The Initiative…12,500 miles, one year, will he do it?

>In this day and age, the pessimists and cynics rule. As such, I am both! ;)

Glass half-empty kind of guy, eh?

I used to be, but I've taken a bit of a different approach. Whenever someone asks if the glass is half-empty or half-full, I respond:
"It depends. If you started with an empty glass its half full. If it started full, then its half empty."

Travis, my response to the aforementioned question: "What glass?" ;P

As long as there is either coffee or beer in that glass, I'm good to go!

Sorry for thread drift…

full of what?

As you might guess, I'm the cheeseburger guy…..

Well, He is almost to Dryden. He punctured his NeoAir. Over a month into the hike and he is just over halfway through New York.

I'm surprised his mileage hasn't picked up at all. He's been averaging around 10 miles a day and some of that's on road. Breaking trail with snowshoes is hard work but I would expect 15 a day minimum. It will be interesting to see how this latest storms impacts his trip. I hope he stays safe and is enjoying the experience.

Yeah, you would kind of expect him to just wake up and go…
The storm down here was a basic nothing…closer to 6-8" for the entire storm. I only needed to shovel out about 4" all told. In the hills, more, undoubtedly. Well, he is safe, I think. He has the equvalent of a -20 bag. Today will be wet going, though. This is what really made me quit winter camping. It would get up to 35-37 degrees during the day (37F today,) then drop to 15 at night. VERY uncomfortable after being up north for so many years. 0-25 is not real bad in comparison. Wet and cold is no fun.

Over here on the Southern Tier it's staying consistently below freezing all day, even when it's sunny. By the time he gets over here (Allegany state park and whatnot) he should be dealing with dryer conditions again… unless we hit one of our occasional heat-waves, which could get pretty unpleasant.

I was hoping he'd pass through here before I leave in a couple weeks. I'm not so sure it'll happen, anymore. I thought he was further along.

Either way, I hope he's having a good time, and in particular I hope he's rising early. We get some pretty spectacular sunrises over here this time of year, for whatever reason.

He seems to be stuck in Ithaca, this morning.
He is having fun….

Any way to tell how far he went in his first month?

Seems like it has been 5,10,7.5 mile days when they are listed. Wouldn't expect the total to be above 300miles

Likely <250 miles. He has a WAYS to go…

I was wondering the same this week while reading his journal. It seems there has been a lot of zeros and mileage has not been declared daily as it should be. I still give him props for attempting and having a goal. As most of us would agree, we would love to be in his snow shoes right now.

How the heck is he updating so frequently on the Internet from the trail? Also, his gear list states nothing about a tent and from one of his pictures he has a BA set up in a shelter?!?!? (Update. Just saw the Seedhouse SL1 on Day 41 pictures. Disregard.)

O and his grammer at first was almost detering me to read his journal daily. It is getting better, but the "reckon" needs to stay in the UP and not on the journal.

He added the tent and an extra sleeping bag about a week or 10 days into his hike.
He skipped the harder sections in the north country, simply hitched around them. He is just hanging out in or around Ithaca for the past three/four days. He should be on top of the hill heading out of town as of yesterday. Funny, I day hiked all that section in one long day several years back. 'Corse, it wasn't winter. He seems to be finding plenty of firewood, a good thing. It has been <0F these nights.

I must have missed the addition of the BA. I thought I have been keeping up on every entry daily. Oh well.

He has to be freezing, These nights are bitter cold.

So, in other words, skipping some sections of the trail qualify for a thru of NCT?!?!

Yeah, cold alternating with rain and ice. Really miserable weather…
The OOficial start of the NCT is in Boonville, between Boonville and Crown Point is up in the air. He actually didn't hike down the Gorge Road out of Boonville into Rome, near as I can tell from his entries. Soo, the NCT is a bust. It was only about 30 miles that he skipped. But, I would not have skipped even that section. One of the few that has been added in that area to the ADK Park…to the Blue Line. After skipping that, he has been fine, but, no mention of going back to clean it up, either. Compared to the >2000 miles he has planned??? It really doesn't make that much difference. The section through the ADK Park was never ratified, because there were several different proposed routes. He just hitched most of this.

I am really loosing interest, because of all that and his very low milage. He is trying to LIVE out there…not hike through. It seems he doesn't have enough experience to tell him which is which. He is down to less than 5mi per day. If he makes it through the rest of the trail, I will be surprised. He has been gradually decreasing his milage since he started…from 12 to 5 over about 40 days.

It's shocking how different his hike is now versus what he was intended it to be. If you just started following his trip you would have NO idea that he was talking up a MUCH more ambitious plan before he left. There is zero indication that he is at all aware of what it takes to hike fast — hint: two fires a day, long camps and eggs for breakfast, and hanging out with locals isn't it. I have spent a lot of time out there in the winter — in fact, I snowshoed 1,400 miles through MI, WI, and MN in Jan-March 2005 — so I sympathize with the difficulty, but could he pick it up a little bit maybe?

I agree and loosing interest also. I can't even say he is living out there. There has been a lot of nights spent with trail magic. I never hiked in the snow since I waterfowl hunt in the winters, but the mileage is extremely slow. How bad can his hip be?

I will be surprised if he completes NCT. I have zero hope for him to complete all four based on his performance thus far. His health seems fine, but the abundance of time being used and being stationary will cause the end to come. The sense of over projecting the goal to complete all four will take a toll mentally.

I was pondering that if many had confidence of his completion, where are all the major sponsors at? If I was a branded company, I would make every attempt to get my logo displayed and gear being used if I thought this "Trek" could be completed. Granted, I do not know his previous experience of backpacking/hiking, but from what I have read, I feel his mental state will lose emotional awareness and coping skills. But, then again, spring will be here and days will get warmer and longer.

that this guy is a grade A troll? Probably been sitting at his computer posting the occasional "dispatch from the field" then sitting back and giggling at all the serious responses, or rolling around on the floor with the tears streaming down his face when he thinks about how many folks he's strung along, for how many days is it now? 36?

Lol! 41 as of the 11th and it's not even the 11th yet on the East Coast.

"Lol! 41 as of the 11th and it's not even the 11th yet on the East Coast."

He simply wrote the date wrong. After all, day 40 is listed as the 9th.

True.

Well, if we are getting technical, he has the 7th listed as 37th and 39th day. And, then the 9th being the 40th.

This is the reason it helps to "pay your dues". My first attempted PCT thru hike in 1992 I was completely clueless about what the trail was all about or what it would take on my part to travel it's length.
Maybe there are people that can jump on their first long distance trail and hike a record pace but clearly Sam ain't one of them.
It's his hike and i hope he is having fun.
If he's hating it maybe he ought to flip down to start the AT NoBo in a couple of weeks instead. He could learn a lot from other thru hikers.
I had a lot of experience in the Sierra before my first Long distance hike but very little of it related to covering big miles everyday.
There is a big difference between camping and hiking.
I know what i learned from hikers on the PCT helped me on the CDT when I was alone.
I just don't feel any "fire in the belly" with Sam judging from his journal.
You have to want the goal above and beyond discomfort and pain enough to make the miles.
Speaking of which I got to get out for another walk. I am not going to take the AT for granted just because I have hiked the PCT and CDT. That is the biggest gap to bridge IMO: The gulf between expectation and reality.

"I hope to finish in one year but it is my ultimate goal to complete this trek continuously regardless of a time frame. The journey of the endeavor is most important to me."