Sleeping bag liner? Nah, shouldn’t need it.
Insulated gloves? No way, overkill.
Base layer? Don’t want to carry the weight.
My first night back on the Appalachian Trail, March 18, it became apparent I had erred. I hiked 10 miles from a rural trailhead at Jennings Creek, about 30 miles north of Roanoke, Va. The hiking was awesome all day, around mid-40s and sunny. I stopped at a shelter named Bobblet’s Gap and humped a quarter-mile down switchbacks to the structure. It was around 5 p.m. when I arrived and the temperature was dropping fast. It wouldn’t have been too bad except for the icy wind, which picked up intensity through the night.
I bundled up, confident in my 20-degree sleeping bag’s ability to withstand the cold assault. I’d slept in cold weather before.
But not like this. Not with this freezing wind buffeting my thin layer of nylon. Not exposed on the slatted wood floor of a three-walled shelter with nothing holding off the wind. And not without having prepared for freezing weather with base layer, sleeping bag liner and, sometimes, insulated gloves.
At around midnight, I was remembering my errant rejections of those cold-weather supplies as the temperature dropped below 20 and seeped into my sleeping bag. My double-socked feet were the first to let me know this would be a fitful night as I struggled fruitlessly to get them warm and comfortable. Then I felt the frigid draft on my back every time I turned on one side as it snuck in the open top of my sleeping bag and wheedled down lower and lower like a snake seeking warmth. Eventually, the shivering began. I restrained myself from checking my watch every few minutes to see if this interminable night was working its way toward morning sun.
It wasn’t.
Move or Stay?
I considered getting up, packing my things in the midnight dark and start hiking again. It probably would have been the prudent thing to do. And if it were any colder and if I were not able to snag a few moments of sleep here and there I would have opted for that dire choice.
Instead, I hunkered tighter from the cold, curling into an ever tighter fetal ball and waited it out. Morning would come. Eventually.
Welcome back to the Appalachian Trail.
Smart Packing
Packing for a backpacking trip is an art in itself. It’s a fine balance between stripping down your list to the barest of essentials and anticipating must-haves and levels of comfort.
Some thru-hikers prance down the trail with a pack weighing only 12 or 15 pounds, equipped only with a plastic tarp for shelter, no changes of clothes and a handful of energy bars. I admire them but it’s not for me. I’m not the heaviest of packers, but I insist on an enclosed shelter like a tent of hammock, a sleeping bag and things like rain gear, eyeglasses and actual meals.
But when I’d set the date for my return to the AT, I checked weather forecasts for the central Virginia region I’d be returning to, and they looked reasonable. Lows in the 30s, highs in the 50s. Sounded quite ideal for hiking.
My main error was not considering the elevation. A rookie mistake that I’ve sufficiently berated myself for. My shelter mate that night, trail named Cayenne, told me about a site named ATweather.org. Plug in the shelter you’re aiming for and it’ll give you the weather forecast at that location, rather than, uselessly, down in the towns 3,000 feet below.
That would have been good to have when I was packing. I might have thrown in my sleeping bag liner. Definitely would have packed my base layer. That surely would have yielded me a better night’s sleep.
Tough Morning
As long and uncomfortable as the night at Bobblet’s Gap was, the morning was even more intense.
Cayenne, a hardy Vermonter, rose at 5 a.m., well before daylight, and headed out into the dark. He’d been hiking since January and was equipped for the cold.
That left me alone in the shelter, deep down in the gap where, even as the sun rose above, its rays would not penetrate into this gully.
The most mundane of morning chores were a quick dash out and back into the sleeping bag to warm frozen hands. Brushing teeth. Retrieving water. Making breakfast. Each time, back inside the sleeping bag to recover. I was dreading the moment when I’d have to pack up the sleeping bag, my only source of refuge.
To make matters worse, all my water had frozen. No morning tea. And I’m a cold-soaker, meaning I don’t carry a stove to heat up water for meals. Eating my cold-soaked oatmeal was like chomping ice.
MacGuyver Time
Okay, I was caught off guard on my return to the trail. Made rookie mistakes. I certainly should have put a bottle or two of water inside my sleeping bag. That would have saved me from dehydration in the morning.
By the time I departed and climbed back up out of Bobblet’s Gap and the AT, it was mid-morning. At least I was moving, and my hands would thaw before long.
I climbed and built heat, the sun warmed the trail and gradually my layers came off. A pleasant hiking day ensued, for 13.5 miles, to a mountaintop shelter named Fullhardt Knob.
I took a sunset picture and checked the forecast, properly this time, on ATweather.org. Another frigid night, down in the low 20s.
I placed two water bottles inside my sleeping bag, along with my gloves. A childhood fan of the TV show MacGuyver (the old one, haven’t seen the new one), I considered everything at my disposal. I stuffed my tent rain fly inside my sleeping bag to simulate a liner. I zipped myself up inside my tent. I put on every layer of clothing I had, including rain gear. And though my sleeping bag zipper chose to stop working and wouldn’t close up at about midnight, I adjusted and slept restfully for nearly nine hours.
The forecast for the coming week looks perfect with highs in the 60s and lows in the 30s and 40s. I survived the freeze.
Welcome back to the trail.