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votes
Tell ~ about your upcoming hike!
Are you heading out into the Sierras? Hiking the Te Araroa trail? Or heading out somewhere for the weekend? Tell us about it! What gear are you using?
Are you heading out into the Sierras? Hiking the Te Araroa trail? Or heading out somewhere for the weekend? Tell us about it! What gear are you using?
I'm basically just a weekend hiker; no fancy gear to speak of. I'm lucky enough that I don't live too far away from some AT hikes, though!
Last weekend I did the Three Ridges loop along the AT (in part) in central Virginia. The trail starts at 1000' on the banks of the Tye River, in what's probably the deepest gap in that section of the Blue Ridge, and snakes up the mountain and along the eponymous ridges to the summit nearly 3000 feet above. It's all below treeline (which was nice and shady in the heat), but there are a couple of bare rock overlooks along the ridge that give great views of the gap and of the nearby mountains. The hardest part was making it down the trail that closed the loop between the upper and lower sections of the AT--we've had a crazy amount of rain over the past month, so all the stream crossings in that valley were submerged, and in some places the water had taken over the trail. Wet rocks everywhere. >.<'
As for gear, I hate carrying weight, so I try to do as much as I can with just a day pack (Osprey, 20L?) and trail runners. Later this month, I'm hoping to head down to the Smokies and do Mt.s LeConte and Kephart in a (very long) day as a sort of trial run for my attempt of Mt. Whitney, CA in July.