Category: Appalachian Trail

It’s supposed to get close to 40 degrees tonight, and I think I’m the only excited one here! I’ve found the quality of my sleep to be much better in the cold. I need to buy a new warm hat though, I lost mine awhile back and just forget to replace it in town. My bandana has been sufficient for now though.

Tonight we’re camping near an overlook on Arden mountain in New York with our new friend Moose. There’s a group of 3 nobos (nortbbounders) camping here with us. I’m surprised that we still encounter nobos sometimes this late in the season, winter is coming fast in New England!

Oh, so we hit 800 miles today! We’re also back to carrying our full packs again, which is strangely comforting. We slack packed again today until we met up with our trail angel around 5 and grabbed our full packs then headed up to camp. It was fun being so light but I missed the feeling of carrying all I need on my back. It’s late and I can barely keep my eyes open so that’s all for now!

-Kylie “Sprinkles”

P.S. The spot gps tracker has new batteries!

Okay so I’m gonna have to get real for a minute. If you gross out easily then this post might not be for you.

I pooped in a ziploc bag last night. We pushed for a 21 mile day so that we could camp at this deli .3 miles off trail that we’d heard good things about. They have awesome sandwiches and a spigot for water and outlets to charge devices and a nice yard they encourage thru hikers to camp in. But they don’t have a public restroom. I didn’t know that. I purposefully held my poop as we passed the last privy 3 or 4 miles prior because I was just so excited to have a real toilet that flushes and a sink to wash my hands. My heart dropped when I saw the “no public restroom” sign on the door. I ordered my sandwich and proceeded to ask if they knew of anywhere nearby that I could use a restroom, but alas they did not. It was a Sunday and the only other businesses nearby were a concrete plant and a heating company, both of which were definitely closed. I got my sandwich and went out back knowing there was no way I could make it back to the privy, nor was I willing to add 6-8 miles to my day just to poop. There was nowhere far enough away from where people hang out to dig a cathole, and I guess I could have gone back to the woods to dig but at this point it was starting to get dark. I knew what I had to do. After several minutes of contemplating my life and my decisions that had brought me to this point, I fished a spare gallon size ziploc out of my bag and waited for it to get really dark out. And then I pooped in the ziploc bag in the middle of their backyard.

It was pretty life changing.