 Thank you all again for being here. This is our intent, manual, into Andrew's panel here at the Green Mountain Club. The Andrew's panel turns 10 years old today, a decade, of sharing information from experienced long-distance managers to prospective managers and anyone who is really interested in long-distance. So thank you all again for being here. My name is Rob. I'm the Education and Volunteer Coordinator here at the Green Mountain Club. I just want to take a few minutes to let you know a few things about the building. Who is the first time you're here at the Green Mountain Club activity? Alright, cool. Welcome. This is our home base. We love this place. Make sure you know a few things about it. Again, I want to thank you all for coming, and I want to thank our panelists here for setting their time aside tonight to share their knowledge and their love of the trail with you all. It's a really awesome thing that they're doing, they're volunteering their time, and I hope you brought a lot of questions for them, because they're eager to... Sorry, I'm watching myself on the screen, so I just need to minimize that. I don't know, we don't have that. Okay, I think I fixed it. So anyway, they're taking their time out tonight, so please bring your questions to them. We'll talk about when that's going to happen in a moment. I also want to thank the online audience for being here. You can wave at them at the camera back there, hey, online audience. I know we have folks from as far away as North Carolina and California tuning in tonight. I think over 70 people tuning in, so thank you all for being here. And finally, a huge thanks to Orca Media, our friends in the back, based out of Montpelier, who have been broadcasting this event for close to seven years, I think. So it's really great to have you all back. Thank you for all you do for us. During your time here, I still hear myself, hold on one second. During your time here, if you need to use the bathroom, you may have found some already. There's two in the back, and there's one downstairs. If you need any water, we have a couple of jugs in the back here, and if we run out there, we'll refill them. The exits, should you need to exit the building for any emergency, the best and most immediate exits are in that corner of the room and that corner of the room. And if you need elevator access, we will help you with that. That's just on the other side of that wall. If you need to get up and move around and stand, that's totally fine. We've got a lot of room to play with here. Just please make sure you're not blocking anyone else's view as you're doing that. And finally, I just want to go over our general schedule for the evening. This is a standard panel with a longer than average question and answer period from the audience, because this is what this is all about. I have some pre-arranged questions here, but I'm not going to take up too much time with them because this is about you all and the folks online as well. So we're going to start with a little bit about the club. We're going to actually involve the audience from the get-go with a few major topics that folks want to hear about tonight. We're going to get our panelists to introduce themselves. We're going to have a brief slideshow after that that kind of gets us in the mood and shows us some really cool images from the trail and from all of their experiences. And then we're going to go into the questions and discussion part of this. I will lead with a couple just to kind of get things flowing. But the bulk of this evening, probably about an hour to an hour and 15, is going to be for questions from you all and from our online audience as well. So that's really what we're here to do. Finally, at the very end, we're going to take probably about 15 minutes to break off and we're going to have our panelists kind of scatter throughout the room and you're going to be free to kind of approach them and ask questions and maybe you didn't get to during the panel or take a dive into their backpack if they allow you, et cetera, et cetera. Ask permission before you dive into backpacks always. Great. Are there any questions before we begin? Cool. So first off, the Green Mountain Club. The Green Mountain Club was begun in 1910 with one purpose and that was to build a trail across the high peaks of Vermont from Massachusetts to Canada. And the club succeeded in doing so over the next 20 years. And that path has changed somewhat in the last century, but it has stayed true to that general length and the southern and northern Termini. And the Green Mountain Club exists today to make the Vermont mountains play a larger role in the life of the people. So we build a trail and we use it so that folks can enjoy their mountains and come and enjoy the beauty of Vermont from all over the world. So that is our mission. And we do that through education and through the stewardship of our trails and our mountains. So by participating in the trail, you are participating in our mission and that's why we exist. So thank you for that. The goal of this specific event is to share a wide range of knowledge and expertise from long trail end to enders that is folks who have traveled the entire length of the trail either in a single push or in sections over multiple weeks or even years. And we always aim to get a somewhat, as much as we can, a diverse audience to give you different experiences, whether that be age, gender, group, race, anything. We want to get the broadest spectrum we can so that you can get the different experiences and so that they can have a nice discussion and you can see the different perspectives. So that is why we are here. So now I want to know why you're here. So before we get going too much further, I would love to hear three audience members give us three just general topics, not specific questions yet, but general topics that you would love to hear about tonight. And that way we can kind of have those in the back of our mind as we're going further. So would anyone like to share a topic they would love to hear about this evening? Yes. Feminine needs. Excellent. Great broad topic. Awesome. Very, I'm going to choose a lot to talk about there. All right. What is the second one? Yes. All right. And finally, one more general topic. Yes. Excellent. Great. Thank you. All right. So we're going to lodge those in the back of our minds to make sure we hit on those. And now I would love to hear from our panelists. We're going to have panelists. I would love you to take three minutes each and tell us about yourselves based on your agenda in front of you. We'll start here with Alan. My name is Alan Pechel. I hiked with my partner Morgan and I in 2013 and then again in 2017. We share trail names. Together we are pokey and tag along depending on who's in the lead. I am usually tag along. She's actually a stronger hiker than I am. I'm from Calis, Vermont. Our favorite location on the trail. Mine was a set of Cascades that's below White Rock Mountain. Really beautiful spot. What I can offer as a panelist tonight is representing the older end of the population that hikes the trail. And I can tell you the pain is relative. And if you're stubborn enough, you can finish the trail. Thank you. I'm Monica Quinn. We also share a trail name with my hiking buddy Liz here. Very first night on the trails and AT Hikers gave us the name Nama and Stay. So we're Nama Stay together. I'm Nama pretty much always. I'm from Sudbury, Massachusetts. I've been in Vermont for about four years now. I did a through hike last summer, starting July 1st with Stay over here. My favorite location on the trail, Camelshump has a special place for sure. It's a pretty wild, beautiful mountain. But I had hiked that a lot before I did the trail. So one that I discovered on the trail was the Big Branch area. It's been an awesome night listening to that babbling book there. Offer as a panelist. Obviously I have a female perspective. I've done a lot of different sports in my life. And this is more of a longer endurance mentally challenging one for me. So that was kind of a cool perspective for me that maybe I can pass on to others as well. So I'm Liz Locke. And as you know, I'm Stay. And I got the stand because I like to stay wherever we are. Which is usually the test. Through hikers and together as partners. My favorite location is probably Coralus Camp. It's really super cute. And we had made some LT buddies and ended up having a birthday party there for one of them. And that was just a really special moment and just a nice time with the friends that we made on the trail. And what I hope to offer as a panelist, I guess it's just that I really love hiking. And I really love the Green Mountains. And if you're thinking about doing this, I would totally recommend it because it's a really special experience. I cried every day because I was so happy. And most days, Coralus is sad too. It's emotional roller coaster. We can talk about that more later. Currently in Sheldon, Vermont, I through hiked it with my partner and father right here. My favorite location on the long trail, I think probably the White Rocks. I think it was really beautiful. And I just love the environment there. It was a nice trail too. What I offer as a panelist, I think is kind of a more unique perspective as a younger person hiking the trail. I think I enjoyed it a lot and I can offer my view as someone who's 12, 13 when I hiked it. I'm David Grass. I was born in West Bolton and live in Shelburne now. We through hiked starting in mid June and finished in mid July. We hiked together. We started off with our dog Stas and he accompanied us for the first week. And then when we had our resupply, he saw our station wagon and he jumped into it and refused to get out. So he was making his desires pretty clear. He rejoined us for the last week. And after the first couple of days, we had to learn how to hike with him in a way that