KT trip planning

“OK, Here's the trip! I will be hiking the Knobstone Trail (ya, the whole thing) the middle of October. I want to have it done in about 2.5 days. That is about 18 miles/day average. Fall colors should be close to peak so it will be pretty and the weather should be ideal for higher mileage.


Come out and let's cover some ground!”

“i don't know if i am up to this... i could get my azz wupped.”

“What ever. Bring that 4lb base weight you were talking about and come cover some trail with me dude! You coming down from Chi town on Saturday night would be ideal for us to set up shuttle, and cache water.”

“Hey Jim, did you get an invitation? I think I screwed it up.”

“Hey MG there is no way I could hike those tyes of miles, but I might be available for help with shuttling and with water if you need it. Just let me know.”

“One of you should kidnap my husband and take him along on this. With Jim's 4 lb. pack, there should be plenty of room for alcohol.”

“To be able to handle this itinerary without being in AT-like thru-hiker shape would be quite a feat.”

“I'll add:

Caching some Snickers bars would be almost as important as caching water.......lol”

“If you want, I can email waypoints that should/might/could have water for the southern half.”

“i got the invite. this sounds good but i'll have to be tenative because of the new job and all (that i hope to have by then). i'll say i am a tenative leaning to a "hell yeah!" haha”

“MG!!!
Sounds highly cool!!! I have signed on as a maybe!! I guess we'll just have to see what happens, always wanted to do the whole thing. Would like a little more time to do it in, but beggars can't be slackers, er sumpin like that!! Have fun popin, I mean, picking cherries.
See ya later.
Randall”

“one problem is that this comes darn close to my NCT hike in the trapp hills that runs from october 19th-22nd. i might be pushing my luck and also there are like 24 people signed up as confirmed or tenative on what promises to be an awesome fall trip. that might kill it for me but we'll see.”

“Great feed back so far guys!
Jimmy san mocks my cautions of a long difficult hike, and Chinmusic tells me my balls might be getting bigger than my brains. LOL!!! hopefully The reality is somewhere in between.

Right on, Randall! It will be good to see you again. We talked about this trip a couple months ago on the Adena, remember? Salem and Golf thought I might be nuts. We should get them on this too.

WINDIGRRL!!!! That would be freakin awesome! Now we have a support crew! Sweet! I will keep you posted as things get closer.

As far as physical conditioning goes, I have started running, and am working out almost every night in varied forms. NO, not the ol' 12oz. curls either! LOL! ...I'm up to pints, thank you very much!


One of you should kidnap my husband and take him along on this. With Jim's 4 lb. pack, there should be plenty of room for alcohol.”
Free24
9:33:34 PM

I can see it now.... Mike standing there with a glass fifth of whiskey, and saying to Jim "come on man, I'll share it with ya if you carry it! You got plenty of room in there. Look how light your f'n pack is!" LMAO!
Mike would be more than welcome to join us of course. We may not need Windi if Mike could cache that water super fast for us in the GS...

Chin, thanks for the waypoints offer but I don't even have a GPS. Some of the others may though, so that may help.”

“If we really want to cache food we will need an Ursack. Otherwise we will need someone to either meet us or make the drop shortly before we get there. I don't have one. Does anyone else?”

“just let me know what ya need from me as the date gets closer. I might work on doing some hiking (maybe more like day hikes) on the KT at the same time but not nearly as much mileage. I would be able to assist with water and food drops needed.
last edited: 7/06/07 11:32:20 AM”

“you know you could just camp with us and make water/food drops if you wanted Windi. That would be pretty cool.”

“i'm down as a maybe but i know i won't be able to/don't want to do the whole thing...maybe just one night or maybe even day hike the first day with yall”

“No problem TH. come on down and camp w us on Saturday night, any way. If Windi is running support for us maybe she could shuttle you back to your car.”

“I just invited gforce. Do you think he will be back by then? If he comes he will put us all to shame having just finished the AT.”

“this could be my birthday hike”

“Super cool!

I was thinking of contacting the DNR to see if they have ever kept track of the fastest thru hike on this trail. It would be interesting info if they did.”

