 through hikers down south, and they basically went for my pack, and were like, don't get rid of this, you don't need that, that piece of your stove that's utilized. And so I ended up sending a whole bunch of stuff home which really helped. Oh, mileage. It 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 it just kind of took easy. I felt like it because you need to recharge mentally too. It's so cool to hear everyone's story. Are you looking to through hikers? Yeah. I work full time too, so we're hoping to do it in 23 days. 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 know 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 it's 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 sheathed down 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 going to be 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 than 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 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 different muscles work one of the things that we did to build up to do with a family that was kind of half half we did wasn't purposeful but ended up being very purposeful in the end is that we started at the beginning in the summer when we were doing section hikes by doing section hikes of 25 and 7 miles and then we built up to doing doing consistent for our day hikes and then overnight at the Shoesang 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 complicated that's what we did when we flipped to the south and did our 200 miles we went a lot faster we thought we were doing 15 miles a day with our longest day because of her wanting pizza at 17.5 there you go our pack with 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 carries the smallest pack and I realized after the first day out she and I are actually in the same size 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 I do want to say something about working one of the things that I learned with us for working we've taken 5 weeks off the year before something that I ended up doing 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 2 days in the office 5-7 days out of the office I do want to be clear about our hiking we've been backpacking with our kids since we were 5 and that really helped but most of what we've done up to that point was one for 2 days not 5 or 7 days 7 days out and we had hiked 120 miles like the summer before out in the western parks we're already able to slide we have a long show right now it's great so I've got a couple general questions that I think we can 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 with a lot of different trail experience and a phrase that I've heard a lot is everybody hikes their own hike and I was wondering if any of some of you have an opinion on that or if you've heard that phrase and how you interpret that for your own experience maybe I'll get about 3 volunteers to answer that it's something that I've definitely heard that hiking or hikes some take pictures, some write journals I see some people hiking and have their earbuds in and they're just cruising listening to music or a book or whatever it is they want to listen to oh, tornado this is pretty stupid keep talking this is from on camera my son's actually on camera right now so I'm sure he's having more fun so no I definitely agree with that hiking or hike about that in the past I'm pretty much I've been kind of like a stats and organized, I plan a plan and I try to stick to it or exceed it I'm very goal oriented like I said if I say I just spread sheet before I went out I really did and it was pretty good detail, I have the final version there's 5 different versions of what I 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 4 other people I ended up hiking with I kind of doubt that there's a little bit we're a little more easy going hike to wherever you hike and stop if I look back on it I've thought about this a lot over the last years since I've done it and I'd rather do some other things like if I honestly with my hammock tell them I wouldn't just relax and do that and I'll put my phone away a little more but I was on it, taking pictures I say that now I'll go on and do I'll probably get out there and do the same thing I did the last time because that's just who I am but I do, I appreciate the way every single person hikes you meet down south the first 100 miles so many AT hikers that are doing it their way they've already been on the trail for almost 1,700 miles at that point they're kind of setting their ways and I appreciate the way every single one have done that I learned a lot from them I learned a lot from everyone I meet on the trail so it is everyone does it their way and whatever makes you happy it is the way it is to be the other question I kind of had was, as I said the amount of clothing that came to Montreal and the two are inextricably connected so can somebody maybe explain the time that you interact with a caretaker or a trail crew or maybe some steward do you want to go down there a lot of the some of our 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 Mansfield that person 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 I also felt like they really respectfully got those summits, guided people to where they should be and helped with the vegetation and stuff in a way that was respectful and responsible when there were a lot of people out there I found that we actually were fortunate enough to run into the entire crew of caretakers up on Council, so I think Isaac who is the fellow that was up there 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 things like that which was important because you can't have bears in the shelter and stuff like that and they were just tiny you can tell the people that are out there doing this stuff are absolutely for real they're doing it because