Stuff You Should Know - The Appalachian Trail: A Heckuva Hike

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

A few short years after the hiking trails from Maine to Georgia were connected into the world’s longest hiking-only footpath, a WWII vet walked the whole thing in one go. He kicked off a challenge that’s still taken on by thousands of people each year.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck, Jerry's here too. This is Stuff You Should Know. Get out there and do an addition.

Just a couple of no-bos hanging out in front of the mic. And if you don't know what a no-bo is, prepare to learn. I thought you were going to give me a trail name. I couldn't think of one. I was. How about Starfish? You're Starfish. All right. What are you? You're like, I don't know. What eats a Starfish? I'll be Jellyfish. Jellyfish, okay. And Jerry will be Sunfish. Oh, our little Sunfish. Yeah. And it will make sense as long as we hike together,

but if one of us gets ahead of the other or behind the other, then it'll just seem weird. Finally, we're talking about the Appalachian Trail. Boy, we've been asked many, many, many, many times over the years to cover this by, generally by through hikers that are like, I'm listening to your show as I hike from Georgia to Maine. And we're finally getting down to it. It is about time for sure. And a big thank you to Dave Ruiz for helping us with this one. I don't believe he ever threw hike the AT, which makes this even more impressive, all the info he came up with. You ever hiked in any of the AT? I think I accidentally did in maybe Unicoys State Park and didn't realize that's what I was doing.

Maybe. I had no idea I was on the AT, but no. I had a friend named Mitch who I went to high school with, not dirty Mitch from the Scabies episode, a different Mitch. And a few years, sure, I don't know about that, but still. Medium Mitch. Sure. A few years after high school, he threw hiked the AT. And he was the first, and I think maybe the only person I know who has. Yes. My friend's older brother hiked the AT with his dog. Nice. His sort of regular doughy black lab. And dude, that dog came back ripped. Oh, bad. Like a black lab that was built like a pit bull. Yeah, I can imagine. Because one of the most physically demanding things you can do is through hike the Appalachian Trail. And through hike means that you hike the whole 2,194.3 miles

from Georgia to Maine or Maine to Georgia in one straight shot, usually averaging about four to five to six months to do it. That's right. Well, not necessarily in one straight shot, as we'll see, because you can do it in leapfrog it and do it in chunks. And I think it all counts as long as you do it within the same year. Yeah. But for me, and I used to want to do this, I had a big gigantic AT poster that hung on my walls for many, many years. And my time has passed to do this. But I think my new goal is I would like to hike the entire Georgia portion. Okay. At some point. I have hiked portions of it in Georgia. But when I wanted to hike the AT, I was always of the mindset, not that there's any right or wrong way to do it, but I wanted to do

it just all in one go and not do it in chunks and just start out at Springer Mountain in Georgia and end up, what's the mountain in Maine? Cattadin. That's right. Yeah. That's a through hike for sure. And you would be a nobo, like you said, going from Georgia to Maine. If you went from Maine to Georgia, which is again another way you can do it, you'd be a sobo for southbound. But the thing is, I think three million people hike on the AT every year. Some little segment or portion, they're called section hikers. Anyone who doesn't hike the whole thing in one shot is a section hiker. But of those three million people, just a few or several thousand people try it, try through hiking every year. And only one in four of them is successful because it's so hard

to do. Yeah. It is the longest hike-only footpath in the world. There are longer trails for sure. And at some point we might do one on the Great Pacific Crest Trail, but you can take pack mules and horses on the PCT. You are not allowed to. You can only take your body and your own feet on the Appalachian Trail. Yeah. Whereas Dave puts it, on the AT, the pack animal is you. That's a great line. I love Dave. That's great. He's very Yaakov Smirnoffy. So in addition to it just being really, really long, Chuck, there's a lot of ups and downs. There's a lot of crazy terrain. There's a lot of dangers that we'll see. But those ups and downs amount to over that whole distance, 464,500 feet of elevation gain and loss. And Mount Everest

is about 29,000 feet. So if you started at sea level and walked up and down Everest, you'd have to do that eight times to equal that amount of elevation gain or loss that you're going to walk along the Appalachian Trail in that one straight shot. That's right. That is not to say, I mean, those are apples to oranges, but that just puts it into perspective. Sure. A lot of mountains you're hiking up and down. I never claimed they were both apples. No, no, I know. I just don't like, I don't want people that have climbed Everest to be like, dude, you can't even compare the two. That is such a good Everest climber impression. I almost died up there. Bro. All right. So let's talk about this history wise. The original human being that thought this was

a good idea was named Benton Mackay, who obviously was a hiker in the New England area and went to Harvard, got a degree in forestry and worked as a land use planner and was hiking along in Vermont one day in the Green Mountains, climbed a big tree, looked out upon all the peaks, those nice little rounded peaks of the Appalachian Mountains. Not like the Rocky Mountains. We've talked about that. Why? It's because of wind and said, you know what, that's amazing. I've been trying to interlink trails in New England to make hikes longer. Is it even possible? Could we link a trail from Georgia to Maine all along this Appalachian range? Yeah. And that's a great first thought. But then he had plenty of successive follow-up thoughts about that idea. He wrote a paper called an Appalachian

