Wondering where you might be able to hike in the mountains this weekend?
Nowhere. At least not in North Carolina and southwestern Virginia. For one, you’d be hard-pressed to find a trail that’s passable. More on that in a sec.
The main reason you shouldn’t hike in the mountains this weekend: You’ll only be in the way.
This past weekend GetBackpacking! set an SKT — Slowest Known Time. In this case, the Slowest Known Time for a lunch break on a backpacking trip.
* * *
Before we set out Saturday morning from our campsite at Yellow Mountain Gap on the Appalachian Trail, I outlined the morning plan. “We’ve got a long climb — 900 vertical feet in 1.7 miles — up to Little Hump Mountain. We’ll take a break there. Then head on to Hump Mountain for lunch.”
I used to tell my Intro to Backpacking students that to get the most out of backpacking, to become proficient and competent, you need to take three trips a year. Not necessarily big trips, though one should be at least four days. And a quick overnight just to get away is fine, too. Go any fewer than three times and backpacking could become more of an ordeal: even with a packing list, packing can take twice as long as you fret over each item wondering when you last used it and whether it’s still in good shape. There’s more pressure on trip planning: you only backpack once a year, it better be a good one. And what if the weather goes south? Is that it for the year.
Now’s typically the time we start thinking about goals for the year ahead. We all do it. By and large, it’s a good thing. By and large, because sometimes we get locked into a particular way of thinking, a way that doesn’t always reflect our true wishes and dreams.
This morning I awoke to a temperature of 63 degrees. I couldn’t remember that last time it wasn’t in the mid-70s when I got up — weeks, at least — let alone in the low 60s.
It was a sign, a sign I always look forward to come August: that fall is on the way.