they love it it's where they want to be doing and maybe kind of stand a little bit and it was kind of circular around to that kind of 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 the physical ability is 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 I was talking to one of the analysts and she said there's a big difference between I can 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 people that are out there on the AT they're doing numbers they're out there for volume purposes they're 10 by 10 10 miles before 10 o'clock in the morning they're in their sleeping bags at 5 p.m they're up at 5 a.m though you will be walking the same physical path through the wilderness 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 you just go out and kind of just follow along with the crowd 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 it's about 140 yeah and so the AT starts at the where the long trail starts is where the AT comes into Vermont from Massachusetts and then they share the same treadway until main junction at Killington where the AT then splits off to go east to Hanover and New Hampshire the V-Mount Club maintained the AT for its entirety here and Sam as the long trail and for Patrick I didn't mean to say but the AT list to do that might be different than taking three months off full time work to go a long trail and go right back so I think they both offer different things I was wondering how many of you started in the south versus the north if there's a benefit going on the AT together I started in the south the benefit is if you don't know what you're doing I mean you kind of have to go a little something but it's less physically challenging in the south the high and the ground the slopes of trails much more gradual and for me, aside from I didn't want to end in Massachusetts um it is like actually I'm not gonna say that but that that was part of the reasons that we north found it was to kind of work your way up to it you know you don't want to walk out of your house slamming to JP and stuff like that it's pretty hardcore so that gives you a little chance to catch up to it well I would say I did north bounce so I started in Massachusetts and went to Canada but I'm from Pennsylvania so once I got up there it was because I'm 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 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 the AT like curved off and then we had a knight 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 did you not hear the pack of coyotes? like if you're just getting used to being in the woods I think that's another kind of benefit in 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 here on September 15th or end of September even you'd rather probably start in the north and go south because you know JP 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 the mud season the north will be only snow much later as Russ knows JP is still covered in snow whereas there are probably places in the south around now or within a week or so so if you're starting in May which you know if you're starting in June starting in the south and going to fill out that dry out and black flies and really making this happen 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 I'm going to tell you something boy do you have a question for me? yeah I just wanted to hear your comments and say on like the part where it overlaps and like how half the shelters are or like there's no place to pitch 10 or you know that's always down south because of the AT everything's crowded and AT hikers are there's probably as many as AT as LT hikers and once you cross that threshold they all make a right start heading east and you know I never had a problem from June 4th to July 4th I tanked twice on both times of my 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 guard it people are so many shelters excuse me one second Jenny you guys stayed in the shelter didn't you for the most part? we stayed in the tent but I will tell you we had a different experience in August there were many that we probably wouldn't have did 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 around the time that most people pulled in but they all came in later and people had the tent all around so while you're on the AT section there's definitely you can anticipate there may be a night but it's a pretty tight squeeze the other thing is there is a bit about seems to be a bit of a higher the AT hikers pull in early they expect that they have an expectation that LT hikers and day hikers will likely have a tent not in the shelter all that you can also it depends on when you start in the year too I started later so there are bubbles I got back on it in September they weren't already by most of Vermont but they weren't making it up to Maine so it is a lot quieter that time of year but also you can also find bubbles of them and if you end up getting packing a whole bunch of them trying to get them back or go faster because they do AT hikers tend to travel a bunch of them once 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 and they're not supposed to pike in like groups larger than 7 but there's like 25 undergraduates who are just making friends for the first time it was bad it was bad they're going to have to charge in that three mount club works to we were so large in 10 on overnight trips on the long trip so we're going to have a conversation later I'm so excited she has a lot of pictures of the other clubs so I wanted to be sure to share that first term, first class, first class so always having a backup of some sort is smart on a night like this if you're planning on staying in shelter and you can you're going to have a pretty horrible night and there's no guarantee that 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 from 