worked for him and we got better. So I'm happy to talk about that later. Favorite location for a shelter would be Theron Dean, which has spectacular views to the east and other directions as well. It was just an amazing place to watch the sunrise. Also, we went skinny dipping in Big Branch. Something like that. It's a good one. I'll remember that too. And what I offer as a panelist, I worked for the GMC when I was in college. I was a caretaker at Griffith Lake and got to meet lots of through hikers coming through and admired what they were doing. I always wanted to hike the long trail. It felt like if you're a Vermonter, that's something that you try to do. My mom hiked with my brother around the Bolton area, did some overnight. And I was always jealous because I didn't get to do one with her. So I was really glad to be able to do that with Vlad. And my other son, Yuri, who's 10 years old, is in back. And I'm sort of grooming him in hopes that we'll get to do it in a few years together. Thank you all. And I think of a special note, David, Vlad, and Alan were all sitting where you are this time last year. And now they're on that side of the table. So if you're a prospective end to ender yourself, perhaps I'll be talking to you this time next year. And you'll be sitting here sharing your knowledge as well. Thank you all. So we're going to take just a couple minutes to enjoy some photos from all of their end to end hikes. And then we'll get into the questions. So, Zach, if you wouldn't mind hitting those four lights, which is behind you. Should we get out of here? Yeah, if you don't want to, you can feel free to rotate the chairs or walk aside either one. That's fine. I hope that was nice and inspiring for everyone. Donals grow back. Donals grow back. It's scary when it happens, but they grow back. Or not. So I warned the panelists before we began that I was going to start with a deeply philosophical question, because those are always really fun, right? I'm a big fan of asking why when I do things, and I think that's kind of a deep need for a lot of folks. So I'm challenging our panelists to begin with with this question. Why the long trail? And what did you hope to gain from the experience? And did you succeed in that goal? So I thought we could start at the far end with David and Vlad, and we can work our way this way and feel free to discuss it in pairs and feel free to discuss amongst yourselves as well as we make our way down. Okay. I'm going to answer your very philosophical question with a not very philosophical answer. Great. A colleague of mine at work came back from hiking the long trail in the summer of 2017 and was so overflowing with the enthusiasm and the life and the magic of that experience that I was just like, oh my God, I want that. So it was Envy. It goes a long way, right? So hearing her stories and I guess the question I asked myself was like, well, why not? And so I put the question to Vlad on a walk, not really expecting or knowing what his answer would be, and he was like, yeah, sure. And I was delighted. And so we spent a long time planning starting in maybe like January and we'd spend 15 minutes, 10 minutes, like once or twice a week doing planning. So yeah, that was nice. So partially it was because my dad wanted to. But I think a bigger reason was because I live in Vermont, right? And I never gone into the wilderness for a long period of time. I never felt like I had, you know, had that Vermont spirit and went out there, you know, have a connection with the trees and the plants and the animals. And I was kind of seeking that. So when my dad proposed the idea to me, I was all for it. But it not seems super enthusiastic by the way you portrayed it. Yeah, also I love my dad and I love spending time with him. And I thought it would be a great way to spend a month doing what he loves and what I learned to love over my time on the trail. So yeah, I guess that's kind of my reason why. That's a really good reason. Okay, well you made it really easy to follow you up. Awesome. I think my journey is kind of similar in some ways. I choose to be a Vermonter and I love it here so much. And hiking is one of those things that it took me a little bit of time to find the fun in. And I got to a place where I found it to be really fun. I was like, I should see what it's like in all the parts of the mountains. And then I got this idea of hiking the long trail in my head. But I was pretty nervous about doing it by myself. So I was kind of in this holding pattern where I was waiting for somebody to come along that would want to hike it with me. And then I made the decision to hike it by myself. And then I met Monica. And it was super fortuitous timing. And I couldn't have been happier to hike it with a partner and just have somebody to share the experience with. And like, is this real? Like, is this really what we get to do every day? It was. Can confirm that. Why the long trail? Yeah, I chose to move to Vermont. I'd been here for like three years and was falling in love with the state. I had gone out on a bunch of summit missions and hadn't really called the woods my home yet, kind of like what Vlad was saying. And I wanted to see the whole state. I wanted to see the south all the way to Canada. I wanted home to be on my back. I got on a couple smaller backpacking trips and had that itch to see how far I could push it. And it was kind of an objective-based goal for me as well. But it was the perfect length. And I really felt like it was an awesome experiential time as well. A good journey in all those respects. My partner and I didn't start hiking until we were 60. And of course it was natural basically to go out our back door. Our first hike was up Hunger Mountain. And then we wanted to do all the summits. We loved the places that we saw in the forest and thought that it would be quite an adventure to discover more of them. We're both sort of project-oriented. So the concept of hiking to Canada really appealed to us. And we made it. Not once but twice? Twice, yeah. Awesome. Kind of touching on something you said, Liz. I actually have a question for you. Monica, did you meet on trail or did you meet beforehand and decide to hike together? Forehand, but actually not that far beforehand. Nice. It was like a year max probably, about a year. Yeah. But immediately we're really good hiking partners. And some of you might know you can't share a tent with just anybody. You're both really stinky. And it was really good complementary partnership and kind of knew that it would work out somehow. Well, that's a perfect segue into my next question. I love it. Which is, I just want to note that everyone sitting up here hiked with a partner for their through hikes. Also, they're all through hikers, I believe. There are no section hikers amongst the panelists tonight. But going back to the partner idea, I'd love to hear, as someone who hikes alone a lot myself, I'd love to hear from you all. If you've felt the desire for alone time, it's while spending so much time with a partner, while out on trail and how did you handle those feelings hiking in these partnerships? And hopefully we can start with Alan and work our way back. I guess I wouldn't really think about time alone, you're really dependent on your partner on the trail for practical reasons and emotional reasons. I mean, you can get a little tight in the tent once in a while. But we were extremely compatible. Not that there aren't brief moments of friction on the trail, but we're also very aware that you can't let them go very far. You're there to support each other and that's probably the most important thing. Yeah, I never felt that I wanted to be more alone. Our hiking style was kind of do however you're feeling and we had certain checkpoints. We spent some hours hiking apart sometimes just because one person was feeling great and had fresh legs and was going to charge up the mountain and one person wanted to charge down the mountain or take it easy on the way up. I think communication was really key for that and had enough alone time. Had separate chores at camp, but Alan brought a good point with the dependency. There was still only one tent. We had to end at the same place. One stove, someone else had the food, someone else had, you know, the sriracha. It's key. Yeah, it was a really good experience seeing it with a partner. What are you fun to do alone too, I think? I think I agree totally with what Monica is saying and also what Alan mentioned, the level of communication that you're able to develop by having that sort of dependency but also choice to be doing something like this together is really special and I feel like the way that we were able to solve problems when they came up was just really effective and kind and a skill that I think would be super beneficial to anyone in the front country or like in the real world. It was just really amazing to be able to experience that part of it and then obviously there was some direct communication but then that trust that if you need time to hike by yourself and hike your own hike as they say, we knew that that was okay and it wasn't a personal thing. It was just about the individual components of our journey. So, yeah, that was great. Yeah, me and my dad don't think ever had any big fights at all but I think it was super beneficial hiking with a partner. I don't know what I would have done without one. I picked his brain thoroughly for every single story he had to tell. The miles go by a lot faster if you're listening to a story. I did contribute some but I have a lot less time on this earth to gather them. Hiking with a partner, I never really wanted alone time but I feel like even if you are hiking right next to someone you can be in your own space mentally. Sometimes we didn't talk for hours and that was fine. We didn't have to be interacting at all times and I think that provided me the ability to hike be with