Q: Why are you doing this?
A: I'm between jobs and I wanted to clear my head and come back to work life refreshed. I was looking for an adventure and quickly narrowed the list to hiking the Appalachian Trail (my daughter, trail name "Beast", did it last year and I hiked 2 different weeks with her), XC skiing in Yellowstone, and skiing the Catamount (my wife and have talked for years about how much fun it would be to ski inn to inn on the Catamount). The time commitment for the AT was too much, and the logistics of a Yellowstone ski was hard to sort through. The Catamount was just right.
Q: Have you ever done anything like this before?
A: I've hiked sections of the Appalachian Trail. My family also did an inn to inn walk along the Thames a few years ago. Always nice to have a pint at the end of a long walk or ski.
Q: How did you train for the trip
A: I participate in triathlons and various running races and train for them year round. For ski conditioning I spent 5 days at Craftsbury at the new year and ski'd as much as I could in nearby forests leading up to my trip.
Q: You must be brave? Or, are you ever scared?
A: To the brave question my standard response is "or crazy." Seriously, I haven't been scared at all. There was a section (19) that was written up in the book suggesting rough terrain and that you should not attempt alone. While I wasn't scared, I did think it prudent to have my daughter track my location during the day to make sure I didn't get stuck somewhere. Turns out I had done much worse terrain already.
The worst thing that's happened to me was in deep snow near Lincoln Gap. I had a 5 foot bump to get over, and was nearly to the top when the entire bank collapsed into a hidden stream below. My left ski was frozen in place. After harumphing I dug out my ski and performed a rollover move (skis swung over head) to get out of the stream. After scraping and drying my skis I was on my way.
Q: Do you ever get lonely?
A: No, not once. Being alone forces me to engage with people I wouldn't ordinarily talk to. Also, On my iPhone I get newspaper and magazine delivery, so plenty of reading material for down time.
Q: Do you ever see anyone on the trail?
A: I rarely see anyone on the back country portions of the trail. At ski centers I usually run into a few people, especially on weekends.
Q: The trip must have required a lot of planning.
A: I love this comment, because it did require a lot of planning. At this time of year Inns become fully booked for weekends and school holidays. I booked my rooms back in December, working with each of the inns to make sure they'd be willing to pick me up if necessary. I tried to be conservative to make sure I could ski to the next inn in a day. I also built in a day off/buffer day every week. Early on I used the buffer days since I was doing a lot of trail breaking.
Q: It's been a very cold winter, has the cold bothered you?
A: Surpisingly no, the cold hasn't been a problem. I have good gear and I generate a lot of heat from skiing. My hands are cold right after stopping for lunch, but they warm up in 20-30 minutes. I also bundle up for long downhill stretches.
Q: Do you ever lose the trail?
A: Generally, the trail is very well marked. Finding the markings at road intersections and housing/industrial areas has been challenging at times. I've also stayed on VAST and logging roads too long. Luckily I've noticed something wrong pretty quickly and check my gps/CT app to get back on track.
Q: What was you longest day?
A: 16.6 miles in 8 hours, 20 minutes. A typical day is 5-6 hours.
Q: What was your favorite section
A: Section 22 was awesome. The conditions were great, good views, it was remote, challenging, and thrilling (lots of narrow downhill chutes)
Q: Which sections were the toughest
A: The deep snow and unbroken trail made sections 3, 4, 10, 11, beginning of 15, and beginning of 18 the toughest.
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