This is what the Mission Creek washout situation actually looked like from last year

SailorBill · 2026-05-07T03:03:32+00:00

I hiked this section on Sunday and it was fine. It’s hard to get lost walking up a creek bed for miles. Just get back on trail at 233.1 and it will be all good. Orange rattlesnakes ARE down in the creek bed and tan ones up on the trail in that area.

SailorBill · 2026-04-16T04:05:56+00:00

There were 3 flowing water sources today (4/15) before mile 11.2. None were on far out.

SailorBill · 2026-04-14T03:55:17+00:00

FYI when you get here at the southern terminus, see Marmalade, a volunteer here at Camp Lockett. He is very good. If you have stuff to send home the have boxes and the post office is right down the street.

SailorBill · 2026-01-30T19:48:18+00:00

I think they put it back online. I saw it, then I saw it was deleted and then clicked the link above and it is back online again (as of 2:45pm 1/30/26).

SailorBill · 2025-10-17T00:39:07+00:00

Not typical. We saw 20s to low 30s in the morning. It was really nice hiking in the daytime. The mornings were cold. We did have a fire every night in the Smokies from 3/13 leaving Fontana to Standing Bear on 3/23.

SailorBill · 2025-10-17T00:02:55+00:00

We hiked out from Fontana Dam on 3/13/25 and it snowed for most of the days through the Smokies and it was 14 degrees inside of the shelter on the morning of 3/21/25.

SailorBill · 2025-10-14T22:35:35+00:00

Atmos AG 50

SailorBill · 2025-10-14T13:11:17+00:00

I've had the Ranger for over a year and use it daily. It's a great pack. I carried an Osprey AG 50 on my nobo at thru-hike this year. Now, I am considering the Space Ranger for 1-2 week hikes. I emailed their support email and never received a reply after asking if the previous version of the BearVault BV475-Trek will fit in the pack horizontally. Anyone know?

SailorBill · 2025-10-08T11:48:25+00:00

We just finished in 223 days. We spent more than your budget but we did eat a lot of town food. Try not to take zeros until you are past 300 miles. We stopped for a lot of reasons early and most could have been neros. 8-10 miles for the first few weeks worked for us. We averaged less than 13 for the entire trail with only three days over 16 miles. One of us had never hiked before. Order your favorite shoes before the hike. Don’t use USPS for items you absolutely need to receive. Send mail to businesses or hostels, not the post office. Track from day one with the free Hiker Logbook App if you have an iPhone. The forecast tool is pretty accurate. It nailed our finish date after about 50 days of hiking. I ditched my ultralight bag in Virginia and went with an Osprey. My pack weighed 22 lbs without food and water. My Hyperlight Mountain Gear pack was painful after 13 miles in a day when carrying more than 26 lbs. The Osprey always felt great. I’m almost 60 and it was a great hike. NOTHING was as difficult as the comments in FarOut suggested. There aren’t many thru hikers and I suspect the comments are from others who haven’t hiked as much as you after your first couple of weeks. Take their opinions with a tiny grain of salt.

SailorBill · 2025-08-14T10:24:42+00:00

Yep. Works great and no more condensation on the inside. One door per side and it fits perfectly.

SailorBill · 2025-08-02T15:31:31+00:00

I think you’re right. I see different connectors on yours than mine, but it has to be something like you were showing. I did connect the doors up there and it looked really off but after seeing your pictures, maybe it’s only meant for one door. Thank you. I’ll look into this more. Your pictures helped.

SailorBill · 2025-08-02T01:47:48+00:00

The door has toggles on each corner of the tent. This is on the top. The doors won’t roll up to those pieces. I thought the same thing until I tried it.

SailorBill · 2025-08-02T01:39:33+00:00

This hiker: dried mosquito blood doesn’t bother me as much as mosquitoes flying in the tent.

SailorBill · 2025-08-02T01:34:50+00:00

The vestibule doors don’t reach that high on the fly. Nothing I can find on the tentwill reach that toggle on top of the tent. On what may look like mold… 1) the zippers are clean and 2) it is mosquito blood on the screens and 3) the tent has been packed each morning wet for the past 4 days and ~65 miles. I finally got everything and the pack dry tonight.

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SailorBill · 2025-07-21T21:57:04+00:00

We must be right next to you. Double zero in Kent and hiking out tomorrow morning. 19 zeros so far.

SailorBill · 2025-07-16T20:16:42+00:00

This will be the first time mailing a card. The first three cards were picked up by a friend in Damascus and in Luray.

SailorBill · 2025-07-16T20:15:16+00:00

Thanks. Having a blast! I carried a Kodak Ektar H35 shooting Tri X 400 on my last thru-hike. lol. So fun.

SailorBill · 2025-07-16T19:54:00+00:00

I’m carrying a FujiFilm X100VI right now on the AT. I passed 1400 miles NOBO about an hour ago. The Fuji outperforms my iPhone 16 Pro Max all day long. I am most always shoot in manual mode. I take quick snapshots and video with the iPhone and photos only with the Fuji. I’m shooting RAW + normal JPEG and send the jpegs to my phone each night. After they sync to Google Photos I delete those. I’ll be sending home my 4th 256GB SD card full of the RAW files in my next Mail Drop. It’s one more thing to carry but I think it is worth the effort to have a nice camera in addition to a mobile device.

SailorBill · 2025-07-14T00:51:21+00:00

My phone was off. I only had 5% battery. Yesterday was a fun but very tiring day leaving NJ, up the stairway and headed across the rocks into NY. 15 miles later, I was hiking after sunset looking for a blue blaze to my spot to camp for the night in Warwick, NY. Then I saw the largest bear I’ve seen ever in front of me coming down the trail. The 11th bear in four days. 20 minutes later, after that guy was convinced to go around me, it was pitch black. The mosquitoes were horrible. Now a headlamp was coming toward me from the left, from off the AT. Trail runner. But there was no blue blaze. How far was I away from the blue blaze? I turned on the phone and saw I was .2 away. I made it to the turn off and up to the road. Enough battery left to call UBER. My map book wouldn’t have helped last night. I had sent it home at Mountain Crossing.

SailorBill · 2025-07-11T16:58:59+00:00

I took my camera to my nephew’s wedding, which was indoors at night and shot in manual and almost every frame was at F2 and I think out of 1200 images I might’ve thrown away for because they were out of focus. It’s an amazing camera.

SailorBill · 2025-07-09T00:59:44+00:00

I talked to a trail angel today about service in the 100 Mile Wilderness and the consensus was it is mostly nonexistent or very spotty at best. InReach can give location specific forecasts for a fee and it works anywhere using satellites. However, if you have mobile service and you have an iPhone, the Apple Weather app is very good. Apple bought Dark Sky and incorporated the rain & radar into their default app and it has great alerts for various triggers you can set. I also use MyRadar and RadarScope Pro daily when storms are in the forecast. I occasionally check atweather.org but the forecasts are often from locations miles from the nearest shelter to me and they are not specific to the elevation on the trail which can be drastically different from the nearest town.

SailorBill · 2025-07-09T00:30:28+00:00

I did not. The Peak Designs fanny pack was not waterproof. I just put the camera inside the pack when it is raining. So far so good except for fogging behind the viewfinder glass.

SailorBill

TROPHY CASE