Thru-hiking, or through-hiking, is hiking a long-distance trail end-to-end within one hiking season. In United States, the term is most commonly associated with the Appalachian Trail (AT), the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), but also refers to other end-to-end hikes such as the Colorado Trail (CT). ****That was just the official for the record (stolen from Wiki-Pedia part) I think it is human nature to assume that we have what it takes to accomplish anything. For instance, if we get it in our head that we can be a master Wedding Cake Baker, it is not until we actually set out to do it that we realize that we should stick to baking cookies from the tube. Better yet, from the personal “Hugi has done this Archives” we tell ourselves that we are ready to earn the Mile Swim merit badge in Boy Scouts only to make it ¼ mile and have to be dragged into a rowboat with your head hanging low in defeat. The same can be said of donning a 40-pound pack and sludging through wet, dark and bug infested (mosquito, tick and slug) forest in Northern WI for miles and miles. I knew I could do it. I had the perfect pack, I am in perfect shape, and I have the perfect partner, let’s do this.
HAHAHAHA – This shit is hard! This shit is not all fun! This shit hurts!
My most used phrase for the weekend: “Tell me again why we are doing this”
My human nature told me I was ready to conquer this and I would be successful but then reality told me I am a 43 year old, fat dude that definitely needs to come to terms with who I really am. Why didn’t anyone tell me that I don’t look like one of those Marky Mark – Calvin Klein underwear models, or that I am not Grizzly Adams nor Crocodile Dundee? ---WTF people, a little help here!
The Shake Down The plan was to pack all our gear in our packs and hit the trail for 5 days and 4 nights. We wanted to cover 65 miles; the last 50 were completely isolated with no services and no peoples. If we could do this we could do most any hike, after all a long distance “Thru-Hike” is just several back-to-back 5-day hikes. We have been working to perfect our gear for 2 years and have just about everything totally dialed in, but we have never really used all of it for long periods of time all at the same time (no worries – how hard can it be). We spent several hours on Thursday shopping for the food we needed, organizing everything, stuffing and weighing our packs. The logistics were all worked out (Thanks to my awesome wife, Frankie). We knew what, when, where and how we were doing.
Now – go do it. Location – Ice Age Trail (IAT) – Long distance trail through the state of Wisconsin – 1192 Total Miles from St. Croix Falls down through Janesville and back up to Door County. It follows the edge of the last Glacier as it melted its way up across our state. We have already hiked about 400 miles of the trail over the last 2 years as we tested and tried out gear. Our goal is to “Section Hike” it (Complete a Long-Distance trail in section over 7 years)
Friday 5/26/17 – On Top Of The World – We left St. Croix Falls, WI at 8:00ish and had 16 miles to go. First part of the trail is very easy, follows an old Rail Road so it is flat and straight. We did good – we covered the 16.9 actual miles in just over 9 hours. We stopped for a few 15-minute breaks, an hour lunch break with a nap in the park, and 45 minutes at the end to support the local tavern before finally getting to our camping spot for the night. The wonderful people at Café Wren in Luck, WI (http://www.thecafewren.com/) are very hiker/biker friendly and let people camp on their property and use facilities as needed. Great people, great food, great everything. Body is a little sore, but camp went up good, dinner was good (Trail Mac & Cheese with Tuna made in our Jet Boil) (Jet Boils are cool little pots for lightweight backpacking), we did our chores filled our water for the next day and went to bed.
Saturday 5/27/17 - Wait, This Was Not In the Brochure - We were told that the staff of the Café came in at 6:00 to get started for the day, and we wanted to be up and going by then. Therefore, like good guests, we set the alarm for 5:15 and got up. As we all know, when we are camping, mother nature calls and mother nature must provide. Since we are camping at a nice place like the Café Wren, we did not want to have to do this around anyone, and thought it best to do any early morning “stretching” before anyone came in for the day. As luck would have it, I am up with the sun, and closely examining the bark on a tree in the yard and would you know it, here comes the first of the staff, a nice young lass with her hair all red and purple, walking up behind me - in mid-stream nonetheless. What do you do, wave, smile and say “Good Morning, can I have a coffee and a roll with that” - Breakfast was good – even if I did have to order it from my new, VERY close and personal, purple haired friend. We are packed up and ready to go, we have 12ish miles to go to get to our campsite. But before any of you get the wrong idea, this is not a normal campsite that you would see in a Camping World commercial; tonight’s site is a DCA (Dispersed Camping Area). Simply a small spot in the middle of National Forest that they have allowed people to pitch a tent on. Not cleared, no fire ring or fires allowed, no picnic tables, no bathrooms, just a spot of earth with enough room to pitch a tent. Todays miles are much more difficult, no more rail bed, we are now walking a single 18inch patch cut through the middle of the forest. Up and down hills and valleys, through ankle deep mud, over roots and fallen trees, I am not sure about other trails yet, but on the Ice Age the trail is broken up into sections, and given a name/number and difficulty rating. Friday’s segment was named the Gandy Dancer, slang for a railroad worker, and it was rated a 1/1 first number being incline and second being difficulty. Today we have several small segments to do and they range from finishing the Gandy at a 1/1 to a 3/2.
