Week -2
In which I burn too much gasoline on errands and mentally yell at my knee
Hey yall, and welcome back to Stairsteps, a semi-regular newsletter series about my attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail in 2026. This newsletter tries to highlight some of the challenges and joys of thru-hiking, as told by one backpack-laden sweatmonger. If you have questions, whether about hiking generally or my AT hike specifically, please comment or reach out - I’ll gladly respond when I can (i.e when I have cell service)!
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Well, another week has flown by! I’m happy to report that despite a small peppering of anxiety (“for zest,” I’m telling myself), this one has been an overall good test of preparation and nerves.
After running around to outdoor stores and even managing to catch a few sales, my bag is now finally equipped with all the gear I need.1 I could now hit the trail any time and actually stand a chance of decently sleeping, eating, and staving off disease!
However, my final pack weight is creeping up towards 35 pounds, which is… heavy. Not uncommonly heavy, based on what I’ve heard, but there were a few other things (a notebook and a repair kit, for starts) which I was hoping to add if my pack weight was low enough. Frustratingly, I don’t have a lot of frills (well, to my amateur knowledge) in my bag, so it could be a case of poor gear selection on my part. Thankfully, returns are always an option!
Though I’m no lightweight on leg days, 35 pounds mixed with AllTrails’ elevation maps is starting to make me blanch a bit at the prospects for first week mileage.2 Maybe the “gram weenies” of backpacking infamy have a point in counting and cutting every individual spare ounce of weight in their packs… This is kind of the evergreen thru-hiker struggle, and the thing that drives some backpackers to do things like saw half their toothbrush handle off in the name of shedding weight.3
The good news here is that there are still chances for me to tailor this weight before I hit the harsh slopes of the trail. This upcoming week, I’ll be trusting a friend who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail - basically the West Cost AT, for those unfamiliar - to shakedown my gear by looking it over and helping me strip out extra pounds where I can. Plus, I finally sucked it up this week, began weighing individual pieces of gear, and started a gear inventory through LighterPack.com to get a bit more analytical about it myself.4
Still, my gear is now ready. I’ll just want to start optimizing pack weight, to hedge my bets on better daily mileage on the AT.
Running alongside fetching the last few pieces of gear, I’ve been keeping up on my training through rounds of mild self-inflicted torture on the stairmaster. Although I haven’t been as regular as I set out to be at the end of my last newsletter, I can tell a marked difference in my endurance from a month ago, and my cardiovascular recovery after workouts has been fairly quick! I’ve been really thrilled with this, given how spotty I was through winter about hiking.
But it hasn’t been without a bit of a snag: The knee pain has started!
…if only in the form of an occasional pinchy twinge in my right leg’s IT band. Fortunately, I was able to speak with my sister and my brother-in-law for a bit of off-the-cuff physical therapist’s knowledge (thanks again, yall!). IT band issues apparently are not an uncommon issue in hikers/runners, particularly ones like me who have recently ramped up activity. My rehab should be as simple as a bit of ice, a bit of muscle rolling if desired, and - yes - actually stretching, a thing I am notoriously neglectful of (I know, I KNOW).
The verdict: not a hike-derailer as long as I keep up with it. Thank god.
No bones about it, though. This spiked my anxiety pretty early on in the week. It spooked me into adding another rest day to my week, which I didn’t relish in the moment, but which ultimately felt like a good decision and didn’t derail anything major. That leg is now on notice, though.
Even if there’s still gear reevaluation to be done and a knee being a little asshole about things, my confidence is up thanks to familiarizing myself with that gear. This is where I undoubtedly made the biggest strides this week. On Tuesday, I did a full dry run of tent setup and teardown, learning that each takes me 10-12 minutes when done at a leisurely pace. Though the pitch was a bit odd due to placement too close to the dropoff in my parents’ yard (duly noted!), getting an idea of my expected quarters was fun.
Throughout the week, I also practiced packing and unpacking both my bear can and whole backpack to get used to the space constraints in both. And on Saturday, I managed a hike where I broke in my new SPF-rated shirt, re-familiarized myself with my trekking poles, and filtered and drank water from a creek to test my water system. I can happily report that my body remains happy and my pants have stayed un-shit so far. Good signs all around!
Though this was all done in the relative vacuum of “I haven’t already hiked 10 miles today,” it’s really helped me feel more familiar with my equipment. Despite the anxieties of the week, I’m beginning to feel very ready to hit the ground running maxing out at 3 mph in Georgia.
With all this errand-running, gear practice, and knee-resting, I only managed to get one real hike in this last week, though fortunately I made up for quantity with quality.
Saturday, I hit the Elm Lick Trail in the back of Bernheim Forest with my pals Jared and Mills - it’s a lovely-but-strenuous 5-ish mile loop across the watershed in the back of the park, and one of the steepest trails on the arboretum’s preserve. Seeking a workout, we set out as the morning warmed up from its late winter briskness.
