kelly alice

SUNSHINE AND BALLS

In a bit of a hurry but I have finally left the Shenandoah’s and made it to Front Royal! The Shenandoah’s were beautiful, saw nine bears, about twenty deer, and more tourists than I can count. We saw some people rock climbing the other day, they were very impressed we have hiked about 950 miles but we were just as impressed with them, scaling 100 foot cliffs. They invited us to join and naturally we said yes! Rock climbing in the Shenandoah’s is definitely an experience I will never forget. Here are some pictures of Maineiac and I!

Last night I met Sunshine and Balls, a father-daughter duo who are thru-hiking the AT and hiked the Pacific Crest Trail last year. What is even more amazing is that Sunshine is TWELVE years old! I hiked with them for about ten miles this morning and she is incredible. They’re doing a twenty-eight mile day. She never complains and is extremely mature and knowledgeable for her age. Definitely a ray of “sunshine” on this rainy day. Here is their blog.

NOTES FROM A DIETETICS MAJOR

Although I try to keep the trail and school as far apart from eachother as possible, I can’t help but admit that food and nutrition comes up A LOT!

Disclaimer: Before reading any more of this post, let me remind you that, at heart and in the real world, I am a very healthy person. Keep that in mind.

On the trail, we eat a lot. This was really hard for me to adjust to and, at times, continues to be a struggle. I am a yogurt, salad, 1500 calories a day girl!

On any given day on the trail I probably eat over 3000 calories. I’ve started to drink my calories as well: juice, Gatorade, Slim Fast but still never soda! Tip: In the real world, try to avoid sweetened, colored drinks. They are loaded in calories that you may not even be aware you’re taking in.

Breakfast usually consists of oatmeal and possibly a few double stuffed Oreos (you know, for extra obesity). Lunch is my favorite! I’ve eaten the same lunch every day for weeks and still have miraculously never gotten tired of it: a wheat wrap, chunky peanut butter, cheese, a pinch of trail mix, a dab or five of Tabasco, and crunched up Cheese Its. I never eat Cheese Its in the real world. Dinner varies, sometimes ramen or Knorr PastaSides. My favorite dinners are the ones that involve “cooking” - chopping up a little garlic or adding some pesto powder.

My friends and I made a list of typical weird thru-hikers meals to share with the rest of the world. Please don’t share our secret recipes.

-Ramen mixed with instant mashed potatoes, Tabasco optional. Try it.
-Hiker Pad Thai: Oriental ramen, chunky peanut butter, a packet of soy sauce, a little garlic, a little Tabasco. Perfection, personal fave.
-Breakfast on the go: In a water bottle add a packet of instant oatmeal, dried milk and a Carnation Instant Breakfast packet. Try to ignore the chunks.

On Weight:People are constantly asking me how much weight I’ve lost. Okay, this is embarrassing because I think I’ve gained weight. I’m eating a lot and building tons of muscle which weighs more than fat. I’ve brought this up and pretty much every girl has had the same issue. Some have lost their butt or their boobs (I didn’t have either of those in the first place) but no girl I’ve met has had any significant weight loss.

This is a different scenario with the guys. I’ve talked to men who have lost as much as forty pounds in two months on the trail! I ran into a guy the other day who I hadn’t seen for about a month and hardly recognized his skinny(er) face! Listen here folks, the AT diet: eat all you want of whatever you want and drop inches, males only! No, but really. So unfair. I don’t even have ABS yet! We’re starting a rigorous plank routine tomorrow.

That’s all for now, thoughts? A lady who drove us into town today said we hold onto fat because women are the baby-bearers. Joy.

Eight months ago, when I decided on a whim to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, the first thing I did was Google images of the AT. That’s what any normal person would do, right?

A majority of the images were of McAfee’s Knob, the most photographed location on the trail. It is a knob sticking out amidst a vista of rolling Virginia mountains. I could not wait to be there.

