Announcement! I’m Heading Back to the AT

Like the title says, I’m heading back to the AT.  It’s my friend, Mat’s 42nd birthday and he asked to go hiking. We had done a few local Florida hikes before. I guess you can call them hikes. More like walking straight for a while. But we had never done real mountain hiking together.

I had the best idea. Let’s do 42 miles on the Appalachian Trail. He had never been on the Appalachian Trail before but had heard amazing things about it because I pretty much never shut up about it. Kinda like how vegans and CrossFit never stop talking about, well vegetables and CrossFit. If you spend enough time with me, like 10 minutes, you will hear about it.

Did I tell you about how I hiked 30 miles on the AT in 2015?

I am so freaking excited. I can’t sleep. No really, ask my wife, I really have hard time sleeping. I can’t stop thinking about the trail. The tip tap of my hiking poles, The smell of the forest, the fresh spring water, eating meals our of a bag, putting one foot in front of the other for hours on end, the whole darn mess, I love it. I love everything about it. What I love even more is sharing it with some of my best friends.

So Mat and Dennis are going to join me in September as we attempt to do 42 miles in 4 Days. Totally doable.

Our previous adventure was on the Florida trail. We did 30 miles in 3 days. It was actually a lot of fun. Florida is a lot less rewarding to hike and a lot less demanding in a lot of ways. No ups and downs. Just kinda flat. No breath taking views. Just straight. In fact the first 5 miles we were ankle deep in water. That made for a fun hike. I’ll have to post about it sometime.

Mat aka Tusken Raider. He got his name on the Florida Trail after he saw a snake and kinda gasped screamed. It sounded just like the Tusken Raider from Star Wars.

Ok you want the full story?

Dennis was leading the pack and I was taking up the rear. My legs and back were begining to feel the miles. I need some Vitamin I aka Ibeprofen. Come to find out, my shoes were a half a size too small. So that didn’t help. Otherwise I would have been in the lead. So that ment Mat was the monkey in the middle. Dennis came around stopped. Mat was in the middle of some epic story about a band he saw live or a dovetail box he was working on and he went to walk right past Dennis without a care in the world. Dennis being ever so calm and collected grabbed the back of Mats pack and said “Shhh Look”.

Dennis was pointing at a large rattle snake. I saw Mats eyes begin to focus as he saw the snake and we heard the cry. AAAAUUUUUUHGGGG.

Also Mats afraid of snakes. Not like in a debilitating way, but like they are evil and they must die.

And thus Tusken Raider was born. I’m sure I’ll get Mat on video telling his side of the story real soon.

So any way, yeah back on the AT real soon. In fact, it will be, exactly 5 years since I did my last hike there. Kinda Crazy. I can’t wait to get back.