Now granted, like all trails, this one gives a lot more to look at in the summer, when the humidity is higher and Elm Lick swells. Still, given last week’s weather, there was enough water to feed a few mud patches and keep the creek trickling. This also meant crossings were manageable, which I was grateful for as a guy still getting used to my trail runners.
The drabness wasn’t a huge issue, though. We were largely there to test ourselves on the steep and (in a couple spots) cruelly long slopes of the trail. I brought my backpacking setup stuffed with about 30 pounds and definitely found the training I was looking for! Once again, hiking poles proved their worth as I used them to navigate steep slopes and spare my knees (especially that whiny right one) the heavy impact of downhills with a nearly-full pack.
We stopped midway through to scoop up some cool creek water to test my filter… which I now realize I forgot to grab a picture of (damn)! Though we made less-than-stellar time on the trail, the hike was lovely thanks to the company, sunshine, babbling creek, and the surprising amount of wildlife for how “late-winter” the trail looked!
I left the trail feeling a bit tired after a good workout, but with no acting up from the knee and a sense that if I really wanted to, I could have turned around and done it all over again, even with the elevation gain. This upcoming week, I may put that to the test and see what a 10-mile day feels like for me on this or a slightly hillier trail. Chuffed as can be, we all headed back home and demolished some diner food when we got back. All in all, it was a great hike.
Oh, but speaking of wildlife…
Hey! Cool bug!
Welcome to a hopefully-recurring segment (which I should have started last newsletter with that grasshopper nymph) about the cool insects I notice on the trail! Given that I remain a bug kid at heart and now have a minor platform, I want to highlight the gnarly little insects I see along the way, so expect a lot more of these!
This week’s featured creature is one I’d never seen before! As we were hiking in Bernheim, I noticed an iridescent royal blue shine on a lump of dirt, and wouldn’t you know it? It was moving! Cool bug: detected.
I stopped the group and snapped some photos. My pal Jared - a fellow connoisseur of creepy crawlies - and I went back and forth on what we thought it was based on the head and thorax structure. Solitary ground wasp? Rare tiger beetle? Some kind of ant queen?
One trip back to reliable cell service in Louisville later, I had the ID. The beetles have it - this is meloe americanus, the North American blister beetle, so named for the apparently pretty gnarly chemical defense mechanism it’ll secrete if disturbed. So.. Friendly reminder to never handle any bugs you haven’t researched (and to leave even some of the ones you have alone). Admire the sheen and crazy antennae from afar or through the safety of a camera lens!
Back and Forth
That’s this week’s major updates, which means it’s time to look back a bit. How did I do on my goals from last week? Bolded tasks weren’t completed, strikethroughs were:
Finalize my gear list
Do a (hopefully) dry run of making and breaking camp,including another round of cooking(use phone to time how long this takes)Work out or hike hills 6 days
Eat at least 7 bananasBonus [weather permitting]: test rain gear
Bonus [water levels permitting]: hike Elm Lick at Bernheim Arboretum
I got close on some of these, but overall… I can do better. With the minor panic induced by early knee pain now behind me, I think my outlook for this next week is sunnier, fortunately. So, new list:
Really finalize gear (Garmin included)!
Complete gear shakedown
Finish LighterPack list
Decide between current and lighter gear
Tent
Sleeping pad
Cook another meal on camping stove (attempt a bastardized “pad thai” ramen bomb?)
Work out or hike hills 6 days
At least once, hike a 10-mile day
Eat 7 more bananas
STRETCH EVERY DAY
Plan the first week on the trail
Stock bear can with exact food!
Locate resupplies
Bonus [weather permitting]: test rain gear
Bonus [weather permitting]: test cold gear
Plenty to do in the weeks ahead still. Now that I’m rounding the corner on my gear list, my focus will soon pivot to learning the specifics of the nearby towns for the first few hikes of the trail (and surely, the more mundane housekeeping of being gone for 6ish months).
Talk to yall next week!
-Michael
Well, minus the eye-wateringly pricey Garmin inReach I’ll be taking as my SOS option/SatPhone. If anyone has a coupon kicking around, let me know… please!
Not that I’m expecting double-digit days for myself off the bat, to be clear! I’m at peace with the probably slow-going early on.
Which, admittedly, I have already done myself, in what I will fully acknowledge is me being somewhat “[ounce]-wise but pound-foolish” in my preparation.
As the LighterPack screengrab shows, half or more of my final pack weight will probably go to food and water! My pal Stephen, who thru-hiked the AT last year, has told me that this is why resupply kind of sucks. I can expect to leave towns with a pack about 10-15 lbs heavier than I walked in with, thanks to a topped-off food stock!
I also am amazed with how optimized the weight of backpacking gear has become thanks to modern materials; my pack (an Osprey Exos 58) weighs 2.84 lbs when empty according to the manufacturer. Just one of my 1L water bottles weighs ~2.46 lbs when filled and with my water filter attached. The pack weighs just a third of a pound more than the bottle, and yet it will hold my entire life for the hike!
You should get a Durston tent I heard they’re really good and lightweight
TMNT representing! 💚☺️