Teeny is Ready - Day 173

  Today I worked on a list of final odds and ends, including checking the gear list. You've seen all this process spread out in my living room several times. It's not all that interesting so I won't repeat it. But here's the final result. Teeny (Modestine) is packed. Total weight, 28 pounds, exactly the same as what I had when I walked away from Timber Creek in December. A few pieces of equipment are different, but the weight came out the same.

I've planned slightly shorter days for the Adirondacks. I want to be sure I give myself time to get enough rest, find the trail junctions, etc. I knew the trail near home so well, I didn't even need a map. Here, I've only seen a few pieces of what I'll be hiking, and I'm alone. I have latitude and longitude for some critical junctions. That said, there are a lot of road miles. Most of this is only a temporary route, so I did plan some days with a lot of road longer. Total ADK miles is something around 172. It's going to be impossible to get an exact mileage. This will be a long backpack!

I've double checked the power pack for the phone again. You might remember that I couldn't get it to work on the winter hike. It seems fine now. I ran the phone down to nothing, and charged it totally from the pack with plenty of power left. I'll be able to recharge the pack at each of the places where I have a supply pickup.

I have good maps from two sources. I'm feeling a lot more confident about this than I was a week ago.

Meanwhile, my hosts for the past few days have been Mary and Bill Coffin, long-time trail friends. We've enjoyed visiting, and Mary has been my primary source of info about the upcoming miles.

Here's the bad news (for you). Those of you who say you really enjoy my daily posts... that is all going on hold until probably June 6. I have to have cell signal to blog and there won't be enough places to do that for it to be sensible for me to carry the keyboard. What I hope to do is post a Facebook update from at least the supply pickup points. I really don't know if I'll have signal any other places. I don't need a signal to access the map GPS info.

So... please don't worry about me. I'll post a picture when I can and a brief update. Somehow, I'll have to update the blog with more pictures at a later date.

See Cruising the Daks