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 5 o'clock, 6 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 short one and make sure we can spot I have a question for you Jenny did you guys share one tent or do 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 did do is replace all of our gear for this and so we kept that it packed in at 6 pounds which isn't too bad for a 4 person it's a 2 dog tent by the way please don't ever put your tent in a shelter I have a question about the prodigyness and the big family I need a cabinet backpack and I want to take my 13 year old with me we've done it before on overnights just him and I on different cabinets but I think about us doing the long trail together as a mom he has no problem sleeping away from me but as a mom if he's away I can't see him in this crowd you might have the kid to know you college thing what do you think of I've never run into problems myself but then there's the mom there but then there's also you gotta give your kids space so I don't know I always go back and forth and I haven't been in a tent for years or do we have it together what would you see as your experiences and what would you see as a 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 in multiple spaces and I feel pretty comfortable on the long trail more than anything else we once had our packer 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 I would feel comfortable with two hammocks with myself and one of my daughters I would stay in shouting distance that would be fine you hiked with your kids I would stay in shouting distance we don't move too far away from each other I mean normally on the long trail you can set up two hammocks pretty close we've never really done it where you're not you should go on the same street on one end one of the things I would say is we're all in this room together here we're all just learning about making a long trail seems like a pretty good community and that's where you wouldn't find there might be a few not even bad eggs the people were definitely are highlighting on the we had a bad experience like I said when I took a group of girls down and our packs were stolen 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 before they treated them so well I would be totally comfortable yeah so when we were we hiked we what was Gloria the top of Mount Tom these guys came in and they looked like pirates and they took one guy to go up his shoes and his butt was like bloody and we were like oh my gosh this is kind of alarming and then they started making food and they were like do you want some of those you weren't really hard but they were just such nice people so like when you've been hiking they ate maybe for 2,000 miles you're a little rough but it's just like there's this trail magic it's this community beat about the fact that you're hiking often from shelter to shelter so there's like journals that eat shelter so you might be kind of following behind somebody who's writing notes for you know 6 days about 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 at these people you know maybe you start out slow in the morning and then they pass you and it becomes like this blue day caravan kind of community that communication is very cool almost like social media but down in notebooks there is actually like a messaging system the trail has if somebody is hiking faster than you and you want to talk to somebody about you tell them something send a couple messages like that tell them it's not a way for me you guys the log books and the shelters all get dropped back to the top here they get put to the right we have Montreal shelters going back you know decades so it might seem like you're writing that for yourself but it's also really cool that you're creating this never ending history of people on water what are the proof makers and how big was the backpack that you used besides boys like that 48 I have a 60 60 yeah 60 liter bag yeah it's just a new numbers mine was mine was 53 you can have 100 liter pack at the end of the day you got to be able to carry it's not my next month 65 sorry I was but you just find it and go bigger and you can cinch it down and make it smaller so I just sometimes might need more gear I'd rather have enough room not have enough room now to take the top off having kid size packs was really important oh yeah the right size packs whatever it is because they make small medium large depending on your size if you have the wrong size bag it's not going to hit the right spots because 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 some pounds weight extra on you you don't really feel it when that style is up you can go 5 times further it's all how you set it up you'll be surprised how many pounds can you use this yeah I was thinking of that question something that you all you could just say really quickly when you drop on your first 3 days metal candle lantern that seems like an obvious one it's just little special no special small scale right for a small solar panel because 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 in the woods I had a glass bottle of Chola so I had to transfer it to plastic that made it much more carryable so just like the containers I was carrying things in 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 just in case just in case I have extra zip ties just in case I have extra this I didn't need all those just in cases so I would get rid of those as I went but really 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 even when I packed up my pack this week I was like yeah I used everything in here except for a few first aid items which I'm happy I didn't use and even that was very minimal but yeah pretty much used everything I did not pack too many clothes I definitely overpacked them there were 