{"id":14843,"date":"2020-01-29T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=14843"},"modified":"2020-01-15T12:35:09","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T17:35:09","slug":"hiking-while-vegan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2020\/01\/29\/hiking-while-vegan\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiking While Vegan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Patricia Welty<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was spring 2016 and\nPat and I were driving 625 miles to Springer Mountain in Georgia. We loaded the\ncar and pulled away from my building on a rainy morning in Washington, DC as\nthe rush hour traffic was bulging on Connecticut Avenue. It would take us at\nleast 11 hours to reach Amicalola State Park Lodge near the Appalachian Trail\nsouthern terminus. Luckily the weather cleared and so did the traffic as we\nleft DC behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early the next morning\nI cased the room for hikers. I spotted two, both loaded down with gear, having\nbreakfast with family members. After I filled my water bottle, as we left the dining\nroom we both stopped short and gazed upward toward the ceiling. There we saw an\nelongated relief map of the AT stretching from Georgia through 14 states to\nMaine and covering the space on the wall from above the store to two stories\nabove. Inside the lodge store I spied a familiar figure, Grandma Gatewood,\ninfamous for being the first woman to thru-hike the AT in 1955 at age 67\nwearing a pair of Keds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stuffed my backpack\nmaking last minute decisions on what to exclude and handed the remainders to\nPat. We were off. But first we made the voluntary stop at the ranger station to\nregister. A scale beckoned from the porch and I took the bait and hung my pack\n\u2014 37 pounds. Inside a young ranger told me she thru-hiked the AT as a SOBO\n(south bounder) the year before, She was eager to share her advice. \u201cYou only\nneed to carry one liter of water. Bring your heavy jacket because you\u2019ll need\nit in the Smokies.\u201d She was right. At the trailhead Pat and I hugged goodbye\nand I turned north toward Maine.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being away for six\nmonths requires planning. Being vegan on the AT makes planning a necessity.\nThru-hiking had been on my mind ever since I signed up for the Konnarock Trail\nCrew and met several thru-hikers. I didn\u2019t get serious about taking this on\nuntil 2015, the year before I left. I started by attending REI lectures on\nhiking the AT, talking to the instructors, and researching gear. In the fall of\n2015 I hiked the 41-mile Maryland Section to try out pitching a tent, cooking\non a small stove, and navigating blazes. In February before I left I got\nserious about planning where and when to get resupplies. I sent out an email to\nfriends in DC and asked if they could help by sending four or five boxes to\nlocations along the trail. The board of A Vegan Life nonprofit helped research\nvegan companies with light-weight, shelf-stable, and easy to prepare products.\nSome companies like Gorilly Goods, Vega, and Elianni donated food. I purchased\ncases of Road\u2019s End Mac & Cheese because it only requires adding water. I\nplanned to resupply every 40 or so miles and carry four days\u2019 worth of food. A\ntypical day would be hot oatmeal for breakfast, snacks (trail mix, bars) during\nthe day, and Mac & Cheese for dinner. About 15 people offered to mail food\npackages. I plugged their names into the spread sheet and delivered filled USPS\nboxes before I left. The boxes were addressed to me with the notation \u201cplease\nhold for NOBO (north-bound) thru-hiker ETA \u2026\u201d            \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My niece Lizi\nresearched vegan recipes and mailed the dehydrated version to me in\nindividually wrapped brown paper bags with instructions and ingredients. Her\nThai curry soup and grits with kale and sesame seeds hit the spot. Lizi and\nMike, her boyfriend, met me in along the trail in Shenandoah National Park with\nmore delicious foods, snacks, and homemade cherry and vanilla ice cream made\nwith almond milk that I ate at one of the rest stops where we met. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One recurring question\nI got besides \u201chow old are you\u201d was \u201cwhere do you get your protein?\u201d I couldn\u2019t\nhelp but notice that many of the thru-hikers were young but had very poor\ndiets. When they got to small towns they filled up on pizza, fast food, and\njunk. Even though I could not hike as fast as they could, I relied on my\nhealthy diet to keep me going without injury. I wanted to be a model for what\nis possible on a healthy vegan diet at age 69. Besides I had to live up to my\ntrail name Iron Butterfly<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made it to Katahdin October 15, registered at the Baxter\nState Park Ranger Station, paid my fee, and along with my hiking friend, Swiss\nMiss, headed to the campsite designated for thru-hikers. That night we had a\ngood dinner, I had saved a little of the Thai curry soup for this occasion, set\nthe alarm for 5:30 am and crawled into the sleeping bag knowing we had made it.\nAfter breakfast in the dark the morning of October 16 we packed up our gear and\nheaded for the ranger station. We left our large packs on the porch and stuffed\na day pack with snacks and water and headed out for the Hunt Trail and the\nnorthern terminus of the trail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes a day to hike up and down Katahdin. It starts out\neasy but half way up it is very difficult and requires holding onto rebar and\nhoisting almost straight up. Closer to the summit and above the tree line we\nwalked along the path that had been roped off with signs that the area was home\nto an endangered butterfly. Along the way we met some young guys who hiked with\nus. There was no need to hurry now because we knew we had made it. At the\nsummit we took the requisite photos before heading down to try and beat the\nrain. That night we celebrated with vegan food at a restaurant in Millinocket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on hiking and camping, see:
\nhttps:\/\/www.vrg.org\/journal\/vj2013issue2\/2013_issue2_vegan_backpacking.php<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2019\/07\/09\/are-you-looking-for-vegan-hiking-boots-heres-some-online-stores-selling-them\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.vrg.org\/journal\/vj2001may\/2001_may_backpack.php<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/18\/vegan-camping-foods-for-the-winter\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Patricia Welty It was spring 2016 and Pat and I were driving 625 miles to Springer Mountain in Georgia. We loaded the car and pulled away from my building on a rainy morning in Washington, DC as the rush hour traffic was bulging on Connecticut Avenue. It would take us at least 11 hours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14845,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14843\/revisions\/14845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}