We’re thru hiking the Appalachian Trail. That’s right, all 2,175 miles of it. Kind of. That’s how far Reboot is going; ohMEGA will be getting off the trail in late August to go back to school, so we aren’t quite sure yet where that will put her, but hopefully will cover a large portion of the trail.
You may be curious about what these code names are. It is tradition for hikers on the trail to ditch their “real names” when they start their hike and adopt “trail names”. The origins of these trail names vary as much as the characters who bear them and can be given or chosen by hikers. For instance, one hiker ohMEGA met while planning the hike would tell people on the trail his name was Greg. When they would ask what his trail name was, he’d say he didn’t have one, just Greg. His trail name was immediately adopted as “justGreg”.
So where did we get our names? To answer that, we first need to tell you a little more about the trail. There are multiple ways to hike the Appalachian Trail in full. All are equally valued when awarding someone the honor of being in the 2,000 miler club that designates those who have hiked the trail in its entirety. The section hiker may not be crazy enough to take off months at a time, but may be able to take a week off here or there and over time chip off sections of the trail a bit at a time until completion of the entire trail. For those who try and do the whole thing in one go however, have two basic ways to go; up or down. In general those doing the trail all at once start from one terminus or the other. Those starting at Springer Mtn in GA are doing northbound (NOBO) hikes which are also called GAME hikes (for GA -> ME). Those starting at Katahdin and are going southbound (SOBO) call their hikes MEGA. Some hikers may do what’s called a flip-flop where their hikes don’t start and finish at the termini of the trail. For instance, they may start in GA, hike to VA, get off the trail and travel to ME and then hike back to VA.
One thing that governs the timing and direction of hikes is the weather and specifically the weather at the northern terminus Katahdin. The park that Katahdin is in, Baxter State park, is only open to overnight camping from May 15th until October 15th. This is due to weather, and the presence of snow and ice in the park. Most hikers go NOBO and as such, target to finish no later than October 15th and they usually start in March or early April. Since we couldn’t start that early and since we’re already in the northeast, we’re going to do a SOBO hike. The snow is just now starting to melt (I hope) as I write this only a few days before the official opening date for the park. Because of this, we may not be able to leave for June 4th, our target summit date if the trail is closed due to snow and ice.
So back to our names. Since we’re going SOBO and doing a MEGA hike (and we’re nerds), Justina modified it to be ohMEGA. It could also be a play on OMG. For the blog we added 1e7 which is scientific notation for 10 million or the number of steps it takes two people to walk the entire trail. Grant chose the trail name Reboot because the hike is going to act as a new start in what direction to take his life. Also it’s kind of nerdy and a play on the fact that he’ll have to “re-boot” multiple times as he wears through shoes. This will post will probably be the only time we use our real names :P.
So there you have it; our first post and a little background about the trail in general. We’ll be knee deep in mud in a month, but hopefully can keep you posted as we go along.
-Reboot and ohMEGA (Grant and Justina)