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 and 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 swap those 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 even to wear the socks with crocs I found because I was kind of not wearing crocs I went through a whole camp shoe I wasn't using a camp shoe but 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 I found at night the bunks would be 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 is for me really helpful because I wanted to protect my feet the other nice thing about camp shoes is our campsites are in Africa they're used a lot and a camp shoe has much less of a ground surface impact than a big heavy load so it won't move so you're actually the impact on the surface of a campsite is less than you're wearing by a footwear that's just like really basically what's cold as carrying a pair of camp shoes to switch into a bath or something there's two other things that I could say to food we overpacked on food but we 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 feeling for food along the way because that was the heaviest thing in our purse recently but there's no more what ifs what if it gets stuck there's no more just okay there's no more just okay no more just okay there's no more just spring no more like change of underwear so you can wash one pair out at night and put it on your pack during the day the same thing for socks but otherwise if you you know give yourself a spudgy bath every night you don't really need more than one you don't want to save all your any water and also you don't need heavy mountain aeroboats I mean I do the trail just like weight a very light pack so the lighter you can keep your pack the more fun you're going to have yeah I think that's it you guys can talk to me about this battle between the Andrew and the trail runner and the big night boot and that's a big breakfast maybe for Andrew he takes the cart having boots stacked in front of him or the little tank strollers I've heard of trail runners Merrill trail runners but if I start to roll my ankle I just hop and that's where trekking poles help me with that too I've been negotiating with my son about trail runners versus me trying to get him into a big heavy beefy boot so I'd just be interested it really is a problem I used to hike with big heavy 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 to define like I said I did only roll my ankle several times at least half a dozen if not more and the trekking poles were huge to help that but I may have got lucky enough yeah I used to make high boots because that's all I never had so I didn't really want to start trying something new while I was on the trail it's like this is no one comfortable with why change it so I just started 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 talked to any 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 to me number one so that's my combo and I would use that for as long as I can yeah sure I personally I wouldn't think about doing it without a serious pair of boots one is that I don't really have to worry about where I'm stepping and there's some gnarly rocket stuff out there I mean sharp things your footing is especially in really bad weather a lot of times your focus is limited to you know literally 3 or 4 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 standing out in a rainstorm you know eventually it's still 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 go foot down and take the next step so without that you know I would have been in trouble yeah you all talk about some of the favorites some of the favorites I would say I would never want to be again I would never want to be again I would never want to be again my back's full so she's asking about food and how many days would you 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 like that and so we went through the first 40 days and then my mom showed up with a zip lock bag to her resupply of frozen lasagna and they went into dad's bag I've never seen it look more despondent in my life it was 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 wouldn't eat this at home this is the best thing I've ever eaten yeah things taste surprisingly good when you're up there yeah dry food I mean Starbucks, the dry mix like a Laura bar and I treated myself with a Snickers bar every single day which I'll recommend bring a little bit of snacks of Snickers at the end or whatever is your favorite thing I understand that I have dehydrated food that I dehydrated myself prior to going it's really really light you just gotta boil some water and pour it in there you can dehydrate pretty much anything so whatever your favorite meal is spaghetti, meat sauce or ramen noodles, lunch vegetables you can dehydrate it and rehydrate it again it really doesn't matter it's actually good at home it's still tasty just to counter that a little bit as well 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 that people that were out there that really really knew what they were doing they were eating fresh food they had cheeses and they were making salads and cooking things and that was like hey wow these people really are on a different level because there are a lot of people like that unless they just went into town but I was really amazed that for example you go out by yourself a block of 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 stuff that you might normally keep around in a fridge is perfectly fine to bring out there hard sausages and stuff like that once I start to see what people were doing and kind of learn more about it I definitely changed what was going on in my food bag there were things that I didn't think of yeah I carried cheese the whole time but I did a lot of research beforehand about how to package cheese because