someone 24-7 for a full month. Yeah, I did know that. I never had any desire for a long time. I loved having blood in my line of sight. I loved sleeping by his side for a month and then when we got home and he went into his room and slept there it was like this is weird. That was when I felt alone. Want to go hiking? I dropped him off at Camp Abnacky one day, two days after we got back and he went to play tether ball with somebody and I felt like a jilted lover. I was like, he's okay without me. Being alone was never an issue. You are alone out there. We definitely spent a couple days hiking with other people but for the most part it's you and your partner and so I never had the desire to find space. We would have different chores and so those moments of quiet contemplation while I was filtering water were plenty sufficient. Awesome, thank you all. That sounds great. I'd love to start taking some questions from our audience. As we begin to get into this I'm also going to see if I can access questions from our online audience as well. I might be back here a little bit but I'll come back here. One thing that I do ask of folks in the audience is when you ask a question I would really appreciate it if you just stand up, say your name real quick and then if you are directing your question at a specific panelist please make sure that's known. If you would like to hear from all of them that's okay too but in the interest of time and making sure we get through as many questions as possible I may ask that we only ask a couple of panelists for some questions. So with that all in mind we have some questions from the audience. Dan do you want to start us off? Hey everybody my name is Dan. I guess both of us have been back before. I'm an editor from Saurabh 17. Everybody has incredible stories and hiking the trail is absolutely an amazing thing. I think one thing that gets overlooked sometimes is that hiking the trail is something that is really extremely difficult to do and I don't know that a lot of people talk about that very much. I wonder if any of you would be willing to share like what did you feel like was your most difficult day out there what was the biggest challenge, the toughest thing you faced when you were walking from Massachusetts to Canada or the other way around? Monica and Liz do you want to start off? Sure that is really very true and the valley is very cheesy but the valley has made the peaks even better for sure. There was a day in particular where like my stomach was upset I think Liz's knee was hurt we were both like crying. I missed my dog. I didn't know how to get out of this mental rut because I felt like I was in a green tunnel and I had lost steps in front of me and there was never a moment of wanting to give up it was just like how do I fix my brain back to the task at hand but I mean I guess other simulation came in and I had to do what I had to do and you know I definitely communicated with Liz on that I read a little bit of my book that was one of my luxury items and thought about like the next steps so there's got to be a couple of things like that a couple of hours in each day like that and there's no shame in that it's definitely part of it. Yeah I think you know to say that there's not a physical toll on your body would be dishonest. I mean we I think we're in pretty good shape going into it and had relatively light packs and we're pretty well prepared for what it was going to be like physically but my knee really hurt and I was eating six ibuprofen a day like clockwork and I'm not a big medicine person you know it you're just you know it's not going to last forever and you're making decisions like okay it's worth it and then obviously you can take a rest day if that's something you need but just you know checking in with your body and that part is it can it can be really hard and you want to make sure you take care of yourself so you can finish it as well that's a balance for sure. Alan you want to jump in? I think the most profound thing for me was that I had never been out in absolutely horrendous weather before you know you're always inside looking out and had it thinking boy I'm glad I'm not out there you know that in conjunction with being on the trail it's getting dark and all of a sudden the sky just totally opens up and in minutes you're just completely trashed looking for someplace to stop on the first hike we dove off the trail on an embankment I had to lash the tent to a tree to keep from sliding down the hill all night we were miserable so that combined with some of the things that go wrong that first picture on the slide show of the feet those were mine that was before they got bad hiking in wet shoes for days on end it's just impossible I'm going to try waterproof socks next time and see if that's any help but when your feet get that bad it is extremely painful and it's quite a challenge to overcome that kind of constant pain mentally and just keep going. David what do you have really difficult moments? Definitely probably my hardest moment was on day two so it came pretty quickly my body hadn't really acclimated to hiking and it was supposed to be a shorter day than it was it was supposed to be 11 miles and I think we ended up doing 13 because somehow numbers change on the map somebody might have made us read the map beginning and you know like everything was fine until the end I think the last mile maybe two miles I don't know how much it was but I think it was route nine you went straight down you went straight up oh yeah you did the descent was brutal on the knees and you just took so much impact because I hadn't learned how to walk I mean not in a little sense but I didn't know how to take the impact into my body and then I was also not super like fit for climbing up so I was in tears by the end of it and I was just hating it I was miserable and I wanted to get off at that point I would just like screw it you know this is terrible but definitely it got a lot better and I'm glad I stayed on and I think that probably where you hurt your knee and I'll let you talk about that so my two low points one was day three when I felt like my knee was gonna give out and so we took a half day off where basically I realized I couldn't go anymore without injuring myself and so we camped I don't know 25 30 feet from the trail and it ended up being really good because then like a really horrific thunderstorm came in and we already had the shelter up and then about midway through maybe day 16 day 17 we were gonna slack pack because that's what the cool AT hikers do and slack pack means you give basically like a support team your pack and you take a little day pack or a butt pack and you do high miles so we were gonna be ambitious starting in Stowe and go up to Johnson like 22 23 miles oh no okay I'm sorry we're starting with two we got three miles in and I pulled my calf muscle because we were going fast you know and it was it was a different pace than we were used to and that was enough to injure myself so I took we took a day and a half off back at the house it again was sort of fortunate because it was right in the middle of a heat wave and so rather than being out on the trail we were at home a lot swimming a lot for that day and a half and I really thought we weren't gonna get back on the trail we've been waking up so early with the sun that I woke up at like 4 30 after that day and a half and I was like screw it like let's go back we've got to try it and we did you know I was taking baby steps to get back up on the trail and we just kept on going low points before we move on to our next question you jogged my memory David with the heat wave comment so last July if you were here in Vermont or anywhere in New England you probably remember that period in July and that was at the end of a really long drought period here so much so that water became a really difficult thing to find on the trail and I got a couple questions from folks in emails before the panel asking specifically about water and I know some folks might have that on the mind so I'd love to just hear a couple thoughts about your experiences finding water on the trail, how often you could you know how good the sources were you know I guess it all depends on when you were there but you know if you were there at different times you might have some different perspectives so Malik and I hiked July 1 till July 24th so we got rained on one and a quarter times so we kind of had the opposite experience of you Alan which made packing really great but the average temperature was like 75 degrees and it was really a little bit sketchy finding water towards the very end luckily there's people who care about through hikers and in some places people had hiked in 5 gallon jugs and left them at the shelters but we had a gravity filter so the two of us and we were also originally going to bring our dogs and we pulled the plug on that because of the temperature so we had a gravity filter and a filter a liter of water at a time two liters of water at a time so pretty quickly for a lot of people and dogs but there would be places where it would be really hard to just fill up and that was scary so then sometimes we would also double up on purification if we were drinking from pretty gross puddles so gravity filter it and then put in a dime sanitation tablets it was really thankful for our filter it was one of the most efficient definitely the most efficient I've ever used and that actually frees me from getting from putting tablets in the water as well we also got a lot of beta from people coming on the trail too like wasn't afraid to speak up and be like where's the last place you got water and let them know the same as well just if you know this can be a dry spell we had plenty of vessels that we were going to load up on too yeah I know now genes aren't the lightest thing but it's worth it to have that not skimping on water what was the