Hi! I am Chuck, also known as Orange Man. Welcome to The Retired Hiker, a blog about my life in retirement focusing on hiking, long-distance backpacking, and the adventures of Dana (a.k.a. Pitcrew) and Chuck in our Travel Trailer.
I retired after my wife died in 2021 and jumped into hiking and long-distance backpacking as a way deal with what I call “Life Part II”. I have thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail and have a multi-year plan for the Pacific Crest Trail, the Colorado Trail, and numerous other long-distance trails.
As a reward to myself for completing the Appalachian Trail, we purchased a Travel Trailer in late 2024. I base out of the trailer on short multi-day hiking trips. Dana and I take the trailer on long weekends and week-long regional trips. Our plan is to tour the country in the trailer once Dana retires in a few more years.
Until a that time, I plan to do as many long-distance hikes as I can manage while not completely abandoning Dana for the trail! Hence our blog’s tagline “Side Trials of Retirement Bliss”.
Recent Trail Journals
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Tuesday, October 14, 2025. Up at 7:30. Breezy, rainy, foggy, low 50s. The entire resort has no water this morning. Annoying for me and Ed, but this place is going to be nasty in about an hour or two once everyone else gets up and moving. The forecast is for clearing weather towards noon with no rain this evening. That means dry tents at camp assuming the forecast is correct. We hope to visit Stony Man, The Pinnacle, and Mary’s Rock if the weather is decent. We have 11.4 miles to camp not counting any side trips. We will wait…
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Monday, October 13, 2025. Up at 7:00. Cloudy, foggy, rain stopping around 10:00am, warming to mid 50s. Rained all night, but should clear this morning. Fingers crossed. Will have some showers on and off at camp tonight, but the next 2 days look very nice. It’s almost 11:00am and the forecast and the actual weather don’t match at all. Still raining, foggy, windy, and not getting any better. Worse if anything. Ed and I had breakfast at the restaurant decided to take a Zero day. There are 3 side trips we want to do and we won’t be able to…
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Sunday, October 12, 2025. Up at 8:30. Windy and rainy and 50s. Big storm last night. Rain and wind. We are decently sheltered from the worst of the wind coming in from the east by Hawks Bill cliffs. We can hear the wind roaring above us but it is not terrible where we are. However, we need to leave eventually and head north out of the shelter of the cliffs. We decided to stay hunkered down a bit longer as radar shows a break in the rain about 10:00. It won’t get any warmer than it is now. We only…
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Saturday, October 11, 2025. Up at 7:45. Cold, cloudy, no wind. Sun should come out later this morning and get up to 60. Rain late this evening. We had a group arrive at the shelter way after dark at 8:00. Noisy. But I could not sleep so no big deal. They left before sunrise this morning. I forgot to open the vents on my tent last night and woke to a very wet inner then fly. Outside is dry but wet inside from condensation. Fully disassembled the inner and outer tent to keep the inner dry today. Hopefully the sun…
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Friday, October 10, 2025. Up at 7:30. Cold, foggy, overcast, breezy. Got down to 38 last night. Sunny and upper 50s today. On trail at 8:55. Fingers crossed we get one of the 30 spots at Lewis Campground. Fairly easy morning. Uphill .7 miles to start but not bad. Chilly and breezy. Reached the Swift Run Gap, US 33 park entrance station at 10:30 and 3.68 miles. Walked to the entrance to get water and have second breakfast. Hiked 2 .2 miles uphill to South River Picnic Area at 12:00 for a snack and a rest. Still chilly, mostly cloudy…