What a fantastic day for a hike! Mindy and I loaded up and strapped on our packs and hit some trails today - Boone Cliffs and Middle Creek Park - in an attempt to prepare ourselves for the great adventure that starts next week. Hiking 20 miles a day is one thing, but hiking 20 miles with 30 pounds on your back is another entirely. We wanted a trial run to get a feel for the packs and Mindy needed to break in her boots. We hiked approximately 5 miles in 2.5 hours. I know we can’t keep up that pace the entire day, but it’s a pretty good pace to reach our goal of 100 miles in 5 days.

So far, so good. Looks like I’m going to have room in the pack for everything I think I’ll need, without breaking the 30 pound barrier. My boots that I’ve had for many years now are still holding up and should be fine. There were two issues that I need to work out, though. One involved the pack being uncomfortable on my right shoulder. I adjusted every strap that would involve the shoulder, but I think rearranging the contents and redistributing the weight will help solve that problem.

The other issue involved my canteen. When I hike, I usually carry a canteen slung over my shoulder/chest. However, with the big pack on, I can’t comfortably wear it any more. It digs into my next and hits my thighs when I climb. I’m going to look into getting a camelbak so solve the problem. My pack has a compartment built in for the bladder, so that would help things out, though it wouldn’t hold as much water as the canteen.

Wow, only a week until we leave! Looking ahead to the weather…not good. The temperatures look great, with highs in the lower 60s and lows in the lower 40s. That bad part is they are predicting rain Sunday through Tuesday at this point. Hopefully those predictions will be wrong and the rain will get out of the way before we get there.

This week will be spent getting more food and the remainder of supplies that we’ll need, repacking the bag and building some stamina for the trip. Yeah, I’m gonna try to go running again.