manufacturer of that filter just so folks know let me pull it up I think it's a lot of pus I think it's a lot of pus okay cool yeah so something to keep in mind um yeah it was really dry then Alan did you have any issues with water well other than on your skin the first time it rained 25 out of 27 days so that was a really wet trip when did you do it was it summer it was July in 213 but there are places on the trail where it's almost always dry along the Monroe skyline and you always have to be aware of how far you're going to go that day and where you think the water sources are sometimes the sources at the shelters are sketchy so we would always try to load up midday so that we would have something for dinner and hopefully a little left over for breakfast if when we got to our end point that day there was nothing so we pretty much are always carrying each at least a liter of water David and Vlad what was your water experience I was carrying a 3 liter plastic platypus well I don't know what it's called plastic bag that had water Vlad had 2 liters and my resource was really Vlad because he wouldn't drink any water and so I would finish my container and then I'd be drinking from his which meant that I was stopping the pee 20 times a day and he was like a lot less than that so for our water our experience was very similar I think it just bears calling out trail granny who was close to Killington a little bit north of there which was one of the few dry shelters where we were and she'd written in that she was there and it was a 6 gallon container she'd made 3 trips to fill it up and it was critical and wonderful and blissful alright let's move on to another question from the audience yes I'm Ryan one of the questions I have is you mentioned preparing and planning we were planning on just showing up what kind of planning did you do other than we want to do this amount per day and this is what we're bringing with us so my experience prior to hiking the long trail was primarily a semester in the Rockies with National Authority Leadership School and that's like very expedition oriented and expedition planning and so that was sort of my attitude going in that we were going to calculate the weight of the food that we were going to eat every day and we were going to buy those amounts and it was fun as if like an academic exercise but it was not terribly useful in terms of what we actually ended up eating because I was I don't know I was planning basically a winter hiking trip and so it was like super heavy duty we cooked breakfast super heavy duty cooked meals and you know a handful of snacks for the day and that was totally the wrong ratio and so we had too much food after we had I can't remember if it was oatmeal or one of the dry cereals after the first day like that was the last time we ate it the entire time that we were there we had like 12 pounds of it so we actually we dropped a ton of food on day two because we had too much so you can speak to snacks yeah they're key like vital I would not eat that much breakfast or dinner and I would just eat like 30 bars a day I ate a ton of snacks I think they were got me through I had like a pop tart in the morning and a little bit of dinner but I think snacks were very key at the beginning we had like an allotment that looked like a lot when we were planning like we had like 3 bars and some like you know like granola or something and I blew through it the first time we stopped and I was hungry I ate his snacks um it was like a good train to go to the water yeah so ultimately we were filling up gallon bag gallon plastic bags of snacks and he would have one for the day and I would have one for the day I mean that was the quantity of snacks and it was just so much more gratifying to be able to you know eat and look forward to snacks over the course of the day rather than like some big meal or big breakfast yeah I got myself some candy and I would plan it out I would be like once I get here I'm allowed to have this much candy and I wouldn't motivate you it's very familiar I would force myself to keep going cause I'll be like I got some air I'm gonna get this on and that's not like what got me through it but that's what helped me get over those rough stretches where you're just going up and down and it seems endless and yeah I think that was super key and the food that we did bring it was like an infinite bag you would like pour yourself a meal and that would be like too much and you still have like three quarters of the bag left and it's supposed to be like a meal for one person for one day and it ended up going for both of us for like two days so that was a big surprise and a little bit more about Physic Grants at Knowles I guess they did lower mileage each day so they had heavier packs so we ended up going with way too heavy packs we had advice that like cut down on your pack was like as light as possible that's the best and we didn't really take it to heart as much as we should have we definitely should have cut down on weight and food and like week two two and three we definitely got it down a lot lower which was way better how was your pack's weight? the first week mine was 35 mine was closer to 50 yeah so I I would focus on like the weight of your pack for your planning and focus on your resupply points and then other than that you don't have to go to town rapid fire real quick before we move on if you know your pack weights starting out let's hear them so 50, 35 I think 35 32 okay but with planning like the biggest thing is the resupply you know we were lucky enough to live in Vermont and have people who want to support us it's a bunch of road crossings you could definitely do it unsupported and hitch into town and resupply but we had boxes that were we gave to people willing volunteers that like brought their cars to some road crossings we ditched stuff took stuff, mostly food I will put a shameless plug for us when we break into small groups if you're interested in super delicious menu planning like if you care what you eat on the channel I would say that's one of our specialties some people are cool with nor pasta sides every day or pot tarts but like everywhere we went people were always commenting on our food so that would be something we'd be happy to share in that breakout time I even brought a little bit of food not cooked yet speaking of that I think Alan you're a food aficionado as well I think when you're on the trail it's probably the most common thing that's on your mind so it's really important to bring food that supports your body and that you want to eat so in planning Morgan and I did the same thing that Monica at least did of having family meet us and I had to plan out how many days I thought it would take us how much food I'd need to eat to resupply we had four resupplies three of my road crossings and that pretty well worked out how many resupplies did you guys have? I think probably maybe six so we got lucky too because people wanted to hike with us so our friends came and joined us and so sometimes it was literally like one day bring us to dinners having beer people just met us so it wasn't a super structured resupply and a lot of it was cell phone communication saying we're faster, we're slower we forgot toothpaste we need so much more toilet paper we planned three resupplies and so like seven days in between resupplies and that was too long and that was one of the reasons we were carrying too much weight so I would definitely recommend doing a minimum I think we carried like three or four days max and that's plenty, we ate a lot snacks keep you happy and going you had a question earlier do you still have one? I have two quick questions I wore a size nine boot and I really maybe go up a half a size or so in your boots and so I'm kind of curious about your thumb and I've never had trouble but I have never hiked 25 days or whatever it may be you know so that's one question and other people who have hiked that I've spoken to I'm Diane I'm here is that you have to hide from hot to hot and I hadn't really thought about that I thought oh well if you have good legs one day why not put in a few more miles and park yourself somewhere so I'm interested in that that to me is a big question all right so let's tackle the shoe size first panelists raise your hand if you went up a shoe size or half a size all right raise your hand if you kept your normal size all right were there any major issues with either of those I never had pulled my shoes I think they were great I wore trail runners I didn't wear big bulky boots yeah I think that was an interesting game time decision if I was an avid boot hiker and I switched to trail runners and I was really happy to be in trail runners I wore what I'm wearing right now which are trail runners um no it was so dry when we were oh yeah we uh well when I came to this last year I was planning on wearing a big bulky boot and then after talking to the panelists and Vlad working on me I finally decided to wear trail runners and was really really pleased I made that decision and we wore uh gears I've had my feet look like Alan sit in that picture in big boots and I was like that's what I want to avoid so trail runners try out really fast um you can roll your ankle in a big boot and in a trail runner so you get a little bit more support when it's higher but um I found that being in shape is the best prevention for injury and uh second part of that question um what do you think about hiking shelter to shelter especially on the long trail is as I understand it they're closer together on the long trail than they would be say in a you know a hut system in Europe or a hut system in the White Mountains so what are your thoughts on hiking shelter to shelter Alan do you have any yeah well the distances between the shelters um seldom work out with your motivation for the day and it can be difficult to um try to plan shelter to shelter not that it