Day 13 – Zero Day 1 In Franklin, NC

I am taking two full days off trail, which is called a double zero day, or double zero for short. My body needs a day, and Mike is meeting his girlfriend for two days. I don’t want to get too far ahead of Mike on trail, so I’ll take a double too.

Up at 7:30. Wonderful sleep in a private room at The Grove hostel. Newfound and Unfiltered are great hosts.

Since I was up early, I got to say goodbye to English Phil and get his contact info. I may see him over the next two weeks, but he will be two days ahead of me.

I sorted my remaining food in order to determine what resupplies I need before I leave town. Just need one dinner, one breakfast, and a few snacks.

Newfound ran me to the post office so I could mail a few things home to Dana and then dropped me off at the Kountry Kitchen for a big breakfast.

I walked to Outdoor 76 and just chilled and blogged for several hours in their bar. They have Bold Rock cider on draft. Had some great conversations and drinks with several hikers and passersby. Eric joined us mid-afternoon. We hiked together on and off last week. Eric and I had a nice dinner at 5:00…cool 50s-style diner with awesome burgers. Went back to the hostel and did online Friday happy hour with Jon Lunning and company at 6:00. Called my mom and chatted. Did a few chores at the hostel, including filter back flushing, packed my backpack, had a hilarious FaceTime with Dana, Patty, and Jeanine. Watched some TV and fell asleep at 11:00.

Now for something completely different. I have had a lot of questions from my readers about some of the terminology I am using as well as some general hiking questions. Here are the answers to all those questions.

Water and Filtering

I filter all my water unless it comes from a guaranteed potable source like a household faucet or similar. I use a three-liter water bag from CNOC Outdoors to collect and hold the raw water from whatever the source is. This raw, unfiltered /untreated water is known as “dirty water,” and the container holding it is my “dirty water bag” or simply my CNOC. It is very rugged. See the transparent bag labeled CNOC in the picture below.

The fitting on the bottom of the bag screws into the INPUT end of my Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter. That’s the blue thingy with two black ends in the picture below. I store my clean/filtered water in a pair of Smart Water bottles with sports caps. The clean water bottle screws into the OUTPUT end of the Sawyer filter. See the picture below.

The dirty water flows through the Sawyer filter, which makes it potable, and the clean water fills the Smart Water bottle. I like Smart Water bottles as they are VERY rugged. I use a one-liter bottle and a 700 ml bottle.  It’s called a Sawyer Squeeze because you need to manually squeeze your dirty water bag to force the water through the filter. It takes just 2 or 3 minutes maximum to filter a liter of water. You can let gravity do the work, but it tends to be slow. 

I carry a backup water treatment solution as well. I use Aquatabs, which are a chemical water treatment solution. You put one tablet in a liter of water and let it sit for at least 30 minutes to treat the water and make it potable. I carry these for two reasons. First, if I lose or break my Sawyer. A Sawyer will be ruined if it freezes…so I sleep with it next to my body when it gets near freezing. Second, if I have VERY nasty water, I filter it AND THEN treat it. Two examples of this are stagnant, non-flowing water with gunk in it or any water (flowing or not) that I suspect has fecal contamination from livestock.

Cooking

Any hot meals that I make involve 1) bringing water to a boil in a 650ml titanium pot, 2) using my MSR Pocket Rocket stove, 3) attached to a 100-gram isobutane fuel canister, 4) which I light with a mini-Bic lighter.  As soon as the water starts to boil, I turn off the stove to conserve fuel. No need for a roiling boil. It only takes 2-4 minutes to boil water, depending on how much water and how cold/windy it is. 

If it’s windy, I will  improvise a wind block. There is minimal waste heat generated. If it is raining, I set up the stove under the cover of my tent’s vestibule so that I can cook from inside my tent safely. That’s what is happening in the second picture below.

Once the water is boiling, I pour it directly into the bag containing the food to be cooked. That will be either a Ziploc freezer bag or the bag that a store-bought dehydrated meal comes in. Those latter are specifically designed to cook in. More on those topics later. 

Both types of bags get extremely hot and dangerous to handle once you pour a couple of cups of boiling water into them. Also, many foods call for boiling for many minutes (think about a Knorr rice dish that probably says to boil for 10 minutes), but I don’t have that ability since I am NOT cooking in my little pot and I am NOT wasting 10 plus minutes’ worth of fuel per meal. That’s where my insulated cooking cozy comes into play. That is the aluminum bag with the Velcro seal in the first picture above. The bag containing the food to be cooked, Ziploc or other, sits inside the cozy, and I pour the hot water into the food bag, stir it up, and seal the cozy for about 10 to 15 minutes. The aluminum-sealed cozy holds in the heat and cooks the food faster….and keeps me from burning my hands. I just eat the food directly out of the bag/cozy with a long-handled (18-inch) titanium spork. When done, the inner food bag, Ziploc or other, seals up and goes in my trash bag to be carried off the trail and disposed of in town.

