Welcome

Hello

The family and I  have been getting into hiking, and as an extension, backpacking (well, Candie, Ryan and I - Riley still needs some "encouragement").  We decided to chronicle where we go and anything noteworthy about our experiences.  We're doing this primarily to help us remember the places and what we see, but also to let any and all who care, see what we're up to.  We're pretty far from our immediate families - and we anticipate being absent from our friends in the area on a lot of weekends and occasional longer trips, so this will be our way of sharing.

Anyone who knows me, knows that when I get really interested in something, I don't just dip a toe, so to speak.  I dive right in.  One example of this behavior would be my obsession with music.  In the past 7 or 8 years I went from playing a little acoustic guitar for myself, to teaching a number of students to play the guitar (or to play it better), to acquiring an entire studio full of production and live equipment, to starting a band (Cooper's Kennel) and playing out at clubs and parties on a pretty regular basis.  We even put out some original music on iTunes, and are working on more.



Game face



Candie is very patient and encouraging with all of this, and most of our friends just smile and shake their heads.

I watched a movie about 6 months ago, called Southbounders.  It's a story about some people who hike the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia (which is a little unusual - most people go the other direction, but I digress).  I was amazed that I didn't know about this trail.  Sure, I'd heard of it, but I didn't know any of the details.  I told Candie and the kids about it.  They too were unaware that there was a continuous trail that goes from Springer Mountain in Georgia, all the way to Mount Katahdin in Maine.  That's almost 2200 miles of marked trail.  Anyway, it was interesting to us.  We've always enjoyed car camping.  We even went so far as to buy some kayaks and started using those to transport our gear to different camps on different lakes.  But, for the most part, the Appalachian Trail was forgotten.

A couple of months later, I got sick.  It was pretty bad and I was out of commission for a week.  I was miserable and used streaming video through Netflix to fill my fevered waking hours.  One of the movies that caught my delirious eye was the National Geographic special on the Appalachian Trail.  I watched it.  Then I asked Candie to watch it.  Then I asked Ryan and Riley to watch it.  Then I think I might have watched it once or twice more on my own.

Since then, I've been hooked on the idea of this trip some day.  I started doing A LOT of research on all things backpacking.  I spent hours listening to podcasts about ultralight and practical backpacking while driving for work.  I read countless articles and joined a half a dozen online forums about the Appalachian Trail (the "AT"), hiking and backpacking.  I learned about gear, tying knots, first aid and renowned backpacker's stories.  I wrote to people who had completed the AT and asked them questions about their trek.  I read a half  dozen books on the subject.  I started acquiring the gear I would need based on this research.  I bought (and patiently waited for) gear from all over the country.  Big companies and cottage businesses have sent me packages - that I pounced on when I found them on my doorstep after coming home from work.  I became sort of a creepy lurker at Eastern Mountain Sports in Syracuse.  I'm a gear nerd, so I intend to post here and there about what we own and what we think about it.

It dawned on me that we have, in our own "backyard", some really amazing trails and peaks.  The Adirondacks are covered with them. It took absolutely zero convincing of Candie and Ryan to start planning trips to get out, backpack and explore.  Like I said at the beginning, Riley needs encouragement in this area, but we're convinced that as she gets used to it, she'll enjoy being out there as much as we already do. 



You should be here


So after a few months of research and ordering gear, I finally had 95% of what I needed to backpack in 3 of the 4 seasons on the AT, or in the Adirondack mountains.  I have so much theoretical knowledge, but not much that is practical.  The family and I have been going out for day hikes locally, but hadn't taken the overnight plunge.  It became unbearable - and May in Northern New York brings on some serious Spring Fever - so on a Saturday, after one of Riley's T Ball games - we drove the 50 minutes to EMS and outfitted Candie, Ryan and Riley with all of the essentials.  I won't say how much all of our newly acquired, lightweight, top of the line gear cost us, but I will say a week in Hawaii with the family would have been less.

3 months for me to outfit, 90 minutes for the rest of the family...and we were off that very afternoon onto our first overnight backpacking trip.



Our packs