can't be done but often you would probably be stretching yourself a lot of days and then be really short a lot of days because you'd have to double your mileage in order to hit shelter to shelter so we pretty much like till we're tired and if there's a shelter within reach and there's tenting at that shelter that would be our best choice because we prefer to tent and sleep in the shelters it's a lot quieter there's less bugs in the tent cool do you have any other thoughts about shelter yeah definitely um so me and my dad mainly hiked shelter to shelter we didn't really just camp wherever normally unless there was something came up or like we just couldn't it was an emergency basically yeah um I definitely see what you're talking about it was hard to plan like some days we'd end up doing way more than another day because the shelters just wouldn't look out there not like set distances they're kind of scattered and you got like two-mile shelters apart and then you got like six miles or something like that and that was harder I think we probably should have taken up opportunities to camp wherever um because it did end up with some harder days that were like we shouldn't have done and some totally easy ones that we also had want more energy and yeah I definitely we kept going if we could if it was like within reach like if we got to a shelter and we still had four miles to the next shelter we would keep going but we would also always debate it and you know see what our bodies wanted to do and if we knew we could do it but I think we would probably usually be on the safer side because again the repercussions for not having those four miles I think is a lot more impactful than the gain of doing those four miles I thought it was really easy to go shelter to shelter and we really enjoyed the planning part of that like the piecing out the miles so that it worked out it's kind of a puzzle you have to piece together um shelters typically have the best already cleared out 10 areas best most reliable water sources a privy um so we didn't sleep in the shelter hardly ever but um having those amenities basically um yeah yeah luxurious privies I guess if you're a leave no trace person that would say that you'd want to camp at the shelter too because then minimizing your impact it also allows you to conserve time and energy um you know there'd be more work uh in digging a cat hole or there'd be more work in setting up your tent in some place and so you can focus on resting um and hiking that's the before you know the tent how do you pick your tent spotter inside where you go or you know like I've only done shelter to shelter so I was kind of curious about what is involved in the tenting side of the tent these days have really small footprints so you can pitch them in a pretty small area uh we just learned what kind of routes we could handle sleeping on and what we couldn't basically um having an air well I just had a shelter area it's typically like a couple of tents off the trail maximum um but in the pretty designated tent area if you're tenting uh you know just in a stealth site or a primitive site um I don't know it's you don't want to be making a lot more trails in the woods but I also preferred would be a little bit more private you know also just has like a small female in the woods alone well not alone but two small females in the woods yeah uh that is your question please we didn't use it it's an app I think it was more popular on the Appalachian trail but people could put on stealth sites and say and add that water feedback and it's sort of I think kind of this live blog where you can add information um about what's going on on the trail so that's how people would find out like oh there's a great stealth site that's actually really cool next to this stream and big branch I think it's called gut hook yeah it's like crowdsourced from hikers yeah real time pretty much yeah yeah you aren't to read the maps and often look for areas where the contours aren't changing which are often either side of road crossings and here there and everywhere in terms of anticipating that's going to be a good place to stop and then you just start looking at that an hour before you really want to stop it's a great point you don't look when you want to stop because it could be a place where it's totally overgrown with like prickers and you're like I have to walk until the prickers end basically I think it's important to know that in terms of stealth sites and campsites in general Green Mountain Club obviously promotes leave no trace and there are some guidelines on our website for choosing a long trail in a sustainable leave no trace way and I'd be happy to chat with anyone about that afterwards as well yeah choosing a place that's already pre-impacted is really helpful the long trail sees nearly 200,000 annual users not all of those are camping but you get the gist so yeah something to think about with stealth sites in particular I wanted to take a moment and pose a few questions from our online community that are hitting us with lots of questions so our YouTube stream must be working really well so it's great there's a whole wide world out there that wants to know some things I'm going to start with a question that at least three people online have asked which is they want to know some things about bear bags so bear systems let's hear it what do you do for bears how do you store your food at night Alan let's start with you because I know you have evolved your system over the years I've been around Robinson Barn on this a lot of times I do carry what's called an ursac which is a Kevlar fabric bag it's not bear proof but it is critter proof and actually the squirrels and mice are your main problem but as far as bears go you need to do a hang and there are seldom proper trees wherever you are camping and that includes the shelters where you can do a proper bear hang which in my understanding is supposed to be 10 feet up and 10 feet out I have hit myself in the head throwing rocks over trees and just about jerking myself crazy doing bear hangs but I also learned that I'm usually trying to throw a rock over a branch that's about 25 or 30 feet in the air because that's all there is so I have sort of reduced my anticipation of doing proper bear hangs to the point that I've realized that something is better than nothing just get it away from you wherever you're camping and I realized that if I can find a dead branch with a fork on the end I can actually reach a branch in a tree that's about 15 feet up or I can lash my hiking poles together and just drop a little rock over a branch instead of standing around for half an hour trying to lob it on the branch which I'm not very good at excellent we used these heavy duty plastic sacks which are not bear proof but supposedly they were scent proof and so we would put all of our toothpaste and food in these two very large plastic bags then throw them in these cheap nylon shopping bags put a beater on it and hang those we never had any issues you'll also see these little things hanging in the shelters a twig on a string with a coffee can inverted over it and that's a critter hang and so if you do have anything smelly or food or actually not even that just your gear like putting your backpack on it so that the mice aren't eating through your backpack we learned it was really good to get all of our gear off the floor we never had any direct rhymes with bears or anything like that the funny thing that I found at one shelter I don't remember which one it was but they had a barricade like that sort of thing it was a barricade but it had bear a cage on it and I thought that was hilarious I laughed for like two straight minutes it's a two by four on the door that locks into place apparently a bear actually got in there and that's I met her on the other side of the mountain and I was like who put the barricade there and she was like that was me I did that and she told us the whole story but yeah the barricade was a highlight yeah that was super fun that was just kind of my only experience with bears that was as close as we got to bears we did the tie a rock to a string and throw it over a branch and hoist it up yeah it's critters you know and I think there's always lots of good communication amongst the hikers and the journals and in person so like if there's a bear in a place you're probably going to hear about it unless you're the one who discovers it another thing with going where the shelters are is there will be other people there usually and they've already hung their bags and you can typically use the same branch unless you're going to knock their bags over but so you know yeah we've had hikers be like just clip yours to my carabiner it's strong enough it's fine and then you pay that forward too and you get a good limb on a tree at the next shelter I actually have I'll get it out well while she's doing that I want to make a note about the critter hangs that David and Vlad mentioned I hung my stuff from one in David Logan's shelter and somehow the critters still found it so when possible the bear bag is definitely in my experience the more full proof way the critter hangs will do some for you but may not ultimately protect you you pretty much use this bag which is just a dry sack I've been fancy and hung it with it's a peacord it's an acting roof keep it simple right which is ultra light sweet bears always fun also in a few sites in the south there are bear boxes too that have been packed in by staff or volunteers and so if you see a bear box that's easier and safer than a bear hang so that's always here if you're number one then the bear hang then hopefully you can do one of those another question I'm getting online a lot and was touched on earlier was resupplies resupplies is a recurring theme so I just wanted to and someone online asked what are the best resupply talents and assuming you went into town to resupply