This Florida Girl Needs a Shake Down
From everything I have read and heard, a shake down hike is an important part of getting ready for a thru-hike. I needed a shake down more than most hikers because I had only camped one time this year, and the weather conditions were near perfect. The temperatures on my first camping trip of 2024 were 29 degrees to 75 degrees and not a drop of rain. A little shaking was in order. So we decided to go on a group hike through the open sections of the Foothills Trail in South and North Carolina. It would be a down and back from Oconee State Park to Bad Creek.
The weather predictions for our shake down with Ramdino’s End of Days Hike were wet and cold. The wet part was familiar, but not-so-much the cold for this Florida girl. My favorite Florida hike this year had me knee deep in mud at one point, so I wasn’t scared of the rain. The thought of cold had me shaking in my boots though. Meeting new people on the trail was also going to be a first for me, and I am a bit nervous about the constant flux of people we will be hiking/camping with on the Appalachian Trail. So meeting people daily at Fresh Ground’s Leap Frog Cafe on this felt like a perfect introduction to the interacting I will be doing on the AT.
Merry Christmas!
We were eager to start, so we chose to leave on Christmas Day to avoid traffic. We took a leisurely drive up to the Atlanta area. A stop for gas and dinner at Buc-ees provided us with loads of economical trail mixes, nuts and dried fruit, my favorite trail snacks. So shop at Buc-ees and save money! Â In our hotel room that night, I tried to organize my backpack. I made some improvements, but there were still too many items to be added for it to count.
Shop ‘Til You Drop
The next day we had a few items to pick up, in addition to our groceries. We are REI members, so of course we started our shopping at REI, the hiker’s Mecca. I got a new fanny pack for my snacks and phone. We also got waterproof socks there because our favorite YouTuber, Captain Jack, swears by them. SharkSkins are the brand we had heard about, but they didn’t have them in my size. I got an alternative brand, and they did NOT work. Bill’s SharkSkins did though. So I will be taking advantage of REI’s return benefit for members and will replace mine with SharkSkins for the AT. Next, we found a hidden treasure: a Sierra Trading Post store. I still had merino wool gloves and ear coverings on my last minute shopping list. I left the store with my items, plus a merino wool baklava and lots of trail meals. Great deals. Today, I stayed way under my budget.
For our final stop, we headed to Kroger for groceries. This is where I came upon my dilemna. I drank powdered whole milk in my coffee and added it into my oatmeal every morning on the trail on our last camping trip. This time, there was only a 40 once can of powdered whole milk, and I wasn’t buying that much. So I decided to try powdered buttermilk and/or sweetened condensed milk. It’s called a shake down on purpose, so I figured I would make my final decision on the trail.Â
Ramdino’s End of Days Eve
We arrived at Oconee State Park in the late afternoon, and I started getting serious about packing. The final packing effort took some coffee, so I decided to choose between the buttermilk and the sweetened condensed milk here. I started with buttermilk. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. It was terrible. Really, really terrible. But I drank some black coffee and got to packing.
Unfortunately, I had too much food and ended up leaving lots in the car. Not a problem really, because now some of my food for the first week on the AT is purchased! We set up the tent, and I was all set to try out my new sleeping pad for the first time. FAILURE. I slept on the ground on and off all night. I could not keep the sleeping pad filled with air for more than a few hours. When we rolled out of bed in the morning, I immediately made the decision to go back to my old sleeping pad, which didn’t have as high an R value. But I thought it would be warmer than ending up on the ground for the rest of the trip. My first two shake down decisions were shaken down!
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