Trail, a project in regional planning in 1921. And he basically said, hey, in addition to this interconnected trail that forms one big trail along the Appalachians, we can also build shelters for people hiking. We can build community camps. We can build farms that are run by labor unions and basically socialize the woods to give people a chance to get away from the rest of the world. Yeah. It was like a really, really grand plan and one that like super admirable, I think. Yeah, for sure. I admire it. And yeah, the thing is, as Dave puts it, he was the tree hugger who came up with this idea. And he definitely was. And he had a real vision for it. And people came along and said, that has a great idea. We're going to really trim off this fat about socialism and

labor unions and stuff. But the rest of it, we really like. And Mackay was like, hey, what do you mean fat? And that it just kind of got taken away from him from there. Well, sort of, he still worked a lot with this other guy who came along who we're going to talk about named Myron Avery. And this is how Dave put it. By all accounts, Myron Avery was a great a jerk. Here's the thing. Myron Avery was a lawyer, a maritime attorney, a big time hiker from Washington, DC, who took charge of the project in 1930. And everything I read up a lot about this guy, because anytime I see someone just kind of categorize as a big time jerk, I'm kind of curious, because it's probably complicated. And it sounds like he was very stubborn. And he was a perfectionist.

And he kind of just didn't want to listen to other people. He would go into a community and that they would have ideas like, hey, why don't you get the community on board with this and get some community support? And he was like, no, he was like, we should just make this trail. And then they'll see the benefit. The locals will see the benefit and its value afterward. And all we need to do is just blaze forward, no pun intended, as you'll see, and just do this thing. And it sounded like he was just really tenacious. And he did burn bridges and it sound like he had a big ego. And he may have been a bit of a jerk and a bully, but I think it's probably a little more complicated than to just say he was a big a-hole.

For sure. But he was enough of a a-hole. Are we seeing that now? No, I mean, I just did. Okay. He was enough of one of those that he and Mackay had a falling out and Mackay stayed away from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, which Myron Avery led until Myron Avery died age 52 of a heart attack from being such a Type A personality. Yeah. I mean, they had that they worked together for a while and then eventually couldn't sort of see eye to eye. So he backed out. Have you ever read the book A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson? No, but I'd like to. Oh, Chuck, you will love it. It's great.

Did you read it? Oh, yeah. It's one of those best in your late teens, early 20s, but I think you would appreciate it no matter what your age. It's just a great book. And he's such a great writer and his companion on the trail is just such a great foil and comic relief. It's just a really good book. But in it, he described Myron Avery as blazing two trails from Georgia to Maine. One was of hurt feelings and bruised egos. The other was the AT. Well, for his stubborn efforts, the East Peak of Bigelow Mountain in Maine is now called Avery Peak. Oh, that's nice. Or a whole peak. Oh, boy. So Avery did walk the Appalachian Trail. He mapped apparently every square inch of it

because again, he was in charge of it. And he was such a pragmatic and totally driven visionary that he got the AT completed in seven years and it opened to the public in 1937 because of him. That's right. And after it was completed, everyone was like, this thing is great. But is anyone ever going to re I know you link these trails, but is anyone even capable of hiking this whole thing? And we will let you know if that's possible. Well, or at least who made that possible right after this. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself,

what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance

Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Articular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars. If you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,

my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drumroll? Yeah. Boy, what's wrong with your drum? You need to change your drum head, my friend. We need to work on our timing too. Okay. What does that mean? I finished my drum roll and you were still talking about my drum

heads. Sorry. Let's try it again. No, that's great. Your drum head is fine. It's really good. Yes, we know that we can complete the AT. We're being coy. Many people have done it. But the very first time that it was done was but 11 years after it opened and a man named Earl Schaefer, a Pennsylvanian from York County, World War II vet, who what we call this now is PTSD. Back then, they just called it suffering from war demons. But he clearly had some kind of PTSD and was quoted as saying he wanted to walk the army out of his system and started at the time. It was not at Springer Mountain in Georgia at the time. It was Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia on April 4th, 1948. And didn't even have a tent. No, he had a poncho that he slept under,