what are some of the talents that stick out in your minds? and if you didn't then that's fine too so we were hiking with a pretty solid group at some points and some of our hiking buddies did have to go into town to resupply but we were pretty had the luxury of going to do that I would say when the LT and the AT are the same all the major road crossings a lot of people are coming off because the AT people are getting resupplied then as you get up further north it gets definitely a little bit quieter crossing route 2 it's a little bit far to get to the nearest grocery store but people also know that that's where the long trail is and there's a fair amount of traffic on route 2 so if you're out there with your backpack on somebody will pick you up and drive you to the grocery store if you need to go to the grocery store and there's a post office there that I think services packages if you're mailing to yourself and then Johnson is the other big one as you're getting closer to Canada there's a gear slash convenience slash coffee store a good spot for resupplies as well and it's another kind of big road where you have a pretty good chance of getting picked up if you're hitching to that if folks are coming from out of state you know they might see Jonesville on the map and be like I'm going to Jonesville for my resupply so that's not a place you can do that that's where I live there's nothing there you're gonna have to go to Richmond or I guess to Waterbury two memorable towns for us were Manchester and Watesfield originally I was planning to have like friends of the family and colleagues do our resupplies but after our first resupply where my wife and younger son met us and we went into town and we brought our clothes to the laundromat and we hit the supermarket we went to a restaurant we got cheeseburgers it was like this is how I want to do it from now on so I fired my friends and colleagues and just asked my lovely wife to meet us for the remainder of and like that was a highlight of hiking the Long Trail too like our town days were so much fun we were in Watesfield and next to the laundromat there's a Vermont fish place and so we spent the afternoon at the local swimming hall and it was fantastic yeah so on the resupply days we had super low miles only like four miles to the nearest shelter basically and we would do it like an old day kind of event which is I mean if you're gonna do a lot of them I don't think that's an option but since we only did three that was easier for us it I mean we spent money that we weren't planning to we would go into a supermarket and buy a bunch of snack food and a bunch of other stuff that we weren't planning I over ate one of them and I had a terrible stomach ache because I was just like burger get it into my belly shoveling food into my face it's not a good strategy my stomach was accustomed to like not having a ton of food and it was not very good I didn't even want to look at food so it was hard to tell my father plan what we wanted because I was just like I don't want to have it don't overdo it on our hike we did not get off the trail except for hiking the one mile up to the Inn at Long Trail where you can leave a resupply box and you can spend some time there in their pub and most people can get a room there they have reduced rate for hike so it's a great place to stay I actually found that even road crossings were sort of disrupted to my state of mind we just wanted to be in the forest it was great though to go to the Inn at Long Trail so did you carry like 100 plus miles worth of food no we got resupply to road crossings three other times but you didn't go into town but you didn't go into town no we never went into town do you guys support crew? yeah where is it? it's near Killington on route 4 come down off of Killington if you're going north it's right at the junction where the AT turns off so it's kind of like a big spot the food is good a beer yeah the Ender's Guide actually has a couple of things you wouldn't expect as far as resupply those towns are really great one of them is like for example the steam control office which has people in it all year around they'll take a box for you they're listed in the book as a source and I sent you a box so I sent the box to Straton went down the mountain back up the mountain so it's not always necessarily a town it has certain sorts of places around they're all listed in that guide and some of them are places you might not expect to definitely check out that's a question what was the clothes washing the style of change of clothes style we had that really hot spell so everything was completely sweaty there was no point in keeping it not sweaty and clean so had clean dry for sleep and then back to the still soaking wet dirty for hiking even underwear I think I probably used three pairs of underwear we turn them inside out and then get the source out and then get the source out underwear too you can plan on getting pretty stinky you can do laundry at the end of a long trail people who get off the trail often find a laundry mat but basically you just get used to it it was so cold on our second hike that I just slept in all my clothes I didn't change I put on my rain gear at night there's a few creeks you can do a quick rinse in which is pretty helpful for getting just like salty to buy it off Clarendon Gorge and um Big Branch or two that come to mind but do you guys recommend for how many pairs and like a type of socks to bring? gotta go with the darn tops I would wear a pair of socks and get a new pair between three supplies of five days maybe and they're pretty ripe after five days they just hold their shape really well you're supposed to only have one luxury item but having a lot of socks was one of my luxury items because I personally found that like my feet get really sweaty and then the salt makes the little crystals and that is the source of blisters for me so I was like two or three days pair of socks and then I would switch like which ones were sleep ones and which ones were day one so that you know I could sleep in dirty ones and have clean ones for hiking but I would just do a little bit of hiking in dirty socks maybe to see how your feet handle it because that was personally something I mean could be an issue David, what were your clothing and sock strategies? Same deal like you minimize the amount of clothes that you bring and it ends up being the clothes that you have in camp and the clothes that you have on the trail and sometimes those are the same thing I had dual purpose for the socks you know the nasty pair that I didn't want to put on my feet anymore I would wear underneath my shoulder straps on my backpack because I was starting to get some pretty brutal abrasions Liz used duct tape for that and duct tape all over our bodies it's great for blisters of all kinds and something you can wrap around your trekking pole that's another gear tip that way you have it yeah there's some trekking poles with the duct tape and it's black on that note I had thought I was fine hiking without trekking poles but was really glad I brought them especially for descents you have like two extra legs that can help stabilize you cool I can't like reinforce that enough we started off I think with one pair and it was clear we needed that let's take your question then we're going to go to a couple good ones online as well I think you guys use cell phones on the trail I've noticed in the green mountains you have service just about everywhere and then both of them between the two of us we tried to keep one on I think we weren't on it that much and didn't really have to recharge it kept it on airplane mode there are some dead zones that are pretty lengthy maybe a day or two but wasn't relying on that for intel or communication unless we knew we were getting to a road where we needed to talk to our people we used them for photos too that doesn't take much battery or service you often won't find service except on the high points and when you're deep in the wilderness you won't find service because we were going to be met at road crossings we could often find a place the day before to contact people we did run down the battery on the phone the first time halfway through somebody brought us a fresh one and then the second time I got one of these they were all super battery that you can recharge with and that worked fine it's just a little bit extra weight so we brought just a little flip phone yeah we have this right here wow it still exists it's wonderful 35 bucks at CBS right now, bye y'all we mainly used it for like if we figured something out that we wanted to fly while we were on the trail we would use it to contact my mom that thing for us we also had it for emergencies obviously luckily we didn't have to use it zero but I think it's definitely great to have we didn't take any pictures well like in the forest which I kind of forgot a little bit if you have the ability to take photos it's definitely a good idea I really like not having like the smart phone with us the lack of electronics was one of the beauties of being out there there were some AT hikers who spent a lot of time on their phones in the shelters and that was kind of a turn off to me because it's just like a wonderful time to spend to meet people and talk so I was really psyched with this solution the battery lasted a full week no problem we texted what we needed but that was it we kept it off most of the time because we didn't want to have access to the time because that was a real mental health burden if we knew what time it was so yeah I think we checked the weather a couple times because we were trapped on top of a mountain in the thunderstorm and we wanted to see the way it was if it was going to pass and that's good stuff to know if it's going to storm or what you're looking at yeah we were definitely milking other people for information about them we were taking advantage