About ten days ago, it finally happened. Virginia, all 550 miles of it, has gotten to the point where we hike twenty miles every day and it all blends together. You’re not quite sure what is past and what is ahead.

The day started after returning to the trail from a night in Blacksburg, home of Virginia Tech. Prior to that visit, I only viewed VT as the location of a horrible shooting, but now I can relate to it as a real place that has moved on and is like any other college town. We hiked a little and then dined at the Home Place - a restaurant famed for all you can eat Southern home cooking. Gag.

After eating way too much (including two helpings of peach cobbler with ice cream), Phoenix, Maineiac, Indiana and I decided to night hike. We had about six miles to go that would set us up with an easy five miles in the morning to see the sunrise from McAfee’s Knob! I was so excited and down for anything.

We digested for a few, then donned our headlamps around 9pm and hit the trail. It was a full moon so we often had our headlamps off as we hiked through open pastures and watched the fireflies. Saw a lot of cows and avoided the pies and eventually finished the six miles, complete with four beers waiting for us at the road crossing. Magical. Obviously after that we were feeling a little more motivated and decided to hike all the way up to McAfee’s to save us the hike in the morning.

Indiana went ahead to try to find a spot to camp (although camping is prohibited up there, shh) and I followed. Hiking alone in the dark was surprisingly not as scary as I expected, knowing I was technically in between Indiana and Maineiac and Phoenix. My headlamp kept reflecting off these little spiders in the leaves, they looked like diamonds. Eventually made it to the top and came out to the knob. It was the most surreal moment on the trail yet. After all those months of waiting and walking, there I was, at 2:30am looking at McAfee Knob bathed in the light of the full moon. It was exactly like the pictures. I was in disbelief.

Suddenly Indiana came running up, announcing there was something I had to see. He led me with my eyes closed to another outcropping. I opened my eyes to the glittering city lights of Roanoke surrounded by mountains. It was absolutely beautiful. I don’t blame the lack of sleep for anything looking especially out of the ordinary that night. Sitting here in this hotel lobby I can’t think of any words to accurately describe the moment except perfection. Few things will come close to the absolute satisfaction of earning something so few people will ever see.

We set up a tarp in case of rain and cowboy camped on the ledge above Roanoke. Perfection x2. Unfortunately, an hour later it started to rain. The four of us blindly ran to the tarp and tried to sleep. Obviously I was on the end, on a rhododendron, with rain blowing in onto my down bag (for those of you who don’t know, down sleeping bags = feathers which don’t mix with water) and the rest of my few belongings. None of us got much sleep last night.

The rain miraculously stopped just long enough for the sun to rise and us to snap some pictures. Seeing the sun come up over the mountains, fog in the valley, and blue sky turn to red was absolutely breathtaking. Again, I have no words. I was literally bouncing instead of walking, what I believe to have been a combination of adrenaline, pure happiness and sixty minutes of sleep.


It was a Saturday, which on the AT means lots of day hikers. They began to show up with their small children and even smaller dogs around 9am, just as it began to rain again. I loved that we’d shared such a special moment up here alone. The sudden rush of people really made me appreciate the solitude and stillness of the night, and the trail in general.

Definitely the best twelve hours on the trail so far, here is to many more.

HI!

Hello everyone, sorry it has been almost a month (welp) since my last update! No news is good news! I’ve been having the best time and rarely find myself in front of a computer which has been wonderful. If I said Facebook was overwhelming before I left, logging in now usually results in one or more anxiety attacks.

Since I don’t update this on a regular basis but can tweet from my phone (well, my phone got rained on last night but that’s a long story), follow me on Twitter @klepto_kell! My tweets usually don’t make sense and the hash tags should just say #tryingtoohardtobewitty but it’s an update nonetheless!

I’ve also made some really great friends who are a lot better at blogging than I am! Check out Rook and Froot Loop!

I love hearing from you guys as well! It’s nice to have a window into the real world and catch up with everything that is going on out there.