had paper maps. He had a compass. He was wearing Russell Mockison Company's bird shooter boots. And they still make those actually. They're nice looking boots, but I would not want to hike the AT in them. Okay. They're very expensive. They're like 450 bucks. But I believe they're so handmade that you can find like fingernail clippings in them. Wow. Yeah. That's handmade, Chuck. That is super handmade. So he did this in 124 days. The first guy to ever through hike the AT did it way above average of what people do today. Yeah, that's good clip. Yeah. He was making about 16 miles a day on average. So not only did he set the bar by being the first person to through hike, he set a really high bar as far as records to break. Like that wasn't just something the

second person was going to do better than, you know? Yeah, for sure. His advice was carry as little as possible, but choose that little with care. And everyone said duh. And he went shut up. I'm the first one to do it. I get to have my advice given out. And he did it again just to prove himself in 1965 and was the first person to do it both ways in both directions. And then at almost 80 years old in the late 90s, he did it one more time. Yeah. And there's other trail legends, but he was definitely the first. They called them crazy one, Earl Schaefer. Yeah. And then original crazy one apparently. Yeah. I guess there was somebody who was just as crazy who came along. Well, I'm sure a lot of people are like, oh, I'm going to be crazy one too. And then, you

know, you know, it's steal his name. No, that's his trail name. So Charles, we said that the Appalachian Trail goes from Georgia, Springer Mountain, to Mount Cattedon in Maine. And as it winds from one place to the other, it goes through 14 different states, some more than others. Virginia, it goes for about 550 plus miles. Ooh, West Virginia, which is very jealous of Virginia in this respect, only has 18 miles of Appalachian Trail. Yeah, that's what I said too. But if you add all these together, a couple hundred miles here, tens of miles here, you have this whole 2194 mile trail. And on average, it takes a through hiker about 165 days, which again, this is today with modern amazing gear. People average 165 days and Earl Schaefer did it in

124 back in 1948. Yeah, with fingernail boots. Right, exactly. It just makes his accomplishment that much more amazing. But one guy showed up Earl Schaefer like nobody's business, didn't he? Oh, yeah. A trail runner named Joe McConaughey in 2017, average 50 miles a day to complete the AT in 45 days, 12 hours and 15 minutes. That's nuts. I had my little blaze pun earlier. If you've ever hiked any portion of the AT, you will know about the blazes. If you've never hiked the AT, you may wonder, how do you know that you're still on the AT and you don't accidentally go off on another trail, which is possible. But it is marked with little blazes. It's a rectangular piece of paint, piece of paint. It's a rectangular swash of paint, brushstroke of paint. Yeah. And they're about,

I don't know, I feel like they're about six by three inches or so. Okay. And they are on trees and rocks about every 70 feet or so. So it is a very, very well marked, well trod trail. That's hard to say. Sure. So don't be afraid of getting lost. And there are plenty of people on it. It is not to say you should go into it lightly or without any preparation, but it is pretty easy to find your way along the AT. Yes, it is. And you're going to encounter plenty of people along it too. Because remember, 3 million people a year hike it to some extent. And again, there's thousands and thousands of people who are nobos or sobos trying to through hike at any given year. And because of the weather and the distance that you're covering,

you're actually going through the AT in different seasons. Oh yeah. So there's actually like certain windows depending on which direction you're going, north or south, where you can hike the AT. So all of those thousands of people are not spread out over a full year. They're actually kind of condensed in four or five or six month periods on any given year. So you're definitely going to have lots of companions on the trail, whether you like them or not. Yeah. Well, trail sex is a thing too. Yeah. I saw it's not nearly as much as you would think. Yeah, I'm sure. Okay. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure that these dirty hippies out there just sweating it up for days at a time. Don't mind knocking boots under the stars, but it's not

the sexiest way to do things. I saw that that was saved for town. Oh, okay. Like your zero day, like you take a down day, maybe stay in a cheap hotel, take a shower, meet a friend, starfish, meet jellyfish, meet starfish, right? And they have sunfish. Sure. That's how that is. Something weird just happened. I'm glad we planned that out and came full circle. So if you are a nobo, you are going to want to, and if you want to hike the AT, there are books out there that like, and websites and blogs that will tell you very specifically, exactly, you can map it down to the day if you want, like day one, day two, or you can kind of do your own thing. But generally, if you're a nobo, you're probably going to want to start at Springer

