Unemployment, Covid, and the Final Preparations.

Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia

2020 was a wild year even before I hiked the Appalachian Trail. I believe 2020 was a wild year for just about everyone. I had made the decision to hike the AT Southbound in 2020, but when telling people about my plans I always phrased it “if I hike the AT in 2020.” This was primarily because I wanted to ensure I had enough money saved to complete the trail and get me through until I could find a new job post-trail. It was also so that I wouldn’t be seen as a failure if I decided not to try it. As much as it was exactly what I wanted to do, it did often occur to me that it was still absurd.

Being a travel occupational therapist had been good to me financially for several years. I was putting most of my extra income toward my student loans. My plan was to start using this extra money I earned in the first half of 2020 to save up about 15K in order to hike the trail. Most advice I read online recommended planning to spend 6-10K during a thru-hike. I thought 15K would give me a comfortable window to finish my hike and have a little time to find a new job contract while re-integrating into society.

Unforeseen to me, Medicare made some payment changes in November 2019 which caused many therapists across the county to be laid off, switched to part-time, or have forced pay cuts. This led to a dramatic reduction in available travel contracts as I was searching for work in December of 2019. Although I was able to find a contract, the pay was significantly less than in previous jobs I had held. I was still financially on track, as most of my big-ticket backpacking items were already paid for.

Then March 2020 came around, and with it, Covid 19 was spreading through the United States. I was able to continue working my home health job for the first several weeks of the pandemic, but eventually our caseload became low enough that the client I was working for terminated my contract with two day’s notice. Although I had a one-month cancellation guarantee in my contract, in the times of Covid, they basically told me “Screw you, we’re not paying you no matter what your contract says. Get out.”

This turn of events left me several thousand dollars below my targeted savings for six month thru-hike. At the same time, the ATC (Appalachian Trail Conservancy) was asking all thru-hikers to get off the trail, closing trail facilities, and officially stated that they would not recognize any 2020 thru-hikers for their accomplishment. The Appalachian Trail Class of 2020 Facebook page was shut down. I didn’t know what to do.

Most 2020 North-bounders had gotten off-trail as far as I could determine. Trail towns closed down to hikers. I read of hostels shutting down, shuttles stopping operation, and I assumed hitch hiking would be much more difficult in the Covid era. Information was hard to find through all the bickering and fighting on the internet. I considered postponing my hike until another year. But there were no jobs for me to work in the mean time. I managed to qualify for $76 of unemployment money per week when they dropped the work-search requirement. At this point, I was just going to wait and see the state of the world come summer time to determine if a thru-hike was still feasible.

The hiking community was very split in the spring on whether or not it was safe to hike in times of Covid. But by May and June, it seemed obvious to me that if crowds of people could fill up Walmart and Lowe’s, living mostly in the woods for a few months should be safe. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy disagreed, which lost them the respect of many in the hiking community. The ATC manages the trail and organizes the many volunteer groups that maintain it, but does not have much jurisdiction as far as setting rules for trail. Although they petitioned congress to formally close the trail, this never succeeded. The ATC’s official stance was that thru-hikers could carry Covid from state to state and pose a risk to trail towns. I initially agreed with this reasoning in March and April, but by summer, Covid had already spread to every corner of the country and it was becoming evident that outdoor transmission was a very low risk.

The ATC’s two requirements for giving their “approval” of thru-hikes was for a vaccine to be available and widely accessible and for all states that the AT travels through (14) to eliminate their travel restrictions. Clearly the vaccine wasn’t going to be an option, and as May turned to June, the New England states were tightening their travel restrictions, though they were not able to enforce them. With work options still scarce, I decided I was going to go for it, even without being in the ATC’s good graces. It was time to fully commit to this thing.

My original SOBO plan was to start in the middle of June. Baxster State Park, which hosts the northern terminus of the AT, typically opens Mount Katahdin for travel around June 15th. Prior to this time, it is often still in a freeze/thaw cycle which makes the alpine environment too fragile for foot traffic. Starting in June would subject me to the infamous Maine black flies, but would hopefully give me enough time to finish before the harshest winter weather began. But in 2020, Baxter State Park kept all trails above treeline closed through June, and did not open camping for out-of state residents until July 1st. On June 9th, I called to make my reservation for Katahdin Stream Campground for July 9th and 10th. I was all in.

I still had a few details to iron out at this point. The most difficult was trying to comply with Maine’s travel restrictions. Although I knew I likely wouldn’t be checked, I wanted to be a positive representation of the hiking community. Maine required out-of-state residents to have a negative covid test within 72 hours of entering the state, or complete a 14 day quarantine. And hiking through the wilderness is (stupidly) not considered a quarantine. All the local tests available to me either required me to have covid symptoms, or couldn’t get my test results for 5-7 business days. Finally, with help from an extremely helpful nurse at my physician’s office, I was able to schedule a rapid result Covid test for my father and I for July 6th. We both tested negative.

A few last minute things on my to-do list were to find some type of health insurance to cover me while on the trail, as I couldn’t avoid COBRA coverage for six months. I opted to get traveler’s insurance through World Nomads, which ran me a little over $500 for 6 months of coverage. I also decided to purchase a Garmin InReach Mini, a satellite communication device to use in case of emergencies. It also allowed me to send my location to family. I updated my location every night on a website you can view here.

At the risk of sounding horribly unprepared, I didn’t actually start to pack all my gear into my backpack until about three days before departing for Maine. I knew I had all the gear I wanted, though I hadn’t tested most of it. As it turns out, some thought is required to get all that gear to actually fit into your pack. After emptying and re-packing and emptying and repacking, I finally got everything I needed into my pack. With two liters of water it weighed about 48 pounds. Holy shit. There was no time for a shake-down hike now. This is what I was taking to Maine.

A lot of the weight of my pack was due to planning a 10-day food carry after summiting Mount Katahdin. Starting SOBO forces you to tackle the most remote section of trail right off the bat. With unconditioned legs, minimal experience, and a heavy pack, I assumed tackling the 100 Mile Wilderness would take at least 9-10 days, and therefore had to carry 10 days worth of food. This, combined with the 2 lb weight of my bear canister, totaled a fun 18ish pounds.

So there I was with my untested gear, hastily shoved into my 50lb pack, with my legs getting sore just wearing it to the end of my (very short) driveway. This was an excellent start. It was time to go to Maine.▪️

The Road to Maine

The Preparation