March 29, 2012

Woke up Wednesday morning at 6:30 to get to Gaitlinburg, TN for breakfast. We were all out of food and eager to do some work on an All-You-Can-Eat buffet. We had four miles to Newfound Gap so we strapped on our headlamps and started the trek.

It was mostly downhill which was fabulous. The sun came out soon and we put away our headlamps, talking about all the food we were going to get at Shoney’s. All I could think of were scrambled eggs smothered in cheese. Preferably orange cheddar.

All of a sudden Phoenix was down for the count. She had misstepped on a stair and fallen on her ankle. It was one of those moments where everything changes in a split second. She was panicking and feeling nauseous so we gave her the cure-all: Nutella and ibuprophen. Nectars of the gods. Walking wasn’t really an option, so I strapped her pack on my front, carrying the weight equivalent of octuplets. Mad props to Kate Gosslin (the only props I will ever give her).

I went ahead to attempt to flag down a car at the road crossing about half a mile ahead while Maineiac and Froot Loop acted as Phoenix’s crutches. Luckily some other hikers came up behind us and helped carry Phoenix down the mountain. A section hiker hurried the two miles ahead to Newfound Gap to get her car.

We all piled in, LITERALLY. Princess Phoenix sat shotgun with her foot on the dash while three of us and four backpacks shared the backseat. My face was pressed against the window and I couldn’t see anyone else in the car. I was also ravenous. It was a marvelous ride.

Mary drove us to a “Doc in the Box” in Gatlinburg and they fixed Phoenix up. No broken bones, just a sprain. However, spains often tend to have a longer healing process. She got a boot and some meds and we headed to Shoney’s to gorge ourselves! No injuries would come between us and eating. After hobbling around the tacky “city” of Gatlinburg, we booked a $33 motel room at the Grand Prix for us and another of our friends, Bootstraps.

The lobby was filled with religious paraphernalia dating back to the 1980’s and the pool was drained. I’m surprised we didn’t see cockroaches crawling out of the walls. We decided to take a zero because the establishment was obviously too nice to leave after only one night. I spent the entire next day watching movies on TV. Serendipity, Miss Congeniality and Pretty Woman. I thought taking a zero would leave me feeling refreshed and relaxed but I only felt groggy and tired. Getting back on the trail and into the Smokies was the best part of my Gatlinburg experience.

March 26, 2012

The best day! After a solid twelve hours of sleep, hiked with Maineiac and Phoenix. We listened to the Lonely Island on Phoenix’s external speakers for a while before switching to stand-up comedy. Obviously the speakers died as the comedian got to the hospital. I guess we will never find out what happened to him.

We soon got to a bald, a grassy, open area on the top of a mountain. Lounged hard. Had some lunch and came across some more balds with BEYOND GORGEOUS views. Now I know why the Smokies are so legendary. Climbed up to Rocky Top and had a Snickers smothered in peanut butter. Bliss.

Stopped at the next bald for an hour or more, slowly getting sunburned and doing a bit of yoga when we felt like moving. For a group of hikers tackling 2,184 miles, we can be pretty lazy at times. For instance, if a water source is 0.2 miles off the trail, we’ll continue walking two miles up the trail to get water instead of logging miles that “don’t count.”

Eventually made it to the shelter and met up with everyone. Dinner was chili with sardines and a Pop Tart for dessert. It was the last day before going into town so everyone was really low on food and eating whatever was left.

A father/son section-hiking duo also accompanied us at the shelter. The son’s trail name was Night Talker and he definitely lived up to it. Obviously I was next to him and was subject to, as was everyone else in the shelter, his LOUD, rambling sentences all through the night. Then he decided to complain about someone else’s snoring keeping him awake. Needless to say, no one was a big fan of Night Talker in the morning.