Mountain in the early spring and like March or April. So those first couple of months, those first few months, actually, you're going to be hiking in pretty good weather. As far as it getting too hot, it will get elevation. You can get snow still for sure in March and April in North Carolina and Tennessee, even parts of Georgia. So the disadvantage there is that you will have to pack some cold weather gear for your first 500 miles or so, which you can ditch and mail home at some point if you want. Right. But you have a much longer stretch of time to finish your through hike than you do if you're going from Maine to Georgia or Southbound. And because you have a much more limited window

of about four to five months, you have to cover a lot of miles every day. So being a sobo, if you see a sobo on the trail, this is probably not their first hike. They're usually pretty experienced and can make it over some unforgiving terrain a lot faster than the average hiker, I would guess. For sure. And you talked about the amount of people hiking. There's something called the bubble. So early on in March and April, the nobo areas get pretty, and when we say congested, it's not like you're surrounded by like hundreds of people, but it definitely thins out as you go. Yeah. But that's a real advantage to being a sobo is far fewer people start north to south. So you're going to run into a lot less people at the time. And by the time you do start running

into those original members of the bubble, they've thinned out. Because again, remember only one in four people make it all the way through the AT. And it's not like they all make it close to the end. People burn out at different spots along the way. Yeah. And then I mentioned at the very beginning, the flip-flopping technique, that is when you're doing it in chunks to really try and get the best weather everywhere you are at the time. And there's a leapfrogging route where you would start in Georgia in April, late April, just so you maybe don't get that snow that we were talking about. Right. You hike to West Virginia to Harpers Ferry. And then you leapfrog, you can take a car, you can take a train. Anyway, you would normally get somewhere not by foot.

You would go to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, then hike north from there to finish up by September before that cold weather. And then you leapfrog back down to Great Barrington and hike that southern portion back down to Harpers Ferry that you skipped. And there you have it. If you ever want to hike the AT, just pack a backpack and listen to what Chuck just said and just go for it. You don't need any other information. That's correct, I think. Actually, you do need a tremendous amount of information. And luckily, there's a lot of information out there on the web. A lot of really good free advice. If you are thinking about hiking the AT, I'm sure you have already found a lot of these, but a good place to start if this episode inspires you is probably the subreddit

for the Appalachian Trail. I noticed there's a ton of good advice on there. And just whatever question you have, just ask it and type Appalachian Trail. And there's probably pages and pages of people who have great advice and suggestions on how to do this. And we'll share a little bit with you right now about sleeping and eating. Yeah. I used to do plenty of backpacking, so I'm familiar with all this stuff. Now I'm a car camper mainly, but I am going to get back into backpacking at some point. But I still have all that gear, but boy, it's a lot lighter now than when I bought it. You can get an ultralight tent these days that weigh less than 20 ounces, my friend. Wow. That is a light. It's about 1.17 pounds. That's like the weight of a cockatiel,

a big one. That's right. So leave your cockatiel at home too. Yeah. So you're going to want an ultralight tent unless you're going to really, really either sleep in a hammock or just sleep under the ground under a tarp or something. But I would suggest an ultralight tent. But there are 250 shelters along the way. I've slept in a couple of these. It's just two walls and a roof and a sort of like a small deck that you're sleeping on. And it's first come, first serve. Some of them have little outhouses. Some of them don't. They're usually near water, like a river or something. And you can, and I have camped on these with strangers. And it could be a lot of fun sometimes meeting people like that. Oh yeah. If you're going to through

hike the AT, you need to get used to interacting with strangers in close quarters just for times like this. But also on the trail, you run into lots of strangers and a lot of times they want to stop and talk or whatever. But I saw that those rustic shelters are first come, first serve. So even if you meticulously planned your hike to hit one of these, did you say they're about eight miles apart? I didn't, but that's about right. Yeah. And that's an average day's walk for a very average hiker. So they purposely spread them out like that. And they're a little further spread out if there's a town in between them with hotels and hostels and all that. But you can meticulously plan your route so that you hit one of these shelters every night. So you have

shelter without needing a tent. But if there's a lot of people on the trail, you may be SOL when you show up at that shelter because it's full up with eight people in their sleeping bags and there's no room for you. Yeah. That's when you're going to want that tent as a backup at the very least. And you can camp right behind the shelter if you still want to hang out with people. Because I don't know if we mentioned this, there are a lot of different reasons people hike the AT. Some people really want to get away from people. But for what I've read and talked to people who have done it, even those people when you're out there for five and a half months can enjoy talking with someone every few days. You know what I mean? Even the weirdos want to talk to people sometimes.

Or you may not, they're probably names for everything. They're probably names for people that don't want to socialize. Like a little AT sort of made up name they give them. Sure. Trail hermits, I'll bet. Yeah. Termites. Yeah, termites is what they call them. We've entered cockney rhyming slang here. Food is another thing. Obviously, you're going to be eating a lot of calories or at least burning up a lot of calories and ideally replenishing those calories with food. You will lose a ton of weight hiking the AT if you're a through hiker. And you need about two pounds of food a day and you want to resupply generally every three to ten days depending on kind of how you want to plan it out and how much weight you want to carry.