The Break Down
This is where I started to lose it.
I started the day with new blisters on the balls of both feet, just below the big toe. New socks that had not stretched yet. Fixed by a little duct tape – works great on blisters. There are so many cool little tricks and tips when it comes to doing hikes like this. Never thought I would wear toe socks, but a pair of small toe socks under a pair of thick wool socks almost eliminates blisters
Next, I realized that I have a big ass, well not really, but no Marky Mark. When you have 40 pounds hanging off your back, if it is not up high enough, or if you have a bubble butt (like me, apparently), every time you take a long stride, the pack hits your upper butt cheek and you end up lifting the whole 40 pounds with a cheek – both cheeks, every step! Gets a little sore after a while. So you end up hoisting everything up and cinching down the shoulder straps, and now you have a new problem, The pack weight is not meant to be on your shoulders but on your hips, and now the back and neck are in huge pain.
Not to sound like a whiny bitch, but one last problem for me. I have a Pacemaker, defibrillator, so I have a lump in my chest and it is just below my left shoulder – right where my pack strap sits. So because of this, my strap has to sit just perfectly.
So my butt hurts cuz my pack sits too low, my hips hurt cuz I am tightening the belt so tight to keep it off the butt, my shoulders hurt cuz I am over tightening the shoulders straps to keep it off my hips, my back hurts cuz I am pulling the shoulder straps too tight, my chest hurts cuz I over tighten the chest strap to take pressure off the back and all of this causes a wound to form at the Pacemaker site. “Tell me again why we are doing this” - I have not even started to talk about dripping in sweat, physical exhaustion from lugging 40 pounds up and down mountains, my left knee hurting going down every hill, dehydration because the water source (which we have to filter before we can drink) is miles away, wet shoes, and sweaty crotches – “Tell me again why we are doing this”
The last mile I carried my pack over my head because I could not take it on my back any more, and I thought it more civilized then dragging it on the ground like I really wanted to, but we did make it to the DCA – I setup camp while Frankie made dinner, a Ramen Bomb with Chicken. (Ya take a pack of Ramen Noodles, when done, add a whole pack of Idahoan Instant Mashed potatoes, when done, add a bag of chicken (like tuna but not tuna)) Don’t knock it till ya’ll tried it, kinda becomes a guilty little pleasure.
***A perk of hiking is that you burn insane amounts of calories, and have to eat as much as you possibly can to keep energy up. Sounds great, until you realize that you have to carry all the food. Real easy to eat 6000 calories a day when there is a Burger King down the street, but when you only have 1.75 pounds of weight for each days food, it becomes a little harder. Food choices must meet all these criteria: Calorie dense - Light Weight – Cheap – Won’t Spoil – No cook or Just add water (no micros out here) – Oh and it helps if it does not attract bears. I know you are jealous, but a hiker staple are Snickers Bars. When we are hiking, we buy them by the case. Great calories/weight ratio and they really fill you up and give you energy.
We were in bed early and up early – but there are a few things to note that helped add to my Break Down.
First of all, all hikers carry a second pair of shoes. Camp shoes, or water shoes. These are used for walking across rivers or streams when you don’t want to get your regular boots wet (not that they are ever dry anyway) and also to wear around camp at night to get your feet out of the boots you have had on all day. Also helps to have something to get out of the tent with in the middle of the night without having to deal with boots – we keep them right outside the tent door for easy access.