REGISTERS

I’m sure most of you are wondering where I sleep night to night. Contrary to popular belief, no, I am not tenting alone in the middle of the woods every night. I have been hiking with a few girls and we aim to hit shelters every night. These are three sided structures with sleeping platforms, fire pits and bear cables to hang our food up on. You can also tent at the shelters if you want.

The shelters are fun because of the social aspect! You might be hiking alone all day but meet up with your friends at the shelter and have dinner, play cards, sit by the fire. It definitely keeps my mind off being scared in the dark.

Each shelter is also provided with a register. These are usually just notebooks in plastic bags. Pretty much everyone makes entries with the date and their trail name. Usually they are kind of boring like “3/25 In for lunch -Blue” but sometimes people write notes to each other or funny poems. My friends and I have started making up MadLibs in them. Hilarious.

I look at the registers as one-way Facebooks. You can write to people behind you but not ahead of you. News on the AT always travels forward but rarely backwards. It’s a good way to keep track of where everyone is at.

CLINGMAN’S DOME

As surreal as it sounds, after only twenty days of my hike I have summitted Clingman’s Dome, the highest peak on the AT! Usually it is in the clouds, but we reached it on a beautifully sunny and clear day! The trees on the summit block the view but an observation tower provides amazing views.

The best part about Clingman’s Dome, however, wasn’t the views or even the fact that we had made it there (although it was a close call). We all decided that our favorite part of the mountain was the people! Tons of people drive up to the top and walk the half mile to the observation tower.

Yes, part of this was frustrating. Seeing a little girl complain that her feet hurt or obese people struggling up the gradual ramp to the top made me want to scream, knowing their cars, homes and fully stocked refrigerators are only a short distance away. All of us were essentially out of food (a day early, yikes) and we all saw a family eating Subway at the top. They really earned that sandwich!

I don’t mean to come across as bitter, pretty much everyone was awesome! We got some weird looks and must’ve smelled horrible, but the outreach was amazing. So many people asked us where we were heading, where we were from, where we slept. Pretty much everyone asked us if we had seen some bears! Unfortunately no, not yet. One lady videotaped us and said she was going to put it on YouTube. The five of us felt like celebrities! Most people were simply in disbelief that a couple of 18-23 year old girls decided to do this by themselves. Yeah, I guess it’s pretty crazy but it’s been the adventure of a lifetime so far!

HELLO, MY NAME IS BLUE

Really. That’s what people call me. Most hikers have trail names and mine is Blue. Usually names are given due to something funny/memorable that happens. I got mine because most of my gear happens to be blue. Someone tried calling me Blue Bliss because I got a mega blister but I just stick to Blue.

Yesterday August asked me what the K on my necklace stood for. I told him that my name was Kelly. After ten days of hiking together, I finally “introduced” myself. So odd!

It’s so strange to me that hardly anyone knows my real name and I don’t know theirs. Sometimes I wonder if something really bad happened how we would check someone into a hospital.

I’m not really sure what the point of trail names are, maybe it’s just for fun, but I look at it as a way to create a separation between the trail and the real world. I love being Kelly, but sometimes its nice to leave the stresses of the outside world behind and just be Blue.

I also like having friends with names like Phoenix, Fruit Loop, Bogey, Medicine Man, August, Coffeepot, Hat, Sparky and other ridiculous titles.

xo Blue

DAY 5

Hi everyone! I am alive! In fact, I’ve never felt more alive in my life! The past five days have been absolutely incredible.

The people, the views, the fresh air, the southern accents, not showering for a week, the junk food (welp, I’m craving Pop-Tarts for definitely the first time ever), nothing has been short of amazing!

Constantly thinking about how far away Maine is can be a little disappointing so I’m setting the goal of making it from state to state which is a little less discouraging.

I can’t even describe how beautiful the mountains of Georgia are. The closest thing I can compare them to is being able to see miles and miles of waves in the ocean. They are THAT blue!

I’ll find a way to post pictures soon! Stay tuned! xo