And there are great books, again, that can tell you exactly how to do this. But you're either going to be replenishing on the trail when you hit a town or a lot of people mail or have family members mail their stuff ahead of time to post offices that you'll hit. Yeah. Some people mail their own stuff or they have friends and family do it for them. And there's a lot of websites dedicated to teaching you how to do that successfully and giving you the addresses you need and where you can and can't send stuff. But the upshot is you're not going to have to carry your five month supply of food with you the whole time. No, no, no. People have figured out how to not do it. And there's no shame whatsoever in going into town not only to eat or to resupply and restock up on food,

but also to sleep too. Like people take zero days. I think you mentioned earlier where you just take the day off or maybe even two days off if you're particularly burned out and you just kind of recuperate and recharge and get back on the trail after that. So that's definitely part of AT culture. That's not like cheating or anything. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And apparently it's a tradition to go on a feast and when you're in a town just to really eat just a bunch of high calorie junk to load up on calories. And I think maybe satisfy a certain urge that's not being met on the trail when you're eating. Dave calls it gorp. I'd never heard it called that, but like trail mix and freeze dried food and stuff like that, even though

that stuff has come a long way and how good it tastes. I will say that. I looked it up. Gorp stands for good old raisins and peanuts. Oh, okay. Isn't that delightful? That may be a regional thing. I've never heard anyone call it that here. Yeah, I have never heard it either, which is why I was like, why is this gorp stuff? Looks like a typo. I'm glad I didn't know it was an acronym. It definitely does not accurately convey what it's talking about because gorp sounds disgusting, but raisins and peanuts are not disgusting. Yeah, Dave also has in here the average cost of gear that you buy. It's about a thousand bucks. I think that can vary wildly. I think it really depends on how much gear you already have because that one pound tent that I was talking about is

a $700 tent. Oh yeah, definitely. You can also buy your stuff off of eBay or Craigslist or something like that and probably save a tremendous amount of money compared to going to REI and buying everything brand new. Also, especially if you're a first timer, you're definitely going to over purchase, over plan and over pack. I would guess if you're a first time through hiker, you are going to spend substantially more than you would on maybe your second attempt. Yeah. I think at the beginning of no matter where you start in Maine, and it's weird that he can do this in both places, but Sam Elliott is at the front at the trailhead going through your pack and saying, you don't need this. You don't need this. Get rid of this. Why would you even

have this and just tear in your pack apart basically until you're down to that ultralight tent and some gorp? Yeah, and by proxy, tearing you apart psychologically. Yeah. He was kind of a jerk lately about that power of the dog. Maybe I forgot about that. What do you mean he was a jerk? What did you do? The power of the dog came out and he was just kind of like, well, these candy butts and their homosexual cowboy notions and that's not the West I knew. What's his problem? West he knew. He was born in like 1950. The sort of crotchety old guy, homophobic crotchety old guy, which was very disappointing because I like Sam Elliott. But getting back to the money, you're going to spend about a grand a month. They just say to

at least plan on about $1,000 a month. So between $5,000 and $7,000, depending on how long you're going to take to hike it. Yes. So cough up the simoleons, everybody, or prepare to and also prepare to listen to some commercials because we're going to take a break real quick. Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an

SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesha together. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking.

You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars. If you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to skyline drive and the

iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Well, let's talk weather. If you're hiking the ATE, we mentioned potentially, potentially the snow at the beginning of the northbound route. Or, you know, Maine is crazy. You might get a late snow in May or early June in Maine even at elevation. So you're going to have some cold weather to contend with for a little while at least, right? Yes, one way or another. And again, if you have cold weather stuff that you need to eventually ditch, you don't have to plan on carrying it the whole time. You can go to one of those same post offices that you pick up your mail drop at and mail it back, mail back your cold weather gear.

So leave a little trail magic for someone. You know what I'm saying? There you go. I wonder, I'll bet a lot of people do that to tell you the truth. You think? Yeah. And then hypothermia, because there's cold weather associated with the hike, it's a real problem. And it's not just from being snowed on. It's actually much less likely from being snowed on. It's more likely from being hit by a cold rain and being soaked and then hit with some very cold wind, which can happen at high altitudes. And all of a sudden, your core temperature is dropping very quickly. So you have to get naked and try to warm up as fast as you can. That's right. The clothing that they make these days is amazing. It's very lightweight.