Well, 3AM rolled around and Mother Nature came knocking for me. In my slumbered state (and partly cuz I was warm and lazy) I recalled an article I read about how great it is for a dude to pee in the middle of the night cuz he can just roll over and hang it out the tent and do his thing. Yep now, my camp shoes smell like pee. Not just normal pee, the pee that really stinks cuz you have been sweating all day and are a little dehydrated. I PEED IN MY DAMN SHOES!!! At least they were not my boots or hat.
Second, SLUGS – The gross little oversized balls of snot that attach to everything. Apparently, they like sweat. We woke up to them all over the outside of the tent, on our shoes, on our packs, on my hat – Usually when you wake up with slugs in your bed and piss all over your shoes on a Sunday Morning, you have a Bloody Mary and a much better story to tell, we have neither – “tell me again why we are doing this”
Sunday 5/28/17 – When It Rains, It Pours – Did you know that it ALWAYS rains on Memorial Day weekend in Wisconsin? I think I had heard that along the way at some point in my life, but this day, my wife reminded me. If I was not paying enough attention to head her warning, God himself sent a marching band to usher the message.
We woke up nice and early and wanted to get an early start, we thought that with all the pain I was suffering, it would be best to leave lots of time to allow for breaks and let my body rest. We removed all the ticks and slugs from our gear, strapped my piss shoes to the outside and loaded up our packs and started walking. Remember what I said about the difficulty rating for the segments - To days planned activities, included some 3/2’s and 4/2’s.
Today was a tough one. It started out very hot with difficult climbs. Everything in the beginning was in heavily forested areas and the mosquito's were bad. If you stopped for even a minute to catch your breath, they swarmed your eyes and face, we pushed on – we made it to a section of prairie grass about a mile long (the section, not the grass) – when we start trudging through we are greeted with hundreds of ticks. Every few minutes we have to stop, bend over with 40 pounds on our backs and brush them off. Not that it is bad enough to have to deal with this, but having to do it with a pack on is tough. Everything comes loose; all the straps pull and move. Your pants start to slide down, and the crotch, filled with 15 pounds of sweat begins to dangle between the knees. Can you visualize the pretty picture? A 43 year old, over weight white boy, with a giant pack on his back, in the middle of a field with his pants slipping down his ass, so drenched in sweat that it is dripping from the bill of his black Packers Hat in a constant stream, (causing Frankie to give me a new trail name – “Sir Drips-A-Lot”) all the while kicking, swatting, dancing from one leg to the other and contorting myself so I can see the back of my legs. And who said white boys can’t dance…..
We made it through the field from hell and just as we are about to start the toughest of the sections at a 4/3 we hear the thunder. It is about 3:00 and we have to check the weather on the Satellite communicator because they have not discovered cell phones in Northern Wisconsin yet. The device says there is a 10% chance of rain, but the big black clouds and rumbling thunder says different. Frankie says, “I am gonna put my rain coat and pack cover on just in case” Because I have no energy left to think for myself, I follow suit. It was not 15 seconds after the last zipper was up, that we saw Noah and his Arc go sailing down the trail.
And just like that we were soaked from head to foot. You would think that the rain jacket would keep the rain out? Well it does, but what happens if you are already drenched in sweat and bug spray and soaking before you put it on. Picture putting peanut butter inside a Ziploc baggy and mushing it around… That is what is going on under all this masculine hotness…. GRRRR Baby GRRRR.
The nice thing about the rain is that it changed our focus and we (I) were no longer consumed with the pain and fatigue, our attention shifted to moving as fast as we could through the Amazon jungle before us to our next water source. We had to make it at least 2.5 more miles to the next stream that we could filter water out of and once there, we had to find a campsite because we were in an area of wilderness that does not allow any camping however; it is kinda an unwritten rule that stealth camping is allowed if you are not caught. When we made it to our stream the rain had let up a little so we walked a little past and scurried up into the brush on the side of the trail to look for a flat spot, giving up on a dry one. We pitched the tent, threw everything into it and crawled in just as the rain and hail start all over again.