Minimal fuel used, no dishes to wash, minimal trash, lightweight!

Eating

Hot meals came in two general types for me. The most common are things you can find at a Dollar General or similar (lowest common denominator), are lightweight, only need hot water, and have a lot of calories (more calories per weight the better). My go-tos are ramen, Knorr side dishes, stovetop stuffing, instant mashed potatoes, etc. I buy them, empty them into a Ziploc FREEZER bag, and toss the original packaging before getting on trial to save weight. I always add some kind of protein to the meal. I prefer Mountain House dehydrated meats (chicken, pork, beef, hamburger) as they are extremely lightweight with an excellent calorie density. Just add water! I send this to myself in all my resupply boxes. Otherwise, I use whatever I can find at wherever I am resupplying on trail such as tuna packets, chicken packets, beef jerky, hard salami, pepperoni, etc. Things that are as light as possible and have long shelf lives. 

The other form of hot meal is the expensive dehydrated store-bought meals like below. These come in single-serving pouches that you can cook in. Just add hot water.

Depending on the brand, these range from okay to really good and healthy. But they are  expensive and tend to be heavy due to their packaging. I use these to break the monotony of the other meals. Ramen gets old after 4 straight days 🙂

For cold meals including dinners, I typically have pepperoni or hard salami and cheese. The cheese needs to be shelf-stable or a hard cheese.

Breakfasts vary quite a bit. I rarely do. Hot breakfast on trail. Usually, breakfast is a honey stinger waffle and Justin’s nut butter (Google them), or a pair of Pop-Tarts, or something else sweet and high-calorie. I do boil up a cup of tea with breakfast about half the time.

Most meals, sometimes including breakfast, have Fritos as a chaser. I love those things, they pack decently, have fiber and carbs and fat that I need, and they are easy to find. I love the chili-flavored Fritos.

Snacks tend to be trail mix, Snickers bars when not hot out, and Payday bars when it is hot. Zero Sugar Mini-sausages (Zero Sugar is the brand) when I can find them. These all have salt, calories, and. And be easily eaten while moving.

I track my food and calories at the bottom of each daily blog page. I try to get 2500 to 3500 calories a day.

I also add electrolytes to my water. The hotter out, the more electrolytes. I am not picky on the brand. Whatever I can find.

Sleeping and Shelter

I sleep on an inflatable sleeping pad that has a metal foil material inside it to help insulate me from the cold ground.

 I have a small green inflatable pillow.

I use a specially designed outdoor quilt instead of a sleeping bag. It’s good to 10 degrees outside temperature.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

I almost always sleep in my tent on the trail. My tent is a two-person double-walled tent. It retains heat decently when I use the rainfly (the waterproof optional outer layer) and is very cool and airy when I don’t need to use the rainfly (no chance of rain and warm). Picture one is my tent with the rainfly, and picture two is my tent without.

Trail Magic and Trail Angels

To put it simply, trail magic can be defined as an act of generosity toward a hiker when they are not expecting it; whether that be providing food to eat, a drink on a hot day, a ride into town, or even a bed to sleep in. These are just a few examples, but trail magic really has no boundaries. 

Trail angels—people who provide aid and comfort to thru-hikers out of the kindness of their hearts—are critical to hikers’ successes. Angels help hikers in a variety of ways: giving rides, feeding them, giving them a place to stay, even doing their laundry.

Read here for more on Trail Magic and Trail Angels.

Hiker Midnight 

Hiker Midnight is 9 p.m., the time when thru-hikers are usually asleep. Most hostels enforce lights out and quiet time starting at hiker midnight.

No pain, no rain, no Maine!

Common saying on the trail: It means you are going to be wet, miserable, and in physical pain many times on your journey to reach Maine from Georgia. 

A corollary is “Embrace the Suck.”

Technical Notes:

• Coffee: 0
• Coffee: 0
• Sweet tea: 160
• Toast: 120
• Hash brown: 50
• Eggs: 150
• Country fried steak: 600
• Bold Rock cider x 6:   840
• Burger: 500
• Fries: 360
• Snacks: 375
• Total calories: 3125