if you put it in certain things it will get moldy so I was always thinking of sugar wrapped in wax paper but I did like strand wrap instead of plastic bags because it needs to be and then I made all my own meals instead of dehydrating I went online and bought like I don't know it was like 20 different old 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 tried one one night and it was like oh no I made 5 more of these so it was pretty hit and miss but I mean it was like you're so free out there that anything is good at the end of the table I really liked the little packages like season tuna they should have felt good and I never wanted to eat again gourd they're just things that you can't do my parents made me eat gourd like here's a snack but it just gets moldy can you explain for everybody what gourd is it's like the braised ends and nuts Jeremy, did you guys cook all your meals in unison as a family so like breakfast that would be the second one they don't be the second one consideration with that is it for us because that like a little jet oil 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 oil and yes we did it all as a group I'm Kevin and I'm Jenny's partner the logistics for 4 people traveling together as I hear some of these stories 4 people traveling together with 2 adults it's a little different sometimes the distance that Andrew can make in a day is determined by his lumber when you've got 2 people working together you're kind of communicating with 2 people and you stop this a lot on the trail when you have 4 people or 2 kids and you're thinking about wheels and you're thinking about shelter and you're thinking about moving along the trail together it's a little bit more to keep in mind so it's just something to be proud of 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 through height stove list, 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 height with one so you can do that we're going to get some questions into our very tank about the advanced fly chat I'm going to approach some of that and just directly know what you guys and if you can answer that so people watching at the moment can also talk about failure, may I ask you how much water you should go through a day in July or how much it should happen as a person in general as a human being as I went through the trail and I did it over a period of years so I just got more experience and more at the end that I wasn't really doing, I just realized I need to be stopping every 30 minutes and giving my body something and it kept my mind that negative self-talk about how hard it was to a minimum of those a calorie thing, so I think water wise, hot day in July I'd go through sometimes 4 meters or 5 meters of water and I would be even I carry, I have I like to carry 3 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 and I don't have to be rationing it, I always want to have enough so I can just drink what I need Another question was for Alexis I was thinking of starting late August on the beginning of September what is the best time that I could travel for more than 5 minutes I was out there late July into early August so it might be a little bit of an insight on the August event that the mosquitoes weren't too bad, there was only like 2 nights or so where I had to put on bug spray other than that I didn't use it the entire time and I never had a major problem with the flies like there were a couple times where they'll like take a chunk of skin and you'll just see this bleeding spot on your ankle, it's like should we eat it or should we build a nest over there 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 a alright, I'm sure September is probably better Another question we got is a little specific but maybe if somebody feels that they've got an answer for that how feasible do you think it is for a shareholder like 20 to 30 miles a day and the first 100 miles with a 40 pound pack would that be a 40 pound pack? If that does not sound feasible, if that does not sound realistic what does sound realistic maybe I can post an answer for 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 legs under you 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 so 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 and it's rocky and rudy and just technical which I think is awesome but you just can't get that same kind of mileage you can't close it in the same way That was actually our joke on the trail like the long trail was built by 20 somethings who didn't know the term switch back Can we just add that I think the record for men's is like 4 days or something like that so that's like 50 miles a day that's fully supported just down to anything so whatever is out there there's a documentary on Netflix called the gaining traction it's about a woman that's fully supported so check that out and see if that's your experience or if there's a lot of pride We have a copy of that here at the club and yet that picture of Andrew's feet that looks like nothing compared to what she went through in that movie That's how the AT hikers are doing 20 miles a day up here I think that's where they come in and they come to that 1700 miles already Do you get them to come back I don't know if anybody right knew a lot about AT hikers they come and they do that lower 140 but then they'll backtrack and they want to finish the LT so we'll come to the northern part and they get on there and I remember hearing a lot that I ran into saying that that northern part is the hardest part any part of the whole AT that says a lot considering how old AT is those guys get up here and they say they have more until they got here So if I lose what you can get on you're probably not going to get if you're on So I think we're going to probably do some questions for another 10 minutes or so and