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Logic Puzzle

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    • Logic Puzzle

      I am a recently retired middle school math teacher. Planning a hike feels a lot like a logic puzzle. Balancing the items I feel I need to carry to be safe/warm, and the weight of what I can comfortably carry. Balancing the desire to avoid the major bubble and the desire to leave late enough to be warm enough, etc. Balancing my desire to do a thru hike while I am healthy and still in my 60s with growing older and less healthy. Balancing my own dreams with my desire to help with grandkids, and grandbabies that are on the way through birth and adoption. Any other logic/balancing challanges you have encountered, or that I should be thinking about? Not that I really need more conflicts to think about as I am trying to sleep in the middle of the night....
    • It is a lot to consider.
      A lot of people, and that forms "The bubble" seem to start earlier every year. Remember if you hike something like 12 miles a day on average, that's a 6 month hike. Leaving in April and you are still at/near Kathadin in October. You just need to watch how you are doing as you move north. You may always flip forward, summit and hike south for a time. The issue with Baxter is they close for overnight camping in October, at the latest. Don't over plan. Figure to start and have those travel arraignments in place. Have your gear mostly figured out as best you can. You can also get to one of the well documented places near the southern terminus to get a shake-down. You can get the AWOL guide in bound for planning and also to leave at home. With circles, notes and tabs added for places where the family could perhaps meet you. You get the unbound version to take 200 - 400 miles of pages with you as you hike. Get the family on board with home support. Don't plan out much more than the first week or two. Weather, injuries, feeling good and upping your miles earlier, all will mean those plans more than a few weeks out are, for the most part, trashed.
      Pirating – Corporate Takeover without the paperwork
    • Remember, you don't need to be perfect when you start as there are plenty of opportunites to add/delete stuff as you walk. At mile 30 you'll walk thru Mountain Crossings which has a staff of former thru hikers who will be glad to look at your gear, tell you what should be sent home/added/upgraded etc and sell ya what ya need. You probably could show up there with nothing and leave fully equiped. There's a hostel at mile 70 that also has a small store. In Franklin, NC there is a shoe store with good recommendations. You'll hit a town every few days, some have gear, most probably don't. But they all have a PO where a friend or family member can send you stuff. I had about 10 years experience backpacking before my thru (although nothing longer than 5 days or so; mostly weekend trips) and I made plenty of changes along the way.
      2,000 miler

      The post was edited 4 times, last by max.patch ().

    • I think it's wise for you to consider your age/health in your decision making.

      Personally, I have no doubt that I could have done another thru at age 60. Today, I doubt it. My knees are about shot and at some point I'll need new ones. If I were to set out to do one today I believe I'd need 2 years, at least, to complete all 2,200 miles. Yes, I "could" start in January to give myself more time, but backpacking in snow and cold weather is not my idea of fun. I'm a 3 season backpacker; that 4th season is for day hikes only.
      2,000 miler
    • There are a few STEM-oriented people here, I think, and I guess we tend to analyze things the way you do.

      One topic that has always fascinated me is risk assessment and how most people are really bad at it. You hear a lot about "bears are dangerous" and "you should never hike alone", etc... All this advice fails when viewed from an analytical point of view.

      The worst is is "X is dangerous" (insert anything you like for X). For many (most?) people, if something bad could happen, that activity is then labeled "dangerous" and people think this is useful. In reality to say that anything is "dangerous" is among the most meaningless statements you could make and listening to that person is a waste of your time. Take bears for example. Countless people are afraid of bears. After all, people have been killed by bears. Therefore they are "dangerous". But I believe there have been a grand total of seven people who have have died in a bear attack in the AT states since 1900. The absence of assessing the degree of risk is one reason that "dangerous" is a meaningless label. Another is failing to include alternate activities. Risk assessment is about NET risk. For example, While 7 people in the eastern US have been killed by bears since 1900 (none on the AT, BTW), during that same time, hundreds of thousands of people have died in car accidents. While hiking, an AT thru hiker's bear risk is higher, but by not driving a car for six months, their risk of being killed in a car accident is close to zero, since they are traveling by foot most of the time. It is basically impossible to quantify either of these risks to the point you could make an statistically valid conclusion about the difference, but I would bet that hiking is much safer than not hiking. So the next time someone says "X is dangerous", ask them to first quantify the actual risk, and then identify all the potential benefits of that activity, quantify those, and determine the net risk, and then balance that against the intangible benefits (I enjoy X, e.g.) and them get back to you with a more rational risk analysis instead of saying something so incredibly stupid as "X is dangerous". It will be up to you on how blunt you want to be with the "stupid" part. Of course just ignoring those people is another valid option.