Re: [at-l] My first backpacking experience

[tmcginnis@ucclan.state.in.us (Thomas McGinnis)]

     MJ: don't worry about it!
     VERY SHORT VERSION OF MY FIRST BACKPACKING EXPERIENCE:
     12 miles, 3nights/4days, out of 4-H camp. All cotton clothes, 
     including jeans and cotton flannel, 5 pair of colored socks 
     (rainbow-foot!), and all the sort of worst equipment things to find on 
     the Amicalola approach trail to Springer. Meals included pancakes and 
     God-knows-what. Backpack ($14.00 Academy A-Line from Alexanders) had 
     no hip belt; I'd attached an unpadded non-quick-release half belt 
     which reached from the packframe around to the front; drew blood in 
     the first mile. First Day was all of 3.5 miles, and it took us all 
     day, and I thought I was purely going to die. By day 4, I had learned 
     enough to suffer in silence. 4 years later I did the AT.


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: [at-l] My first backpacking experience
Author:  DrmCtchr12@aol.com at ima
Date:    4/27/99 9:49 PM


This past weekend, I went on my first backpacking trip.  I went with a small 
group of Boy Scouts.  There were 4 scouts and 3 adult leaders (including me). 
Boy, what a bit of self-discovery.
It was a very rugged trail.  Mostly up and down hills.  Hardly any flat land 
at all.
Not sure how much my pack weighed.  Probably about 40 pounds.  
I stopped a LOT on the uphill climbs.  Thankfully, the leader who had invited 
me hung back with me while the boys and the other adult went on and waited 
patiently for us.
Once, I let a stick get tangled in my feet and I fell.  Flat on my face.  Hit 
my nose and my forehead, scraped my knees, and I'm still finding bruises.  
Must have hit pretty hard cause there was mud on my pack frame.
The weather was gorgeous.  Thankfully, we didn't have the thunderstorms that 
were predicted all week.
I also re-injured a sprained ankle from about 5 weeks ago.
The Scoutmaster figured out, per the map given to us, that we did 11 miles in 
4 hours.  I couldn't believe it.  I don't recall hiking 11 miles.  But then, 
I only recall how my body ached and how I kept berating myself for going on a 
hike that I really was not ready for.
But I WILL go again, but on an easier trail and not as far. 
I am NOT going to quit.
I WILL be ready for the AT in 2003.
I am glad I went.  I learned a  lot, especially about myself.
     
Marla Jo
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