then if anybody has specific questions for anybody out here we can put a lot of questions about how heavy AT is I think you all will be able to access the way that they would be generally and so like you can test that out So I want to do a test that question about the 40 pound pack I think there's a saying that the difference between 20 and 30 pounds is 10 pounds and the difference between 30 and 40 pounds is 100 I would believe that Yeah, it's probably about right I would definitely but as soon as you start hitting anything above 30 you're going to have to re-stock this huge difference That's the big thing, when you're re-stocked you get afraid of that number whatever that big number is and it can be a scary number but that's not your number that's your number like they want and then you get to sink a little bit off that every day so it's Any comments on good dog etiquette both having your dog be a good dog neighbor for everybody else and also any other insights like making sure that you've got jackets for your dog or other important things for dog care You did the whole thing You definitely want to have your dog on the leash near the shoulder 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 out through this hiking and they got freaked out with our two little dogs so definitely want to be there So bring a leash and that actually was in we ran into that family it was kind of a bad experience all around it wasn't actually in the shelter even so when you're getting to the busier areas where there are a lot of day hikers we also release 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 couldn't get around those and 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 My answer to that so other people are dogs is dog ways it's the same human ways so if you wouldn't put on the side of the trail yourself then you shouldn't let your dog get that and the appropriate thing for that is that was beings and then other notes are and releasing your dog in public places and also releasing your dog on a tree line because Sam is human and they have a long trail some of the most fragile plants will be affected there I have something to say about the dog I think our dogs are sections of the long trail where there's nobody here it's fine to put them on a leash and he has come back and you're like what is on you it's not fair food it's not easy except it's human food which is so dogs would like that they're like I never had this I'm going to roll with this and that's another good reason why you keep your dog on a leash because they might find the hiker that's the best reason I've ever heard of a leash dog and then be prepared with stuff to clean your dog up you know 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 know you want that voice control to be 100% voice control and we thought we were talking earlier I've seen a dog with a mouth full of broken packed clothes and that has been my experience I want to show I'm sure that some of you guys might have seen the shelters that are not by broken packed they're out there so just a minute can you talk about how you carry it versus bear cans didn't see many bear cans bear cans are really from a couple of people out of the south and stuff like that I didn't see cans of all mostly bags I mean if you're hanging stuff the big thing you're worried about is not bears but really like road and ice they'll eat right through your bag and out the other side of it so mostly if you keep your stuff reasonably compartmentalized and just hung up that's what we do always outside and at the places where there are if there ever is a bear concern they'll have a bear ox so you want to hang your food and keep it out of your tent we've had bear encounters not on the long trail and I add to that bear population is more grown and black bears are more and more aggressive because the hyperpopulation is growing as well there's just a natural those four hikers that might not throw their food load or might leave their food bags outside of their tent on the ground during mid-May and the same is if that bear is a head bear any bear that gets food becomes more and more invigorated and therefore use more and more dangerous so the Green Mountain Club is we very much promote bear encounters along the long trail there were three bear issues last year that prompted action by the club we put in bear boxes that still is going to King Wars, that corner has them and the safest thing is a bear canister that in my experience you can fit roughly three to five days of food in there and you won't complain because they're heavy a little bit they might be kind of tough to fit into a bag but the other side is that you don't lose your food and you're not feeding 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 ask we do a lot of and we always have a bear can and for indication you can bring to that and I'm always surprised how many you can do without having to wait you don't have to be a bear I think that if we 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 hiker and you're going out to make a mantra 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 or you being the problem there are actually other options to the big plastic cans now I've seen like Kevlar, pouches and things kind of like advanced materials and they're really strong where do you guys go? you know the biggest candy is yeah I mean don't worry about your laundry shirt I've seen a bear unzip a fanny pack I've seen and I just outed that you have a fanny pack dad sorry I didn't actually I actually had a question when you are hiking with a bear canister where do you do you keep that outside the tent or yes and there are ones that are you know in the Adirondacks 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 cans 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 