These synthetic weaves that wick the water away. They dry out super fast. It is not like the stuff in the Shaffer days and this other wonderful hero that we're going to talk about in a little bit. This one, I cannot wait to get to her. But you're also going to hit really hot, humid, balmy weather in the thick of it in the summer, in the middle of that hike. You're going to be depleted of your electrolytes and your salts. You could suffer from cramping and heat stroke and heat exhaustion. So they say to count on a couple of liters of water a day. And obviously, you're not going to carry that much weight. So you're going to want to use, and I got one of these two, one of those beautiful little lightweight water purifying systems that you just pump into your water bottle

from a running beautiful stream. Yeah. You pump and dump into your water bottle. That's right. And then also, Chuck, I mean, you want to keep up with your water. You really need to keep up with your calories because like you said, you're going to lose a ton of weight. And apparently, even if you ate 4,000 calories a day, by the time you were done with your through hike, on average, you would have probably lost 10 to 20 pounds. And you would look like a black lab that is ripped like a pit bull. Yeah. That's right. And that's a cool reason to do it, you know? It is. But I also saw that it can lead to a lot of guilt or shame when you start to gain your weight back because everybody's been telling you how amazing you look. Right. And then when

you get back to normal life, it can be really difficult. Right. There's something called hiker's hunger where it is, you're just starving and you can eat those incredible large amounts of food, calorie dense food, and just keep shedding the pounds because you're exerting yourself so much. But when you get off of the trail, when you're done, you're not exerting yourself any longer, but that hiker's hunger can still linger. So you're actually eating way more than you would have before you started the trail. And you really have to kind of keep up with it or else you can gain whatever weight you had back and then some. But yeah, I saw that there's, there can be guilt associated with not looking like that any longer after a little while. Yeah. So if you, next time

you see a buddy come off of a through hike on the AT, don't tell them how amazing they look. Just say, it's good to see you. Yeah, exactly. I'm glad you're back safe. Yeah. And then they'll go, you know, you say anything about how great I look. Right. What's wrong with this guy? I thought we were friends. There are animal dangers, of course, snakes and spiders and bears and things like that. Ticks are a big, big part of the problem. Lyme disease is huge. You're going to get ticks if you hike the AT. So you want to check that every night around your ankles and armpits and groin area and waistline and everywhere that ticks like to hide out. Dude, I saw that people drop their pants and squat over an iPhone and video, like run a video of their underside or undercarriage

and then watch the video to see if there's any hiding there that they can't feel. Or the stranger that they met in the thing. They say, hey, I looked at the video a few times. Will you just give it a once over? Right. And the stranger says, I'm a termite, please leave me alone. Bears, I did mention you don't want your food to be left out if you are an experienced camper and hiker. You know this stuff, but some places they have bear boxes, but you can't count on a bear box being there. There are bear proof canisters you can carry, but what you're probably going to do, it's just what's called a bear hang, which go about 200 feet away from your campsite and loop a rope over a tree and pull your food up at least

12 feet off the ground. Yeah, every single night without fail. And they still might get it. Bears are crafty. They are crafty, but at least they're doing it 200 feet away from where you're sleeping. Exactly. A lot of people get injured too, but very few people die. Two to three people out of again, 3 million people die on the AT every year. That's actually seems like it would be way higher than that. Yeah. And there have only been, I say only, but to me, statistically speaking, it seems low, 13 murders on the trail. And the first one wasn't until 1974.

Yeah. And I look this up and they did, I'm not going to bother going on the crazy apples to apples math they had to do to make it work out to like just being living in the United States and a regular neighborhood. But they did do that math if you want to go out there and look, but they found that your chances of getting murdered on the AT are a thousand times less likely than just being a regular American walking around on a daily basis. Man, I'm really glad you said that because all you have to do is hear about 13 murders on the trail and some people die. And just the fact that you're putting it in the context of dying out in the woods or being murdered out in the woods, it seems so much worse.

So I think that's a really reassuring thing you just said. It is. And I was also curious about sexual assault type of things. And of course, things go unreported. So I'm not naive enough to think that this accounts for all of them. But they said that there is one, basically one reported rape every two to three years, and it is more dangerous to live on a college campus than it is to hike the AT. So I don't know if that makes you feel better or worse, depending on if you're on a college campus or not. But the point is, it is generally a pretty safe, helpful community out there. Yeah. That's one of the reasons it's safe is because there's such an established culture

and there is such a tight community out there, not only among strangers, but among the townsfolk. Like this trail goes through or right past some towns that part of their industry is supporting Appalachian Trail through hikers. And so they're really kind and generous and helpful out on the trail. Some people will just go out on the trail who live in town and take snacks and drinks and stuff and just hand them out to people who are walking on the Appalachian Trail. So I mean, that's kind of like the vibe and the zeitgeist on the AT. Not everybody's out for themselves. And don't turn your back on a stranger because they'll hit you with a hatchet and take your one pound tent. It's nothing like that. It's actually quite the opposite of that

from everything I can tell. We have kind of joked around about these trail names, but that is one thing that you do, or at least you're encouraged to do, is give yourself a trail name, only go by that trail name. And it's a symbolic thing that you are leaving your old identity behind for now. You are becoming a new person on the trail. And it's kind of fun, I think. Yeah. But I mean, that kind of goes to underscore like why people hike the AT. And one of them is to just get away from their life to kind of reset their perspective on things or think things through or go through a transition. And that taking a trail name is a really good way to just become somebody different for a little while or not your usual self. It gives you that kind of freedom,