I think the logistics of a thru-hike are as hard as the hike themselves – You can’t carry everything with you all the time. Food and water are heavy. Food weighs about 1.75 pounds per day on average and water is 2.2 pounds per liter. Typically, we carry 5 days of food per person and 3-4 liters of water at a time. Trying to gauge how much water you need to have between reliable water sources is a challenge. When it is hot and you spend all your energy doing the “tick dance” in the fields, you tend to drink more water and come up short at the end, today was no exception. We are laying in our tent at 5PM waiting for the rain to stop so we can come out of hiding and go back down to the creek and filter about 8 liters of water to cook dinner with, drink for the night and last until the next source tomorrow.
Finally everything is done, we decide to not even cook dinner, we have a Snickers and crawl into bed. We are both asleep before 7:30. I slept better this night than any other, not because of the comfort or ambiance, but because of sheer exhaustion. A couple of times I woke to sounds of snapping sticks or branches; you know the ones that are only caused by a bear being right outside the tent, but I would open my eyes and then quickly close them again – I was at the point where even if I was just about to get eaten by an imaginary bear, sleep was far more important.
Monday 5/29/17 – And Then The Bough Breaks – Frankie and I decided to get up nice and early – Satellite thingy in all its reliability, said that we were supposed to have sunshine from 6AM to 8AM, our goal was to get up and get the tent put away before the rain started to keep at least one thing we own dry. Success, we are up and packed up before Noah returns with his rain, but we have to put on only undies and our rain gear cuz everything else is totally wet, we put our shoes on and they slosh as our foot pops in. So now on top of the already heavy pack, we have to pack up all of our wet clothes and put them on our back, think how much clothes weigh when they come out of the washer – more weight on our back! But..… I pick up my pack and sling it over my shoulder getting ready for another 8-hour rainy, muddy day. Strap everything up, Cinch it all down and start walking, it was not long before the pain returned. We had 2.5 miles to go until the next intersection with a road and my mood was fading fast.
I am certain that I let the Chris out that I never let the world see. I was grumpy, tired, sore and moody. I was done, did not care anymore, just wanted to get off the fucking trail, get this damn thing off my back, wanted to be warm, dry and full. Wanted to sleep in my bed and these were the only thoughts in my head. Because of this, all the pains were more painful, aches were more achy and bitches more bitchy. One mile into the day and I had made the declaration that I hate hiking and it is just not for me. I had given it two years and tried everything I had, but it just wasn’t my thing. I love being outside, love the camping, love the “mountaineering” but the lugging of shit up and down the mountain was just not enjoyable. We made the decision, to make it the next 1.5 miles and call a trail angel for a ride (a volunteer that donates their time to maintaining trails and assisting hikers).
Well we tried to call but remember they still use smoke signals in the north woods so we had to communicate via satellite and this was our first time with this, and our angel was not used to it either. He thought we were in trouble and needed emergency assistance so he dropped everything and raced to find us. Long story short, Dean did find us and we did get to sit on a nice comfy Chrysler minivan seat.
I had declared to the world (well Frankie, about 50 mosquitos and now Dean) that hiking was just not my thing and I was hanging up the pack for good. I wanted to day hike but no more 40 pounds. With this new found freedom, Frankie and I did the smartest thing we knew to do, found a bar with cold beer, the best cheese curds in Wisconsin and a burger that drips down your arms. It was Monday at 1:00 so the bar was not playing much on the TV, and as we sat and pondered our next move while keeping tabs on the sub-titles to ‘The 40-Year Old Virgin’ we decided that the only way to wash the ketchup and bug spray off the underside of our arms was to find a hotel with a nice whirlpool to wash away the weekend.
The Build Up It was in this tub (another great visual – hahaha, lucky you) that I realized that hiking had not beat me for good. Just for that day, in a yucky, wet Wisconsin Forest. My pack that did not fit right after a Pacemaker surgery had beat me, this could be overcome, This particular situation beat me down, but with the love of my partner and some tweaks here and there, we will hike again, we will be on the Colorado Trail (CT) on July 17 for our first through hike, we will give it our all and we will successfully complete the 492 miles from Denver to Durango. We will see the beauty of Colorado from the deep, high, backcountry like few will ever do. It may take us 60 days, but we will do it.
We set out on this hike to do a “shake-down” or test of all our gear and learn some things about our routines and things we need to be aware of for our future treks. I was able to exchange my pack for a lighter one that fits better, which is cool, but not once in all of my planning or thoughts did I ever think that the biggest piece of gear that I would have to tweak would be ME. (well that and – not peeing in my shoes).