a tree and do a bear hang and that's great but in other areas there might be there might be some yeah and the difference so a quick note the whites have bear boxes at most dip sites because in the wet mountains there's maybe 16 overnight sites total the launch rail is 70 overnight sites every one of those bear boxes is a couple hundred dollars and they're not like so outfitting those a lot of the launch rail some people might say well why don't you have bear boxes everywhere but it's not feasible within our program right now so I think we have time for maybe one more question and then we'll break out and if anybody's got questions or other issues that we would like to tackle then we'll do that can you pitch tents next to the shelter or did you pitch an off-trail or did you go off-trail we're supposed to pitch an off-trail we're supposed to pitch an off-trail we're supposed to pitch an off-trail we're supposed to pitch an off-trail that's a no-no but I mean I only I only tent twice and both times by choice one time it was because I thought the shelter was kind of spelling and the other time it was because this girl really annoyed me 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 in the tent that I saw tenting kind of just expanded the area that was already there you know you know it's far away I don't know about that Mary group I I attended the majority of the time there were only a few times I stayed in the shelter and really the important thing is knowing the lead and no trace principles you know you're not going to tent ever on the trail I mean you hear about that in the case of emergency that that's the only option but that's not really what you're going to do so I would familiarize yourself with the lead and no trace principles you know that you should be XML of feet learn from the trail 200 from water all of those things are really important and like disperse camping is really important there are tent pads at places as well but tenting is great I loved all of my experiences tenting along the trail I might just add to that we were hiking the entire time and there were times when we were hiking to get to a destination maybe it was for weather maybe people were getting tired and I was starting to look around there are plenty of places on the long trail where it is impossible instead of a tent it's a different trail and you got three or four miles of stuff but it's the grade going up killing tin we got three miles to get to that and I know that because as I was walking where are we going to tent if we have to stop or we can turn around and go back to those three miles so you have to be aware of your terrain and we would flip the contour map sometimes I think about what do we do in an emergency rain and a lot of times we keep walking I tried to plan that actually and I said hey I'm going for me to be today but if I don't make it to be 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 and you're just thinking about it or something and it's just not possible and the answer is keep walking the leading address which I'm camping is you never want to impact 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 is being designated as a place that already has a tent and you have to be at it so you know big open forest where you see all these shoots coming up beautiful leaves don't put your tent down on that put your tent down on the area and there's plenty of those areas around the shelter there's plenty of those you're always able to find a spot around the shelter but one of the things that was really helpful is the long trail book it tells 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 path I can't remember whether it was Butler or Taylor other lodge couple others and so those have an impact of tenting versus hammock yeah so here's your question that's one that comes up a lot you know I'm going to attack this most and if you guys have opinions hammocks you're obviously about the surface that's great but you know with looking for a place to sleep going on the South Side of Hamilton 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 be tough to find a spot in there so I think that the lean rotation 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 peculiarity of hammock versus tenting because it's not possible at both sites all the time it also looks like what kind of trees you do I hammock tend a lot and I know I don't do things that will rip the bark off depending on what you're using and if you're using a tree saver or a 550 m or start to tear that off so try to find old stuff for the forest bark and you're not going to hurt the tree as well that's very complicated I think that we had a lot of great topics and that there's still a lot of questions to answer because it's a long show that's famous and I think we wanted to call this kind of session quits and let people come up and ask questions I can get some long show guys back and show you guys a guidebook a map of all these individual maps and the Ender's 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 long show is that correct? yeah I don't know that so we maintain a list of Ender and Eiger's who are running the event tours for future Ender's and so if you're interested in that then you can send an email to GMC at Green Mountain Club.org 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 hiking lastly I really wanted to thank all of you guys for being willing to come here and share all of your knowledge and expertise it's really wonderful all of the bandana is right there underneath your band tags my place is 270 miles for a patch so thank you everybody and if anyone wants to see this last show then you can come back here and I'll put up my computer if there are any pictures of that those are the maps and of course some of them are from the bandana those maps