I think. Yeah. And just don't use the trail name Ted Bundy and you should be fine. You mentioned the towns that are behind this. There is in Damascus, Virginia in May. There's a week-long festival called Trail Days where there's a hiker parade and everyone gets showered with water balloons and water guns. And they're sort of celebrated. There's the half-gallon ice cream challenge right-of-passage in Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania where you get a half-gallon of ice cream from Pine Grove Furnace General Store and try to eat the whole thing. That sounds like a lot of fun to me. Oh yeah, definitely. I don't think you have to hike the AT to try that. Also Chuck, apparently on the summer solstice in June, there's Hike Naked Day.

Not for me. That is a thing. And my friend Mitch told me that he hiked most of it naked, not just on Hike Naked Day. Like there's a lot of naked hiking or at least there used to be in the late 90s. Okay, good for Mitch. Yeah, that's what I said too. And this is medium hygiene Mitch. Right, not dirty Mitch. No one wants to see that. I mentioned trail magic. That is not something I was just making fun of or made up. Trail magic is defined by the AT Conservancy as I think people could be cynical about stuff like this. The fact that you had to say that too is like it just goes to show how lame the words trail magic are. The AT Conservancy defines it and it's finding what you need most when you least expect it or experiencing something rare, extraordinary,

or inspiring in nature or encountering unexpected acts of generosity that restore your faith and humanity. And it is something like, hey man, you need that? I've got that and here it is. Yeah, that's pretty cool. It also can take the form of even like verbal encouragement from townsfolk in the towns that you walk through. So I want to also clarify the term trail magic is what I think is lame. That concept of trail magic I think is beautiful. No, I'm with you. I think it's wonderful. And like you said, something inspiring in nature, when you're on the trail, you might see things that you're never ever going to see again for the rest of your life and have never seen before, including some types of animals or just certain views.

And like that experience can be, there's no other way to put it, magical. That's what helps you when you're kind of on this passage through the AT, if you're going through a life transition or if you're trying to figure yourself out, seeing stuff like that, bearing witness to it and letting it like impress upon you, that helps that process I think probably tremendously. Yeah, or like somebody filming their butthole with an iPhone. That's right, trail magic. All right, I think we should close the show in this episode with, I think I can speak for both of us and say one of our new favorite amazing women and human beings to ever live,

Emma Grandma Gatewood. True dad, who was the first woman to walk the AT by herself all the way back in 1955 when she was 67. And this is 1955, 67. That's like 150 today. Right. And as if that wasn't enough, it just gets better and better. She was the mother of 11 kids, 23 grandkids, had a 30 year marriage to an awful, abusive, physically abusive husband who apparently would beat her nearly to death at times, eventually divorced this garbage human, raised those 11 children by herself. And then in the 1950s, read a Nat Geo article about the AT and about Schaefer's through hike and said, in 1953, told her grandchildren, I'm sorry, her grown children that she was going for a hike, end quote, and tried to hike the AT

right then and there. Starting at Mount Cattadine, which again, if you're a sobo, that's for experienced hikers, not a first timer who's going for a hike at age 67 in 1955. So, in apparently very short order, she fell, she broke her glasses, she got lost, she basically turned into Velma from Scooby-Doo, and she was rescued by rangers. And you would think, okay, that's the end of the story that she, you know, she had a wild hair and she tried it and it didn't work. No. In 1955, two years later, she said, let me try this from Georgia instead. And she was able to through hike the entire Appalachian Trail. Unbelievable. You look up pictures of this lady and you're like, wait a minute,

it looks like she's just holding a rucksack over her shoulder. And that's because that's exactly what she did. She didn't have a backpack. She didn't have a sleeping bag. She didn't have a compass. She had a homemade denim duffel bag that she draped over her shoulder that had a blanket, a shower curtain that she used as a sleeping tarp, basically. Right. She had a canteen for water, apparently a small pot, a spoon, a Swiss Army knife, some pins, a first aid kit, a flashlight, a piece of rope, a raincoat, a warmer coat, and a change of clothes. And she hiked the whole thing in Keds sneakers. Yeah, seven pairs. Did Keds take advantage of this back then and they're advertising? I don't know. They could probably still take advantage of it. It's that astounding,

you know? They should. And despite wearing nothing but Keds and carrying this denim duffel bag, which I would guess is probably pretty heavy, she managed the average of 14 miles a day. And of course, people heard about her and the newspaper started covering her and all that. So townsfolk came out and said like, hey, you can sleep in our house, no charge. We want to feed you and put you up. We just think what you're doing is great. And she said, I appreciate it, but most nights she slept out on a bed of leaves. Amazing. I salute you, Grandma Gatewood. There were not many women obviously hiking the AT at the time at all, much less through hiking. I think they make up, women make up about a third of all through hikers today.