“To be able to handle this itinerary without being in AT-like thru-hiker shape would be quite a feat.”
ChinMusic
10:31:58 PM
7/05/07


Hey Chin, weren't you working on a way to do the AT? You need this trip dude. ;)
Come hike.”

“I've done the southern half+ of KT. As a current weekend warrior, 10-12 miles (with pack) would be about my limit on that thing.”

“MG: This does sound like a great hike in Oct., but the timing won't work for me, as I'm training up for a marathon, and that's the home stretch for me, with the race on 10/28. So I better pass & be ready to go out in Nov. & beyond. Have fun on them hills!”

“MG - if I can provide vehicle assistance, are you wanting to slack pack?”

“No, Windi. I don't want to slackpack it. I was just hoping to have someone to do water drops (maybe food), and maybe help with the shuttle at the end of it all. If you are still game that would be awesome! If it would work out maybe we could figure a way to meet you at a road crossing each afternoon, get more water then continue on a couple miles and make camp. You could hike in with us, then back out to your car each evening, so you wouldn't be trying to set a blistering pace, but we would stil get the whole trail in, have some help, but not slack it. I suppose if anyone else wanted to do it that way they could, but I plan to carry my gear.”

“Meangreen
I donwanna blister my pace!!!!
See ya later.
Randall”

“Well Randall if you don't properly lubricate you will blister (or chafe) anything you abuse that much...


LOL!

I am seriously looking forward to this one man. We're gonna have a blast!”

“MeanGreen
Sounds good to me. As the time gets closer, maybe we can get together and go over the map and decide where to meet up at.”

“Sounds great Windi. You still got my number? You can call anytime in the evening. Next Sunday SC, and CMB and me and the kiddies are gonna be in Shades. You are welcome to join us if you want. Coyote too if you can get in touch w him.”

“Shades, ha ha!”

“What?

Just some fun with the kids, and a picknick lunch.

WK, you want a real hike you should come to this Knobstone Trail trip. It's gonna be cool.”

“Hey!!
Whatever happened to Coyote anyway!!
See ya later.
Randall”

“He's been busy with his kids over the summer. He called me the other day and wanted to know when the next hike is. He is thinking about trying this one.”

“Hey MG,

Probably won't make this hike. Looking at hiking in the Smokies around that time. Have a good one!”

“No problem HM. You'll have better scenery than we will.

Windi, tell Coyote that I'd love to have him along. You know it just occured to me that you are kinda like a safety net for anyone who decides they don't want to finish. That's pretty cool.”

“Yeah, I can be a safety net for crazy hikers. lol. It makes it a good chance for people who want to try and push their limits without too much danger.”

“you can count me in on this one.”

“Welcome mohawk. Are you new to backpacking or just to Trailtalk?”

“Hey MG!!!
Mohawkman has hiked with a bunch of us before, in the Deem last June!!
See ya later.
Randall”

“this sounds like fun, but thats way past my limit on what I can do. LOL

Have fun guys....”

“That's cool Randal. Well, glad to have you along mohawkman.

SC you should bring Mike down to do the whole trail and you could help Windigrrl with water caches, and just camp with us. A support team does need more than one member you know. ;-)”

“I could always use the help!”

“YA SC!

get your tail down here and bring that crazy guy too!”

“This is too good to pass up. I'm going to try to make this one.”

“Attached is a link to a Knobstone thru-hike story to get everyone fired-up for this!

http://www.zionsville.net/hightech/team4/averill/journal.html”

“I'm in. Looking forward to this hike.”

“HEY! Glad to have you HiknMachine! That is a pretty good TR too. Same time of year, same direction etc.
I'm getting stoked! I just came back from a great hike in Red River Gorge, and now I'm all fired up!”

“Dang HM, I just noticed your previous post. Did you actually bag the smokies trip to do this? I'm not sure I could have done that. Then again I've never BP'ed in the smokies...”

“MG,

No, the couple of guys I was going to hike with ended-up not being able to go. There's always next year. Have you hiked any of the Knobstone before? We did the whole trail in two 3-day weekends a couple of years ago. I don't think we'll have any problems with finding water, but it's probably a good idea to cache some just in case.”