of theirs so if you're doing it by yourself and plan to have a solitary hike it might be good to have a backup charge great so a quick question from the internet this comes from Ms. Fizzle for the ladies I had a friend suggest not bringing a tent but I'm worried about A, lean twos being full and or B, sketchy people at the camp and wanting the flexibility to sleep on my own thoughts we approached one shelter that we didn't want to stay in it looked like someone had been there maybe living there there was trash that we didn't want we weren't able to pack out and we thought was not sitting right with us and you know that's something we were pretty aware of luckily having two minds on it was good it probably would have made me really nervous if I wasn't able to say to Liz this is a good idea not am I being crazy am I being not crazy enough and I don't think we ever really got close to being in a shelter that was full there's definitely more people in the AT section but it's just kind of nice to have your tent as personal space we did get matching pepper sprays on the Amazon before we went so I would highly recommend that I just brought a little bit extra peace of mind because there are times when it's not ideal I felt very safe in general but I think part of it came from having the tent so when folks hear the AT section of the long trail are we all on the same page whereas the southern 100 miles when the AT it's a long long trail and then departs first so yes hi I'm Kate I have two questions one for everyone did you do north bound or south bound and if you were doing that did you catch wind of A and L being like oh the other way is awesome sucks and then my second question is also again for the ladies because I just really want to know I feel like some of us might want to know I've never been hiking for so many days when it's my time of the month so I want to know what you did with that how you trashed it how you did it or if you use a different method alright so let's do a quick nobo sobo so north bound and south bound raise your hands who went north bound okay did you did you hear from anyone that south bound was better or north bound was better or anything any opinions out there on the trail for us it was like the southern part of the state is intermediate difficulty the northern part of the state is advanced and we needed to start on the easier side nice yeah and you also have access to the AT hikers I think it's really good to pick up wisdom and advice from them because they have been doing it for a long time and have a lot of experience and I think that definitely helped us to know what we needed on the trail for us I think it worked out really nicely going north bound because we went straight through to route 2 because we both live here and then we slowed down because we were like we're going too fast and it was cool to be able to slow down in the north and also really helpful because it is harder but we really want to really enjoy being here for the last 10 years I like going north for the same reasons the more rugged mountains are in the north which are more enjoyable for me so that was such a pleasure having that and if you went south you would be cruising in the southern third of the hike and I would love to try going south as well we heard a lot of comments that when we hit Mansfield and beyond it was going to be much, much harder and we didn't really feel that was true but that time we were harder ourselves we did slow down some but we were really focused on getting to Canada and you sort of get an adrenaline rush when you realize you're 5 days out you're not going to stop but next time we're going to go in the other direction just to do it differently when's next time this fall for number 3 so Liz and Monica do you want to take away with the feminine needs my time of the month timed itself perfectly to not really affect me but we were prepared and I wouldn't have felt good about doing anything besides packing it in and packing it out just having a separate plastic bag and not leaving a trace I think yeah I mean for me I would well I relied on Toms and Alka Seltzer as it was and she relied on Aberprofen and I would probably need some more of those things if that had been a factor too I have a surprise on the trail but I mean obviously you're prepared and a separate little plastic bag and I'm a big fan of locator free tampons in the first place so that wasn't a big switch but if you're comfortable with those I would suggest it because then you just have all that more minimal waste but I and swimming wise hygiene I feel like you know you don't want to take a bath in the water source but you could definitely bring a bandana and get it wet and clean yourself up a little bit contaminated with water Dr. Bronner or the cancer another chance your body will react differently to be on the trail too yeah I think my fat content went down so I was I felt different, my body felt different in a lot of ways thanks for that question let's take some more from that and then we'll go to Bronner how much time did you plan on for your trip and were you able to stick to your time plan? let's start over here with that I think we might have planned 28 days and did it in 27 yeah but we did it basically on plan I think we were going to end even earlier but then we had to take a day and a half off you know it doesn't feel like that because because it's never 10 miles or like very rarely is it 10 miles it's those like 4 mile days when you're going into town or headed out of town and then like the 14 or 15 or 16 mile days like it's not an average it's highly very good we had a pretty cautious estimate of the 28 days and we did it in 22 of the actual hiking we did it in 27 the first time and actually felt that we probably could have done more because the rain was slowing us down the second time we did it in 25 and that was pretty much what we had planned for which means how much food we had it's all about although in the last hike we actually were pretty thin the last day we had two cookies and two crackers to go 13 miles we found half eaten cliff bar on the trail and we didn't pass it by nice I wouldn't leave it alright I have a key part but they're very closely related peak food craving and best trail snack favorite trail snack peak food craving and best trail snack you really like that cliff bar but you don't crave cliff bar and stuff I want you to start us off oh yeah it's absolutely I dream of pizza every night and I want something salty and greasy so actually my trail snack I can't carry pizza was planting chips they're a lot sturdier than potato chips just a little bit salty they really hit the spot easy on your tummy I got really sick of planting chips we both well maybe one of us said it and then it got in the other one's head but we both really wanted salty and like olives and pickles I always think of watermelon yeah ice cream is like great we opportunize one best snack for sure is peanut m&m's and Monica taught me this one because they don't melt 100 degrees in July you can see the m&m's are good to go all the time and they're delicious and the funniest peak craving for sure was we were having that birthday dinner at Coralus and Monica's dad was the next free supply and like dinner's being made and she's actively texting him like wait we need like olives and it was like a ridiculous and blueberries, beer so he showed up with like these four containers of canned dolmas and then a jar of olives and then a plastic wrap pack of olives and we had like 20 miles to go and we'd been trying to go pretty light and Monica's like we're carrying these we're not carrying these it was this total roll reversal because I was usually the overpacker and she's like there's no way we can't bring the presents they're full of water but they were so good it was a really special place in my heart for dolmas so my craving was a burger like a nice juicy burger that's what I thought about for like half the time honestly on the trail like three hours today I would just be like and that's why I got over eight but the best trail food like this beef strip it was like beef jerky type thing and this strip and it was really great and that a typo on the packaging because that's what I had to do all day you know I had to show myself somehow cause I combed through every single ingredient so I was like proud of that maybe two pounds it was a 100 gram sausage that supposedly had two kilograms of potassium is that lethal I mean it's got to be I also wanted really fatty meat and like bud said it was like fantasizing about food is how you passed a lot of the time peak snack was we had a thing of peanut butter it was on a day where we thought we were going to stay in a shelter we got there and it was full of Boy Scouts that full of Boy Scouts it was maybe an hour before sundown and there was Skyline Lodge two miles away so we're like okay we'll just press on and it turned out it was during a time of the year when there'd been a really bad windstorm and so there were a ton of blowdowns on those two miles and it was like raining and wind and we thought blowdowns were going to end up on top of us so it was it was probably the one time on the trail where I felt like I'm like criminally negligent for bringing my son in this situation because I was worried I was scared we eventually got to the spur trail some service or somebody had cut through the blowdowns on the spur trails and that was awesome we got there we were both like more than me approaching hypothermia because he has no body fat he stripped down went inside and the first snack that we had was some baking M&M's those were the tiny ones and we just poured them onto the peanut butter and ate it with a spoon that was the peak snacking experience awesome final three questions so I just hi I'm Hannah and I wanted to ask what you guys did for training for the trail and if that was sufficient and how long did it take