And she went on to hike it, I think a couple of more times too, right? Yeah, two years later, she hiked it again. So she became the first person man or woman to hike the trail twice. And she did it a third time in 1964. That time she divided into sections. So yeah, she was definitely, she definitely, again, there's really no other way to put it. She was a trailblazer for women on the AT. I'm sorry, but that's just how you put it. A couple of other standouts we should mention. Just last year in 2021, MJ Sonny Eberhardt became the oldest person to complete a through hike at 83 years young. What was Sonny's name on the trail? Nimblewood Nomad. Very nice. What else? A certain touch of trail magic to it.

It does. Yeah, the same year another record was set, the youngest through hiker, a five-year-old named Harvey Sutton, who started off when he was four and walked it in 209 days with his parents. It's unbelievable. Harvey's trail name was Little Man. And I read an article about this, and it just sounded like a wonderful family experience. And this one guy hiked with the family from somewhere in Pennsylvania through to Maine, just kind of buddied up with him. And it was like, this kid, at the end of the day, our butts are kicked. And he's like, let's play freeze tag. Unbelievable. And just, the parents had to work overtime to keep them engaged. And so you can't just be alone with your thoughts for 10 hours a day on the trail with a

five-year-old. You got to be pointing things out and playing little games. And so they said that was challenging, but they said they were just closer than they'd ever been as a family, which is pretty cool. That is cool. Did they say anything about feeding them? Because I would find it distressing as a parent to know that I needed to keep up with thousands of calories that my kid needed. So I mean, hats off to his parents for doing that, and then successfully doing it too. Yeah, I did see that there was another kid that finished it for a named Juniper Nettaburg, a young girl that finished it. This is amazing in a Wonder Woman costume, but apparently did it in sections and took time off. I think did it within a year's time, but

didn't do the straight through hike like Harvey Sutton did, but big salute to Juniper as well. As well as Bill Irwin, right? Yeah, he definitely bears mentioning. He was the first man who was blind to hike the Appalachian Trail through hike in 1990, and he did it with his dog Orient. Apparently the pair together were called the Orient Express, and it took him eight months. Again, this trail is not just like some well-worn dirt path for 2000 miles. No, no. You're climbing over boulders. You're climbing up mountains, down mountains. You're crossing streams and rivers. Apparently they would do that because Orient would go across and then bark at Bill, so he knew where to swim across this river to get to the other side. This is what they did,

and they did it in eight months, and he estimates that he fell about 5,000 times over that eight months, but he still made it from Georgia to Canada. You know what that means, my friend? He got up 5,000 times. That's right. Pretty neat, Chuck. I love your brain. Do you love my body? Sure. Starfish. I don't know why this episode is so blue. I don't either, but it sure was. Hopefully it inspired some people to go out and do this, you know? I hope so. It's a very cool thing. I'm glad we finally got around to it. Hopefully there's some through hikers listed right now that can write in and let us know what's going on. Oh, yeah, definitely. Let us know your trail name too. If you want to know more about the AT, just start doing research, and there's

plenty of stuff out there, and hopefully it'll draw you out into the woods. Since I said draw you out into the woods, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this kidney donation story. It's pretty great. Okay. Hello, chaps. Love the program. Listen with more interest than usual to the up on kidney donation. I donated to a family friend a couple of years ago. We actually were in adjoining surgery rooms out of me into him, Lickety Split. Wow. We're both doing well. His kids nicknamed the organ little Kirby after me, which I took as a high compliment. And you asked how you got the kidney out. They do make a three inch long incision low on the bikini line up front, and they just slid it out. Wow. So I think it must just sort

of flatten out or something. And then they take it and they feed it to the other person and hope it lands in the right spot. That incision was actually the worst part of the recovery. It took about a month to heal up in my case. I told my sisters that they then made you poop the kidney out, and I think part of them wanted to believe me. Thanks for encouraging folks to join the registry. It was well worth it, and the need is great. That is from Kirby in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Very nice, Kirby. Hats off to you for doing that. That's amazing. And hats off to everybody who's done that. A few people have written in and let us know that they've done that. So anyone who does that is at A-O-K in our book. Agreed. If you want to

be like Kirby and let us know how you are A-O-K, we want to hear it. You can send us an email to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye,

bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's to the great American settlers. The millions of

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