you to get your trail like so we had a whole regiment of hiking that we were going to do we were going to do like two miles and three miles and four miles and five miles we never did it we did like three hikes I wish we had done it the first four days I think were when we didn't have our trail legs and those were probably the hardest but day four at the end the last four miles of day four were like amazing that was the first time we discovered that stories make the miles go back so fast and I felt like we just started when we reached the shelter and we also met some really nice AT hikers and that's kind of when we got into our stride and started being able to do higher mileage and you know got everything started going better from that on because the first couple days were rough yeah like you become a long distance hiker and it's just a question of how long that's going to take and if we train more it might not have been four days it would have been less painful but man it felt good after those four days that transition felt miraculous was Monica any training any training regimens hiking when we could from Memorial Day to July 1st I like riding my bike going on runs and stuff so I was just doing all that stuff before I mean you can do it if you're going for like speed or miles you might need to prepare a bit more but no matter what we can all put one foot in front of the other and carry stuff on our back I'm just remembering that my roommate thought it would be a good idea for me for training to put a 50 pound bag of cement in my bag and hike up to the Duxbury window she was like you're ready to go but you just need to practice carrying a bag so I did it but I fell over and I couldn't get up 50 pounds a lot and it was really small because cement is really dense and I saw these people it's like this little nice hike here in Vermont and I'm like and they're like are you going to make it to the window 1.8 miles from here I don't know don't train that way it's not necessary I mean no matter what you're going to have hurt from carrying the weight so I don't know if you're going to be able to train your way out of that but something else will always hurt more that's coming it's nice if it's not your feet Alan you started hiking when you were 60 what sort of training brought you to the long trail we were hiking about once a week so actually our likes were in pretty good shape but there was quite a difference between putting on the heavy pack as compared with the day pack it's a whole lot harder to get on the hills we did only have one night of backpacking experience and that is a big learning curve once you start out on your end to end hike I have replaced all the gear pretty much that I bought the first time around because it didn't work for me and that includes all the recommendations I got from people the gear thing is very individual speaking of training, a quick shout out to Ryan who I met on trail last week with a bag full of water training for his in and south there are many ways to do the training dump it out before you dump it out it's very nice to offer me some as well excellent I want to hit on one thing I'm seeing a lot in our online questions real quick and that is the topic of travel arrangements real quick I'd love to pull the panel and see how you transported to or from the northern or southern terminus and then I want to potentially add some thoughts as well for our online viewers who are mostly out of state potentially coming far away so let's start down there how did you transport to and from the far ends? my wife Olive is sitting in back dropped us off in Williamstown we got a later start because it was like yeah my pack's whatever 60 pounds and his was 45 so it was like oh god we got to get rid of more weight and so that made us late so we didn't start hiking until 4.30 that day you know that was wrong my dad picked us up at the end he was crazy driving with him to Waterbury to drop somebody off and it's like just the compression of time and space after you've been on the trail why do cars get to go so fast? friends and family for us but if people are coming from out of state I think Vermont's a pretty decent place to hitchhike and there's some awesome trail angel resources as well as GMC resources I mean you can call me and I'll come pick you up at the end if you want to call Monica you heard it here yeah we had family take us down to start and pick us up so that's not very helpful but I know that I believe that in the guide there's a list of trail angels and my understanding is that they will help you out yeah anyone who is looking for rides can contact us here at three mountain club headquarters we'd keep a list of volunteer shuttle drivers and trail angels that will they all have their own personal rates that they will charge and a lot of those folks what they do with that money is they donate it back to the club at the end of the year you're donating to the club and the trail so you're doing it through your driver so that's another option as well rather than through hikers too so when we had support we would take people into town help them resupply drop them off at a different location if they were back a few miles or something so there's a good chance you'll meet people on the trail in the spirit of it people who are in for the weekend not at the beginning at the end but for resupply we have time for just one more audience question then we'll break off into our small groups yes right sorry I've taken so many how did you guys deal with ticks out there ticks I'm a rather furry individual and I'm relatively afraid afraid of ticks as you should be ticks are very very relevant everything on a big problem ticks? ticks are always on your mind but they're really hard to see you are advised to do a tick check every night but I'll tell you you're so tired and it's often dark that it's difficult we we did find one tick on Morgan once on the trail you know people wear low gators in the summer I think that's probably helpful we actually gave up on bug repellent but my understanding is that you can treat your clothing with things that you wouldn't want to put on your body like deep that are helpful ticks were one of my number one fears for sure and I did a lot of research into permethrin treatment before and you know I just feel like it's becoming more and more of an issue each year most people lime cases popping up and people finding ticks on them their dogs and whatever their friends so we treated I bought like a gallon or something or like a quart of permethrin diluted it to the proper concentration and soaked our socks, shorts tent I think I did one of my shirts an outer layer maybe really like all our soft goods yeah so things that we're going to be at places where ticks could come in that's a treatment that bonds chemically to the fabric they use it on baby blankets it's safe as long as it dries in the shade and completely dries it's good for 10 washes even there's a bunch of much more you can read about it but that made me at least have some peace of mind that ticks were deterred from our tent were deterred from calling up past my sock it's probably not perfect but the shorts too that's an area that they want to go so what's it called? permethrin and it needs to be diluted to like half a percent or something so definitely do your research on YouTube but I went to a farm and garden store to get the bulk that I needed I was going to do the backpack too but it didn't fit in the tub that I was using you can also get spray on permethrin treatments or clothing by certain brands that has it in there and there's probably people that look down upon it as well but to me ticks are worse we used the spray on on our shoes and on our gators and that was it we were most concerned about picking up ticks from our dog because he was sharing the same sleeping space and we just got lucky that we were super fortunate not to end up with a single tick even saw one it might have been the time of year but we definitely got lucky and I would still advise to use permethrin and other measures to make sure that you do not pick up ticks we didn't have seen that many either for the record but we also carried a tick spoon which is a good way to get ticks off so as lightweight I think it's worth it so thank you all so much we're going to take the next almost 15 minutes now and we're going to have our panel can I say one more thing I work for the health department but that's not why I'm giving this advice so the health department piece is that Lyme disease has higher prevalence in southern Vermont than it does in northern Vermont it's a good thing to keep in mind Lyme disease is not the only disease you need to be concerned about and the counts of anaplasmosis are starting to approach those of Lyme disease I was really concerned about us getting a tick bite and so we talked to our respective physicians ahead of time and we got a prophylactic amount of the antibiotic that they prescribe and so if you meet certain conditions which are that you think the tick has been attached for a certain amount of time then it's indicated to take this prophylactic antibiotic it's only four Lyme disease but that gave us a little peace of mind that both of us had a few doses each in case we got a tick bite where we thought that the tick might have been attached for 12 hours or whatever the conditions are excellent excellent advice thank you alright so we're going to have our panelists now split up into different areas of the room feel free to don't mob them please or go straight into their backpacks without asking for permission but this is going to be a free question and answer time off the camera online folks I'm going to jump on the computer for the next 10 minutes and try and answer any questions we did not answer here with our panelists so let's do that and then when it's nine o'clock I'll call everyone back together for a quick wrap up thank you